Table Of ContentThough we seemingly live in a time of fourishing anti-immigrant sentiment and
a resurgence of the far-right… the story on the ground is a whole lot more
encouraging. Now more than ever it is important to document the fact that lived
multiculture is mostly entirely ordinary. Not always rosy, but far from the patho-
logical space of confict the populist right would have us believe. This book
marks a major contribution to our understanding of the spaces and places in
which this at once extraordinary, yet unremarkable togetherness is achieved. In
dark times, it offers a story of hope that we overlook at our peril.
Amanda Wise, Associate Professor of Sociology at Macquarie University,
Australia
A brilliantly sane and accurate portrait of the fact of English multiculture. This
book offers a much needed antidote to the panicked debate about immigration
and the toxic parochialism of the post-Brexit era. From branded corporate cafés
where unfocused conviviality can be enjoyed anonymously over a cup of coffee
to the common ground of public parks, we see the unspectacular triumph of how
people actually live across differences of culture, race and nationality for most of
the time. Its ultimate lesson is that we are defned not by the identity labels that
are applied to us but rather by what we do everyday.
Les Back, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths University, UK
Lived Experiences of Multiculture brings together a rich seam of original empiri-
cal research with conceptual analysis to address the question of how multiculture
is shaping and reshaping urban spaces. It seeks to show that a sense of place is an
important framing principle as to how we experience formations of race, ethni-
city and class. It is an important contribution to current debates about how we
live together in diversity.
John Solomos, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK
Lived Experiences of Multiculture
In an increasingly ethnically diverse society, debates about migration, com-
munity, cultural difference and social interaction have never been more pressing.
Drawing on the fndings from a two year, qualitative ESRC (Economic and
Social Research Council) funded study of different locations across England,
Lived Experiences of Multiculture uses interdisciplinary perspectives to examine
the ways in which complex urban populations experience, negotiate, accom-
modate and resist cultural difference as they share a range of everyday social
resources and public spaces. The authors present novel ways of re- thinking and
developing concepts such as multiculture, community and conviviality whilst
also repositioning debates which focus on confict models for understanding cul-
tural differences.
Amidst highly charged arguments over the social relations of belonging and
the meanings of local and national identities, this timely volume will appeal to
advanced undergraduate students and graduate students interested in felds such
as Race and Ethnicity Studies, Sociology, Urban Studies, Human Geography and
Migration Studies.
Sarah Neal is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociological Studies
at the University of Sheffeld.
Katy Bennett is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the
University of Leicester.
Allan Cochrane is Emeritus Professor of Urban Studies at the Open University.
Giles Mohan is Professor of International Development at the Open University.
Routledge Research in Race and Ethnicity
www.routledge.com/sociology/series/RRRE
16 The End of Black Studies
Conceptual, Theoretical, and Empirical Concerns
Clovis E. Semmes
17 Contemporary African American Families
Achievements, Challenges, and Empowerment Strategies in the
Twenty-F irst Century
Edited by Dorothy Smith-R uiz, Sherri Lawson Clark and Marcia Watson
18 Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing
Edited by Zana Vathi and Russell King
19 Mapping the New African Diaspora in China
Race and the Cultural Politics of Belonging
Shanshan Lan
20 Doing Violence, Making Race
Mattias Smangs
21 Critical Refections on Migration, ‘Race’ and Multiculturalism
Australia in a Global Context
Edited by Martina Boese and Vince Marotta
22 Mixed Race in Asia
Past, Present and Future
Zarine L. Rocha and Farida Fozdar
23 Lived Experiences of Multiculture
The New Social and Spatial Relations of Diversity
Sarah Neal, Katy Bennett, Allan Cochrane and Giles Mohan
24 The Body, Authenticity and Racism
Lindsey Garratt
Lived Experiences of
Multiculture
The New Social and Spatial
Relations of Diversity
Sarah Neal,
Katy Bennett,
Allan Cochrane
and Giles Mohan
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Sarah Neal, Katy Bennett, Allan Cochrane and Giles Mohan
The right of Sarah Neal, Katy Bennett, Allan Cochrane and Giles Mohan
to be identifed as authors of this work has been asserted by them in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-64505-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62838-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Spatialising multiculture: changing formations of urban
diversity and the difference a place makes 1
2 The increasingly ordinary and increasingly complex nature of
ethnic diversity: conviviality, community and why the micro
matters 22
3 Researching difference: differentiated populations, lives and
places 39
4 Multiculture and public parks: social practice and attachment in
urban green space 57
5 Semi-p ublic space: corporate cafés, multiculture and everyday
social life 74
6 Conviviality and the social relations of social leisure
organisations in diverse urban places 90
7 Educational spaces, identities and young people’s management
of urban multiculture 107
8 Multiculture and policy imaginations: engaging with the
informal social world 125
9 Conclusions: precarious multiculture 143
Appendix 153
References 160
Index 177
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Location of research sites in England 10
1.2 Map of the London Borough of Hackney 12
1.3 Map of Oadby 14
1.4 Map of Milton Keynes 16
Tables
2.1 Community and conviviality as comparative concepts 35
6.1 Profle of social leisure groups 96
A.1 Profles of participants 153
Acknowledgements
Books are, in so many ways, always profoundly collective endeavours. They are
the outcome of the ideas, writing, work, insights, voices and generosity of others.
And this one is no different.
We are indebted to institutions – to the various university departments and
colleagues we have worked in and with along the way. The project on which this
book is based began life at the Open University and the University of Leicester,
and then travelled in part to the University of Surrey, and this fnal writing stage
was completed at the University of Sheffeld. We would like to thank all of these
institutions for their support and generosities. We would extend our thanks to the
Economic and Social Research Council who funded the Living Multiculture
project between 2012 and 2014.
Alongside our institutional affliations, we are truly indebted to all of the
participants in Hackney, Oadby and Milton Keynes who were each willing to be
part of the project and spend time and effort talking to us and sharing their
thoughts and experiences on how it feels and what happens as we live forms of
urban multiculture. This was a diverse research population and our thanks would
include all those people we got to know and interviewed about the parks they
used, their college life, their leisure organisation, their policy and community
work. Our thanks would include all those people who worked as gatekeepers
helping us negotiate access and saying yes to our requests to be able to include
an organisation, observe in a space as well as for time and local information.
And our thanks would include those tireless and patient members of our three
advisory groups who gave time, thought and wise steer over the two years.
Wanting to do justice to what we were told and what was shared with us was
very much part of what drove our efforts in the writing of the chapters.
With four of us working on the Living Multiculture we make quite a large
team for a social science research project. But we have been larger at various
points in the lifetime of the project which has had more than us four working on
the project. We were incredibly fortunate to have some of the brightest research
associates and consultants working with us, collecting the data and helping make
sense of it. We would like to thank Hannah Jones, Kieran Connell, Christy Kulz,
Akile Ahmet and Carolina Ramirez who were all at various times very much
part of the team and whose contributions and work have been hugely valued and
