Living Multiculture: the new geographies of ethnic diversity and the changing formations of multiculture in England

Neal, Sarah (2015). Living Multiculture: the new geographies of ethnic diversity and the changing formations of multiculture in England. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-851852

The project asks two key questions

How do people live complex cultural difference, managing increasing cultural diversity in their everyday lives?
What role does place and locality play in this process?

There is growing interest as to the ways in which ethnically complex populations routinely interact in convivial and competent ways. Exploring the dynamics and limits of this competency - and its relationship to places that have long and short histories of multiculture - is at the heart of the research. In a context of dispersing multiculture the need to focus on issues of space and place is particularly important since less research has been done on suburbs, large towns and small cities with little or no histories of multiculture and/or ethnic tension.

The project's core aims are to contribute to new social and spatial understandings of multiculture and to inform appropriate policy responses. It employs a mixed qualitative methodology in three case study areas chosen for the different windows they offer onto the new geographies of multiculture in England.This combined methods approach combines individual, semi-structured interviews, repeated (meeting three times) in-depth discussion group interviews and participant observation. Informed by psychotherapeutic approaches these methods allow the research team to observe, experience and ask about the types of social relations, convivial exchanges and quotidian skills that underpin lived multiculture.

Data description (abstract)

The qualitative data collection consists of a total of 138 transcripts and approximately 70 observation field notes.

In detail the data collection =
1. A series of detailed observation field notes ;
2. Individual interviews (107);
3. Group interviews (31) - these were repeat interviews with the same groups meeting three times during the course of the fieldwork.

The observations and interviews were conducted with a diverse range of participants in three geographical areas which each represent different stages of urban multiculture: super-diversity (London Borough of Hackney); newly multicultural (Milton Keynes) and suburban multiculture (Oadby, Leicestershire).

The ethnically diverse participants = (29) young people in post-16 education institutions; (37) members of social-leisure organisations; (23) public park visitors/regular users and (14) locally and (4) nationally based policy actors.

The deposited data is organised into files with interview and field note data which work across the project's three geographical locations and relate to each of the research sites (colleges, parks and social-leisure organisations). There is also a public site field notes file which has data relating to observations in cafe spaces, at public festivals and events. There are two files which have the local and national policy actor interview data. There are also files with examples of project documents (consent forms and information sheets) and interview schedules. The latter contains each of the interview guides used for all the individual, repeated group and policy actor interviews.

Data creators: