‘Am I Less British?’

Abstract

List of figures1.1 Harringay-Green Lanes. 1.2 Logo of Day-Mer. 2.1 A 'Vote Leave' poster in Salford. 2.2 Window of a Turkish patisserie shop. 2.3 Day-Mer's Culture and Art Festival poster. 4.1 Fusion dish recipes in the window of a Turkish restaurant. 4.2 Window of a kebab shop. 4.3 Future Hackney project, Ridley Road Stories Exhibition in Mare Street. 4.4 Making gözleme [stuffed flatbread] at a Turkish restaurant in Harringay. 6.1 Turkish tea and künefe [sweet cheese pastry]. 6.2 Street art representing John Lennon and Alex de Souza (football player for Fenerbahçe) in Green Lanes. xi Series editors' preface The UCL Press FRINGE series presents work related to the themes of the UCL FRINGE Centre for the Study of Social and Cultural Complexity.The FRINGE series is a platform for cross-disciplinary analysis and the development of 'area studies without borders'. 'FRINGE' is an acronym standing for Fluidity, Resistance, Invisibility, Neutrality, Grey zones, and Elusiveness -categories fundamental to the themes that the Centres support. The oxymoron in the notion of a 'FRINGE CENTRE' expresses our interest in (1) the tensions between 'area studies' and more traditional academic disciplines; and (2) social, political, and cultural trajectories from 'centres to fringes' and inversely from 'fringes to centres'.The volume 'Am I Less British': Racism, belonging and the children of refugees and immigrants in north London explores the complex and layered ethnographic context that children of the significant Turkish and Kurdish communities in north London inhabit. This social group inhabit grey zones of different kinds: between nations, identities, generations, and indeed between being invisible and all too visible. Şimşek does not simply provide a case study of a specific ethnic group, however, she uses her material to draw out more general questions regarding identity, nation and race. In important ways all of these categories are shown to be fluid and context-driven, rather than stable and essential, in the lived experience of the subjects Şimşek addresses.In this empirically driven account of how categories that aim to create clear labels -nationality, ethnic identity, race -in fact shift and engage in complex interactions and overlappings, the volume pursues the FRINGE agenda of bottom-up sociological investigation. Understanding the 'messiness' of lived experiences not as the imperfect or distorted embodiment of theoretical principles, but as the ground from which theoretical principles should first be drawn, is central to Critical Area Studies and the values of the UCL FRINGE Centre.