Living Multiculture: Understanding the New Spatial and Social Relations of Ethnicity and Multiculture in England

Abstract

Since 2001, as the social and spatial compositions of multiculture and migration have become more complicated and diverse, geography has moved back to the centre of policy, political, and academic arguments about cultural difference and ethnic diversity in England. This spatial turn is most obvious in preoccupations with notions of increasing ethnic segregation, but it is also apparent in discussions of the possibility of everyday multicultural exchanges in relationally understood places. Responding to the work of others on these questions and in these places, and informed by data from research exploring Ghanaian and Somali migrant settlement in Milton Keynes, we review some of the quantitative and qualitative evidence being drawn on in academic, policy, and political debates about contemporary multiculture. We problematise the dominance of the concept of segregation in these debates and examine the value of the concept of conviviality for understanding the ways in which multiculture is lived. IntroductionThe ways in which ethnic and cultural difference is lived and managed have been at the centre of debates across the social sciences in a range of national and globalised settings (see, eg. . Although these are transnational debates, in the sense that similar issues are considered in a range of contexts, they have quite specific national and local expressions. There is, however, a marked tension in the discussion between those who focus on the identification of a continuing process of segregation between ethnic groups and those who highlight the more interactive negotiations of multiculture. Here the issue is explored through the recent experience in England, where the tension has been apparent not only in the contributions made by academics but also in the pronouncements of politicians and in developing forms of policy practice.

Beyond openness and prejudice: The consequences of migrant encounters with difference

“…Amin, 2002;Cook et al, 2011b;Neal et al, 2013;Valentine, 2008;Wilson, 2013). Secondly, by looking at various circumstances in which migrant encounters take place, it illustrates that home and workplace, relatively underresearched until recently (e.g.…”

Multiculturalism, interculturalism, ‘multiculture’ and super-diversity: Of zombies, shadows and other ways of being

“…In reference to Gilroy's work, the focus on the convivial does offer a welcome balance to segregation narratives by challenging them as both empirically and theoretically inadequate, and reorienting away from cultural clash and withdrawal and towards what we might call a multicultural competence (Neal et al, 2013). However, by focussing on conviviality and civil inattention, tensions and discord, and their socio-cultural and historical circumstances, are side-lined and the picture consequently distorted.…”

Researching migrants’ diverse social relationships: From ethnic to cosmopolitan sociability?

“…Whilst sometimes invoking cosmopolitanism (e.g. Jones and Jackson 2014), these approaches are more broadly concerned with 'unpanicked' modes of coexistence, amicable (even if transitory) exchanges in mixed settings (Neal et al 2013), and trans-local connections, than the conscious openness to and engagement with difference that cosmopolitanism often entails. Although different in aims, this literature offers valuable insight into how cross-ethnic sociability works and reconfigures residents' identities (migrants or non-migrants), which may be centred in locality and combine multiple cultural elements and styles (e.g.…”

“…Hewitt 1986;Back 1996;Neal et al 2013;Wise and Velayutham 2014). The starting point of these studies is usually not migrants per se but the negotiation of cultural diversity and 'mixing' in urban environments and peer groups.…”

“…The starting point of these studies is usually not migrants per se but the negotiation of cultural diversity and 'mixing' in urban environments and peer groups. Speaking against political and policy versions of multiculturalism and the associated 'anxiety-crisis discourse' around urban segregation or tension (Neal et al 2013), 'everyday', 'living' multiculture or 'conviviality' approaches refocus attention on quotidian encounters, and how diverse populations 'live together' in shared spaces. Whilst sometimes invoking cosmopolitanism (e.g.…”