Talking Race in Young Adulthood Race and Everyday Life in Contemporary Britain Routledge Research in Race and Ethnicity Series

At a time in which race lies at the heart of so much public debate, Talking Race in Young Adulthood comes at an important moment.

Drawing on ethnographic research with young adults in Manchester, Harries engages with ideas of the post-racial to explore how young adults make sense of their identities, relationships and new forms of racism, consequently revealing how and in what ways race remains a salient dimension of social experience. Indeed, this book presents news ways of thinking about how we live with difference, as Harries analyses the relationship between racism, generational identities and the spatial configurations of a city.

Offering a distinct contribution to the sociology of race, this book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in fields such as Race and Ethnicity, Urban Sociology, Human Geography, Youth Studies, Cultural Studies and Social Anthropology.

Chapter one – Introduction

The research

The book

Chapter two – The Conflicted City

Introduction

The multi-layered city

The city

The ‘Other’ side of the city

Gorton, Longsight and Moss Side

Beyond the city

Conclusion

Chapter three - The imaginings of a ‘post-racial’ generation

Introduction

A ‘post-racial’ generation?

The myth of sameness and the fantasy of non-racism

Other times and ‘Othered’ places

Mixing ≠ multiculture

Conclusion

Chapter four – Anticipating race: Race and the recognition of difference in encounters with diversity

Introduction

Expectations of difference

No difference here

Contrasted spaces: encountering the white working class

Comfortable conceptions of difference

Proximities to difference

Learned encounters: the "unspoken code"

Conclusion

Chapter five – Going against the grain: resistance to identifications and the claim for multiple subjectivities

Introduction

Starting from the point of misrecognition

White working-class identities

Being ‘different’ and undermining identities of difference

De-categorising identities

Reworking the label: claiming a multi-faceted identity

"I am not who I am supposed to be"

Conclusion

Chapter six – When is racism?

Introduction

The problem of racism

Talking racism

Racism and the weight of categorisation

Social mixing: an inadequate counter to racism

Naming racism, naming racists

Conclusion

Chapter seven – Conclusion

Dedic

Bethan Harries is a Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK.