Black Middle-Class Britannia: Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption PDF
Preview Black Middle-Class Britannia: Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption
v BLACK MIDDLE-CLASS BRITANNIA .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .ss e rP ytisre vin U re tse h cn a M .9 1 0 2 © th g iryp o C Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. RACISM, RESISTANCE AND SOCIAL CHANGE FORTHCOMING BOOKS IN THIS SERIES Race talk: Languages of racism and resistance in Neapolitan street markets: Antonia Dawes The Red and the Black: The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic: David Featherstone and Christian Høgsbjerg (eds) Revolutionary lives of the Red and Black Atlantic: David Featherstone, Christian Høgsbjerg and Alan Rice (eds) Urban unrest: Black resistance to policing in contemporary England: Adam Elliott-Cooper African and Mexican American men and collective violence, 1915–65: Margarita Aragon East London Jewish radicals: Ben Gidley PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THIS SERIES In the shadow of Enoch Powell: Shirin Hirsch Race and riots in Thatcher’s Britain: Simon Peplow .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U re tse h cn a M .9 1 0 2 © th g iryp o C Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. Black middle-class Britannia Identities, repertoires, cultural consumption Ali Meghji .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U re tse h cn a M .9 1 0 2 © th Manchester University Press g iryp o C Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. Copyright © Ali Meghji 2019 The right of Ali Meghji to be identifed as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 4307 5 hardback First published 2019 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third- party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Cover photo by Stephanie Nnamani. Getty Images .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U re tse h cna Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services M .9 1 0 2 © th g iryp o C Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. Contents Contents Contents List of tables vi Series editors’ foreword vii Acknowledgements viii 1 Introduction – Taking of the colour-blind goggles: crafting a study on Britain’s Black middle class 1 2 Towards a triangle of Black middle-class identity 23 3 White spaces: consuming traditional middle-class culture 53 4 Constructing and using Black cultural capital 77 5 Revisiting race and nation: double consciousness, Black Britishness, and cultural consumption 99 6 Race, class, and culture in the British racialised social system 120 Appendix: Building a refexive case study of the Black middle class 142 .d evre References 158 ser sth Index 177 g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U re tse h cn a M .9 1 0 2 © th g iryp o C v Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. Tables Series editors’ foreword Tables 2.1 Introducing the triangle of identity 30 2.2 Identity modes and their corresponding cultural repertoires 31 .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U re tse h cn a M .9 1 0 2 © th g iryp o C vi Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. Series editors’ foreword Series editors’ foreword John Solomo s, Satnam Virdee, Aaron Winter The study of race, racism and ethnicity has expanded greatly since the end of the twentieth century. This expansion has coincided with a growing awareness of the continuing role that these issues play in contemporary societies all over the globe. Racism, Resistance and Social Change is a new series of books that seeks to make a substantial contribution to this fourishing feld of scholar- ship and research. We are committed to providing a forum for the publication of the highest quality scholarship on race, racism, anti-racism and ethnic rela- tions. As editors of this series we would like to publish both theoretically driven books and texts with an empirical frame that seek to further develop our under- standing of the origins, development and contemporary forms of racisms, racial inequalities and racial and ethnic relations. We welcome work from a range of theoretical and political perspectives, and as the series develops we ideally want to encourage a conversation that goes beyond specifc national or geopolitical environments. While we are aware that there are important diferences between national and regional research traditions, we hope that scholars from a variety of .d e disciplines and multidisciplinary frames will take the opportunity to include their vre se research work in the series. r sthg As the title of the series highlights, we also welcome texts that can address ir llA .sse issues about resistance and antiracism as well as the role of political and policy rP interventions in this rapidly evolving discipline. The changing forms of racist ytisre mobilisation and expression that have come to the fore in recent years have high- vinU lighted the need for more refection and research on the role of political and civil re tse society mobilisations in this feld. h cna We are committed to building on theoretical advances by providing an arena M .91 for new and challenging theoretical and empirical studies on the changing mor- 0 2 © phology of race and racism in contemporary societies. th g iryp o C vii Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. Acknowledgements Acknowledgements Acknowledgements My first acknowledgement goes to the participants of this study. None of this research would have been possible without these wonderful partici- pants volunteering their time, and their narratives and experiences are the foun- dation of this book. I have also received a great deal of academic support in writing this book. At Cambridge, Dr Mónica Moreno Figueroa – a wonderful colleague and mentor whom I will always look up to – supported my research with the Black middle class from day one. Mónica gave me invaluable support on my research meth- ods, writing, and overall thinking – she taught me what sociological imagina- tion is all about, and accompanied me all the way down to the depths of critical race studies. Dr Filipe Carreira da Silva has supported my sociological studies and writing since I became interested in the topic, and his ongoing advice has been infuential in my thinking around social theory and cultural sociology. I have had the pleasure of having my work – both in its infancy and in its more developed stages – commented on by Dr Manali Desai, Professor Patrick Baert, Professor John Thompson, Dr Brendan Burchell, and Professor Sarah Franklin. .de Conversations with my friends Valentina Ausserladscheider, Tanisha Spratt, vre se Me-Linh Riemann, and many of the undergraduate and graduate students that I r sthg have had the pleasure of teaching have helped form the arguments in these pages. ir llA .sserP PCroolfleegsseo, rt oS acroamh pFlreaten kthlien w krinitdinlyg goafv teh mis eb oreoske.arch time, ofered by Sidney Sussex ytisre Outside my institution there is a whole network of people who have strongly vinU infuenced and supported the writing of this book. A friend and collaborator, re tse Rima Saini, helped me form ideas around whiteness and middle-class identity, h cna and her own work on race and class is going to shake up sociology. Professors M .91 Les Back and Satnam Virdee both provided deep critiques of my work which 0 2 © have signifcantly developed many of the ideas and themes and much of the th g iryp writing in this book. Both Les and Satnam (in Les’s words) taught me about o C viii Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019. Acknowledgements Acknowledgements remembering the ‘morality of criticism’ – I hope we all take that forward with us in sociology and academia more generally. Satnam also edits the series Racism, Resistance and Social Change (RRSC), within which this book is published, along with Dr Aaron Winter and Professor John Solomos. When I attended the sym- posium for John Solomos, everyone mentioned that there is not a single person in Britain working on racism, race, and ethnicity that doesn’t owe at least something to John. In my case, John has ofered me great support and advice, on this work and much more broadly. Again, I hope the academic community keeps building this kindness. Aaron was the frst person I talked to about publishing this book in the RRSC series, and he has given invaluable support throughout the process. And of course, Tom Dark, the editor at Manchester University Press, has been fantastic, moving this project from a book proposal to a completed monograph. Conversations and exchanges with a host of other scholars also gave me indispensable help with this book’s arguments. Dr Derron Wallace has given me enthusiastic support and advice with my work on the Black middle class; his own work on the Black middle class is pushing the feld forward, and I am grateful for his kindness and mentorship. Professor Claire Alexander kindly invited me to present my research at Manchester’s Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity, where I received invaluable feedback on my preliminary research interpretations. We often tell our students that research and writing is a messy process, but struggle to say exactly how. For me, a lot of the ‘messiness’ was cleared up in an email exchange with my now sponsor at the Weatherhead Centre at Harvard, Professor Michèle Lamont, who suggested I look beyond the more predictable focus on solely ‘cultural capital’. The framework in this book is indebted to Michèle’s developments in cultural sociology, boundaries, and cultural repertoires. (Again thanks to John) I had the pleasure of attending the Ethnic and Racial Studies journal’s fortieth anniversary conference, where I was able to discuss some of .d e vre my research with eminent thinkers in the feld, including Professor Karyn Lacy, se r sth whose work on Black middle-class identity is very formative to my thinking. On g ir llA the theme of journals, I thank all the reviewers and editors who have worked .sse with me on my papers that have been foundational for this manuscript, as well as rP ytisrevin the Lreavsitelyw, etrhse oref tihs ism my apnaurstcnreirp,t Eitmseillfy. Chan. Emily continually gives me love, U re care, afection, and encouragement. She celebrates each of my accomplishments, tse hcn no matter how small or large, and she is also the frst person to pick me up when a M things aren’t going well. Having Emily by my side has helped me deal with all the .9 1 02 trials and tribulations of academia. © th Thank you, everybody. g iryp o C ix Meghji, Ali. Black Middle-Class Britannia : Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption, Manchester University Press, 2019.
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