Belonging in Brixton: An Ethnography of Migrant West Indian Elders in Brixton, London

341 Pages·2020·4.904 MB·English

by  Audrey Allwood

Belonging in Brixton
An Ethnography of
Migrant West Indian
Elders in Brixton, London
Audrey Allwood
Belonging in Brixton
Audrey Allwood
Belonging in Brixton
An Ethnography of Migrant West Indian Elders
in Brixton, London
Audrey Allwood
Department of Anthropology
Goldsmiths University of London
London, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-54597-0 ISBN 978-3-030-54598-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54598-7
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Brixton: Come in Love
P
reface
My Motivation for Writing this Book
The decision to write this brook rose out of a personal and academic
interest on the experiences of migrants from the West Indies, residing in
Britain. My aim in this book is to provide information about an under-
researched part of that community, namely the elderly people who
migrated in the ‘Windrush’1 era of migration, and to add to the schol-
arly body of knowledge on this migrant group. In particular, to capture
and document the details of the legacy of their migration, but rather
than lay emphasis on the legacy of the West Indian migration on British
culture and society, this gaze is focused on the opposite. Consequently,
the interest here is concerned with the impact of migration on the peo-
ple who came from the West Indies and remained in Britain, living into
the elderly stage of the life course. To some degree, the West Indian
community still face discrimination and exclusion and people continue
to adjust within Britain, so it is within the adjustment process that this
book explores how the elderly people negotiate their belonging,
through the examination of everyday life experiences. It also arises from
the sentiment, ‘Come in Love’, that is written in a welcome mural on
the bridge at the entrance to central Brixton,2 that I believe
1 The ‘Windrush’ era of migration refers to those who migrated to Britain from the West
Indies during the period 1948–1971.
2 ‘Come in Love’, artwork by Farouk A Agoro and Akil Scafe-Smith, commissioned by
Lambeth Council.
vii
viii PREFACE
encapsulates the heart the West Indian migrants brought with them to
Britain and that which ignites my passion to share their experiences.
Belonging
Why I Am Interested to Explore Belonging?
I answer this question by sharing my understanding of what belonging
means, reflecting that found in the Cambridge Dictionary,3 that reads,
Belong: ‘to be in the right place or a suitable place … to feel happy … or
comfortable in a situation’.
Belonging is a complex word, loaded with important meaning to us as
humans, particularly because we need secure attachments to develop
healthy identities and sense of self, to feel value in existence and in the
place that we live.
I therefore use belonging to describe the processes of attachment that
encompass how we think, feel, act, and settle. I situate belonging in the
phrase ‘sense of belonging’ to describe the processes because ‘sense’ relates
to feelings and the process of movement and settlement is emotionally
determined, as well as socially influenced. Indeed, when people move
away from home to a new country with a different culture, language and
communication style, climate, social mores, and expectations based on
class and race, where comfortable attachment is often absent at the outset,
navigation and negotiation are required to find one’s position. The navi-
gations and negotiations also encompass the readjustments required to
the country of origin, as well as managing the imagined preconceptions
and experiences in the new place. Consequently, living among new people
and experiencing new encounters require adaptation to find the best fit, to
acquire balanced well-being, with an identity that affords one to feel they
belong, where they reside. However, this is a vigorous process for migrants
and their families.
As I reflect on how and why my interest in belonging grew and how the
idea for this project developed, I will share some personal experiences that
I encountered during my early life in England. Indeed, it was through
reflexive self-exploration, as an adult, that I really began to unravel what
3 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/belonging, 14.04.2019
PREFACE ix
was going on regarding my own sense of belonging. Up to this point,
reacting was the automatic mode of action by doing what was necessary to
survive the experiences, but what was going on was more than pure jerked
reflex reaction. For as I looked at the choices that my ‘outsider’, ‘insider’,
merged differences had given me, I realised that I was living through a
complex process, as I navigated my sense of belonging.
Though I live in London, where I was born, I have a Jamaican cultural
lifestyle and visit Jamaica through partaking in the spatial ‘diasporic’ move-
ments that migrants and their children make. Therefore, I exist with influ-
ences formed from fluid cultures, as described in Teju Cole’s novel
(Gehrmann 2016). Indeed, being mobile between spaces, like many of my
parents’ generation, harbours similarities to the ‘Afropolitan’ generation
that Taiye Selasi draws upon in her novel concerning migrants who experi-
ence a mixture of ‘restlessness’, unrootedness’, and ‘unbelonging’, encom-
passing the struggle for identity (Gehrmann 2016).
Looking back into childhood, my reflections on encounters and behav-
iours of other children show that my identity and sense of belonging were
in question. Nonetheless, as a resident in South London, where I grew up,
I endeavoured to fit into my environment, manage my comfort, and
engage with others. Although, at that early stage in my life, I had not yet
acquired an academic understanding of belonging, I had acquired a feel-
ing of being different from my engagements outside of my household.
Therefore, it was as a mature adult, when new migrants to Britain asked
me, ‘Did you always feel that you belong here?’, that the reflection on the
experiences I encountered whilst growing up in British society provided
me with the opportunity and the desire to explore deeply within the ques-
tioning. Consequently, my response also serves to explain why exploring
belonging interests me. I recall, in reply to the question, I told the story
that follows:
I remember growing up in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, and as a young
girl I experienced encounters that exposed me as different, and I felt that
difference. At primary school, while socialising in the playground, some
white British classmates asked me, ‘Is your blood-red?’ Further, asking me if
my blood was like theirs! They would stroke my skin and touch my hair
(uninvited) to feel me, because they were trying to understand me, while
seeking to connect with our similarity beneath our obvious differences. This
somewhat unwelcome intrusion into my personal being was offensive to me.
However, they were working out how to relate to me in a way that made
x PREFACE
sense and was comfortable for them, because we were at school, and in the
company of each other. The nature of such questioning indicated to me that
they were not like me, and for sure, I was not like them. Yet, I was with them
at school and we lived in the same community, we played together, we learnt
in the classroom together, some other children in our neighbourhood even
came to my home and ate dinner with me, but there was something differ-
ent about me. This left me feeling somewhat confused, annoyed and
at ill ease.
At this point the gasp of my conversant would interrupt me, as a further
question followed, typically on the lines of, ‘So what did you do?’ I would
reply saying,
Well, I sought to manage my difference at primary school. I learnt to live
with the difference, discomfort, and similarities. Although, I was not settled
in that space I just wanted to be accepted and I wanted to belong, albeit
with one foot in and one foot out.
Interestingly, my exploration and negotiation have remained, for I am
constantly re-examining my position, self, and sense of belonging in
Britain, because the influencing narratives constantly shift in response to
changes in the population construction and the governing social, eco-
nomic, and political structures and systems locally, and globally, that affect
Britain and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, my journey is no longer passive
because I recognise that through resilience, I ‘consciously’ re-position
myself to suit my comfort and find value in my life and in society, using my
personal choice and will, to navigate and manoeuvre in the places where I
find affinity and acceptance, and avoid where I do not.
The jostling I exercise to find my place is not unique to me because I
shared this type of journey with my parents. In fact, they taught and
helped me by equipping me with skills to do this job. I listened to my
parents’ stories and witnessed them navigating their way through life in
Britain. For they too were also ‘different’ and experienced ‘discomfort’,
occupying an interesting ‘insider’ yet ‘outsider’ position to Britain, whilst
changing their perspectives towards their country of origin, familial con-
tact, and initial dream of returning to Jamaica. I also observed them
manoeuvring their thoughts, as a response to changes to immigration law
and political shifts that ensued. They were concerned with how safe they
felt about living in Britain and their status, against the background of
PREFACE xi
hearing of violent attacks by racist groups such as the National Front on
black people, alongside issues of police brutality in the Caribbean com-
munity (Gilroy 1987, 1993), causing them concern for the safety of
their sons.
I recall my parents’ membership of the Association of Jamaicans, and
the social events we attended as a family, that solidified me being Jamaican
with and through my parents and their cohort, as well as going to school
and being British with other British children, though I was often the ‘dif-
ferent’. I remember being sick when I started school and ate school lunch,
because I was not accustomed to such food preparation, and my mum
coming for me at lunchtime so I could go home and enjoy her (our) food.
I also remember, at primary school age, the grocery man delivering West
Indian provisions on a Friday night to our rented flat. I remember the
picture of Bustamante4 on the wall in our front room and the drawings
that I made, as a child, of the Jamaican flag at home, and the Union Jack
at school. I occupied two cultural spheres in different ways and both influ-
enced my agency, sense of self and belonging in Britain.
Again, at primary school age, I clearly recall my mum saying that she
came to England to earn money and return home and buy a home in
Stony Hill, St. Andrew’s, Jamaica. My dad wanted to return to Jamaica
but he could not and eventually my mum did not want to return, so they
both stayed.
In addition, looking back, it was in Secondary School, when I took
Sociology as an ‘O Level’ subject option that my academic interest to
study society and the people within it ignited and remained through my
undergraduate and master degrees. While continuing my education, I
encountered literature on Caribbean identity that showed that such navi-
gation was widespread among other migrants and that identity (Hall
1996), the state, and race played a part in fitting into British society (Gilroy
1993), and this validated my interest further.
Interestingly, it was as adult that my dad involved my brother and me
in his desire to sort out ‘family land’5 in Jamaica. He engaged us in a
return trip to Jamaica to undertake the legal process of surveying the
4 Sir Alexander Bustamante became the first prime minister of Jamaica in 1962. He
founded the Jamaican Labour Party and started the Trade union to represent workers’ rights.
5 ‘Family Land’ is land that belongs to a family linage, passing on from one generation to
another without sale.