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Informationen zum Autor Audrey Osler is Professor Emerita of Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds. She Is widely known for her research on teachers' lives and careers, children's rights, and racial justice, and has worked as an educator in many countries, predominantly in Europe, East Asia and North America. She has acted as an expert advisor to the Council of Europe, UNESCO and a range of national governments. Her books have been translated into many languages, including Japanese and Chinese. Klappentext Whether or not we trace our families from beyond the shores of Britain, we British people deserve a better understanding of our shared past, and opportunities to explore and recognise the complexities and contractions of empire. Careless or wilful amnesia has allowed the British migration narrative to begin in the mid-twentieth century, with migrants from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean forming the foundation of present-day multicultural Britain. A racist fixation means that some twenty-first-century Britons fantasise that people of colour arrived after World War Two, without any link to the country, to exploit the British welfare state and British hospitality. For people of colour the questions: Where are you from? No, where are you really from? often imply more than simple curiosity. They are political questions of identity, since the assumption (naive or aggressive) is that to be British and to belong you must be white. Says Audrey Osler: 'The British Empire frames and shapes my family's history. Whether born in Britain, like me or my father, or in some other distant British territory, like my mother, we all continue to experience the legacy of this same empire and the impact of its ambitions, politics, and economics. My family story, back to the eighteenth century, across every generation, is one of migration in different directions, over four centuries, journeys prompted by war, study, a global economic crisis, a fresh start, love, and even child abduction. The stories I tell here reveal as much about Britain as they do about the countries of the British Empire. This is not just my history, it elucidates the largely untold history of a nation and of its citizens, both people of colour and white.' Vorwort A searing investigation into migration, identity and belonging, drawing on personal experiences and the history of my mixed-heritage family. Zusammenfassung Where are you from? No! where are you really from? explores three central themes: migration! identity and belonging! examining them in the context of empire! and its continuing impact on the lives of those in Britain today. The question! 'Where are you from?' is familiar to all. But for people of colour! it more often than not carries an insinuation that they don't really belong. This is made explicit in the frequent follow-up: 'No! where are you really from?' This book explores why the question continues to be asked and considers its impact on people of colour. The author draws on memoir and historical research! tracing the experiences of empire and migration across seven generations of her family! delving back to the 1760s! spanning various countries! including Britain! Ireland! Imperial India and Singapore. She sets the stories of individual women and men in the socio-political contexts of their times and discusses the factors that lead them to set out on uncertain and arduous journeys across continents! including conflict! abduction! displacement! economic necessity! and love. The book explores the meanings of these stories for our age. The stories have resonance for anyone that has personal or family experiences of migration! but draw all readers to reconsider what it means to be British today. ...
