20 results
Search Results
2. Nigerian London: re-mapping space and ethnicity in superdiverse cities.
- Author
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Knowles, Caroline
- Subjects
NIGERIANS ,PUBLIC spaces ,PENTECOSTAL churches ,SOCIAL history ,TWENTY-first century ,RELIGION ,SOCIAL conditions in England - Abstract
This paper explores the idea of ‘superdiversity’ at the city level through two churches with different approaches to architectural visibility: the hypervisible Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and the invisible Igbo Catholic Church, both in North London, guide our exploration of invisible Nigerian London. Although Nigerians have lived in London for over 200 years, they live beneath the radar of policy and public recognition rather than as a vital and visible element of superdiversity. This paper argues that we can trace the journeys composing Nigerian London in the deep textures of the city thus making it visible, but this involves re-mapping space and ethnicity. It argues that visibility is vital in generating more open forms of urban encounter and, ultimately, citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. Contested memories: the Shahid Minar and the struggle for diasporic space.
- Author
-
Alexander, Claire
- Subjects
BANGLADESHIS ,MULTICULTURALISM ,DIASPORA -- Social aspects ,COLLECTIVE memory ,MONUMENTS ,SYMBOLISM - Abstract
Drawing on new empirical research on ‘the Bengal diaspora’, this paper explores the struggle over Bangladeshi identity in East London, as exemplified in the monument of the Shahid Minar and the related celebration ofEkushe, which marks the beginning of the Bangladesh national liberation struggle. Bringing together theories of diaspora consciousness and memorialization, the paper explores the ways in which rituals and memory work both as a form of continuity with the homeland and as a method of claims-staking for minority groups in multicultural spaces. Using original interviews with community and religious leaders, the paper explores the ways in which the establishment of the monument and the memorialization of the Liberation War represents the re-imagination of the Bangladeshi community in London and draws the lines for the contestation of this identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. ‘For her protection and benefit’: the regulation of marriage-related migration to the UK.
- Author
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Carver, Natasha
- Subjects
MARRIAGE policy ,MARRIAGE ,EUROPE-Great Britain relations ,ETHNICITY & society ,GENDER & society ,EUROPEAN Union country emigration & immigration ,IMMIGRATION status ,HISTORY ,EMIGRATION & immigration - Abstract
This paper argues that a two-tier system has evolved dividing intra-UK/EU marriages from extra-UK/EU marriages. For the former, marriage is a contract between two individuals overseen by a facilitating state. For the latter, marriage has become more of a legal status defined and controlled by an intrusive and obstructive state. I argue that this divergence in legislating regulation is steeped in an ethnicized imagining of ‘Britishness’ whereby the more noticeably ‘other’ migrants (by skin colour or religion) are perceived as a threat to the national character. The conceptualization of women as legally ‘disabled’ citizens (1870 Naturalisation Act) for whom a state must act as responsible patriarch, is a fundamental part of this imagining of the nation. The paper therefore examines the social (gendered and ethnicized) assumptions and political aims embedded within the legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. The emergence of black British social conservatism.
- Author
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Warmington, Paul
- Subjects
BLACK conservatism ,CONSERVATISM ,INTELLECTUALS ,MULTICULTURALISM ,BRITISH education system ,BLACK students ,DISCOURSE ,VICTIM psychology ,BLACK British ,ATTITUDE (Psychology) ,HISTORY ,SOCIAL conditions of students ,HISTORY of education ,INTELLECTUAL life - Abstract
Historically, to be a black public intellectual in Britain has, almost by definition, meant being located on the liberal-left spectrum, in terms of analyses of race and class. However, in the past decade a number of high-profile black British thinkers have explicitly positioned themselves at odds with black liberal and radical traditions of thought. This has been particularly apparent in their critiques of multiculturalism, youth and education. This paper uses recent documentary sources to analyse the discursive features of this emergent black social conservatism, examining its claims to authenticity, its claims to offer rethinking of multiculturalism and identity, and its objects of racialization. Drawing upon critical discourse analysis and critical theories of race and black intellectual production, it identifies internal tensions in this emergent discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Narratives of ethnic identity among practitioners in community settings in the northeast of England.
- Author
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Parks, Judith and Askins, Kye
- Subjects
ETHNICITY & society ,ETHNICITY ,COMMUNITIES ,NARRATIVES -- Social aspects ,SOCIAL services ,SOCIAL constructionism ,EMIGRATION & immigration ,MINORITIES ,CULTURAL pluralism ,ETHNIC differences ,SOCIAL history ,TWENTY-first century - Abstract
The increasing ethnic diversity of the UK has been mirrored by growing public awareness of multicultural issues, alongside developments in academic and government thinking. This paper explores the contested meanings around ethnic identity/ies in community settings, drawing on semi-structured interviews with staff from Children's Centres and allied agencies conducted for a research project that examined the relationship between identity and the participation of parents/carers in services in northeast England. The research found that respondents were unclear about, especially, white ethnic identities, and commonly referred to other social categorizations, such as age, nationality, and circumstances such as mobility, when discussing service users. While in some cases this may have reflected legitimate attempts to resist over-ethnicizing non-ethnic phenomena, such constructions coexisted with assumptions about ethnic difference and how it might translate into service needs. These findings raise important considerations for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Reconciling the contact and threat hypotheses: does ethnic diversity strengthen or weaken community inter-ethnic relations?
- Author
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Laurence, James
- Subjects
RACIAL & ethnic attitudes ,ETHNIC relations ,CULTURAL pluralism ,CONTACT hypothesis (Sociology) ,THREAT (Psychology) ,CONTEXTUAL analysis ,COMMUNITIES ,ETHNIC groups ,DISADVANTAGED environment ,SOCIAL conditions in Great Britain - Abstract
The literature on whether community diversity has a positive effect on individuals' inter-ethnic attitudes (contact hypothesis) or a negative effect (threat hypothesis) remains inconclusive. Most studies infer mechanisms of contact or threat based on the relationship between diversity and mean levels of prejudice in a community. We suggest that both processes of threat and contact may be occurring with increasing diversity. By applying a measure of individual-level contact, this paper demonstrates that increasing community diversity does have a negative effect on inter-ethnic attitudes but only among individuals without inter-ethnic ties. Among those who do form ties, increasing diversity has no effect – that is, contact moderates the negative effect of community diversity. However, this relationship is further moderated by levels of disadvantage in the community. This paper has important implications for the use of the contact/threat hypotheses in studies of contextual diversity and the wider debate on rising diversity in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. ‘Structure liberates?’: mixing for mobility and the cultural transformation of ‘urban children’ in a London academy.
- Author
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Kulz, Christy
- Subjects
BEAUMONT Academy (London, England) ,ETHNICITY ,SOCIAL change ,SOCIAL classes ,EDUCATION ,CULTURAL pluralism ,MULTICULTURALISM ,EQUALITY ,ETHNIC relations ,SOCIAL mobility - Abstract
This paper explores how the creation of a socially and ethnically mixed student body relates to mobility within the context of Beaumont Academy. This authoritarian school opened in 2004 under the ethos ‘structure liberates’. Based in a predominantly deprived, ethnic minority area of London, Beaumont seeks to culturally transform its students. With its outstanding GCSE results, the school has been championed as a blueprint for reform, yet the cultural implications underlying this approach remain unexamined. The ethos pathologizes the surrounding area while essentializing itself as an ‘oasis in the desert’ liberating students through discipline. The paper explores how mobility is embodied by students and the alterations or eliminations necessary to achieve it. These alterations produce raced and classed positions and bring them into focus, highlighting who needs to ‘adjust’ themselves to accrue value. Uncritical celebrations of mixed-ness conceal structural inequalities lingering beneath the rhetoric of happy multiculturalism and aspirational citizenship. These inequalities are exacerbated by a marketized education system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Positionings of the black middle-classes: understanding identity construction beyond strategic assimilation.
- Author
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Meghji, Ali
- Subjects
BLACK British ,GROUP identity ,POSITIONING theory ,MIDDLE class ,ASSIMILATION (Sociology) ,RACIAL identity of white people ,RACE & society ,CULTURAL capital - Abstract
This paper explores the identities of Britain’s black middle-classes. Drawing upon interviews with seventy-two participants, I theorize a ‘triangle of identity’. This triangle emphasizes how black middle-class identities are constructed within the dynamics of three poles. Firstly, there is the class-minded pole whereby class comes to the fore as a conceptual scheme; secondly, there is the ethnoracial autonomous pole whereby ‘race’ is central to one’s identity and whiteness is actively resisted; and lastly there is the strategic assimilation pole, where one continually moves between classed and racialized spheres of action. This tripartite approach to identity builds upon previous research by further exploring the social, cultural and phenomenological distinctions within Britain’s black middle-classes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Patterns of minority and majority identification in a multicultural society.
- Author
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Nandi, Alita and Platt, Lucinda
- Subjects
GROUP identity ,MINORITIES ,MAJORITY groups ,CULTURAL pluralism ,ACCULTURATION ,BRITISH national character ,SOCIAL integration ,SEPARATISTS ,WHITE people ,POLITICAL affiliation ,CHILDREN of immigrants - Abstract
There has been increasing investigation of the national and ethnic identification of minority populations in Western societies and how far they raise questions about the success or failure of multicultural societies. Much of the political and academic discussion has, however, been premised on two assumptions. First, that ethnic minority and national identification are mutually exclusive, and, second, that national identification forms an overarching majority identity that represents consensus values. In this paper, using a large-scale nationally representative UK survey with a varied set of identity questions, and drawing on an extension of Berry's acculturation framework, we empirically test these two assumptions. We find that, among minorities, strong British national and minority identities often coincide and are not on an opposing axis. We also find that adherence to a British national identity shows cleavages within the white majority population. We further identify variation in these patterns by generation and political orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and essentialist identities.
- Author
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Gest, Justin
- Subjects
IDENTITY & society ,ESSENTIALISM (Philosophy) ,BANGLADESHIS ,MUSLIMS ,SPANISH Muslims ,MOROCCANS ,NATIONAL character ,MANNERS & customs ,PHILOSOPHY & society - Abstract
An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
12. Delivering maternity services in an era of superdiversity: the challenges of novelty and newness.
- Author
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Phillimore, Jenny
- Subjects
MATERNAL health services ,CULTURAL pluralism -- Social aspects ,CULTURAL pluralism ,WOMEN immigrants ,NOVELTY (Perception) ,SOCIAL services ,TWENTY-first century ,SERVICES for immigrants ,SOCIAL history - Abstract
The population complexity associated with superdiversity brings a wide range of challenges for social welfare providers. Commentators have outlined concerns about the ability of service providers to meet the welfare needs of ever diversifying populations and point to potential problems in identifying the nature of need in rapidly changing superdiverse neighbourhoods as conventional approaches to consultation based around ethnicity become practically impossible. Using data collected in the West Midlands, which explored maternity service needs from the perspectives of new migrants and maternity professionals, some key barriers to effective welfare delivery in superdiverse areas are explored. The paper outlines the emergence of two challenges important in shaping new migrant access to maternity care in an era of superdiversity – novelty and newness – and proposes further research to examine the extent to which these challenges are faced in other social welfare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
13. Resonance and reach: discussions on racism between the UK and Germany from the late 1970s.
- Author
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Bojadžijev, Manuela
- Subjects
RACISM ,ANTI-racism ,MARXIST philosophy ,HISTORY of capitalism ,CULTURAL studies ,IDEOLOGY ,NEW left (Politics) ,RACE & society ,HISTORY ,HISTORY of racism - Abstract
In this paper I investigate the resonance of the volumeThe Empire Strikes Backwithin the debates on racism in Germany since the late 1970s. I am interested in this long-term intellectual exchange in light of the current need to conceptualize racism in a European framework and thereby reflect upon the characteristics, concepts and possibilities of such a framework. I begin by situating the debate at that time within the context of the New Left. What connected both situations, in Germany and the UK, was an inscription of the then-ongoing anti-colonial and decolonial struggles of the South in the North, not least through the ‘retaliatory effect’ of migration movements and struggles of migration arriving in Europe. I argue that the understandings of racism and anti-racism are grounded in a materialist framework and that the concept of articulation helped and continues to help thinking the complexity and heterogeneity of the social. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
14. Conflating the Muslim refugee and the terror suspect: responses to the Syrian refugee "crisis" in Brexit Britain.
- Author
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Abbas, Madeline-Sophie
- Subjects
SYRIAN refugees ,TERRORISM & society ,RACE & society ,MUSLIMS ,BREXIT Referendum, 2016 ,FRAMES (Social sciences) ,RACIALIZATION ,NATIONAL security - Abstract
The Syrian refugee "crisis" has prompted contradictory responses of securitization of European borders on the one hand, and grassroots compassion on the other, that posit a universal conception of the human deserving of equal rights to safety irrespective of racial or religious difference. However, in the aftermath of the 2015 and 2016 Paris terror attacks there has been a backlash against refugees amid fears of Islamist terrorists exploiting refugee channels to enter Europe, as well as an upsurge in a populist nationalism framing Brexit and anti-Muslim hostility following recent UK terror attacks. I argue that the convergence of the "Muslim refugee" and the "terror suspect" as threatening mobilizes a racialized biopolitics present in intersecting counter-terrorism and asylum regimes that prioritise security concerns above human rights. I advance the Concentrationary Gothic as a framework for understanding continuities in logics of racial terror framing the "Muslim question" within the Syrian refugee "crisis." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
15. The problem of political blackness: lessons from the Black Supplementary School Movement.
- Author
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Andrews, Kehinde
- Subjects
SOCIAL movements ,BLACK British ,RACIAL identity of Black people ,RACE & politics ,ANTI-racism ,SUPPLEMENTARY education ,MULTICULTURALISM ,EDUCATION - Abstract
The Black Supplementary School Movement has a fifty-year tradition of resisting racism in Britain. Central to the movement is a construction of African Diasporic Blackness that is marginalized in British scholarship. 'Political blackness', based on the unity ethnic minority groups, is an important frame of reference in Britain. This article will examine the limitations of 'political blackness' in relation to research carried out in the Black Supplementary School Movement that involved interviews with key activists and an archival analysis of documents at the George Padmore Institute. Political blackness is based on an inaccurate understanding of the relationship between multiculturalism and anti-racism; a misreading of the complex and global nature of racism and a non-strategic essentialism. The concept also creates a form non-whiteism, which disempowers ethnic minority communities and works to delegitimize African Diasporic Blackness, which has a tradition of resisting racist oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
16. The ‘metropolis of dissent’: Muslim participation in Leicester and the ‘failure’ of multiculturalism in Britain.
- Author
-
Jones, Stephen H.
- Subjects
MUSLIMS ,MULTICULTURALISM ,MINORITIES ,COMMUNITIES ,RELIGIOUS diversity ,POLITICAL participation ,HISTORY ,ASSOCIATIONS, institutions, etc. ,RELIGION ,POLITICAL science ,EMIGRATION & immigration - Abstract
Focusing on Muslim participation in the governance of Leicester in the East Midlands of England, this article contests prevalent assumptions about the contemporary politics of multiculturalism. Specifically, it questions two narratives on the subject: first, a descriptive narrative about multiculturalism being in retreat; and second, a normative narrative about multiculturalism undermining national culture. Using interview, ethnographic and archival research, the article shows how a programme of multicultural politics has been implemented in Leicester that, while shifting, has remained firmly in place across national political and policy changes. It also demonstrates how this model of multicultural practice has emphasized civic communitarianism and utilized British national traditions. Using the above methods, the article questions the terms of political debate about multiculturalism, and considers how ‘convivial’ and ‘communitarian’ theoretical approaches to multiculturalism can renew and refashion multicultural political practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
17. Looking up in Scotland? Multinationalism, multiculturalism and political elites.
- Author
-
Meer, Nasar
- Subjects
SCOTTISH politics & government ,POLITICAL elites ,MULTICULTURALISM ,SCOTTISH national character ,MINORITIES ,IMMIGRANTS ,ETHNICITY & society ,POLITICAL autonomy ,TWENTY-first century - Abstract
At a time when all the political parties of Scotland are trying to establish a persuasive vision of the nation, inquiry into where ethnic and racial minorities fit into these debates provides one understudied means of bridging literatures on multinationalism and multiculturalism. Focusing especially on the lesser known question of how elite political actors are positioning minorities within projects of nation-building, this article draws upon original empirical data in which three predominant clusters emerge. The first centres on an aspirational pluralism, in so far as political elites are less inclined – in contrast to counterparts in some other minority nations – to place ethnically determined barriers on membership of Scottish nationhood. The second concerns the competing ways in which the legacy of Scotland's place in the British Empire is appropriated by actors of different political hues, and so assumes a multiform role. The third cluster points to potential limitations in minority claims-making and recognition, especially in terms of formal multilingualism and corporate multifaithism, something that may partly be explained by the tension between multinationalism and multiculturalism. Taken together, the article illustrates how elite political actors can play a vital role in ensuring that appeals to nationhood in Scotland can be meaningfully calibrated to include minorities too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
18. ‘The best borough in the country for cohesion!’: managing place and multiculture in local government.
- Author
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Jones, Hannah
- Subjects
PLACE (Philosophy) ,MULTICULTURALISM ,LOCAL government ,WORKING class ,COMMUNITIES ,HUMAN geography ,RACE & society ,HISTORY of London, England ,BOROUGHS ,HISTORY ,TWENTY-first century ,GOVERNMENT policy - Abstract
In the interface between national and local levels of UK government, narratives of place are made to fit particular tropes of ‘success’ or ‘failure’ at multiculturalism. Thinking through ‘community cohesion’ policy in England between 2001 and 2010, this article shows how (reputations of) relative success at ‘living together with difference’ become a medium through which local government practitioners negotiate the space between national and local priorities, needs and ambitions, by examining how practitioners in English local authorities negotiate narratives of ‘failed multiculturalism’ associated with the places they work and, in doing so, how they re-inscribe or subvert local reputations and their ‘elsewheres’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
19. Are all Britons reluctant Europeans? Exploring European identity and attitudes to Europe among British citizens of South Asian ethnicity.
- Author
-
Cinnirella, Marco and Hamilton, Saira
- Subjects
ETHNIC groups ,ETHNOLOGY ,BRITISH people ,ETHNICITY ,SOCIAL science research ,NATIONALISM ,NATIONAL character ,GROUP identity ,SOCIAL surveys - Abstract
The study explored feelings of European identity and attitudes towards Europe manifested in two groups within the British population: the indigenous white British population (N = 58) and the South-Asian ethnic minority (N = 44). A social survey approach was used with scales to evaluate British, European and ethnic identities and also attitudes towards Europe. Perceived compatibility of identities was also assessed using a visual representation of identities task. Previous research findings were confirmed with the indigenous white British respondents, who displayed a strong sense of national identity negatively correlated with European identity. In contrast, the South Asian respondents displayed positive feelings of identification on all three levels, and a British identity that correlated positively with European identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
20. Introduction: Mapping the issues.
- Author
-
Alexander, Claire
- Subjects
ETHNIC studies ,SOCIAL science methodology ,ETHNIC groups ,MINORITIES ,URBAN studies - Abstract
While the field of ethnic and racial studies has increased dramatically in recent years, issues of methodology have to date remained relatively unexplored. Despite a long tradition of ethnographic research on racialized and ethnic minorities in North America and Europe, comparatively little has been written on what it means to research and write race ethnographically. This Introduction maps the key issues and controversies surrounding ethnography and race in Britain, the United States and mainland Europe, and traces the different anthropological and sociological/urban perspectives on the ethnographic method in relation to race and ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2006
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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