We started off our day with class in the basement of our hotel. We introduced ourselves and dove right into our first book. We are reading Zadie Smith’s lovely novel White Teeth. After a productive discussion we headed to the Victoria & Albert Museum to explore the idea of Englishness and how that was manifested in London’s everyday life.
The museum certainly had a different take on Englishness than Brixton (our second stop) and the other places we visited yesterday. The museum had its “Britain” sections where it was mostly antique English relics, ceramics, and artifacts. Upon reading the descriptions, they mostly dated back to Medieval and feudal England, with some artifacts being more recent dating back to the 1800’s or 1900’s. These were chairs, mirrors, clocks, clothes, swords, garments, and much more. Most of these relics would have traced back to traditional English families, nobles, and royalty, with little to no sign (that I was able to see in about an hour and a half) to the average English person at the time.
In a way, someone visiting the museum can associate royalty and nobility to the average English citizen at the time, which is just not correct; royalty was few and far apart. The average English person was working the fields, working a trade, all to make ends meet. They also deserve recognition and a “place in history.”
On the other hand, Brixton showed English real life because it is English real life, vibrant, diverse, and full of culture. We were able to see just about any food in the Brixton market: Japanese (from Osaka specifically), Jamaican, Brazilian, Middle Eastern, American, and obviously your English classics.
There was no clear designation among people either, everywhere you looked was kind of alike, with nothing reminding you of a strong social division such as nobles and peasants. Brixton shows how different London and the whole of England is from its early…ish days.
England is a cultural hub where you can find so many different nationalities, foods, languages, and cultures, while also displaying its historical buildings, and respecting the past. I don’t think there’s a way to describe or define Englishness, it is just a mixed bag, and most people seem to be okay with it. I can say Englishness looked a lot different in Brixton.
Blog post provided by Eduardo Curvo, a senior accounting major from Cuiabá, Brazil.
