(Un)Belonging

This chapter examines the ways in which Pinnock&s;s plays engage with ideas of belonging and unbelonging as theorized by diaspora scholars such as Avtar Brah and Carole Boyce Davies. In particular it considers the tensions and challenges experienced by first generation migrants to Britain and their second generation children born there, looking in detail at how Pinnock dramatizes the experiences of these different groups in Wind of Change (1987), Leave Taking (1987), A Hero&s;s Welcome (1989), A Rock in Water (1989) and Talking in Tongues . The plays chosen represent the two different modes in which Pinnock writes (solo-authored and researched plays and plays commissioned and created through workshops) and her juxtaposition of contemporary and historical settings, and works set in Jamaica and Britain.