Migration and Social Cohesion in the UK - (Identity Studies in the Social Sciences) by M Hickman & N Mai & H Crowley (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Based on a flagship research project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Immigration and Inclusion programme, this book argues that social cohesion is achieved through people (new arrivals as well as the long-term settled) being able to resolve the conflicts and tensions within their day-to-day lives in ways that they find positive and viable.

Review Quotes

'I'm sure I'm not supposed to admit to having favourite subjects...but without doubt, this was one of mine. I am incredibly glad that the Joseph Rowntree Foudnation funded the original project.' - Emma Stone, Director, Policy and Research at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK

'This is a powerful argument which dispels some of the illusions around the idea of social cohesion which has become a central plank in recent debates about state multiculturalism. It effectively relocates the concept in wider structures of inequality, post-industrialism and neoliberalism and explores this in specific communities across the UK.' - Stuart Hall, The Open University, UK

'This book brilliantly challenges the conventional wisdom of community cohesion. Building on a rich empirical study, it invites us to think about how people find ways of living together, rather than instructing them they should. Treating social cohesion as a something that people produce in the face of challenges (de-industrialization, deepening inequalities, social differences), the book stakes out a ground on which the politics of belonging and conviviality take on a new significance.' - John Clarke, Professor of Social Policy, The Open University, UK

Drawing on substantive research in six different areas this book addresses the essential issues at stake for nderstanding contemporary migration. Deftly moving between global structures and intimate practice it asks how can and do we live together by providing an index of compatibility. It is a must read for those who want an alternative to the banal understandings of difference and belonging that plague our current analysis.' - Bev Skeggs, Professor, Head of Department, Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

'Migration and Social Cohesion in the UK is an outstanding distillation and synthesis of six pieces of in-depth ethnographic research across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Using extensive interview quotes, and immersed in a detailed, critical understanding of existing academic and policy discourses, the book turns on its head hegemonic notions of migration, nation and belonging. It makes a highly original contribution to the understanding of social cohesion, emphasising the importance of the ways people deal with and negotiate conflict in everyday life, rather than seeking mechanisms for conflict avoidance. This historically-informed work should be required reading for all those interested in understanding Britishness, migration and belonging in the twenty-first century.' - Ben Rogaly, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Sussex, UK

About the Author

MARY J. HICKMAN Professor of Irish Studies and Sociology and Director at the Institute for the Study of European Transformations at London Metropolitan University, UK.
NICOLA MAI Reader in Migration Studies at the Institute for the Study of European Transformations at London Metropolitan University, UK.
HELEN CROWLEY Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for the Study of European Transformations at London Metropolitan University, UK.