Belonging in Brixton

This volume provides a unique perspective on elderly working-class West Indian migrants in the UK, particularly examining how they negotiate their sense of belonging. Utilizing the life span gaze and including elements of oral history and narrative, this ethnography provides rich insight into the ordinary lives, migratory circumstances, social networks, and interactions with the state as residents in a sheltered housing scheme in Brixton, London. The author further compiles a variety of genealogy charts, providing a uniquely vivid scholarly analysis of the Caribbean migrant experience both in a place and through space and time. Ultimately, this work contemplates how communities face change whilst at once developing a local symbolic cultural site, navigating adaptation to new economic and social environments.

Examines how relations are maintained and connections lost during long-term transnational migration Studies the impact of migration on individuals and the social networks Offers a close ethnography, informed by oral history, interviews, and genealogy, of a Caribbean migrant community

Autorentext

Audrey Allwood is Visiting Research Fellow in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she is undertaking postdoctoral research in Caribbean migrants and successive generations, uncovering notions of belonging and well-being in an era with vast, fast-paced social change.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Complexity of Belonging: Theoretical Perspectives.- Chapter 3. Elderhood and Black Sheltered Housing.- Chapter 4. The Experience of Migration: Planting Roots.- Chapter 5. The Impact of Movement: Family Relations and Gender Differences.- Chapter 6. Petty Rivalries: 'Small Garden, Bigger Weed'.- Chapter 7. State Bureaucracy and the Elderly West Indian.- Chapter 8. Conclusion.