ABSTRACT
Regardless of their particularities, past studies of immigrant offspring have taken for granted their foreseeable total ‘integration’ into the host society. This predicted process, however, is neither as simple nor inevitable as was originally envisioned. Instead, and as seen in many West European countries, there is a growing phenomenon of fragmented or dual communities, characterised by social exclusion, spatial segregation and, in many cases, mounting urban violence (e.g. the Oldham, Bradford and Burnley riots in 2001 and the Paris riots in 2005). These ‘cities-within-cities’ are often sustained by the operation of solidarity and trust, which create valuable support networks and unique economic opportunities for immigrants, as well as creating ‘guarded’ areas for the second generation. These communities can be perceived to depend on their [ethnic] social capital: a concept associated particularly with Pierre Bourdieu (1986), James Coleman (1988, 1990) and Robert Putnam (1993a, b, 1995, 2000) that broadly refers to social networks, the reciprocities that arise from them and the value of these for the achievement of mutual goals. Paradoxically, however, this same ‘resource’ that seems to be responsible for their segregation, and even exclusion from mainstream society in the first place, is also considered to be their main asset towards achieving ‘integration’.
