ABSTRACT
Academic trends have significantly increased the concern with methodology in the social sciences and humanities. This chapter reviews the labelling of minority racialised groups in British academic and to some extent policy discourse. It considers how useful a means of labelling groups 'self-definition' is, given the multiple identifications that are possible for any one group. Muslim, Mirpuri, (Azad) Kashmiri, Pakistani, Asian and Black are, and have been, used to represent racialised/ethnicised groups in a variety of academic and media discourses. The chapter argues that each of these terms is only capable of describing single, unitary constituencies which underplay divisions of gender and generation. It explores the ethical issues that this kind of research raised. The labelling of racialised/ethnicised minority groups by academia, the media, community leaders and members of the groups themselves is neither consistent nor static. In urban research, personal, bureaucratic and historical encounters that respondents have experienced oftentimes foreground relationships with them in the field.
