Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-ethnic London (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Series Number 100). This item is unavailable.Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-ethnic London (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Series Number 100)

In a vivid, ethnographic account of immigrant groups living in West London, Gerd Baumann breaks with the conventional discourse of community studies to explore their mutual interaction. By treating Southall--the most densely populated, multi-ethnic ghetto in the London area--as a social field, he considers how people from different backgrounds come to terms with one another and with the dominant, host culture, while at the same time affirming their own ethnic distinctiveness.

This innovative study presents an account of the interaction of people from different ethnic backgrounds who live in Southall, the most densely populated multi-ethnic ghetto of London. Breaking with the tradition of studying a single ethnic community, Gerd Baumann treats Southall as a single social field in which various immigrant groups come to terms both with one another and with the dominant culture of England.