Yemeni, Muslim, and Scouse: Ethnicity and Religion, Hybridity and Locality in Contemporary Liverpool David Edmund Harrison Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science May 2020 ii Declaration The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of David Edmund Harrison to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2020 The University of Leeds and David Edmund Harrison iii Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/L503848/1) through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities. I would also like to thank the support of the British-Yemeni Society for awarding me their annual Academic Grant in 2018. This research would not have been possible without the expert guidance of my two supervisors, Prof. Seán McLoughlin and Dr. Jasjit Singh. I would like to thank them for their patience and support throughout, and for encouraging me to explore my own areas of interest within this thesis. I am also extremely grateful for the generosity and hospitality extended to me by all of the participants in this study, Liverpool-Yemeni or otherwise. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for their constant support and interest in my research. iv Abstract British-Yemenis have received little attention, scholarly or otherwise, in the contemporary context of the UK. Similarly, there are few ethnographically-informed studies focusing on contemporary Liverpool despite the region’s rich histories of migration and its numerous diaspora groups. Addressing these gaps, this thesis presents an ethnographic study of contemporary Liverpool-Yemeni life based on fifteen months of fieldwork during 2017 and 2018. The focus is primarily upon the constructions and performances of everyday Liverpool-Yemeni identities among the post-migration generation who continuously negotiate the diasporic tension of ‘roots’ and ‘routes’. Adapting Gerd Baumann’s framework of ‘the multicultural triangle’ to account for dimensions of translocality, Liverpool-Yemenis’ multiple belongings are explored along ethnic, national/local, and religious lines. The key finding of the thesis is that while second-generation Liverpool-Yemenis largely do not mobilise politically as an ethno-national ‘community’ to enact change in the homeland, ‘Yemeniness’ nonetheless retains salience in the production and performances of an aesthetic diaspora, which is rooted in the translocal family beyond the gaze of the institutions of wider society, yet also negotiated alongside multiple other belongings. While subjective ‘Yemeniness’ is rarely politicised, the milieu of L8 with its long history within Liverpool as a multi-ethnic locality provides an important, alternative space of belonging and engagement beyond family networks. In the context of this neighbourhood, processes of organic hybridisation and practices of demotic cosmopolitanism give rise to increasingly confident articulations of ‘Scouse-Yemeniness’. Additionally, Islam and Muslim identifications are more often articulated as inseparable from participants’ subjective ‘Yemeniness’. Yemen and Yemeni culture are instead reclaimed as legitimately ‘Islamic’, particularly against perceived Saudi antagonisms. Islam is also seen to provide a shared, but not de-culturated, form of belonging extending beyond ethnic ties in the multi-ethnic neighbourhood. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. iii Abstract ..................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ....................................................................................................... v List of Tables and Figures ........................................................................................ ix Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 Motivations for the Research .............................................................................. 3 Research Questions ............................................................................................. 5 Overview of the Thesis ....................................................................................... 8 Situating the Study ............................................................................................ 13 Chapter 1: Conceptualising Diaspora and the Multicultural Triangle .............. 15 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 15 1.2 Conceptualising Diaspora .......................................................................... 16 1.3 Transnationalism and Translocality ........................................................... 21 1.4 Religious Diasporas and the Discursive Tradition of Islam ...................... 23 1.4.1 The Global Umma ......................................................................... 26 1.5 Hybridity and Diasporic Public Spheres ................................................... 31 1.6 Culture as Praxis and the Everyday ........................................................... 34 1.7 The Multicultural Triangle ........................................................................ 40 1.7.1 Ethnicity ......................................................................................... 40 1.7.2 Nation and (Trans)Locality ........................................................... 45 1.7.3 Religion ......................................................................................... 48 1.8 Summary of Theoretical and Conceptual Framework ................................ 51 Chapter 2: Methods and Methodology .................................................................. 53 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 53 2.2 Ethnography for Qualitative Research ...................................................... 54 2.3 Ethnographic Methods ............................................................................... 60 2.3.1 Choice of Locations ....................................................................... 60 2.3.2 Access ............................................................................................ 65 vi 2.3.3 Interviews and Participants ............................................................ 67 2.3.4 Sampling Methods ......................................................................... 69 2.3.5 Limitations of the Data .................................................................. 70 2.4 Ethical Considerations ............................................................................... 72 2.5 Positionality and Reflexivity ..................................................................... 77 2.6 Analysing the Data .................................................................................... 80 Chapter 3: Liverpool, Yemen, and Liverpool-Yemenis in Context .................... 83 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 83 3.2 Liverpool ................................................................................................... 85 3.2.1 Liverpool: A Port City ................................................................... 85 3.2.2 Liverpool Exceptionalism .............................................................. 89 3.2.3 Sectarianism in Liverpool .............................................................. 91 3.2.4 Abdullah Quilliam ......................................................................... 92 3.2.5 Toxteth ........................................................................................... 95 3.2.6 Language and Locality .................................................................. 99 3.2.7 Liverpool the Signifier ................................................................. 100 3.3 Yemen ...................................................................................................... 103 3.3.1 Yemen: Arabia Felix and its Social Imaginaries ......................... 103 3.3.2 The North/South Divide and Colonial Aden ............................... 108 3.3.3 Unified Yemen: A State in Crisis ................................................ 110 3.3.4 Yemen and its Diasporas ............................................................. 113 3.4 Yemenis in Britain ................................................................................... 115 3.4.1 Yemenis in Britain: An Overview of the Literature .................... 115 3.4.2 The First Wave ............................................................................ 119 3.4.3 The Second Wave ........................................................................ 121 3.4.4 A Third Wave? ...........................................................................