![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Contemporary debates in England about ethnic and religious tensions and community cohesion have included a focus on the role that housing processes play in contributing towards both multiculturalism and dynamics of segregation in urban areas. The role of faith as a particular dimension of cultural identity and urban institutional organisation is increasingly being recognised in English housing policy. This paper argues for a more nuanced conceptualisation of the links between faith and housing aspiration, consumption and provision. Focusing particularly on Muslim and Jewish housing experiences and housing organisations in England, the paper explores how the notion of faith is reconfiguring the traditional emphasis upon ethnicity in debates about equality, diversity and meeting minority needs in the English housing system. It identifies a series of tensions, ambiguities and challenges facing policy-makers in England and other Western European polities in harnessing housing processes in the quest for urban cohesion and diversity.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the editors and reviewers of this special issue and to my colleague, Ryan Powell, for their very insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Notes
1. These issues are also explored in previous special issues of JEMS on Islam and the public sphere in Europe (Grillo and Soares Citation2004), governance and Islam in Europe (Bader Citation2007), and Muslims and the state post-9/11 (Bleich Citation2009).
2. For histories and further analysis of the BME housing-association sector, see Hann and Bowes (2005); Harrison et al. (2005); Lupton and Perry (2004); Robinson et al. (2004).