White UK White Other whatever notes on unsettlement

‘White UK, White Other, whatever…: notes on unsettlement in provincial England’ Steve Garner, School of Sociology, UWE Bristol Steve. Garner@uwe. ac. uk ‘ The Future of Multicultural Britain’ University of Surrey, 15. 6. 05

Argument Map • White is not an ethnic group: construction -should be critically framed • The category white is riven with distinctions; inter alia classed ones • Revealed in talking about and ‘doing’ community

White Vast US literature: 1. Terror 2. Cultural capital 3. Absence – invisibility 4. Contingent hierarchies • i. e. no single way to view whiteness without oversimplification • Borders - internal and external

Some UK-based work on whiteness • Bonnett: Historical overviews • Hoggett – Jealousies & Loss • Back: Dividing lines inter-ethnic alliances • Nayak: Distinctions within w-c cultures

Asylum: catalyst for whiteness • Grillo (2005) • South Coast – relatively wealthy community • Expressions of antipathy; security, safety, effect on house prices, drain on resources. • Vehemently deny being racist: (BNP) – resistance to State and particular type of Others

‘Keep them Out’ (2004) • Violation (rape and theft). • Contamination (HIV and foreign illnesses) • Cultural degradation (dilution) • Usurpation (taking over our territory) • - Beleaguered, unlistenedto community

Ongoing work • Research project: community in S-W • Classed expressions of opposition: MC (defending space, values, tradition, ways of being); WC economic competition –hierarchy of entitlement is racialised

White ‘Others’ I • Historically – the Other of the British was a white catholic European. • Tradition of ‘anthropologising’ the white w-c • Now too white pathologised as uneducated racists

White ‘Others’ II • Whites have white ‘Others’; Young people Drug-dealers, Binge-drinkers, Chavs, etc. • Fear of this in estates and m-c residential areas.

Structure - Policy • Some structural parameters ; e. g. changing work patterns; housing – prices and ‘rightto-buy’; local economic investment; asylum. • Ramifications of policy on asylum? • Is there a limit to rationality?

Conclusions • ‘White’ cannot be used as an explanatory & predictive category • Whiteness suspends classed fears: relocates them within constructed subjects: e. g. asylum-seeker • Policy-making requires more understanding of what drives insecurities • ‘Racism’ might require some reworking in the light of changing modes of expression