John Rex

Race and ethnicity

Sociological concepts and the field of ethnic and race relations race and ethnicity in sociological theory race, ethnicity and the structure of colonial society class, race and ethnicity in the metropolis benign and malign ethnicity racism, institutionalized and otherwise the concept of a multi-cultural society.

Immigrant associations in Europe.

This book is the 1st of a 3-part series which addresses aspects of the future of the new ethnic minorities in a changing European context. These studies were launched by the European Science Founation 1980. The other books in the series are entitled ENTERING THE WORKING WORLD: FOLLOWING THE DESCENDANTS OF EUROPES IMMIGRANT LABOUR FORCE and NEW IDENTITIES IN EUROPE: IMMIGRANT ANCESTRY AND THE ETHNIC IDENTITY OF YOUTH. This volume is the 1st publication on a European level to analyze the internal organization of the immigrant communities and to discuss the ideological alternatives they offer to the future generations. The studies show that immigrant associations are not transitional but gain renewed strength as they fulfill changing functions as communities become more established and settled. Specifically this book examines 1) Pakistani and Greek Cypriot migration to Britain 2) Turkish migration to West Germany 3) Italian and Portuguese immigration to France 4) Finnish migration to Sweden and 5) Spanish migration to Switzerland and the Netherlands. Common themes in the study of associations include 1) associational life exists within kinship structure 2) some have political or religious sources 3) some provide a link above the kinship level between migrant communities and their home villages or regions and 4) those associations with educational facilities are the most powerful. The governments of the countries of settlement seek to provide for the needs which immigrant associations exist to satisfy and they may well supervise and police the associations activities. The existence of migrant-oriented business may give rise to class differentiation within the migrant community and to the possibility of businessmen and workers forming alliances with their equivalents in the country of settlement. The process of incorporating the immigrant minority community into the state the transcendence of ethnic bonds by those of class has hardly begun and it is not certain that either process will be strong enough to destroy the resilient forms of ethnic community and association.

National Identity in the Democratic Multi- Cultural State

It has been suggested that there is a crisis of national identity in the advanced welfare states of Western Europe following post-war immigration. The aim of this paper is, first of all, to clarify the concept of national identity in its application to these states prior to this immigration, secondly to analyze the concept of ethnic identity amongst immigrant ethnic groups, and, finally, to look at the kinds of institutions which have evolved to determine the relation of immigrant groups to the established national societies of settlement. The modern nation state is often thought of as part of a modernizing project in industrial societies. In this project the nation state is not thought of as being based upon a national identity, but is seen as having more universal aims. These include a modern economy, universal and uniform education and the compromise institutions of the welfare state negotiated between different classes and status groups. In some cases, on the other hand, the nation state may be established by a dominant ethnic group with its own values and institutions. In both cases the nation state will develop its own national ideology but will be corrosive of subordinate ethnicities and ethnic identities. New immigrant ethnic minorities have their own separate sense of identity. This should not however be thought of in essentialist terms as unchanging and clearly bounded. A more complex model of ethnic mobilization under conditions of migration is suggested. The response of established societies to the presence of these minorities might take one of three forms. It may involve attempts to assimilate the minorities on equal terms as citizens; it may seek to subordinate them to a dominant ethnic group as second class citizens or denizens; or, it may recognize cultural diversity in the private communal sphere while maintaining a shared public political culture. The new national identity of the host society will depend upon the outcome of processes which follow from the adoption of these different policies.

Ethnic Minorities and the Nation State: The Political Sociology of Multicultural Societies

The question of ethnic and national identity is one which is addressed in two separate theoretical discourses. One is that of contemporary general sociological theory where it seems to be central to debates about Late Modernism, Post-Modernism and Globalisation. The other is in a much more empirically oriented branch of political sociology which is concerned with forms of solidarity and division in the nation state. This chapter will be primarily located within the second type of discourse, but its aim is to suggest that its formulation of concepts is highly relevant to the clarification of issues in general sociological theory.

The Political Sociology of a Multicultural Society

Although a few right-wing Conservative spokesmen have recently challenged the notion that Britain should be a multicultural society and have received some support from intellectuals of the New Right (Honeyford, 1988), the idea that we now do have a multicultural society, and that this is not only inevitable but desirable, is widely accepted. Unfortunately it is not at all clear what exactly the term means. Although it purports to being a sociological description, sociologists have done little to clarify the kinds of structure to which it refers. This chapter will, therefore seek to set out the basis for a political sociology of the multicultural society both as an ideal and as a reality, and, while dealing primarily with Britain, indicate what the principal variables are, so laying the basis for a more generally applicable theory.

Multiculturalism and political integration in Birmingham and Bradford

Abstract The article discusses multiculturalism and political integration in Birmingham and Bradford, two cities that are amongst the main urban areas of immigrant settlement in England outside London. The article focuses especially on the subject of ethnic mobilization, and describes for each ethnic community in each of the two cities the type and character of their organizations and their role in multi‐culturalist politics. On the basis of the evidence presented for each city it is concluded that despite some negative indications about the success of multiculturalism, there are also very many positive signs which speak in favour of a limited claim for multiculturalism, as delineating the creation of a political situation in which relatively new ethnic minorities are able to have the protection of a cultural home and the resource of ethnic culture to provide solidarity as they fight for their rights. This limited claim for multiculturalism is far from being incompatible with democracy. It may even serve ...

The Basic Elements of a Systematic Theory of Ethnic Relations

The theory of ethnic relations has developed ad hoc on an interdisciplinary basis. It has dealt with ethnicity in small communities, larger ethnic groups or “ethnies”, ethnic nations, modernising nation states, subordinate nationalisms, the establishment of empires, post- imperial situations, transnational migrant communities and the political problems facing modernising nation states in dealing both with subordinate nationalisms and with migrant ethnic minorities. This paper seeks to deal with these various elements in an interconnected and systematic way setting out the nature of communities, small-scale self contained communities, the enlargement of these communities to form ethnic nations and the relationship between these and the institutions of the modernising nation state. It also seeks however to deal with what I call “The second project of ethnicity” which is migration and finally goes on to look at the complex problems of multi-nationality and multiculturalism in modern nation states

The Concept of a Multicultural Society

The establishment of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations in the University of Warwick marked the third stage of the initiative of the Social Science Research Council (now the Economic and Social Research Council) in the sphere of race and ethnic relations research. The Council originally established a Unit in the University of Bristol under the direction of Michael Banton in 1970. This Unit moved to the University of Aston under my own Directorship in 1979. Finally the Unit was transformed into a Centre which has now become fully part of the University of Warwick.

The Concept of Housing Class and the Sociology of Race Relations

JOHN REX is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Race relations is an area of interdisciplinary study and it is to be expected that students from different disciplines will have sometimes complementary, sometimes conflicting insights into particular problems. Nonetheless this does not mean that there are no distinct disciplinary ways of posing and looking at problems. Still less does it mean that complex concepts can be elucidated, or theories tested and refuted by simplistic and sub-disciplinary survey methods. It was with this in mind that I introduced into an empirical study of race relations in the urban zone of transition in Birmingham the sociological concept of ’housing classes’. I take sociology to be concerned with the ways in which the behaviour of individuals is affected by their participation in more or less fixed and more or less fluid and changing structures of social relations. It is concerned with those influences on behaviour arising from ’outside’ the individual rather than those which arise ’internally’, ’in his head’ or ’from the personality system’. Thus, while psychologists may be interested in the question of whether a certain kind of personality system is associated with racially prejudiced beliefs and behaviour, the sociologist will be concerned with whether such beliefs and behaviour are meaningfully and perhaps causally connected with being involved in a network of social relations and

The concept of a multi‐cultural society

The staff of the Research Unit on Ethnic Relations have always felt it necessary to distinguish the research which they do from other kinds of research and writing. On the one hand they have felt that they should perform more than a technical role gathering facts which might be useful to government in the pursuit of undisclosed policy objectives. On the other, if the ends of such policies are to be subject to criticism, some way has had to be found of distinguishing the value standards used by researchers from those of political partisans.