Suburban ethnicities: Home as the site of interethnic conviviality and racism

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which the white working class residents of a suburban English town reflect on their relationships with their British Asian Pakistani Muslim neighbours. Its focus is on how everyday constructions of home become sites for the intermingling of discourses of intercultural conviviality and racism. My contention is that the idea of home has not yet been given the detailed critical attention that it deserves in the sociological literature on everyday manifestations of multiculturalism, conviviality and racism. My supposition is that a special focus on the idea of home as the site of conviviality offers a productive avenue to analyse how intercultural relationships are formed and how the norms of neighbourliness are thought to break down, opening a space for commonplace racialized and racist stereotypes to take hold. The idea of home is central to the rhythm and landscape of the English suburbs. It conjures-up the idea of a uniform and aspirational white space. Drawing on this imaginary of home, I shall trace how ‘white working class’ ‘English’, ‘Scottish’ and ‘Anglo-Italian’ residents’ everyday constructions of home become embroiled with their relationships with their British Asian Pakistani Muslim neighbours.