ABSTRACT
As we move towards the end of the twentieth century, ideas about nationhood, culture and identity are increasingly seen either as in a state of attrition and fragmentation or as being reified through a lan guage of authenticity and cultural absolutism. The choice is presented pointedly as one between viewing cultures as rooted and fixed and a vision of cultural processes as in a constant state of flux producing creative and promiscuous routeways of identification. What is omit ted in the deafening row over “essentialism” versus “anti-essentialism” is the complex interplay between these two impulses at the everyday level and how forms of social exclusion and inclusion work through notions of belonging and entitlement in particular times and places. Within Europe’s major conurbations, complex and exhilarat ing forms of transcultural production exist simultaneously with the most extreme forms of violence and racism. Urban vernacular cul tures possess incommensurable political impulses that allow racism and transculturalism to be simultaneously proximate and sympto matic of what it means to grow up in post-imperial cities (Bhabha 1994). This metropolitan paradox cannot be comprehended within the binary “either/or” logic of the current debate over culture and essentialism. The central argument of this book is that multiply in flected forms of social identity are being expressed within cities such as London but these are equally being met by multiply accented forms of popular racism that sometimes operate inside urban multiculture and at other times prey on these fragile forms of dialogue from out side.
