Whiteness, class and place in two London suburbs

ABSTRACT

This article addresses a specific intersection of class, place and whiteness by focusing on distinctions between middle-class owner-occupiers in suburban London. Where whiteness is constructed through association with an imaginary of the unchanging nature of rural England and, in particular, the village, some suburban places provide a more ready village metaphor in support of whiteness than others. In a securely middle-class suburb residents are able to misrecognize their neighbourhood as a village, and beyond the metaphor, report feeling at home in rural England. In a marginal middle-class suburb whiteness is founded on weaker claims to the English village metaphor and, moreover, residents feel less at home in rural England. This article demonstrates the need to go beyond the often made distinction between the tactics of middle class (owner-occupiers) and working class (tenants) by identifying distinctions within the former group.

KEYWORDS:

• Englishness
• London
• middle-class
• owner-occupation
• suburbs
• whiteness

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their comments and insights which have helped improve the earlier version of the article. I also take this opportunity to thank my colleagues Suzi Hall and Austin Zeiderman for their constructive and insightful critiques of earlier drafts and for their encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Here the census category is used, elsewhere white English and Englishness are used when discussing constructions of whiteness that are not captured by the census category.

2. Although based on 1991 values, they offer a reflection of relative value between properties.

3. This data is reported at a ward level, a political sub-division of a borough. The case studies use census Output Areas that nest within wards. The Output Areas are identified by alpha-numerical codes – the given names reflect the researcher’s sense of neighbourhoods on the ground and not precise locations.