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Race, Whiteness, and the Spaces and Places of Seaside Leisure

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Abstract

Through an in-depth analysis of seaside leisure, pleasure, entertainments, and amusements, Burdsey argues that these features provide important contexts and stimuli for the articulation of race, racism, and whiteness in this setting. Yet, paradoxically, they also contribute to the failure to acknowledge the racialised nature of the seaside and coast. The chapter revolves around two principal leisure foci: first, it discusses how racialised themes of heroic and marginal whiteness, exotic Otherness and (neo)imperial fantasy are embedded in the amusements and popular entertainments of the English seaside; second, it shows how the beach is a contested, politicised terrain that has contributed to racialised notions of belonging and resistance, and forms of racist practices and exclusion, both formally constituted through law and in more subtle ways.

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Burdsey, D. (2016). Race, Whiteness, and the Spaces and Places of Seaside Leisure. In: Race, Place and the Seaside. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45012-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45012-8_4

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