Clarke, Amy.Pdf

A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details National Lives, Local Voices Boundaries, hierarchies and possibilities of belonging Amy Clarke Department of Geography, University of Sussex Thesis submitted to the University of Sussex for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2017 2 Work not Submitted Elsewhere for Examination I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature…………………………………………. 3 Contents Contents 3 Acknowledgements 6 Abstract 7 List of figures 8 Map of the research area 9 1. Introduction 10 1.1 Research aims 11 1.2 Outline of the thesis 13 2. Britain and ‘Britishness’: belonging, nation and identity 17 2.1 From multiculturalism to British values 18 2.2 National belonging, boundaries and hierarchies 21 2.3 The (white) middle-classes in England 25 2.4 Whiteness and (post)colonial continuities 30 2.5 National identification in England 35 2.6 British attitudes to immigration 39 2.7 Asking questions 44 2.8 Conclusion 46 3. Methodology 47 3.1 ‘Knowing’ the social world 48 3.2 Case-study selection and framing 50 3.3 Sampling and recruitment 57 3.4 Conducting interviews 62 3.5 Reflexive Ethnography 69 3.6 Interpretation and analysis 71 3.7 Conclusion 75 4. A plural nation? 77 4.1 Fuzzy frontiers 79 4.2 Defining Britishness 82 4.3 Becoming British? 87 4.4 Multicultural Britain 90 4 4.5 Classed Britons: Hooligans and gentlemen 94 4.6 Performing British identities 98 4.7 Conclusion 102 5. Difference and belonging in everyday life 105 5.1 Narrating diversity, reproducing difference 108 5.2 Integration 110 5.3 Belonging in the suburbs 114 5.4 (Limits of) commonplace diversity 118 5.5 Suburban encounters 122 5.6 Conclusion 127 6. Recognising as British 130 6.1 Limits of formal belonging 132 6.2 Language and accent 134 6.3 Performance 138 6.4 Values 141 6.5 Dress 143 6.6 Inhabiting whiteness 146 6.7 Conclusion 151 7. Whose History? Whose Future? 153 7.1 An old island nation 155 7.2 War-time Britain 157 7.3 A migration imaginary 160 7.4 ‘Remembering’ empire 164 7.5 The genealogical imaginary 169 7.6 Genetic genealogy 173 7.7 Historical limits and future possibilities 176 7.8 Conclusion 179 8. Conclusion 181 8.1 Imagining the nation 181 8.2 Recognition and whiteness 183 8.3 Boundaries and hierarchies 184 8.4 Local inflections of nation 186 8.5 Conclusion 187 5 . 188 Bibliography 189 Appendices 209 Appendix 1: Anonymised participant profiles 209 Appendix 2: Information booklet 213 Appendix 3: Consent agreement 216 Appendix 4: Transcript letter 217 6 Acknowledgements My thanks go first of all to my supervisors Ben Rogaly and Katie Walsh. It was Ben’s kind words and support that initially encouraged me to apply for the funding that made this research possible. Along with Katie, he has supported the project from that initial application through to the final stages of the writing, always with genuine interest and care for the project. Ben and Katie have provided constructive critique and advice and supported not only the research but my development as a researcher (in Katie’s case, since I arrived on campus in 2006). There are many Sussex people, past and present, I would like to acknowledge. Firstly, thank you to the Migration Studies MA students 2011-2012, with whom I first got to grips with the issues and questions developed in the thesis, and to Ceri Oeppen for her advice on my research in those early days. Secondly, to my fellow ESRC students, whose jokes provided light relief during an intense year of methods training. And finally, to the Global Studies students and researchers I have got to know over the last four years, particularly to Katie, Julius, Idil, Caterina, Dora and Silva for their comments and friendship, and to everyone who had to put up with my mess in C217. Outside of university, I would like to thank my family for supporting my decision (emotionally and sometimes financially) to return to university not once, but twice, and to my mum in particular for offering not just a place to stay, but a home to live in while I did my fieldwork. I hope I didn’t outstay my welcome! My thanks too, to everyone I met during my fieldwork in 2015-2016, to the people I met at clubs and choirs, in shops and cafés, volunteering, and everything else I busied myself with that year. Special thanks of course go to the twenty-six individuals I interviewed, without whom this thesis would not have been possible. I am grateful to all of them for generously opening up their lives, and in many cases their homes, to me and my recorder, and for trusting me with their words. I have learned so much from all of them and I hope that they will appreciate that my arguments are about the structures that operate in society rather than individuals themselves. Finally, thank you to my partner David; for the morning coffees and evening massages, for never complaining about my absences, for attempting to understand what I’ve been doing this whole time, for reminding me that there is more to life than the thesis, and, mostly importantly, for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself and always knowing I could do this. 7 Abstract This thesis is about the boundaries that surround, and hierarchies that structure, Britain’s national community. In contrast to existing work, the research investigates boundaries and hierarchies of belonging through in-depth qualitative enquiry of their (re)production among people for whom national identity is broadly taken-for-granted and unquestioned, that is, Britain’s white middle- classes. How do they imagine Britain as a nation and national community? How do they understand and recognise other people as British (or not), and as belonging (or not) in and/or to Britain? And how do they position differently racialised people in relation to boundaries and hierarchies of belonging? The thesis draws on data collected over fifteen months in the suburbs of North East London and West Essex, including successive qualitative interviews conducted with twenty-six local residents. It contributes to migration geographies by revealing the narrative power of the white middle-classes in processes of integration and belonging, while also resisting the homogenisation of this group through exploration of some of its diversity. The thesis includes chapters on the extent to which Britain is imagined as a plural nation, on participants’ narratives of local ethnic diversity, everyday interaction and encounter, on markers of belonging and economies of recognition, and on the role of historical imaginaries in reproducing nation. Overall, the thesis challenges the idea that people can integrate into society in the full and substantive way desired by governments. It provides empirical evidence of the normative whiteness of Britain’s core national imaginary and the markers of Britishness, as well as the significance of the past in shaping understandings of nation and belonging in the present. Meanwhile, by interrogating the national through the local, the research highlights the multi-scalar nature of belongings and adds a suburban perspective to what is a predominantly urban literature on multiculture. 8 List of figures Figure 1 Map of research area (Source: Google Maps) with inserted p. 9 map of London (Source: Creative Commons. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right) showing outline of the research area Figure 2 Map of London (Source: Creative Commons. Contains p.51 Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right) showing outline of the research area Figure 3 Map of research area showing participants’ residence. p.52 Produced by author in Google Maps Figure 4 Population by ethnic group at Local Authority Level p.53 Figure 5 Population by country of birth across the research area p.55 Figure 6 Population by ethnic group across the research area p.56 Figure 7 Recruitment flyers and leaflets p.58 Figure 8 Conceptual interview guide p.65 9 Map of the research area Chingford South Woodford Wanstead Figure 1 – Map of research area (Source: Google Maps) with inserted map of London (Source: Creative Commons. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right) showing outline of the research area. 10 1. Introduction Feeling a sense of belonging (or not), being legally, morally or socially recognized as belonging (or not), truly has the power to change lives, to make communities and collectives, to bring together and to separate in the most intimate, loving, accepting, exclusionary or violent ways. (Wright, 2015: 391) So, this idea of belonging is something that I’ve had difficulty with because the kind of conception of what it means to be British… has always manifested itself to me as one which is exclusionary. Or certainly one which doesn’t have any concern for what I feel or have to say... (Unnamed British Muslim quoted by Tufail and Poynting, 2013: 49) The month after I completed data collection, in June 2016, the importance of this project was brought into sharp relief as Britain voted to leave the European Union.

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