6 - Imperial Welcome: The British Subject

Summary

Global Britishness was encoded in complex categories citizenship and subjecthood, that had traditionally been counched in remarkably elastic terms so as to uphold the myth of imperial belonging. Into the post-war years, this global remit became encoded in the 1948 British Nationality Act, at a time when other Commonwealth countries were moving toward separate citizenship status. These tension underlined the contradictions of British subjecthood at a time of renewed global mobility. In particular, West Indian sojourners in London were reminded on a daily basis that the mutual recognition of British subjecthood could in no sense be taken for granted, their mere presence in a metropolitan setting sparking debate about the universal properties of Greater Britain