Belonging and entitlement: shifting discourses of difference in multiethnic neighbourhoods in the UK
- When?
- Monday 29 October 2007, 17:00 to 18:30
- Where?
- Room 04AD00, Department of Economics, University of Surrey
- Open to:
- Staff, Students, Public
- Speaker:
- Dr Kathryn Ray
Dr Kathryn Ray, Policy Studies Institute, London
Abstract
(co-authors Maria Hudson and Joan Phillips)
In the face of radical changes in the nature and scale of immigration to Britain in recent decades, the extent to which ‘immigrants’ can be successfully ‘integrated’ into British society have become hotly debated topics in political and popular debate. A series of legislative changes restricting the rights of asylum seekers, combined with hostile media reporting, have fuelled a sense of an ‘asylum crisis’ among large swathes of public opinion. While this bears depressing similarities to ‘majority’ reactions to previous waves of immigration in Britain, it is difficult to portray this response simply in terms of a dualistic majority/ minority binary. Such a binary is disrupted by the positioning of established ethnic minorities in Britain. Hegemonic discourse in 2000s Britain displays an ambivalent attitude towards diversity and the extent to which ethnic minorities are a legitimate part of the British ‘national story’. In the paper, we explore ‘majority’ responses to new migrants, drawing on research in two multi-ethnic poor neighbourhoods in Britain, where new migrant and asylum seeker/ refugee communities join a range of existing communities, each - in different ways – struggling for resources and recognition.
We examine a ‘majority discourse’ which expresses resentment towards new migrants and show the ways that such a discourse is imbued with material concerns about local resources such as housing and employment, as well as symbolic concerns such as a sense of moral decline and loss of community. Such sentiments are expressed by both White British and Black Caribbean residents, thus displacing a black – white dichotomous understanding of racism. We also examine the shifting and multiple ways in which the residents position themselves and narrate their identities, showing the flexibility and contextuality of alliances and the multiple subject positions adopted.