Contesting Culture

by Baumann, Gerd

• ISBN13: 9780521555548
• ISBN10: 052155554X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-06-01
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

This innovative study presents an account of the interaction of people from different ethnic backgrounds who live in Southall, the most densely populated, multi-ethnic ghetto in the London area. Breaking with the tradition of studying a single ethnic community, Gerhard Baumann treats Southall as a social field, in which various immigrant groups come to terms with one another and with the dominant, if distant, host culture. The people of Southall affirm ethnic distinctiveness in some contexts, but they are also engaged in rethinking their identities and in debating the meaning of their cultural heritage. This book is at once a vivid ethnographic account of an aspect of contemporary British life, and a challenge to the conventional discourse of community studies.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
List of tables	x
Acknowledgements	xi
Note on the text	xiii
Introduction: the process of research	1	(8)
The argument: identifying a dominant discourse	9	(28)
The reification of culture	9	(5)
The discourse of `community' on the basis of ethnicity	14	(6)
The dominant discourse in Britain	20	(11)
Presentation of the data	31	(6)
A shared Southall culture?	37	(35)
`Town': a cultivated space	37	(10)
Ethnic distinctions, economic commonalities	47	(7)
Some local history: migration and the `white backlash', community building and `the Southall Riots'	54	(5)
Local politics as community competition	59	(13)
The dominant discourse applied: `self-evident' communities of culture	72	(37)
On Sikhs: the `majority community'	73	(5)
On Hindus: cultural cachet	78	(3)
On Muslims: marginalized as a community	81	(5)
On Afro-Caribbeans: community across island cultures	86	(6)
On Whites: Irish without community, English without culture?	92	(6)
On youth: culture consciousness among children	98	(11)
The dominant discourse denied: community as creation, culture as process	109	(36)
Sikhs and the creation of caste communities	109	(7)
Hindus and the culture of encompassment	116	(6)
Muslims and the multi-cultural community of Islam	122	(4)
Afro-Caribbeans and four approaches to `finding' culture	126	(8)
Whites and three strategies in the absence of community	134	(11)
Culture and community as terms of cultural contestation	145	(43)
On youth: assessing and discovering an Asian culture	146	(11)
Questioning Asian culture: socialist and feminist networks	157	(4)
Contesting political community: `Are Asians Black?'	161	(12)
Questioning religious community: interfaith networks	173	(5)
Contesting religious community: convergence, encompassment, and `multi-cultural' equality	178	(10)
Conclusion	188	(17)
Summary of the argument	188	(2)
The community patterning of the demotic discourse	190	(2)
The local persistence of the dominant discourse	192	(3)
The relationship between dominant and demotic discourse	195	(3)
The question of rights	198	(7)
List of references	205	(7)
Index	212