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Cohesion and integration agendas in Britain can be characterised by localisation of 'race relations' responsibilities and the importance of local institutions in shaping neighbourhoods has been acknowledged. However, little is understood about the roles of housing providers in integration initiatives. Indeed, research on housing and race has experienced a lull in the 2000s. Thus, this paper aims to examine how social housing providers negotiate their positions and are complicit in constructing a certain vision of community. It draws on interviews from the ESRC Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE)'s work in the ethnically diverse neighbourhoods of Cheetham Hill (Manchester), Newham (London), Butetown (Cardiff) and Pollokshields and Govanhill (Glasgow). The paper makes three arguments: first, that race and ethnicity as facets of 'integration' have been subsumed into broader agendas, yet remain implicit in community building; second, that housing organisation practices are often detached from local meanings of community and prioritise exclusionary activities focusing on behaviour change and, third, that the roles of housing organisations in constructing 'integrated' communities are highly variable and localised, influenced by the history and contemporary dynamics of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread practice of transnational marriage among British Pakistanis has often been understood through an ethnic lens, as emphasising the boundaries of ethnicity and reaffirming bonds of kinship to Pakistan. Within British Pakistani families, however, a diversity of marriages may exist, with some siblings married transnationally, whilst others have partners from within the UK. Marriage between cousins or more distant relatives is common, but unions between British Pakistanis are less often consanguineous than those involving a spouse from Pakistan. This paper draws on sibling pair case studies to explore the logics and consequences of contrasting marriage choices: those between kin but crossing international borders, and those within the nation-state but crossing the boundaries of the kin-group. In doing so, we suggest that both 'types' of marriage should be understood as part of wider dynamics of creative contextual brightening and dimming of a variety of boundaries of similarity and difference. Negotiations of marriageability may include ethnic, kin and national boundaries, but very often go beyond them. Destabilising these dominant discourses, moreover, also brings into question assumed correlations between cross-border marriage and broader transnational orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on an emerging literature that focuses on processes of population change as a means of understanding geographies of ethnicity. It argues that persistent assumptions of segregation being the result of divisive separation of ethnic groups are mistaken. The paper takes a demographic approach, presenting analyses of original estimates of natural change and net migration for eight ethnic groups in Britain over the period 1991-2001, at national and district levels. Major results are the greater significance of natural change than migration for minority ethnic population change, and the accordance of population dynamics with theories of counter-urbanisation and dispersal from areas of minority ethnic concentration. The importance of natural change is illustrated through the presentation of its effects on the index of isolation. The paper concludes that ethnic group population change in Britain can to a large extent be explained by benign and unexceptional demographic processes and ethnically undifferentiated migration patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controversy exploded in 2005 over a paper at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute of British Geographers which claimed that ethnic segregation in Britain was increasing, ghettos had formed and some British cities were more segregated than Chicago. The paper asserted that indexes failed to measure segregation and should be abandoned in favour of a threshold schema of concentrations using raw data. These assertions were repeated by Trevor Phillips, Director the Commission for Racial Equality, in an inflammatory speech claiming that Britain was sleepwalking into American-style segregation. The argument of this paper is that the index approach is indeed necessary, that ethnic segregation in Britain is decreasing, that the threshold criteria for the claim that British ghettos exist has manufactured ghettos rather than discovered them. A Pakistani ghetto under the schema could be 40 per cent Pakistani, 30 per cent White, 20 per cent Indian and 10 per cent Caribbean. In 2000, 60 per cent of Chicago's Blacks lived in a true ghetto of tracts that were 90-100 per cent Black. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from Understanding Society, a large representative survey of UK with an ethnic minority boost sample, to test the association between ethnic maintenance, discrimination and health behaviours, among both foreign born and UK born ethnic minorities. We model the probability of smoking and alcohol consumption on (a) ethnic maintenance measured as a function of friendship composition, religiosity, and ethnic identity; and (b) exposure to discrimination as evidenced by self-reports of ethnic and racial harassment in public places. We find that even after controlling for other structural inequalities in income, education, and geography, there is a positive association between ethnic and racial harassment and smoking for ethnic minority women. We also find that ethnic minority men and women who report stronger ethnic maintenance are less likely to binge drink. While we find similar results for ethnic minority women and smoking, we find no such relationship for ethnic minority men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise across Europe of political parties espousing an ethnic conception of the nation, explicitly opposed to immigrants and minorities, has brought into stark relief the politics of identity. Exploiting multiple identity questions in a large, nationally representative UK survey, this paper investigates the drivers of ethnic and political identity and the extent to which they are similar. It does so for both the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities. Locating our analysis within social identity theory, we consider the role of observed characteristics, including party affiliation, the experience of harassment, and political context in shaping ethnic and political identities. We also show that there are unobserved factors jointly implicated in individuals' political and ethnic identities, which we interpret as providing suggestive evidence of more general political mobilisation of ethnicity. Although individual characteristics have largely expected associations with identity, we find that the local share of UKIP/BNP voters heightens ethnic but not political identity among both majority and minority populations. By contrast, harassment and discrimination shapes minorities' political but not ethnic identity. Contrary to expectations, both political and ethnic identities are stronger among second-generation compared to immigrant minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have found that ethnic minorities in Britain have similar levels of partisan attachment as white UK respondents. However, we find that this hides substantial ethnic differences in levels of partisanship within age groups (minorities are younger on average) and that there is a substantial minority party attachment premium that is greatest for the youngest respondents. Our paper examines the factors that account for the substantial partisanship gap between minority and white UK respondents by the time they enter the electorate. Using waves 3, 5 and 7 (2011–2016) of the Understanding Society youth panel, which follows 10–15 year olds in the UK, we model both the early attainment of party attachment among respondents (the first time we observe them as part of the youth panel) and the subsequent retention of this party attachment up to age 15, or acquisition of party attachment among young people who had no partisanship at the time of first observation. We find that differences in levels of parental partisanship and political engagement are the key factors in explaining the difference in minority and white UK acquisition and retention of party attachment during this critical period of political development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Home Office has adopted a reinvigorated policy of citizenship education and integration towards both new immigrants and settled minority ethnic communities. One of the cornerstones of this new policy is English language, which is seen as a key tool for the successful integration of Britain's diverse communities. This paper is divided into two parts. Firstly, it explores the changing role of English language in the current debates around citizenship, nationhood and belonging. It argues that English language is used symbolically as a cultural boundary marker, which both defines minority ethnic 'communities' and excludes them from the re-imagined national 'community'. Secondly, using empirical research from a recent study on 'Access to Services with Interpreters', the paper seeks to challenge the reification of national and minority versions of 'community' that lies at the heart of current discourses around nation and citizenship. Taking language as a key symbol of 'community', the paper explores the complex contours through which individual, familial, local and collective identities are lived. It concludes that minority ethnic 'communities' are best understood as arising out of systems of localised 'personal' networks which challenge reified and abstract ideas of 'imagined communities' and provide insights into the performance of citizenship and belonging 'from below'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores spaces of belonging of British-born Cypriots who have 'returned' to the parental homeland, Cyprus. Drawing on life narratives and ethnographic observations collected during fieldwork in Cyprus, the findings demonstrate the potential limitations of exploring notions of 'home' and 'belonging' within ethnic, national or primordial cultural boundaries. Rather, my analysis indicates the need to focus on the new spaces of belonging formed around personal and social relations. These migrants draw upon a variety of home, expatriate and international relationships to create a space made up by components to which they feel they belong, characterised by their time, place, views and experiences. The privileging of such experiences of belonging over 'traditional' classifications of identity (such as ethnicity, religiosity and nationality) brings about a sense of unity defined by one's relations to (actual and metaphorical) spaces, beyond the traditional 'here/there' and 'them/us' dichotomies. By negotiating 'essentialised' and 'non-essentialised' notions of 'home', participants establish new 'third-cultural spaces of belonging'-hybridised, yet located in Cyprus. Hence, being part of such a 'third-cultural space' and also of a 'localised space' are not mutually exclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking my cue from work on relations of interethnic conviviality in super-diverse cities across the globe, this paper examines the ways in which conviviality co-exists with racism as found in a suburban British town. My argument is that ethnographic attention to the proximity of interethnic relations of conviviality to racism is necessary to guard against overly celebratory accounts of conviviality that downplay everyday manifestations of racism. By situating my study of conviviality in a suburban town, my account begins to unpack the characteristics of convivial relations formed in suburban neighbourhoods as opposed to super-diverse cities often studied by ethnographers in this area of inquiry. I examine manifestations of interethnic relations between British Asian Muslims and white British residents of this town. In contrast to the mainstream images that depict British Asian Muslims as a potential threat to neighbourhood stability and national security, some white and British Asian Muslim residents formed neighbourly relationships of trust, care and mutual recognition with each other across ethnic, racial, religious, gender, class and generational differences. Yet, my analysis of these convivial relations reveals some paradoxical ways in which individuals’ experiences of interethnic relations co-exist with their xenophobic, racist and Islamophobic attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative European research has established that public opposition to immigration is widespread and politically important. However, most existing research has suffered from a serious methodological shortcoming: it employs aggregate measures of attitudes to immigrants, which do not distinguish between different migrant groups. This paper corrects this shortcoming by examining disaggregated British attitudes to migration from seven different regions. I find evidence for a consistent hierarchy of preferences between immigrant groups, with white and culturally more proximate immigrant groups less opposed than non-white and culturally more distinct immigrants. The differences in attitudes to the various migrant groups are very large, calling into question the reliability of analyses which employ aggregate measures of attitudes to immigration. Both total opposition to migration and discrimination between migrant groups decline during the period examined. This is the result of large generational differences in attitudes to immigrants, which are in turn the consequence of cohort differences in education levels, ethnic diversity and, in particular, value orientations. Younger Britons, who are on average less authoritarian and ethnocentric, oppose immigration less and regard different immigrant groups more equally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the role of ethnic bonds as social capital. We use three family case studies of entrepreneurs from minority ethnic groups in the food sector in the UK to explore the complex uses of ethnicity in the pursuit of a better social and economic position. We also consider the ways in which ethnicity and ethnic bonds are often understood and used differently across gender and generation. Although the uses of ethnic bonds are multidimensional and contextual, and at times function to help actors cope with marginality, we argue that they are resources which do not usefully function as social capital unless they additionally provide ways of compensating for structural forms of disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on Chinese immigration and its spatial manifestations in Britain in the past two decades. The 1980s can be recorded as a turning-point in the history of Chinese immigration to Britain, marking a substantial increase in the number and diversity of Chinese immigrants. The same decade should also be considered a landmark in contemporary British urban history, as it featured a major transformation in the Chinese urban landscape. Systematic analyses of census data reveal that, since the 1980s, Chinese immigration to Britain has undergone a process of dramatic structural transformation that has facilitated the decentralisation of the Chinatown enclave economy and the spatial diffusion of Chinese residents. The spatial configuration of 'new-wave' immigration has been a regular rank-size relationship of residential distributions. This urban system contains many small and diffused clusters, a lesser number of medium-size Chinatowns, but a few large Chinatowns. The systematic distribution of different Chinese settlements signifies the Chinese representation in different industrial sectors, as well as the equilibrium outcome of the organisational forces of these sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information to the contributors regarding the submission of material on race and ethnic relations, racial inequality, racism, ethnicity, migration and related subjects in Great Britain. Main focus of the journal's coverage; Style and presentation of the journal; Format for terminology, notes and acknowledgments.

This paper examines the creation of alternative diasporic public spheres in Britain by South Asian settlers: one produced through the entertainment industry--commercial film and other media--that satirises the parochialism and conservatism of the South Asian immigrant generation and highlights cultural hybridity and cosmopolitanism, intergenerational conflict, family politics, inter-ethnic or -racial marriages, and excesses of consumption. The other is a conflictual diasporic Muslim public sphere dominated by Muslim male community leaders, which has had to respond to international political crises such as the Rushdie affair, the Gulf War or, more recently, September 11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the confrontation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Seen from an indigenous British perspective, the messages emanating from these two diasporic discourses, publicised in both Western and South Asian media (cable TV and foreign newspapers in Urdu or local ones in English) are opposed, and create ambivalent stereotyped images of 'Muslims' and 'Asians'. While a Pakistani transnational identity is mostly submerged beneath these other identities, it is in fact critical to understanding the conflicting pressures to which young Pakistanis, and women in particular, are subjected in Britain, and the clash between alienation and popular cultural 'fun' marking Muslim Pakistani internal politics. These have led to the pluralisation of the diasporic public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous issue of this journal, Ellis Cashmore (2002) discussed two key issues currently confronting police constabularies in England and Wales: the recruitment of minority ethnic officers and civilian staff, and the impact of diversity training now in place for all police officers. Cashmore argued that not only are these policies ineffective in enhancing cultural diversity within constabularies, but that they are harmful, presenting a false outward image of effective action. This article examines Cashmore's arguments and develops them in light of findings from recent research on Black Police Associations (BPAs) in England and Wales. Our findings firstly suggest that, because of heavy involvement with these initiatives and the close relationship BPAs have developed with senior management (in comparison to non-BPA members), they must be considered in any discussion of minority ethnic recruitment and diversity training. In addition, the majority of the officers we interviewed were supportive of current recruitment and training programmes. Secondly, we argue that BPAs are helping to change the nature of the overall police culture to a certain extent. Many minority ethnic officers no longer feel they must downplay their ethnicity as members of constabularies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of adequately measuring ethnicity to keep track of ethnic disparities in important outcomes, there is little consensus on how this is best achieved. Different countries apply widely differing standards, seemingly guided by convenience more than conviction. We employ unique data on 3035 15-year-olds living in England to investigate inconsistencies when two different measures are used: (i) ethnic group self-identification by respondents and (ii) information on parents' birth country. The former is currently standard in England and Wales and the latter in many European countries. After having aligned our country-of-origin-based measure to the ethnic categories currently in use in England and Wales, we are able to show substantial agreement across measures, and estimates of disparities in language proficiency and delinquency appear little affected by the choice of measure. We conclude that comparative research using secondary data need not be badly biased due to inconsistent measures if sufficient care is taken in harmonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, 'diversity' has emerged as a key value in its own right, celebrated through human rights and similar policies promoting identity and providing an additional focus to that of the more traditional equalities agenda and its concern with 'statistical proportionality'. It has been conjectured that classifications rooted in diversity policy will either propel data collection practices into the use of finer-grained distinctions or that these measurement systems will collapse under their own weight. In Britain pressure to increase the number of categories in ethnicity classifications highlights the tension between the validity of granular categories and their utility (in terms of practicality of data collection). Similarly, the interest in identity evokes a trade-off between the selective attribution of such measures and the greater stability of operationally defined ethnicity. In meeting the challenge of the diversity agenda, a number of approaches—innovative for Britain—are now being debated to accommodate greater numbers of categories in census collections. These include multi-ticking across categories (thereby capturing multiplicity) and the shift from classifications framed by colour to those privileging ethnic background (but attended by category proliferation). Conceptually, the measurement of the multiple dimensions of ethnicity has found favour but not so far encompassing ethnic origin/ancestry collected in US and Canadian Censuses. While some have argued that ethnicity classifications are already unwieldy and that retrenchment is needed, validity—increasingly insisted upon by the collectivities themselves and other non-state organisations—is seen as winning out. The demands of inclusiveness and identity visibility indicate that classifications are headed in the direction of greater complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]