ABSTRACT
The following two chapters expose and analyse how the Invisible Empire works through an examination of the shifting dominant discursive representations of an area that was the hub of the British Empire. Through ethnographic research and discourse analysis in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets, I identify, locate and track the shifting dominant white liberal discourse and demonstrate how, in different ways, that discourse constructs or excludes competing histories of Empire. I examine significant constituents of that discourse, including clusters of keywords and ideas in different and related social, cultural and political contexts. I identify discursive shifts in that dominant discourse and in doing so, investigate the sites of struggle between powerful organisations, different social groups and competing discourses. I demonstrate that explorations of the processes whereby such discursive shifts occur, works to expose how ‘cultural hegemony’ is maintained.
