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This paper draws on recent research on the construction of new religious buildings by diverse faith communities in the London Borough of Ealing in West London to compare the navigation of local planning processes in the realization of new permanent structures for worship. While existing research emphasizes barriers for minority faith communities, this paper suggests that faith communities are successful local actors able to navigate local planning governance particularly through accumulated expertise and social capital networks, although there are marked differences in capacity and experience between different faith groups. There is also evidence of the mobilization of narratives of "instutionalised multiculturalism" embedded in local policy documents in support for faith communities, but ongoing on-going austerity cuts since 2010 have reduced the capacity of the local state to support projects. Finally, the paper suggests that these planning processes indicate changing ideas of the nature of the suburbs and suburban multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper emerges from an ethnography of the economic and cultural life of Rye Lane, an intensely multi-ethnic street in Peckham, South London. The effects of accelerated migration into London are explored through the reshaping and diversification of its interior, street and city spaces. A ‘trans-ethnography’ is pursued across the compendium of micro-, meso- and macro-urban spaces, without reifying one above the other. The ethnographic stretch across intimate, collective and symbolic city spaces serves to connect how the restrictions and circuits of urban migration have different impacts and expressions in these distinctive but interrelated urban localities. The paper argues for a trans-ethnography that engages within and across a compendium of urban localities, to understand how accelerated migration and urban ‘super-diversity’ transform the contemporary global city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies on migration and integration in Britain have noted the paucity of research on ‘new’ migrants, especially ‘illegal’ migrants and asylum seekers. This paper focuses on one understudied group – Albanian immigrants and their children – and looks at their migration and settlement, based on sixty interviews conducted in two phases either side of a 2003 mini-amnesty that gave many indefinite leave to remain. This regularization is the fulcrum around which our analytical narrative is built. Focusing on the interaction of migrants' agency with host-country structure, the paper shows that an unsettled asylum policy and delays in implementation have had deleterious effects on migrants' integration and sense of belonging, even after citizenship acquisition. As they search for a social and ethnic positioning within a multi-ethnic host society, the eventual realization of Albanians' migration project is accompanied by culture shock, intergenerational difference and ambivalence towards integration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

This paper is based on evaluative research in an inner-London borough on a programme designed to raise self esteem and deter minority ethnic young people from involvement in crime and participation in gangs. The aim of the programme was to work with young people 'at risk' or involved with gangs, violent crime and who may use weapons and to divert them from this behaviour. Essentially, the paper explores the way in which minority ethnic young people can be equipped to develop social capital. The paper firstly applies a brief contextual understanding of urban minority ethnic young people's experiences of school and 'street life'; secondly, it will describe the background and aims of the programme; and thirdly it will discuss whether and how the programme contributed to developing trust; to notions of awareness and empowerment; self-esteem and identity; and how it impacted on their social and family relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature on the urban legacy of the 2012 Olympics Games emerging in recent years has emphasized the form that development has taken and the ways in which this aligns (or not) with specific promises made in terms of regeneration before the Games. Though plenty of discussion of planning procedure has occurred in this context, less emphasis has been placed on how the process, rather than the products, of urban change has been envisioned through legacy planning and urban design, and the significance of this for regeneration. Given that London's much-heralded 'regeneration legacy' was, from the early days of the Olympic bid, portrayed as a long-term process aimed at addressing historical issues of socio-economic disparity in East London, and that planning and urban design would play key roles in anticipating it, this contribution to the literature is timely. The paper focuses on the period from 2008 to 2018, beginning with the launch of the what was called the Legacy Masterplan Framework. Drawing on empirical analysis of documents describing the main stages of legacy planning and design between these years, it then examines how regeneration as a 'futurescape' encompassing numerous aspects of timing and temporality has been anticipated, planned and evolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the social ties forged by Romanians in London with migrants of different origins in work and non-work contexts to offer a more nuanced view of ‘bridging’ social ties and related discussions of ‘everyday’ cosmopolitanism. Contrary to the overemphasis on ethnic ties seen as a form of bonding in migration research, the paper shows how Romanians bridge informally with many other migrants based on shared ‘non-native’ status. Alongside non-ethnically marked commonalities, ethnicity emerges as an important ingredient of cosmopolitan socialization, yet without necessarily signalling coexisting ethnic identities, as commonly assumed. Romanians' experiences further show that despite providing significant social and cultural capital, bridging ties with migrants, rather than natives, rarely accrue effective resources for social mobility. The findings suggest the need to disaggregate and qualify current understandings of ‘bridging’ social ties usually depicted in positive terms and uniformly as cross-ethnic relationships, or only linked with the ‘mainstream’ population. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the ongoing shift in the dynamics of retail development toward inner-city sites, mega-retail-led regeneration schemes have emerged as an important strategy for place marketing in the entrepreneurial city of London. While a number of studies have attempted to examine the effects of these schemes, the focus of previous studies has been limited to their wider economic and environmental effects. However, few studies have empirically investigated their impact on surrounding neighborhoods, particularly deprived neighborhoods. This paper investigates the effects of the Westfield London Shopping Centre on changes in housing price levels in the surrounding neighborhood of White City/Shepherd's Bush, in order to determine whether mega-retail-led regeneration schemes are a key determinant in the process of gentrification. A difference-in-differences analysis was used to assess differentials in the change rates of housing prices between control and treatment groups following the development of Westfield London. It was found that Westfield London development caused an increase in the change rate of housing prices of the treatment group relative to that of the control group. These findings indicate that mega-retail-led regeneration schemes may be a main cause of the pricing out of neighborhood residents who cannot afford the resulting increased rents and for altering the characteristics of neighborhoods and their social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a new method to gauge eighteenth-century crime. It counts the crimes committed against metropolitan London's justices noted in newspapers and in the Old Bailey Sessions Papers, and finds crime more prevalent than current historiography acknowledges. The article contests current claims that the manner in which newspapers noted crime constructed their readers' perception of crime, making their readers believe crime was much more horrific, and the judicial system much more just, than readers would otherwise have thought they were. The article also argues that some crimes were attacks on the powerful because they were powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the notion of ‘superdiversity’ implies an investigation of diversity that goes well beyond the nature of migration origins and trajectories. To probe the academic value of superdiversity, I situate it within broader academic debates, suggesting that it is necessary to distinguish between superdiversity as a malleable social science concept – a set of variables that researchers conjunctively investigate – and superdiversity as a context in which these variables play out in complex social patterns. I argue that complexity is an integral aspect of superdiversity, before explaining how innovative research methods were used to investigate superdiversity in a dual-site project in London and Toronto in order to explore its relevance for global comparative research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on research with Vietnamese businesses in London which seeks to challenge some of the traditional views of transnational entrepreneurship. These have focused primarily on entrepreneurs embedded in both home and host countries and the need for regular travel between the two to manage the business. In contrast, this study suggests that transnational entrepreneurship today is more fluid than previous studies have suggested and is often characterised by multi-polar (rather than bipolar) links. Travel is also less relevant in the current age of ‘super-connectivity’. The research explores how Vietnamese entrepreneurs in London draw on various forms of transnational capital to further the development of their business, and develops a framework to measure the degree and extent of the transnational embeddedness and dependency of the business. The results suggest that transnational entrepreneurship amongst ethnic minority entrepreneurs today is better viewed as a continuum rather than a set of discrete business types. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The question of whether and how ethnic diversity affects the social cohesion of communities has become an increasingly prominent and contested topic of academic and political debate. In this paper we focus on a single city: London. As possibly the most ethnically diverse conurbation on the planet, London serves as a particularly suitable test-bed for theories about the effects of ethnic heterogeneity on prosocial attitudes. We find neighbourhood ethnic diversity in London to be positively related to the perceived social cohesion of neighbourhood residents, once the level of economic deprivation is accounted for. Ethnic segregation within neighbourhoods, on the other hand, is associated with lower levels of perceived social cohesion. Both effects are strongly moderated by the age of individual residents: diversity has a positive effect on social cohesion for young people but this effect dissipates in older age groups; the reverse pattern is found for ethnic segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the contradictory migration experiences of Indian youth who recently moved to Britain on a student or temporary work visa and discuss the perspectives of their middle-class families in Gujarat. Like many young people in developing countries, our informants dreamed of going to the West to earn money and improve their prospects at home but ended up in low-status, semi-skilled jobs to cover their expenses, living in small guesthouses crammed with newly arrived migrants. Why did these young people leave India and go to London and what do they get by moving abroad? Based on research in London and Gujarat, our findings show that the decision to migrate is shaped by a combination of individual and social motivations. These young people moved to London not only to earn money and gain new experiences but also to escape family pressures by living away from their parents. Their parents encourage them, though they are aware of the difficulties their children face in London. They regard the migration as a requisite precautionary strategy to maintain their status as middle-class families in India, thereby safeguarding the next generation's future prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The increasingly diverse character of London's multicultural landscape has shaped how migrants interact with(in) the different spaces of the city. This process entails both settled and incoming migrants' participation in place-making; a mutual imbrication that might promote the long-settled migrants' evocation of a lost terrain. This article unpacks that process by looking at the Latin American social football scene of South London, specifically a space known asla cancha(the pitch). This was founded by Chilean political refugees during the 1970s and it has incorporated Latin American ‘economic’ migrants and ‘local’ Britons through time. Starting from the evocation of a lost ‘golden age’ ofla cancha, the paper unpacks this space's contested, complex and changing nature. It presents diaspora space, community and belonging as lived processes. Through this depiction, the assumptions of homogeneous and isolated migrant communities are challenged, as are the diaspora's nostalgic claims that also emerge from them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the migratory strategies of highly skilled French migrants in London's business and financial sectors. Drawing on qualitative data with 37 participants from this under-researched group, we contribute to the growing interest in micro-level analysis of the motivations, experiences and trajectories of highly skilled migrants. Unlike other studies which either focus on Intra-Company Transfers (ICTs) or exclude them entirely, we capture the complexity and fluidity of migrants' trajectories by including people on expatriate contracts as well as spontaneous movers. In so doing, we interrogate several key dimensions of highly skilled migration. Firstly, we examine the varied expectations and motivations of the French highly skilled moving to London. In particular, we highlight the fluidity of career trajectories as migrants transform their contractual position over time. Secondly, we examine how migrants negotiate the balance between mobility and career and personal emplacement, and how family considerations inform that process. Finally, we consider the extent to which these migrants may be described as ‘Eurostars’ or ‘super-movers’, and question whether these ideal types herald new forms of migration or a particular life-stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how the globalized nature of London's service sector redefines spatial relationships for recent migrants working in the health and hospitality industries. Findings from the qualitative data demonstrate that recent temporary migrants to the UK employ broader strategies to secure employment than accounted for by current theories. The migrants in our case studies overwhelmingly utilized global and local recruitment and employment agencies, as well as sought employment in industries already established as ‘ethnic economies’. We suggest that this might be attributed to a lack of interaction with established co-ethnic immigrant communities; temporary migration trajectories; and living arrangements with co-migrants. We conclude by emphasizing the need to broaden our understanding of ethnic economies and social networks in light of these changing spatial relationships that have emerged through the globalization of the service sector in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the later careers of two almost entirely forgotten Bohemian Neo-Latin poets, Venceslaus Clemens (1589-1637), and Jan Sictor (1593-1652). These men were among the many Protestant academics displaced by the Thirty Years War, but unlike some of their better-known contemporaries, Clemens and Sictor were abject failures. Nevertheless, their failure illustrates the miserable lot of the displaced continental academic in the period, unable to adapt fully to new and challenging circumstances. This aspect of the literary and intellectual impact of the Thirty Years War has been understandably underplayed, but stories of failure are nevertheless instructive and indeed essential for a balanced picture of the intellectual impact of war. This study employs archival and bibliographical evidence to reconstruct the biographies and fortunes of these two men as they tried their luck, with very limited success, in the Low Countries and England in the 1630s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If women in London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries sought the perfect crime in which to participate, selecting receiving stolen goods provided excellent opportunities for profit and little chance of punishment. Low conviction rates, combined with the fact that no behaviour outside of gendered expectations was required in its commission, made dealing in stolen goods relatively easy for women in the metropolis. Although this particular offence has not been deeply analysed by historians of crime, its commission did alarm contemporaries, including members of the legal community and social commentators. This paper explores accusations against females in London for receiving, as well as the important roles that familial relationships and work played in their indictments for the crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses judicial records of the Sheriffs' Court of London and the royal Court of Common Pleas at Westminster to investigate whether the concept of a later medieval 'Golden Age' of female opportunity, as Caroline Barron has posited, is indicated by London's legal customs, as reflected in quantitative evidence of London women's court appearances and the types of cases in which they were litigants. It offers an introduction to economic and legal aspects of the 'Golden Age debate' and other quantitative investigations of women in later medieval courts; presents a comparative pre-plague to post-plague analysis of London women in the London Sheriffs' Court and royal Court of Common Pleas; and places trends regarding London women within a national context. It is concluded that women in London, as elsewhere in England, were less likely to act as litigants in the post-plague era, suggesting a general tightening up of patriarchal control over women's public activities that is inconsistent with a socially expressed 'Golden Age' of women in later medieval London. But, some evidence is presented that London women may nevertheless have enjoyed slightly enhanced economic opportunities in the fifteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-Directed Support claims that it makes the social work task 'more personal' in its engagement with people's real needs and wants. This paper explores this claim through the record of a piece of group work with 11 social work practitioners in a London borough. A brief description of the roots of Self-Directed Support, the Independent Living movement, provides the context for the subsequent examination of themes arising from the group discussion, and the implications of the participants' experiences for practice, the profession and employing organisations. We find that despite system and resource issues, Self-Directed Support has enabled people to do 'real social work', re-connecting with values and practice which were obscured by care management. It requires letting go of power and control, without abandoning engagement: and it is essential that the change is underpinned by learning from and working with staff who work directly with people seeking support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of new workhouses lay at the centre of poor law reform after 1834. In London, however, such prominent displays of the new system were relatively rare. This article explores why that was the case, arguing that the absence of new workhouses was not necessarily a reflection of the reluctance of London parishes to adopt the reforms but rather because adequate provision already existed or other forms of indoor relief were considered to be more appropriate. Prior to 1834, several London parishes embarked on extensive enlargement or rebuilding of workhouses, notably in rapidly growing districts surrounding the City. During the 1820s, in the wake of financial stringencies, relief practices were tightened. Therefore, when the Poor Law Amendment Act came into force in 1834, many London parishes had already embarked on reforms that pre-dated those recommended by the legislation. In the following years, rather than build new workhouses to accommodate the growing number of paupers, London vestries chose to cooperate and build specialist institutions: district schools for children and county asylums for the lunatic poor. Economies of scale arising from the spatial proximity of numerous large parishes and unions made this approach feasible. The lack of new workhouses, therefore, should not be taken as evidence that London parishes refused to implement the spirit of the new poor law. Far from it: early construction and tighter relief regimes prior to 1834 and the continuing dominance of indoor relief throughout the period suggest that London led rather than followed developments elsewhere in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detailed qualitative data are used to explore the processes perpetuating labour market disadvantage among young UK-Bangladeshi men living in central London. Strong forces of inclusion within the Bangladeshi community are found to interact with forces of exclusion from 'mainstream' society to constrain aspirations and limit opportunities. Though diverse forms of young Bangladeshi masculinity are found, a common pattern is heavy dependency on intra-ethnic networks. Negative experiences of and isolation from 'mainstream' society further reinforce reliance on 'our own people'. However, acute ambivalence towards belonging to a dense Bangladeshi community exists, exemplified in the widespread denigration of the restaurant trade. Many respondents express the desire to 'break out' and access new experiences. The findings support current policy emphasis on 'connecting people to work' but highlight the more fundamental need to connect people across ethnic boundaries. The paper urges researchers to 'unpack' ethnicity - to consider carefully what ethnic identity implies in terms of access to resources and opportunities for different individuals in different contexts - in order better to understand the diversity of labour market outcomes and the persistence of disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers socio-economic restructuring in London's small areas over two decades, in relation to broader changes in labour and housing markets. The relation of changing social structure to wider evidence of changes in inequality is discussed, with particular regard to the impact of socio-economic structure on health and mortality. The scale of the analysis is at ward level using census data for 1971, 1981 and 1991 and mortality data over 1990/92. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of London in the Irish Revival is sometimes overlooked, yet, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the city served as a place where Irish political and cultural identities were reinvigorated amongst the migrant community there and fed directly into events back home. The experience of living in London, at one remove from Ireland, appears to have reinforced a sense of belonging and nationhood for many writers, the most prominent of which was Yeats. This article examines the life and work of Winifred M. Patton, a gifted Irish writer and nationalist who lived there between 1893 and 1914. Whilst she never achieved the same reputation as some of her contemporaries, Patton, nevertheless, published widely in Irish nationalist newspapers of the time. Apart from writing poetry, short stories and essays, she was also active in political and cultural organisations such as the Gaelic League and the Irish Fireside Club helping ferment Irish nationalist aspirations at a crucial turning point in British–Irish relations. Based on new research into an archival collection of Patton's papers, this article examines the relationship between migration, gender and nationalism and the role of literature in mediations of cultural identity in the Irish diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The data collected by the New Survey of London Life and Labour between 1928 and 1932 is one of the most significant resources of detailed household information for the interwar period, with data extracted for almost 30,000 households, providing detailed information including birthplaces, hours of work, and wages. This article assesses the process of the original data collection, highlighting issues that mean users of the extracted data must proceed with a measure of caution. In particular, it demonstrates that one investigator employed by the survey, who provided information for around a fifth of households, appears to have regularly submitted generic and estimated information that problematizes the dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses London life in the First World War as the setting for Herbert Jenkins’ novels and short stories, adapted, post-war, to film. It discusses the role of theatre as a feature of ordinary life continuing, and theatre’s address of extraordinary circumstances, notably with reference toChu Chin Chowand various ventures undertaken by Oswald Stoll (subsequently known as a film producer) and the place of pageantry on screen, on the stage, and on London streets. Rather than dismissing post-war screen adaptations of previous stage and page hits as merely derivative, the article suggests that these be considered as testimony to the place of theatre and publishing in Londoners’ experience and memory of wartime. It is particularly concerned with the 1919 adaptation, ‘The Air-Raid Film’,Patricia Brent, Spinster, directed by Geoffrey H. Malins, OBE, after 1916 best known to cinema audiences for his work onThe Battle of the Somme. In the context of a light romantic comedy, interlarded with farce, Jenkins conveyed a sense of hopes for post-war reconstruction, exhibited also in ‘war touch’ films of the 1920s. Furthermore, in Patricia’s model behaviour, the film anticipates what came to be known as ‘the Blitz spirit’ in the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article analyzes the films "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid," directed by Hanif Kureishi, "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge," directed by Aditya Chopra, and "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham," directed by Karan Johar. It focuses on the cultural representation of life in London, England in these British-Asian and Bollywood films. The article goes on to examine South Asian postcolonialism and its influence on filmmaking.

This article offers insights into the dynamics underlying an increase in marital instability in British Pakistani families, thus challenging stereotypes of British South Asian populations as representing ‘old-fashioned’ families, with their lower rates of divorce in contrast with the wider British population. In addition to problems of compatibility, domestic violence and infidelity, we explore dynamics that may be more specific to the British Pakistani population, namely the transnational nature of many marriages, attitudes to parental involvement in arranging marriages, and the place of Islam. We suggest that, while arranged marriages were conventionally seen as safer than love marriages, both young people and their parents may now be viewing arranged marriages as riskier. In an arranged marriage that brings family approval but not personal fulfilment, young people are increasingly supported to divorce and remarry, with a greater degree of personal say in spouse selection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A growing body of research is making links between diversity and the economic performance of cities and regions. Most of the underlying mechanisms take place within firms, but only a handful of organization-level studies have been conducted. We contribute to this underexplored literature by using a unique sample of 7,600 firms to investigate links among cultural diversity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and sales strategies in London businesses between 2005 and 2007. London is one of the world's major cities, with a rich cultural diversity that is widely seen as a social and economic asset. Our data allowed us to distinguish owner/partner and wider workforce characteristics, identify migrant/minority-headed firms, and differentiate firms along multiple dimensions. The results, which are robust to most challenges, suggest a small but significant 'diversity bonus' for all types of London firms. First, companies with diverse management are more likely to introduce new product innovations than are those with homogeneous 'top teams.' Second, diversity is particularly important for reaching international markets and serving London's cosmopolitan population. Third, migrant status has positive links to entrepreneurship. Overall, the results provide some support for claims that diversity is an economic asset, as well as a social benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French immigrants of early modern London are recorded as having been a clearly recognizable community with similarities in language, religion, occupation and material culture. However, analysis of the excavated and documentary evidence of their domestic artefacts reveals few differences when compared with their English counterparts. Although isolated artefacts may reasonably be linked to an immigrant identity, the majority of refugees do not appear to have commonly expressed their group identity through their domestic material culture in historically identifiable ways. This may indicate that the nature of French immigrant identity was more complex and varied than contemporary accounts imply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines East European migrants' relationships with other communities in the context of waged work through in-depth interviews with recent Polish and Lithuanian migrants to London. These migrants found themselves newly surrounded by greater racial and ethnic diversity. By distinguishing themselves from other workers on the basis of skin color and legal status, they present themselves as members of the host country's 'white' majority, which places them in a position of power in relation to other migrant groups in London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that the workplace provides an important site for the production of gender identities. However, it is less-well understood how this identity construction might operate in the context of migrant workers, who bring with them particular notions of gender from their countries of origin that interact with 'local' gender practices. Through an in-depth case study of a London hotel and hospital, masculinity and economic status were observed to be intricately related in the ways in which male migrants described their work performances in terms of either 'women's work' or 'lower-class work'. Men originating from middle- and upper-class economic positions were observed to be 'flexible' with their economic identity and take on work considered 'lower-class' in their country of origin in order to contest their gender identities in the UK. In contrast, men who migrated for economic gain and had family obligations to send remittances were observed to be 'strategically' flexible with their gender identities and often performed what they considered to be 'women's work' in order to be able to fulfil economic expectations. We suggest that a migrant's willingness and/or desire to enact 'flexible and strategic masculinities' is tied to the perceived trade-offs of his/her employment in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors trace the successive transformations of the large London commercial law firm, which entered the 20th century as a small group of partners, typically from one or more family groups, surrounded by a large group of working class clerks who performed much of the 'professional work'. After mid-century this firm based on kinship and class hierarchy gave way to a larger firm consisting of non-kin partners selected meritocratically presiding over an increasing band of assistant solicitors and trainees recruited on the basis of their educational credentials and taking part in a promotion-to-partnership tournament. In the last decade of the century, the central institutions and understandings of this meritocratic firm gave way to a constellation of larger, less stable, and increasingly supra-national aggregations, in a setting pervaded by a fascination, both instrumental and narcissistic, with rank and image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the short- and medium-term labour market consequences of human smuggling for migrants at destination within the context of Pakistani migration to London. It questions the pessimistic picture painted in some recent academic and journalistic accounts of the experience of 'illegality', and argues that the context of reception does not necessarily make clear distinctions between so-called 'legal' and 'illegal' migrants. It also questions the wisdom of assuming that trafficking and smuggling go hand-in-hand. Whilst harsh abuse by employers does indeed occur, this by no means structures the totality of the irregular migrant's experience. A more helpful conceptual distinction, it is argued, can be made between 'work' and 'jobs'—different types of employment experienced by all migrant workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on research undertaken in Inner London on gentrification and focuses on one particular community in South-East London. It argues that there is a complex interaction in this community which values diversity in relation to both other social groups in the neighbourhood and other gentrifiers. This is constructed by the creation of strong social networks, often formed around the local school, which see the area as having many of the facets of a traditional village community in which everybody knows each other and everybody has their place. Diversity and otherness have a crucial place in this narrative although such people, though present, are spectacularly absent in respondents' narratives of their lives that are almost entirely constructed around the descriptions of their peer group. They contrast themselves with middle-class groups elsewhere in gentrified London which are characterised as much more urban and aspirational than the more gentle and diverse middle class of Telegraph Hill. This, it is argued, reflects the unease that confronts respondents as they come to terms with how neo-liberalism is felt to be impacting on their sense of social and economic security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In explaining the long-term decline of violence in English society, historians have failed to recognize the importance of changing gender-based conceptions of honour. During the eighteenth century the per capita rate of homicide in London decreased dramatically, and because 93% of homicides were committed by men, this decline essentially involved a change in male behaviour. At the start of the period violence served to enhance or defend men's reputations, and thereby to reinforce their social and gender identities. In order to maintain their honour, most men felt the need to physically challenge anyone who insulted them or questioned their honesty or courage. Such disputes often took the form of duels and other ritualized staged fights and were conducted by men of all social classes. While the violence was limited by accepted rules (violence committed by women, though much rarer, more easily got out of hand), fatalities nonetheless occurred. Over the course of the century, however, these types of disputes became far less common as reputations came to be defined much less publicly in London, and men found new ways of establishing and defending their honour, and thus of asserting gender and social differences. However, private violence, notably wife beating, continued behind closed doors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]