Thinking spatially: towards an everyday understanding of inter-ethnic relations
Author: Clayton, John1
Source: Social & Cultural Geography, Volume 10, Number 4, June 2009 , pp. 481-498(18)
Key:
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
Abstract:
In the context of a shift away from municipal multiculturalism towards community cohesion, and in the light of renewed debates around difference, national identity and Britishness, this article sets out a geographically informed theoretical framework which focuses upon the spatial (re)construction of racial and ethnic identities. The article develops the idea of the everyday as a way of viewing the spatially contingent, complex and negotiated state of inter-ethnic relations in a specific UK city. Not only does this reveal the manner in which strong and stubborn boundaries between social groups are entrenched through the (re)enforcement of spatialised relations of power, but also how accommodations across, between and within difference are realised. Through the employment of empirical material from Leicester, England, the article contends that everyday solidarities emerge from a number of intersecting spatial influences which do not equate to abstract or fixed versions of national belonging.Keywords: multiculturalism; community cohesion; inter-ethnic relations; everyday geographies; identities; belonging
Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1080/14649360902853288
Affiliations: 1: Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Education and Society, Priestman Building, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK
Key:
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
Click here for Page Help