Constitutive Subjectivities Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the work of Black and Asian women play-wrights in Britain and examines their position as constitutive subjectivities in contemporary British culture. It suggests that recent developments in theatre studies such as the emphases on the postcolonial, intercultural, world theatre and performance art, which have emerged simultaneously with these playwrights’ work and might have offered some critical reception of their work, have not done so because of their maintenance of a colonial cultural imaginary that is more engaged with the elsewhere and the ‘other ’ than with the here and now and the diasporic reality of contemporary Britain. Utilizing Avtar Brah’s concept of the ‘diaspora space’, the article argues that Black and Asian women playwrights’ work in Britain not only demands an interrogation of British theatre as a ‘white’ space but also asks that we accept Britain as a diasporic space. KEY WORDS Asian women playwrights Black women playwrights diaspora postcolonial theatre women’s theatr