New ethnicities and old classities: respectability and diaspora

Abstract

This article explores the contrasts between the flexibility and openness of interethnic and diasporic identifications and the fixity of class distinctions in contemporary Britain. The author draws on fieldwork conducted in the Midlands area and a suburban town in the south east of England and traces the ways in which project participants mobilised their biographies and ancestries to express feelings of empathy and relatedness across black, white and Asian identities. The author discovered the same people articulated a strong sense of classed distinction between themselves and others who were thought to lack respectability, social ambition and mobility. These observations have led me to reflect upon the theoretical contrasts between what Stuart Hall has famously called ‘new ethnicities’ and what the author calls ‘old classities’.

Keywords:

• diaspora
• ethnicity
• mixed-race identities
• social class
• whiteness

Acknowledgements

Versions of this paper were presented at the following conferences: University of Auckland, New Zealand, Association of Social Anthropologists of Britain and the Commonwealth Conference, Ownership and Appropriation, December 2008; University of Lampeter, Anthropology conference for C-SAP entitled: Consent and Dominance Workshop, February 2009; University of Leeds, Contemporary English Racisms Symposium, May 2009; University of Surrey, Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism, Diasporas, Migration and Identities: Crossing Boundaries, New Directions, June 2009. I am grateful to Elizabeth Hart, Gillian Evans, Katherine Smith and James Rhodes for their kind invitations. I also wish to thank Cathrine Degnen, Ole Jensen, Paul Johnson, Nigel Pleasants, Marilyn Strathern and two anonymous referees for their encouraging and extremely insightful comments on drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. It is precisely in this spirit that David Parker and Miri Song (2009) think through the implications of Hall's exposition of new ethnicities for a critical analysis of young British Chinese people's on-line debates and discussions on their national and ethnic identities. Following Hall's new ethnicities, Parker and Song (2009, p. 600) argue that these online forums demonstrate a self-critical appraisal of identity and belonging informed by a complex negotiation of ethnic, national and trans-national allegiances. But yet at the same time, these writers contend that ‘what is “new” about ethnic identity formation after the emergence of new media is wider access to the means of representation, and the supporting social morphology of swift response to perceived social injustices’ (2009, p. 599).

2. A council estate is a collection of houses and/or flats (i.e. apartments) owned by the local government. Traditionally, all residents that lived on a council estate rented their houses from the local authority. However, today, some residents may have brought their houses from the local authority and so own them.

3. See also Ray, Hudson and Phillips (2008) for an analysis of the complex contours of racial and class inclusion and exclusion at the neighbourhood level in the UK.

4. This research formed part of a larger project entitled ‘Public Understandings of Genetics: a cross-cultural and ethnographic study of the “new genetics” and social identity’. European Commission Fifth Framework Programme: Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources. Contract number: QLG7-CT-2001-01668.

5. This research formed part of an ESRC project (Reference: RES-000-22-2796) called: ‘Communities within communities: a longitudinal approach to minority/majority relationships and social cohesion’ (start date April 2008 – 31 March 2009).

6. Clare is a pseudonym, as are all my co-conversationalists’ names. See also K. Tyler (2005, pp. 489–491) for extracts from my discussions with Clare.

7. The term ‘Estate’ in italics indicates when the actual name of the estate is spoken.

8. The anonymity of the Estate and Southtown could easily be identified by Googling the description of the estate on this website. Therefore in order to protect the area's identity, I have drawn upon a selection of quotations that describe other areas in England to provide a representative description of places on this website. Importantly, the quotations that I have chosen also capture and convey the classed and gendered images deployed in the actual depiction of the Estate in Southtown on the website.

9. Azad Kashmir is the southernmost political entity within the Pakistani-administered part of the former Kashmir.