Commonplace diversity and the ‘ethos of mixing’: perceptions of difference in a London neighbourhood

Abstract

The London Borough of Hackney is one of the most diverse places in Britain. It is characterised by a multiplicity of ethnic minorities, different migration histories, religions, educational and economic backgrounds both among long-term residents and newcomers. This article describes attitudes towards diversity in such a ‘super-diverse’ context. It develops the notion of ‘commonplace diversity’, referring to cultural diversity being experienced as a normal part of social life. While many people mix across cultural differences in public and associational space, this is rarely translated into private relations. However, this is not perceived as a problem, as long as people adhere to a tacit ‘ethos of mixing’. This comes to the fore in relation to groups who are blamed to ‘not want to mix’ in public and associational space. The article discusses the fine balance between acceptable and unacceptable social divisions in relation to specific groups who are seen to lead separate lives.

Keywords:

• super-diversity
• neighbourhoods
• London
• cultural diversity
• everyday multiculturalism
• encounters

Acknowledgements

The research was funded by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. I would like to thank all people who kindly agreed to be interviewed for this project, as well as those who welcomed me into their associations and private homes. I would also like to thank Steven Vertovec, Ralph Grillo, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Katharina Schmid, Miles Hewstone, Sandra Wallman, Andreas Wimmer and Alessandra Buonfino, the editors of this special issue, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Notes

1. 1. Photographs illustrating this article are available as supplementary material and can be viewed here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1080/1070289X.2013.822374.

2. 2. For earlier studies, see Baumann (1996), Bott (1957) and Wallman (1982).

3. 3. The number of the total population is taken from the ONS 2011 Mid Year Estimates. The number of Turkish speakers is taken from the 2004 Hackney Household Survey. The remaining numbers are taken from the 2011 census.

4. 4. The strictly Orthodox Jewish community in Stamford Hill is dominated by Hasidic Jews. On the history of Orthodox Jewish settlement in Stamford Hill, see Baker (1995).

5. 5. My hairdresser’s views on Orthodox Jews and the fact that he gets along well with the Jewish traders at the local market also exemplify that negative views about Orthodox Jews among Hackney residents are not related to anti-Semitism.

6. 6. Gentrification in Hackney already started in the 1980s (Butler 1996), but has accelerated since the 2000s. There has also been a long-established artist community in Hackney already before the arrival of Hipsters.

7. 7. Greif (2010, p. 3), traces the term ‘Hipster’ back to 1940s black subcultural figures in the United States, which a decade later became a white subcultural figure and was defined ‘by the desire of a white avant-garde to disaffiliate itself from whiteness (. . .) and achieve the “cool” knowledge and exoticised energy, lust and violence of black Americans’.

8. 8. See http://hackneyhipsterhate.tumblr.com/, and the video ‘Being a Dickhead’s Cool’ at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzocvh60xBU

9. 9. Despite the political and cultural differences between these groups, including long-standing tensions especially between Turks and Kurds, I will here use the term ‘Turkish speakers’ to refer to all groups. This article looks at perceptions of difference, and the differentiation between the three groups is rarely relevant for those people who do not form part of these groups.

10. 10. On inter-generational tensions among Turkish speakers in Hackney, see Arakelian (2007).

11. 11. See Putnam (2000) on ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ social capital.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susanne Wessendorf

SUSANNE WESSENDORFis a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity