RESEARCH REPORT

Democratic Governance and Ethnic Minority Political Participation in

Contemporary Britain

1 Background

During the past decade there has been increasing public debate on the issue of the participation

and representation of ethnic minority communities in politics (Saggar, 2000). In particular there

has been a concern that despite the increasingly multicultural nature of British society as a whole

that political institutions there remain barriers to equal and inclusive participation by minorities

(Ali and O’Cinneide, 2002; Amin, 2002; Anwar, 2001). It is in this context that we proposed a

study of the participation of ethnic minorities in conventional forms of democratic activity and

the role of participation in the alternative public sphere of ethnic minority civil society.

In our original proposal we identified both the possible contribution of the project to the work of

the programme as a whole and our own aims and objectives. We have fulfilled our aim to

develop this work alongside international debates in Europe and the United States. We have also

made significant contributions to the key themes of the programme:

In contributing to theme A: Is there a crisis of participation and democratic legitimacy in

Britain?

The work highlights the danger of simplifying generalisations about participation and legitimacy

for BME communities in contemporary Britain. Conventionally defined political participation

(and consequent representation) varied significantly between the sites of our research. Likewise

alternative forms of participation staged displayed dynamics of both active engagement (e.g. in

growing commitment to mobilisation through religious faith) and disillusionment (e.g. in the

mainstreaming and diminishing power of BME Housing Associations). Our work did identify a

pronounced questioning of the legitimacy of conventional political institutions. However, this

occurred simultaneously with the identification of both new spaces of the political in which

BME communities participated and new institutional forms recognising alternative political

agendas.

In contributing to Theme B: Why do some people participate and others do not?

Drawing on the ethnographic and anthropological roots of some of the social capital literature in

the work of James Coleman and Clifford Geertz the project has used qualitative research tools to

examine the meaning, dynamics and value of different forms of ‘participation’ in BME

communities. In this way we have interrogated the conceptual notion of ‘efficacy’ central to the

ESRC programme specification and refined its value in the context of BME politics in the

contemporary United Kingdom.

2 Objectives

The project originally identified five key aims:

1. To re-orient the way in which ethnic minority political mobilisation and its role in shaping the

integration of minority communities is understood.

The work was developed from a paradox of contemporary ethnic minority politics. On the one

hand the political agendas of the late 1990s appeared to be increasingly less influenced by both

racially sensitive concerns and personnel from ethnic minority communities themselves. On the

other hand a wide range of activity characterised by significant and possibly disproportionate

BME involvement was clearly politicised but less clearly identified as a form of democratic

participation. In this sense the project has successfully interrogated

• The manner in which political agendas are racialised (Section below 4a)

• The evolution of the relationship between BME presence in mainstream political institutions

and these agendas (Section below 4a).

• Changing trends in representation in three major case study areas (Section below 4a).

• The manner in which forms of professional and voluntary activity attempts to develop

alternative notions of both political change and democratic participation (Section below 4c).

• The strengths and weaknesses of organisations that ‘bridge’ the worlds of conventionally

defined political participation and broader realms of the political (Section below 4b).

2. Develop a conceptual framework for understanding the ways in which race and ethnicity

impact on political participation and democratic institutions at a local and a national level in

liberal democratic societies.

The research proposal was premised on testing the hypothetical plausibility of the analytical

model (Diagram 1) that linked conventionally defined modes of political participation with

other areas of everyday life that were both politicised and racialised. We suggested that it was

theoretically useful to model these relations between a formal public sphere and the notion of the

alternative public sphere that has been used in the literature to describe working class and

minority forms of political mobilisation (Negt and Kluge, 1993; Gilroy, 1993). As section 4

below describes, the model was found heuristically useful though not exhaustive.

3. Provide an examination of the political, social and cultural processes that are shaping the

ways in which ethnic minority communities evolve strategies for participating in and influencing

democratic institutions.

We identified clear strategies for influencing decision making that were distinctive within the

three spheres of political mobilisation. We have attempted to develop the notion of efficacy

central to the ESRC research programme in relation to each of the three spheres of participation.

In relation to the formal sphere strategies are most significantly revealed in both attempts to

enhance levels of representation and define ethnically specific forms of claims making (e.g. the

development and contestation of a Bengali agenda in Tower Hamlets). They were also

significant in the manner in which processes of agenda setting either were or were not

determined by strategic forms of participation (e.g. in the regeneration/neighbourhood renewal

politics of Lewisham).

In relation to the intermediate sphere we identified both the limited nature of some of the

networks involved in the participatory process and the manner in which agendas were at times

self contained within the sphere itself (see below 4).

In the alternative public sphere notions of disillusionment with political participation

paradoxically strengthened attempts to influence social change through other institutional

mechanisms. We have developed a notion of the spaces of the political to capture the

development of these new institutional forms (see below 4).

4. Enhance understanding among policy makers and practitioners of the mechanisms and

processes that contribute to the establishment of political mobilisations within minority

communities that go beyond the boundaries of existing institutions.

We have attempted to work with the organisations co-operating with the research and are

continuing to develop an understanding of the results of the project amongst policy makers and

professionals. The project led to the development of further work from stakeholders directly

interested in the use of this research. This included the development of one strand of the work by

the The Monitoring Group in establishing a national network around racial attacks, the

development of some of the work linking BME Housing Associations with civil rights networks

and the networks relating to the disbursement of neighbourhood renewal between different

communities.

5. Ensure that questions posed by growing multiculturalism to the changing nature of political

participation in contemporary Britain are adequately addressed within this Programme.

The project has demonstrated the manner in which contemporary multiculture poses very

specific concerns to the manner in which political participation is defined (in relation to forms of

political activity), governance is theorised (in relation to processes of glocalisation and the unity

of the nation state as a parameter of the polis), and how mainstream institutions of democratic

organisation have attempted to respond to an increasingly multicultural society in the United

Kingdom (in both acknowledging specific needs in some instances and reproducing processes of

discrimination and disadvantage in others).

In this sense we believe that each of the five original aims and objectives of the project have

been wholly or almost wholly achieved. Research findings can be best elaborated further through

an analysis of the work in each of the three spheres of political mobilisation considered through

our original research design/methodologies and research results.

3 Methods

In developing our model we responded to the original referees’ reports by revisiting our original

research design to take on a series of constructive comments that highlighted ways to improve

the project. Comments on our original proposal had suggested that

• We were underplaying the significance of faith based mobilisation in contemporary BME

communities.

• We were over-emphasising the amount of time spent on the three case study locations at the

cost of the consideration of the examples in the alternative sphere.

• We needed to consider in greater detail the links between the qualitative research and the

political science languages of participation and democracy on which the ESRC programme

was based.

As a consequence we refined the typological model that formed the basis of the work in the early

stages of the work from that displayed in Diagram 1 to that in Diagram 2. The total numbers of

interviews remained the same but the distribution was slightly different. We consequently chose:

• To confine the South London case study to one London Borough (the London Borough of

Lewisham).

• To redistribute the amount of work time allocated to allow for greater interview numbers to

be considered in the case studies of the alternative public sphere.

• To refine the case study of single issue campaigns to work around campaigns on behalf of

refugees and asylum seekers.

• To extend our analysis to consider the salience of the disturbances in northern towns in the

summer of 2001.

The methods adopted were predominantly qualitative. In each of the three case study locations,

interviews equivalent to the totals in the Diagram 2 were completed. The material was

supplemented by substantial amounts of ethnographic material. In several of the case studies of

the alternative and intermediate public sphere material was in part generated through

ethnographic engagement with and observation of anti-racist political movements, mobilisation

against refugee deportation and single issue campaigns. In the London Borough of Tower

Hamlets at the time of the proposal and throughout the life of the project Michael Keith was a

local authority council member (one year as Leader and for the rest of the time as Cabinet Lead

for Regeneration). This supplementary ethnographic material allowed unique and privileged

access to the milieux of democratic participation in each of the three spheres that were being

studied.

In order to facilitate the comparison between the case study locations we attempted to identify

the manner in which certain events structured issues of BME participation: the Macpherson

Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, the 2000 Race Relations (Amendment) Act and the

2001 General Election and the local elections of 2002 in the London Boroughs.

4 Results

a. Typological definitions of the spheres of the political

The typology developed in the original project proposal (Diagram 1) was principally heuristic

but also attempted to ‘model’ an understanding of the changing nature of ethnic minority

participation in democratic politics. We believe that the extensive research over three years in

part validates the utility of the model with some reservations that themselves highlight the value

of framing the research around this hypothetical typology.

Firstly, whilst there are clear links across the three ‘spheres’ that we examined there is by no

means a continuum. The general disillusionment with the institutions of the formal public sphere

was replicated amongst BME communities throughout all our research.

Secondly, there was a clear sense of many becoming involved in both the intermediate and

alternative public spheres because of this disillusionment. The realities of racisms within the

formal sphere alongside a diminishing sense of the efficacy of such participation regularly

informed the reasons for participation in the intermediate and alternative public spheres.

Thirdly, there was a variable sense of efficacy within the other spheres. High motivation based

on trust based relationships in some areas (e.g. faith communities, cultural politics) contrasted

with a fear of becoming part of mainstream welfare support in other areas (e.g. BME Housing

Associations, some voluntary sector organisations)

In conclusion the model was useful in providing a frame for an understanding the different forms

of legitimacy of British political institutions and the strategies adopted by BME communities in

promoting participation and representation. In particular we believe that our research points to

the importance of two major insights in theorising an understanding of democracy and

participation in multicultural settings:

• Conceptualising the staging of political participation in terms of networks of actors, the

efficacy of agents, the creation of new political associations and the generation of trust

relations.

• Reconceptualising the definition of the political that captures the sorts of cultural

contestation explicitly related to the ethics of multiculturalism.

b. Key results from the formal public sphere

This project examined several of the themes that inform the ESRC programme to consider

whether similar trends are replicated within minority communities in the United Kingdom. The

presence of increasingly multicultural societies in the cities of the UK poses major challenges to

the institutions of liberal democracy. These challenges involve the ability of such institutions to

represent demographically the diversity of population and the ability to represent and

accommodate the ethical challenge of multiculturalism within the values of the political

settlement. This project consequently considered both the accommodation of BME people within

the formal political sphere and the impact of multiculturalism on the workings of the sphere

itself.

The results demonstrate an uneven pattern of response to both of these challenges. Demonstrably

there was no easily read correlation between the presence of BME representation and the

racialisation of political agenda setting. Bengali presence in the formal sphere of Tower Hamlets

has increased significantly in contrast to the two other case study locations. The agenda setting

process of local politics reflects such representation but not in a straightforward manner. Neither

the Race Relations (Amendment) Act nor the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry provided the most

straightforward frame through which to compare different sites. Instead certain issues of funding

– particularly around the contested politics of urban regeneration and neighbourhood renewal –

translate most easily into a racialised equity politics of (un)fair shares within new regimes of

welfare support. In contrast the response to the asylum seeking debate, the uprisings in the

northern towns or the events of 9/11 racialised the political agendas of the three locations but not

in a manner that could be controlled by ethnic minority politicians alone.

In general we are not arguing that there has been an erasure of racialised agendas in mainstream

politics since its public high spot in the oppositional era of Thatcher’s 1980s. Instead we believe

that the project has demonstrated the reconfiguration of racialised politics. The formal sphere

has been restructured by the demographic and social diversity of succeeding generations of

communities that migrated to the UK since 1945, the increasing impact of globalisation on the

political imaginary and the emerging debates around new migrations to the UK - mediated

through debates around asylum seeking.

Tower Hamlets

The case study of Tower Hamlets is notable for the apparent participatory success demonstrated

by the largest single minority community present in the borough within the local state.

Significant community and kinship networks translated directly into major success in winning

places as candidates for the Bengali community in both the 1998 and 2002 local elections1. By

2002 a majority of the councillors in the borough were of Bengali origin, with the first Bengali

leader of a local authority in the United Kingdom.

This electoral success translates unevenly into debates at the heart of the democracy and

participation programme. On the one hand the electoral successes of the Bengali councillors is in

part dependent on a significantly higher turnout amongst the Bengali community than other

communities in the borough and contrasts with pronounced low electoral turnout amongst the

‘white working class’ of the contemporary East End. The project demonstrates also that a live

debate on the ‘efficacy’ of this electoral success is qualified by a series of contentious themes

that recur in the interpretation of BME participation in the formal political process:

• An extensive debate about the definition of the particularity of a ‘Bengali agenda’ for 21st

century local government in contradistinction to a ‘1980s’ metropolitan race politics that

characterised some of the municipal socialist political projects of that era.

• The pronounced racialisation of some agendas and issues (e.g. the withdrawal of monies

to support Bangladeshi teaching assistants) but not of others that are arguably of greater

significance for communities on the ground (e.g. the identification by the Social Services

Inspectorate of an imbalance between resources directed towards elderly and young

1 In 1998 the controlling Labour group of 41 councillors consisted of 20 Bengali, 2 Afro-Caribbean and 19 white councillors. In 2002 after winning an election with a decreased majority there were 24 Bengali Councillors, one African-Caribbean, one British Chinese and nine white councillors. In 2002 the Liberal Party numbered 5 Bengali and 10 white councillors. Consequently the majority of the local authority membership was constituted by Bengali Councillors (29 out of 51 seats in 2002) in comparison to the 38% of the borough’s population that was of Bengali ethnicity in the 2001 Census.

populations that implies significant under-funding of services for younger – majority

Bengali – clientele).

• The continued significance of kinship based (predominantly) Sylheti based family

networks in the development of a successful Bengali electoral ‘machine’.

• The development of ‘white identities’ inside and outside the political mainstream.

• The limited representation of other ethnic minorities within the formal public sphere.

• The confinement of representational success to local government as opposed to London-

wide, Parliamentary or European representation for the Bengali community.

Lewisham

By contrast, the issues, profile and levels of engagement of BME political engagement in

Lewisham is quite different to that found in Tower Hamlets. Following the New Cross Fire and

1981 urban disorders, Lewisham became notable for its vibrant civic culture of networks of

black and ethnic minority organisations that engaged in political debate, political education,

mobilisation, community action and community development. Despite the tensions and

difficulties experienced by those involved in the networks of the 1980s, they were successful in

generating a layer of leaders, representatives, brokers and professionals – some of whom became

publicly elected officials – who, in turn, maintained an engagement with the groups they came

out of. The first two black councillors were elected in 1982. That number peaked at 13 in 1998.

The upward trend of minority representation among Lewisham councillors went into reverse at

the time of this project: 9 out of 54 councillors are now from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Along with this decrease in the number of black elected officials, Lewisham experienced a loss

of key networks of ethnic minority organisations and forums for debate, deliberation and

strategic development. At the point at which this case study was initiated the project found a

vacuum in the space earlier occupied by leading ethnic minority political agencies and

figureheads, rooted in the community sector, voluntary sector, local council, Labour party or

CRE. Since then, Lewisham’s public sphere and its surrounding spaces have changed as a result

of the modernisation of the Council, a new social policy and legislative framework and

initiatives to increase participation in the public sphere. What might appear to be a closing down

of ethnic minority agendas in mainstream politics is closer to a process of restructuring to ensure

that voices in Lewisham’s public sphere are more compatible with the principles of New Labour.

Current debates and activity around ethnic minority political participation in Lewisham’s public

sphere have centred on:

• The restructuring or ‘modernisation’ of Lewisham council. This resulted in Lewisham

becoming one of the first councils to adopt a directly elected mayor and cabinet-style

council, in which the deputy mayor is the only ethnic minority councillor in the cabinet.

• A Race Equality Partnership set up by the council following the publication of the

Macpherson Report to develop race equality policies and practices across the public sector.

• Joint initiatives between Lewisham Council, Operation Black Vote and Lewisham Anti-

Racist Action Group to increase the turnout of black voters and minimise the success of BNP

candidates.

• The Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, which provided major opportunities for interventions

from formerly excluded constituencies such as African groups and BME faith groups to

secure new forms of funding and representation.

• The Council’s initiative to develop a new organisation that would advise local people on race

equality issues following the failure of Lewisham Race Equality Council officers to submit

an application for a renewal of grant aid to the Council, even though LREC remained

operational with a new management committee.

• A growing number of new migrant and refugee communities in the borough with needs,

networks and forms of intervention that are quite different to those of the established migrant

communities that were primarily from the Caribbean and India.

• The negative experiences of black schoolchildren, revealed at public events that challenged

the Council’s approach, following the suicide of 10 year old Jevan Richardson

Birmingham

The case study of Birmingham is important because it highlights the need to see the impact of

ethnic minorities as involving contradictory trends. During the 1990s there was a pattern of

increased minority representation in local politics and we found that this has led to continued

pressure for increased minority representation in both local and parliamentary elections. This has

had a major impact on party politics, particularly in the context of the Labour Party. In addition,

however, we have seen the emergence of community diaspora politics in the form of the Peoples

Justice Party, which oriented itself towards the homeland politics around Kashmir and the

inadequacies of the Labour Party in dealing with the needs of minority communities. At its high

point the party gained 5 seats on the local council and put a candidate in the 2001 General

Election. Subsequently the party has fractured and is substantially weaker, but their emergence

may point to the likely role of ethnic or faith-based parties in some local political environments.

A recurrent concern in our research in Birmingham was the question of the impact of minority

politics in terms of the allocation of resources, particularly in key arenas such as urban

regeneration (BCC, 2001). While a number of our respondents within the local council pointed

to the idea of Birmingham as a model for innovative action in this field, it is also clear that

within community groups there is a concern that the initiatives taken in the past decade or so

have not produced radical changes on the ground for minority communities. The issue of

neighbourhood renewal funds has proved to be a potentially controversial issue in recent years,

partly because of concerns that particular minority communities have not benefited equally from

the distribution of funding and resources, though they were defined as key beneficiaries in bids

for funds.

c. Key results from the transitional sphere

Our conceptualisation of a ‘transitional sphere’ enabled us to identify the growth and

development of organisations that have acquired a greater significance since the election of New

Labour in 1997 and are concerned with defending or advancing the interests of ethnic minority

communities. Whether, these organisations were set up to be overtly political, to act as

professional associations or are faith-based, they were found to be situated outside mainstream

institutions whilst maintaining a close relationship with that mainstream. A key distinction

between ‘transitional sphere organisations’ and ‘alternative public sphere organisations’ is the

focus of the former on questions of strategy and policy rather than on service delivery or single

issues. Through our interviews and observations, we found a significant degree of overlap. While

each organisation had a distinct history, membership and structure, we also found informal

activist networks, overlaps in membership, crossovers in staffing, common campaigns and

issues. We also identified a ‘bridging’ role played by these organisations. Clear links into

mainstream networks, such as the Greater London Authority and local councils were evident.

There were also links with some of the alternative public sphere organisations, serving to

maintain a connection with campaigns, churches, mosques and community organisations on the

ground. The multiple positioning of some actors facilitated these connections.

d. Key arguments about alternative public sphere

At its most crude the campaigns around the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the publication of the

Satanic Verses, the role of faith communities in local structures of governance and the debates

about asylum seekers are simply not possible to understand within a restricted notion of the

‘political’ that corresponds with a limited notion of ‘political participation’. Yet equally it is the

case that the contributors to the project share a concern with the manner in which the cultural

studies and anthropological ‘takes’ on issues of race and contemporary racism tends to lead

analysis away from the mainstream institutions of democratic governance. Consequently –

though simplifying slightly – this project demonstrates that notions of race and multiculture tend

to be either marginalized within many accounts of the principal political institutions of British

governance or celebrated within a populist discussion of the cosmopolitan culture of the

contemporary British metropolis.

In this context we have attempted to analyse alternative forms of participation in civil society

institutions that clearly address the ethical settlement of the multicultural society. We examined

six case studies – slightly different in kind from those of the original proposal and in slightly

greater detail than was originally proposed (see Diagram 2). Rather than document the results

from each of these case studies in turn it is possible to generalise the results from the studies of

the alternative public sphere.

Cultural based politics broadening the constitution of the political

There is a very real sense in which cultural politics defines a different space of the political.

Paradoxically, the reception hall of the architectural practice and the recording studio may share

the ability to define a new place of politics where dominant or conventional values are

challenged. This in part might be seen – after Charles Taylor, as a realisation of a politics of

recognition (Taylor, 1994). More prosaically, there is a real sense of ethical commitment

reinforced by trust relations and perceived efficacy of participation being generated by

participation in relatively new institutional forms of the alternative public sphere. It can be

captured by a notion of participants seeing themselves somewhere at the heart of the alternative

public sphere rather than in the periphery of mainstream institutions.

The glocalisation of the political

The case studies presented a strong sense that participation in the alternative public sphere was

distinguished by the fact that politics here is linked to a politics of elsewhere. By this we mean

that multiculturalism challenges the configuration of the polis within the politics of the nation

state. This is true in different ways in the development of racialised networks across the country

around racial attacks, the flows of influence that structure musical or architectural practice, the

role of Islam in uniting mobilisation or the broadcasting of feminist tracts to Iran from London.

In part this speaks to the manner in which cosmopolitan realities of value, culture and

demography challenge conventional theorisations of political participation. In part also we

demonstrated in case studies the presence of a global familiar through which a sense of

community network transcends national boundaries to provide a different frame of reference for

political participation than the institutions of the liberal democratic state.

The fictitious world of ‘not the state’

A recurrent feature of the reasons given for participating in the institutions of the alternative

public sphere was that they were putatively not complicit in the institutional forms of

conventional politics. Paradoxically, both the political values at the heart of such mobilisation

and the banal realities of political activity meant that such social movements needed to be placed

against the analytical horizon of state forms. Asylum seeking, housing rights, voluntary sector

funding, campaigns for civil rights, all involved working simultaneously with and against

governmental institutions. In this sense the reasons for becoming involved (not the council, not

the government, not the state) – generating the efficacy of participation – might in some senses

become undermined by the practice of the movements themselves. In part we tried to capture this

phenomenon by an understanding of the fictitious world beyond the state that is central to the

rationalisation of participation in some of the institutions of the alternative public sphere. Such a

conceptualisation fits well with political theory writing that captures the transactional boundary

between state and civil society through nuanced regimes of governmentality (Rose, 1999; Barry,

2001).

Incorporation or mainstreaming diversity

A direct corollary of the desire to be involved in organisations that were not contaminated by the

institutions of the mainstream political sphere was a fear in many of the institutions of the

alternative public sphere that they would be subsumed by the mainstreaming of their particular

effort. Specific needs once campaigned for (through political participation) might be recognised,

and – to an extent – accommodated in (less political) welfare provision. This was particularly

true of activists and professionals involved in the BME Housing Association movement

(although was also articulated by lawyers and third sector professionals). There was a sense in

the Housing Association work in particular of a social movement that was rooted in squatting,

campaigns against institutional racism and the denial of rights had become successful but at a

cost. In a sense the ethical challenges of participation were displaced by the managerial

challenges of mainstream in a national context where the value of BME associations was less

readily accepted for financial reasons.

The roles of alternative professions

There was a strong sense in the alternative sphere of the ability of different professionals to

contribute in distinctive ways ethically. In this sense political participation needs to be

reconceptualised slightly. Lawyers, musicians, third sector activists, housing workers or

architects might work ‘outside’ conventional frames of political participation but alter their

activity or working practices for political reasons. This might apply to their casework, their

charging, their prioritisation, their refusal of alternative career opportunities. It did point to a

separation of such contributions from the mainstream public sphere, although whether such

contributions should or should not be classified as participatory is moot.

e. Mobilisation, trust and exclusion

The project was not based exclusively around the language and theoretical interests that are most

readily identified with contemporary debates around the value of social capital, that owe their

genealogy most directly to the work of Robert Putnam, and were at the heart of the ESRC

Democracy and Participation Programme. However, we do believe that the results of our work

do speak to the concerns of such work. Specifically we have identified how trust networks differ

significantly amongst BME communities and activists from those amongst the mainstream.

The development of links that both bond collectivities (bonding social capital) and develop

national and transnational networks (bridging social capital) are clearly at the heart of the more

successful forms of political participation that we have examined. These need to be seen in terms

of both the solidarity of commonalities of experience and the uniting forces of exclusion and

racism. It is clearly the case that exclusion from some realms of conventional political

participation is displaced into activities through the creation of new institutions in the

intermediate and alternative public spheres.

It is also the case that the ethnographic and qualitative nature of the research allowed us to

achieve a deeper understanding of the motivations of people and groups becoming involved in

various forms of political participation and the rationalities and strategies that informed such

interventions. In this sense the project speaks directly to debates around the efficacy of

participation that are also at the heart of the ESRC programme and we have written work that

directly addresses this notion.

Consequently, we have tried to address the conceptualisation of a debate about the nature of

political participation in the United Kingdom - drawn from a particular strand of normative

political theory that informed the shaping of the ESRC research programme. W have also

reframed and reconceptualised some of the basic concepts at the heart of this debate. In this

sense we believe that our work speaks both to the debate itself and to an interdisciplinary

readership in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and urbanism.

5 Activities

In order to disseminate our research for this project we took part in the following conferences:

2002

‘Divided Cosmopolis: Youth and Cultural Politics’ Seventh International Metropolis

Conference, Oslo, Norway, 12th September

‘Falling from the Sky: The Politics of Global Movement and the Wretched at the Border’

Seventh International Metropolis Conference, Oslo, Norway, 12th September

‘When Hate Speaks the Language of Love’ Conference of Social Movements: Contestation and

Cultures, London School of Economics, 12th April

‘New Labour and Race After September 11th’, Political Studies Association Annual Conference,

University of Aberdeen, 7th April 2002

‘Race, Community and Multicultural Politics: Local and National Forms of Political

Mobilisation’ paper presented at Closing Plenary of BSA Annual Conference, University of

Leicester 27-29 March

2001

‘The Transitional Sphere in Britain’s Ethnic Minority Political Movement’ paper presented at

conference on Alternative Futures and Popular Protest, Manchester Metropolitan University, 17-

19 April

‘Democratic Governance and Ethnic Minority Political Participation in Contemporary Britain’

paper presented ESRC Democracy and Participation Programme Conference, University of

Manchester, 22 March

2000

‘Race Community and Multicultural Politics: The role of local and national forms of political

mobilisation’ paper presented at conference on Explaining Changes in Migration Policy: Debates

from Different Perspectives, University of Geneva, 27-28 October

‘Islam and the New Political Landscape of Contemporary East London’ paper presented at

Conference on Religion and Politics, University of Oxford, September

6 Outputs

2002

‘Challenge of Unrest Brings Out Labour’s True Colours’ The Higher 14 June 2002, 22-23

‘New Labour’s White Heart: Politics, Multiculturalism and the Return of Assimilation’ Political

Quarterly 73, 4: 445-54

‘The Return of Assimilationism: Race, Multiculturalism and New Labour’ Sociological

Research Online 7, 2

http://www.socresonline.org.uk/7/2/back.html

We plan that we shall write a number of key papers for academic journals and we are in the

process of negotiating for a book based on this research. The book will be entitled Power,

Identity and Representation: Race, Governance and Mobilisation in British Society, and we are

talking to a number of publishers, including Routledge.

7 Impacts

We envisage that apart from the activities and outputs reported above we shall work in the

second part of 2003 and in 2004 to ensure that the key research findings are made accessible to

stakeholders and policy communities concerned with ethnic minority politics.

8 Future research priorities

We feel that the findings from this project will help to refocus research on the changing forms of

political participation among minority communities. In terms of future research, however, it is

important to ensure that more attention is given to the presence of new migrations, the

generational changes within migrant communities and the growing significance of faith based

mobilisation. Changing patterns of ethnic minority political engagement and participation need

to be explored in different localities and political cultures. In order to help to shape some

discussion of these and related issues we organised a conference on ‘Race, Racism, Ethnicity:

Changing Research Agendas’ at Goldsmiths College on 23rd November 2002. It attracted over 60

participants, working on various aspects of race and ethnic relations in contemporary Britain. In

early 2004 we shall organise a research workshop specifically on the key themes we have

covered in this project and will invite scholars and policy makers who are engaged with this area

in order to facilitate more discussion about the priorities to be addressed in future research.

References

Ali, R. and O’Cinneide, C. (2002) Our House: Race and Representation in British Politics

London: Institute for Public Policy Research

Amin, A. (2002) Ethnicity and the Multicultural City: Living With Diversity Liverpool John

Moores University, The Cities Programme

Anwar, M. (2001) ‘The participation of ethnic minorities in British politics’ Journal of Ethnic

and Migration Studies 27, 3: 533-49

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Appendix 1

Diagram 1

Formal Public Sphere Transitional Alternative Public Sphere

Youth Movements

Islamic Youth Movements in London

12 interviews

Local Authority Area 1

Birmingham

100 interviews

Cultural Youth Movement (Arts based)

12 interviews

Third Sector Activity

BME Housing Associations

12 interviews

Local Authority Area 2

Tower Hamlets

100 interviews

SIA/Black Voluntary Sector Umbrella Group

12 interviews

Multiracial Mobilisation Local Authority Area 3

Greenwich/Lewisham

100 interviews

National Assembly Against Racism

12 interviews

Operation Black Vote

12 interviews

Single Issue Campaigns

(Civil Rights)

12 interviews

Appendix 2

Diagram 2

Formal Public Sphere Transitional Alternative Public Sphere

Youth Movements

Islamic Youth Movements in London

and Faith Communities

25 interviews

Local Authority Area 1

Birmingham

70 interviews

Cultural Youth Movement (Arts based)

25 interviews

Third Sector Activity

BEM Housing Associations

25 interviews

Local Authority Area 2

Tower Hamlets

70 interviews

Black Voluntary Sector Umbrella Group

25 interviews

Multiracial Mobilisation

Single Issue Campaigns

(Civil Rights)

25 interviews

Local Authority Area 3

Lewisham

70 interviews

National Assembly Against Racism

25 interviews

Operation Black Vote

25 interviews

Asylum Seekers Movement

25 interviews