Introducción. Algoritmos de agrupamiento en clases o clustering

I wouldn‟t say I belong to Britain. But I wouldn‟t see where else I belong. (Abuzar, Interview, 06/04/09)

An underlying theme that comes out of this project is that of how scale affects identity. When the scale is small, neighbourhood-level communities can demonstrate more clearly the bonds that hold them together and that make them feel like they belong. Chapter 4 examined just how such local processes work and what was demonstrated was that a ‘British’ belonging was part of the experience of everyday life; place-belongingness, as Antonsich (2010) described it. However, when the scale is widened from the ‘local’ to the ‘national’ and ‘trans-national’, belonging and attachment become somewhat more political and simultaneously more intangible. Anderson (1990) asserted in his treatise of nationalism that nations themselves were ‘imagined communities’ but this intangible nature of nationality however does not render it any less meaningful. Instead, we engage in a discourse where the notion of an ‘imagined’ sense of community starts to become as important if not even more important than direct connections in physical spaces. Belonging then becomes something that lies between reality and imagination, performance and belief. But this dimension of belonging is also more political, as the very construct of the nation is inherently a Political entity.

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Debates around national belonging therefore tend to be politically loaded, and more closely associated with the concept Antonsich (2009) and Yuval-Davis (2006) described as the ‘politics of belonging’.

In debates around ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’, Britishness is spoken of, rather than British citizenship. Britishness is to the ‘nation’ what citizenship is to ‘the state’; it is inherently a politically loaded term, and it is worth investigating its historical roots. Colley (1992) in a reflection of Britishness through the last two and a half centuries suggests that Britishness and the idea of the British nation has always been used to distinguish Britain from the ‘Other’, and that in the post-war era, with a lack of any external threat, the ‘Other’ has become somewhat of an internal threat, helping to define what is ‘British’. Similarly Robins (1997) and Wallwork and Dixon (2004) detail in their studies the socially constructed, imagined and often exclusionary nature of nationhood, with specific reference to Britishness. Through their studies it is clear that ‘Britishness’ is a term that fits in with Yuval-Davis’ (2006) notion of the politics of belonging; she argues that there is a space in between legalistic notions of citizenship and emotional components of belonging; and these can be used and manipulated to exclude the Other.

Given the politically loaded nature of the term then, it is perhaps no surprise that during interviews for this project, the subject of Britishness was one which seemed to draw out the difficulties of defining nationality for our participants. When asked directly about their belonging to the UK or sense of Britishness, responses tended towards expressing citizenship, rather than the more emotional affirmations of belonging referred to when discussing more localised identities. It may seem mundane, but once again many young British Muslims see the UK as their home; the one they have grown up in, are comfortable in, the state in which they have constructed social and cultural networks and the state in which they envisage living in the future. This reflects the ideas of Antonsich (2010) who proposed that comfort and socio-spatial engagement are key components of belonging. For our participants there is little in the way of anxiety about the nature of that British identity; some express contentment, one respondent even pride at being British. But they struggle to elucidate on

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the emotional component of that identity. Instead they are rationally able to explain why place is important.

To be honest with you I‟m a British Muslim Pakistani...I mean, at the end of the day I was born here, grew up here and I‟ve been back to my old country a lot. I‟ve been back on ten or eleven occasions and for a week or two or six weeks or once for six months – and the last two times I went was for three months at a time so I do love it there...its where my parents were bought up and my grandparents are from there. But I do see England as my home though. Cause its where I grew up, you know what I mean.

(Imran, Interview, 04/04/09)

The reference to Pakistan is important to note. Although a few of the respondents spoke about emotional attachment to their parent’s homelands, generally it was something that did not come up in conversation. Being ‘Pakistani’, ‘Bangladeshi’ or ‘Indian’ was a component of identity but certainly not a place where any of the respondents felt they belonged. When asked about identity or whether or not respondents feel British, the answer tends to revolve again around the social networks, the everyday and life experiences that are all formed here in Britain - the question evokes ‘place- belongingness’ as Antonsich (ibid) describes it, rather than the ‘politics of belonging’ associated with more political debates about nationality and Britishness:

If you ask an immigrant his home country he don‟t say [the UK] because his friends and all that aren‟t here but my friends…everybody is here. So when you go back to Pakistan you have a good time and that but my friends are here. This is it.

(Sadiq, Interview, 12/03/09)

Two respondents who said they did still consider India to be where they belonged because both had both lived there until the age of eight and nine. With that exception it may be startling to some that the young men in the study did not speak too much about belonging to their ‘original’ homelands, where their parents were born. This raises the question of whether researching second-generation youths of South-Asian heritage through the concept of diasporas is relevant any longer. Instead as Mitchell (2000, 273-274) has suggested, through migration, national identities are being reshaped

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and re-territorialised. Nonetheless there is also a possible contradiction within the data gathered. Whilst identity crises were generally not an obvious feature of the data collected from interviews and participant observation, several professional youth workers seemed to be quite concerned about young Muslims not feeling like they belong in any single place. This concern harboured by the youth workers for their young clients is brought out by this stark, yet not necessarily representative quote from one participant:

When I went over to Pakistan they was friendly, very very friendly. But you go there and they call you „anglesee‟ – you come here and they call you Paki. It‟s a bit like being hit like a tennis ball from one place to another – you don‟t know where you belong. People say a dog can be born in a barn but doesn‟t make it a horse you know. I would say though I belong in England, Lozells.

(Zaahid, Interview, 23/05/09)

Whilst the quote might not be representative, three youth workers who were interviewed spoke at length of the internal conflicts felt by young Muslims about where they might belong. This brings us to another important finding, that discrimination and a questioning of British identity can lead to that self same identity being asserted by Muslims, to demonstrate that they have a right to belong. It is in this space that the emotional aspects of belonging and the politics behind the concept of belonging collide. For all the theorising of the diminishing importance of national-identity in a globalised world (Castells 1989, 6-7), when national identity of minority groups is challenged it can provoke a strong and emotional reaction. In the interview excerpt above, although Zaahid suggests that his identity is called into question by outsiders, ultimately he still feels he belongs in England. Once again, assertion is built not on romantic notions of loyalty to the nation-state, but on the facts of his existence in the UK, his experiences in Lozells and in England and the constant performance of his identity in those local, English, British spaces. However he also touches upon the spectre of racism and xenophobia, referring to being thought of not as a British person but as a ‘Paki’. Britishness might be an altogether ‘woolly’ concept, but it suddenly seems more concrete when an actor moves to exclude someone who they believe does not fit in. Britishness in this instance becomes an identity cemented through

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exclusion both for those who seek to exclude and those who resist that exclusion. This could be viewed as the point at which something as personal as identity gets drawn into the politics of location (hooks 1991; 145, Yuval Davis 2007, Antonsich 2010), and counter-hegemonic discourse begins to take form. This is something that Nasser, a youth worker from Aston is all too aware of:

We‟ve done many workshops and one was about the army and in World War 2. Many from the Asian subcontinent and with Bangladeshis Gujaratis and Indians (were) on the front line – the battles they fought in Italy and France – they had an active role to play and they don‟t have an understanding of that – people don‟t know that. So when people say “fuck off to your own country” – they can answer and say listen, I am part of this country, this is my history and this is the role my forefathers played and I am part of it – if someone says „Paki go home‟, normally they might think, „fuck it, I don‟t like them or this country anyway.‟ But we‟re combating that.

(Nasser, Youth worker, 02/02/09)

Indeed, racial discrimination is a theme that ran throughout the walked interviews; stories abound of encounters with abusive passers-by and suspected discrimination at the workplace. These experiences have a pervasive effect. There is recognition on the part of youth workers that demonization and negative representations of Muslims as ‘threats’ or simply not ‘British’ may make them yet more resistant to claiming their own right to a British identity. The discrimination experienced and the demonization of Muslims together and may go some way towards explaining why there is little in the way of an emotional attachment to ‘Britishness’.

Nonetheless, other youth workers suspect that there has been a significant shift towards attitudes to ethnic minorities even in the last decade, which has seen an uptake of ‘British’ identity by young Muslim men, or at least an English one. The interview and discussion which follows sprung up in the summer of 2010, just prior to the football World Cup, one of the few events which inspire an overt display of nationalistic symbols, flags, t-shirts, and the sound of chants as one wanders through the city centre. On the eve of England’s final group game (on June 22 2010), a discussion is had by Muslim men in their 20s outside Aston Park. Muhammad remarks that when he was growing up a

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decade ago it would have been frowned upon for Muslims to fly England flags outside their houses, it being associated with violence and hooliganism of football fans as well as the historical symbolism of the red English cross as the sign of the crusader. By the summer of 2010 however the participants suggested, even some young Imams and Maulanas (religious scholars) were displaying England stickers on their cars. I relayed this to Kamran, an experienced youth worker in the city. He continues:

You know what. It‟s a funny…I‟m in a bit of a confused….over the last ten years there‟s been a change around the ways in which young people feel. Those years ago you wouldn‟t see people wearing a blues top or villa top or an England top. You wouldn‟t do that because you remember your own experiences; seeing skinheads walking down Stratford Road in the pubs with England tops and you associate it with that. But now in the last six years or so and with the last World Cup just gone it‟s changing – kids are wearing these tops and this generation has no issues with these tops – that‟s a hell of a change. This generation has no issues with flying the flag. Compared to my generation that‟s massive – a really big shift in where there allegiances lie even if it‟s on the football pitch as nations

(Kamran, Youth worker, 16/09/10)

This study’s research indicated that nationalism and feelings of national pride are not identities that can be constructed solely through shared values; the reality is that they are loaded with ethnic and racial imprints, products of ethnic and racial conflict. This is of course despite the fact that ethnic and racial constructions of Britishness or Englishness are mythical. There are always actors in whose interest it might be to use ethnic identity as a marker for national allegiance: identity-politics at its most vulgar. Nonetheless the power of exclusionary narratives of Englishness or Britishness seems to be on the wane.

The tale of generational change which is told through the symbols of English football might seem crude as an illustration of Britishness, but that itself is very much the point. What one sees in the stories above is essentially the tracing of what Billig (1995) describes as ‘banal nationalism’. It fits Billig’s (ibid) definition of banal nationalism in that the displaying of flags and supporting of national

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sports teams is demonstrative of a nationalism that is apparent, ubiquitous yet often unquestioned, often in the developed ‘west’. As Skey (2009, 342) neatly summarises however, just because nationalism exists in a banal form, it does not make nationalism and ‘Britishness’ any more or less concrete. Identities such as these are by their nature imagined.

The politically loaded, banal, ephemeral and mythical nature of Britishness ultimately does not lend itself for easy analysis in this sort of academic study, nor are they easily explored by our participants, some of whom seemed nonplussed by the very mention of the term. Instead, the significant finding is the very discourse of Britishness, which itself tells a story about how and when national identities become important. Britishness and the questioning of national identity of immigrant populations derive from nationalist discourse which seeks to draw boundaries around those who belong and those who do not. Unlike place-belongingness, it is part of a very political discourse. And as it is centred around notions of citizenship, values and banal symbols it is difficult for Muslim participants to engage with on an emotional level, again unlike place-belongingness which is performed in everyday life.

Unlike Britishness however, the Muslim identities of our participants tended to be easier for them to illustrate, explain and practice.