The securitization of British citizenship in Levi David Addai’s Oxford Street
Shereen Leanne
PhD Student, English literature, UBC
Monday January 23, 12-1 PM
C. K. Choi Building – Choi 231
[ Bio ]
Shereen is a PhD student in English literature at the University of British Columbia. She holds a MA in English from UBC and a BA CH in English and French from the University of Exeter. She primarily works on the politics of citizenship and security in postcolonial francophone and anglophone literatures. Her doctoral project examines twentieth and twenty-first-century writing engaged with the effects of immigration, counter-terror, and policing measures across Britain and France.
[ About the Migration Grad Student Power Hour ]
Over the past two decades, the expansion of bordering processes has fuelled an unprecedented rise in the number of people detained, deported, and deprived of British citizenship. Driven by disciplinary policies including (Section 60) Stop and Search, the Hostile Environment, and Prevent, these exclusions have overwhelmingly targeted Black, South Asian, and Muslim people as potential threats to the nation-state, perpetuating legacies of colonial policing. This paper is concerned with how 21st century postcolonial writing is emerging in the harsh light of, and in spite of, intensifying securitisation across Britain. Specifically, I examine how Levi David Addai’s 2008 play Oxford Street stages the encroachment of police, immigration, and counter-terror enforcement upon daily life through its impacts on low-paid workers at a Total Sports store. My analysis focuses on the character Kofi Graham, a young Black Londoner precariously employed as a security guard; I suggest that Kofi’s duty to maintain order extends beyond the store to the state at large as his tasks closely mirror those of British border officials. Yet racialised, gendered, and classed criminal profiling also renders Kofi suspect in the eyes of other characters, highlighting the contingency of his position as both employee and citizen-subject. Through close readings of select scenes, I trace Kofi’s struggle to navigate the tension between his own vulnerability to scrutiny and the biopolitical imperative to produce himself as a vehicle of surveillance. I show how he approaches his role more critically than his fellow guards by challenging representations of illegality, questioning restrictions on freedom of movement, and seeking alternative ways to resolve the security breaches posed by the new employee Darren. I conclude by interpreting both Kofi’s eventual resignation from Total Sports and Addai’s play itself as departures from the disciplinary obligations increasingly attached to British citizenship.
[ About the Migration Grad Student Power Hour ]
The Centre for Migration Studies Grad Student Power Hour provides opportunities for UBC graduate students to share their research on migration beyond their home departments and network with faculty and students from across the university and in the broader community sector. The Power Hour begins with 10 minutes of networking opportunities, followed by a 30 minute talk and 20 minutes for discussion. Anyone is welcome to attend. We look forward to seeing you there!
Please RSVP for this in-person event below.
