Gendered, post-diasporic mobilities and the politics of blackness in Zadie Smith’s Swing Time (2016)

Suzanne Scafe

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Zadie Smith’s novel Swing Time (2016) traverses the geographies and temporalities of the Black Atlantic, unsettling conventional definitions of a black African diaspora, and restlessly interrogating easy gestures of identification and belonging. In my analysis of Smith’s text, I argue that these interconnected spaces and the characters’ uneasy and shifting identities are representative of post-diasporic communities and subjectivities. The novel’s representations of female friendships, mother-daughter relationships, and professional relationships between women, however, demonstrate that experiences of diaspora/postdiaspora are complicated by issues of gender. Forms of black dance and African diasporic music represent the novel’s concerns with mobility and stillness; dance is used by its young female characters as a “diasporic resource” (Nassy Brown 2005, 42), a means of negotiating and contesting existing structures of gender, class and culture.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)93-120
JournalCaribbean Review of Gender Studies
Publication statusPublished - 13 Jun 2019
Externally publishedYes

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