Suruchi Thapar-Björkert

Methodological dilemmas : gatekeepers and positionality in Bradford

Abstract This paper explores the ever-evolving relationship between gatekeepers and the researcher, and the ways in which it may facilitate, constrain or transform the research process by opening and/or closing the gate. We explore the methodological issue of positionality and discuss the ways in which gatekeepers drew on different axes of the researchers identities – religion, ethnicity, gender and age – in ambiguous and contradictory ways. In analysing this relationship, we locate the discussion within its historical context, as we contend that contextuality influenced the way gatekeepers positioned the researcher. This paper draws on the field experiences of the first author in four inner-city neighbourhoods in Bradford, West Yorkshire, a northern city with a well-established Pakistani Muslim community that has become synonymous with the Rushdie affair and the 1995 and 2001 urban disturbances.

Social capital, educational aspirations and young Pakistani Muslim men and women in Bradford, West Yorkshire

Drawing on research with the Pakistani Muslim ‘community’ in inner-city Bradford, West Yorkshire, this paper critically engages with relevant debates on social capital and educational aspirations. It examines the processes and mechanisms in the accumulation of social capital within the family and the immediate community, to demonstrate how three sets of interpersonal relationships (parent-child, child–child and between co-ethnic peers) facilitate educational aspirations among a group that has traditionally been portrayed as under-achieving.

exploring symbolic violence in the everyday: misrecognition, condescension, consent and complicity

In this paper, we draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘misrecognition’, ‘condescension’ and ‘consent and complicity’ to demonstrate how domination and violence are reproduced in everyday interactions, social practices, institutional processes and dispositions. Importantly, this constitutes symbolic violence, which removes the victim’s agency and voice. Indeed, we argue that as symbolic violence is impervious, insidious and invisible, it also simultaneously legitimises and sustains other forms of violence as well. Understanding symbolic violence together with traditional discourses of violence is important because it provides a richer insight into the ‘workings’ of violence, and provides new ways of conceptualising violence across a number of social fields and new strategies for intervention. Symbolic violence is a valuable tool for understanding contentious debates on the disclosure of violence, women leaving or staying in abusive relationships or returning to their abusers. While we focus only on violence against women, we recognise that the gendered nature of violence produces its own sets of vulnerabilities against men and marginalised groups, such as LGBT. The paper draws on empirical research conducted in Sweden in 2003. Sweden is an interesting case study because despite its progressive gender equality policies, there has been no marked decrease in violence towards women by men.

The Imagination and Social Capital

The Imagination and Social Capital In this article, we argue that imagination is an important tool in the formation of social capital for young Pakistani Muslim men and women in the city of Bradford, UK. The desire for social mobility and the ambition to overcome disadvantage becomes the drivers for change. These aspirations are supported by the transnational habitus, which acts as an important resource and encourages young people to imagine change in their everyday lives and situations. Unprecedented access to electronic media and new information and communications technologies not only assists the imagination but also invests agency in peoples everyday lives

Educational Achievement and Career Aspiration for Young British Pakistanis

In this chapter we report on research conducted between 2004 and 2006 in Slough and Bradford which investigated the educational aspirations and experiences of young British Pakistani Muslim men and women.1 Our research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust within a wider programme on migration and citizenship, sought to understand the extent to which young British Pakistanis were making progress in terms of educational achievement and employment in relation to their peers and in relation to the wider findings of successive reports on the differential achievements of ethnic groups (Modood and Shiner, 1994; Modood et al., 1997). Our qualitative study explored the attitudes and dispositions towards education and career aspirations held by a range of young people including both those who had achieved a measure of success (entry into higher education, for example, or professional qualifications) and those who had left compulsory education with few qualifications including those who remained unemployed. One starting point for this research was work by Zhou (2000, 2005) on the high academic achievements of Asian-Americans (particularly those of Vietnamese and Chinese heritage) which posited the role of ‘ethnic social capital’ as being particularly significant in promoting academic achievement through the enforcement of familial and community norms. We wanted to see whether similar forms of ‘ethnic capital’ (Modood, 2004) also operated within Pakistani Muslim communities and whether they were significant in shaping improved educational outcomes for young people.