Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Postcolonial girl
T2 - mediated intimacy and migrant audibility
AU - Tyler, Imogen
AU - Gill, Rosalind
PY - 2013/3/12
Y1 - 2013/3/12
N2 - In October 2010, Gamu Nhengu, a Zimbabwean teenager, was ejected from the popular British reality TV talent show, The X Factor, on which she was a contestant. There was a public backlash to what many perceived was an unjust eviction. Within days, however, Gamu became the emblem of a contrasting kind of eviction campaign, when it was revealed that she and her family were living illegally in Britain. `Gamu-gate`, as the case was named in the press, animated a wave of public anger and resistance, as the stakes were raised from eviction from a TV talent show to deportation from the UK. In this paper we explore ‘Gamu Gate’, as a way of thinking about postcolonial intimacies. We do this by setting out three key notions: the notion of mediated intimacy, the notion of postcolonial girlhood, and the idea of migrant audibility. Our aim is to explore the political possibilities of the ‘affective surplus’ produced by `postcolonial girls’—that is, how as `manufactured intimates’ they potentially create avenues for new forms of post-colonial migrant audibility, forms which might trouble the ‘current emergencies’ and neo-colonial logic of neoliberal capitalism.
AB - In October 2010, Gamu Nhengu, a Zimbabwean teenager, was ejected from the popular British reality TV talent show, The X Factor, on which she was a contestant. There was a public backlash to what many perceived was an unjust eviction. Within days, however, Gamu became the emblem of a contrasting kind of eviction campaign, when it was revealed that she and her family were living illegally in Britain. `Gamu-gate`, as the case was named in the press, animated a wave of public anger and resistance, as the stakes were raised from eviction from a TV talent show to deportation from the UK. In this paper we explore ‘Gamu Gate’, as a way of thinking about postcolonial intimacies. We do this by setting out three key notions: the notion of mediated intimacy, the notion of postcolonial girlhood, and the idea of migrant audibility. Our aim is to explore the political possibilities of the ‘affective surplus’ produced by `postcolonial girls’—that is, how as `manufactured intimates’ they potentially create avenues for new forms of post-colonial migrant audibility, forms which might trouble the ‘current emergencies’ and neo-colonial logic of neoliberal capitalism.
KW - postcolonial
KW - celebrity
KW - intimacy
KW - affect
KW - Gamu
KW - xfactor
KW - aesthetics
KW - Ranciere
KW - Neoliberalism
KW - girlhood
KW - racism
KW - deportation
U2 - 10.1080/1369801X.2013.771008
DO - 10.1080/1369801X.2013.771008
M3 - Journal article
VL - 15
SP - 78
EP - 94
JO - Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
JF - Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
SN - 1369-801X
IS - 1
ER -