Book review: the books that inspired Harry Goulbourne: “Fanon’s black skin, white masks suggested that I attended to the question of who I was”

Harry Goulbourne has written many books on race relations and ethnicity and identity. Harry talks us through his fragmented school days in South London, how his engagement in student politics drove his interest in American History, and how the work of Frantz Fanon had a big impact on how he thought about himself

Growing old in a transnational social field: belonging, mobility and identity among Italian migrants

This article focuses on ageing in transnationalism. Drawing on the experiences of Italians in the UK as a paradigmatic example of settled European migrants, it explores the lived experiences of this group of older migrants. Using Levitt and Glick Schiller’s framework,it concentrates first on migrants’ways of being and then on their ways of belonging. The article argues that a transnational lens is necessary to understand the experiences of older migrants and that a focus on older people needs to be incorporated into studies of transnationalism. Through a discussion of their narratives and experiences, the article offers a long view on the migration process and brings attention to the significance of gender, time and the life course to understand both migrants’transnationalism and their integration

Being Tamil, being Hindu:Tamil migrants’ negotiations of the absence of Tamil Hindu spaces in the West Midlands and South West of England

This paper considers the religious practices of Tamil Hindus who have settled in the West Midlands and South West of England in order to explore how devotees of a specific ethno-regional Hindu tradition with a well-established UK infrastructure in the site of its adherents’ population density adapt their religious practices in settlement areas which lack this infrastructure. Unlike the majority of the UK Tamil population who live in the London area, the participants in this study did not have ready access to an ethno-religious infrastructure of Tamil-orientated temples and public rituals. The paper examines two means by which this absence was addressed as well as the intersections and negotiations of religion and ethnicity these entailed: firstly, Tamil Hindus’ attendance of temples in their local area which are orientated towards a broadly imagined Hindu constituency or which cater to a non-Tamil ethno-linguistic or sectarian community; and, secondly, through the ‘DIY’ performance of ethnicised Hindu ritual in non-institutional settings

La mobilisation ethnique et les minorités d’origine asiatique et caraïbe

L'article examine les processus d'intégration en Grande-Bretagne, au cours des trente dernières années, des communautés ethniques d'origine caraïbe (495 000 habitants) et asiatique (1 500 000 habitants). Ces processus d'intégration s'apparentent à la fois à la construction d'une nouvelle identité ethnique et la préservation, dans la mesure du possible, de l'identité d'origine. En dépit de leurs différences sur le plan notamment de leur capacité de s'adapter à la société britannique, les minorités caraïbe et asiatique ont dû l'une et l'autre se mobiliser pour préserver leurs caractères ethniques propres. Elles ont eu recours à des stratégies de lutte remarquablement similaires pour contrer diverses formes de discrimination et d'exclusion auxquelles elles étaient exposées dans la société d'accueil

Familles caribéennes en Grande-Bretagne

Colonisés hier, membres du Commonwealth aujourd'hui, les Caribéens ont fourni problèmes et solutions aux questions soulevées par la diversité culturelle au Royaume-Uni. Tirant les leçons de drames symboliques, la Grande-Bretagne a depuis les années soixante-dix écarté le dogme de l'intégration dans le discours public, au profit de celui de la diversité. Les années quatre-vingt-dix, marquées par l'assassinat raciste d'un jeune caribéen, Stephen Lawrence, ont à la fois mis en cause la justice britannique et révélé la place de la famille au cœur des réseaux d'entraide caribéens.Goulbourne Harry, Cohen Jim. Familles caribéennes en Grande-Bretagne. In: Hommes et Migrations, n°1237, Mai-juin 2002. Diasporas caribéennes. pp. 70-81