ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the politicised discourse on segregation in Britain and its policy implications. It explores the construction of minority ethnic clustering as a problem and argues that this discourse embodies anomalies and contradictions. The chapter investigates everyday understandings of race and place amongst British Asian and white young people living in three northern, former textile towns; Bradford, Oldham and Rochdale. These localities have in many ways become emblematic of the failings of multicultural Britain in the public imagination. The continuing racialisation of space means that some people found it difficult to envisage crossing the established boundaries of ethnic space. It also explores how these boundaries are perpetuated by national discourses, local myths and the legacy of racism. Political and policy anxieties about minority ethnic segregation are particularly grounded in concerns about exposure or isolation, as evidenced by the parallel lives debate and notions of self-segregation.