The last few decades have witnessed a notable growth in literature addressing the politics and ethics of social research. Much of this literature has stressed difference between the researcher and the interviewee, and has addressed the importance of sensitising researchers to the difficulties and dilemmas encountered in in-depth interviewing crossing sex, class, and race boundaries. We argue that an examination of the cultural identities of the researcher and the interviewee, and how they may impact upon the interview process, needs further exploration. As two independent researchers of Chinese young people in Britain, we found that our interview experiences as mixed-descent Chinese-English and Korean-American researchers `positioned' us in terms of both commonality and difference vis-à-vis our interviewees. More attention needs to be given to how assumptions made by interviewees regarding the cultural identity of the researcher shapes interviewees' accounts. Interviewees could claim either commonality or difference with us, on the basis of gender, language, physical appearance and personal relationships.

This paper examines the lived realities of ethnic pluralism, social marginalisation and activism in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham, UK, which external media representations have tended to depict as lacking 'community cohesion' and fostering 'parallel lives'. Drawing on qualitative interviews with local residents and entrepreneurs conducted over a three-year period, we challenge such representations and a defining characteristic of currently dominant integration discourses: their tendency to ascribe 'community cohesion' or its absence as absolute properties to localities. Contrary to such reifying classifications, our interview data reveal considerably more complex social realities defined by a series of ambivalences. The first ambivalence is between undeniable local conflicts and, simultaneously, the everyday 'conviviality' of boundary-crossings and inter-ethnic solidarities. Second, the local economy is shown to enable both cohesion and ethnic exclusion. Finally, local politics and religious practice also display contradictory tendencies towards boundary maintenance on the one hand, and new inclusive alliances on the other. The emerging picture of Alum Rock not only challenges rigid taxonomies implied by 'community cohesion' discourses but also poses important questions about inter-and intra-ethnic networks, religiously underpinned social capital, the locally 'embedded' market, perceptions of social change, and an ideologically heterogeneous local civil society.

In this article we analyse the emergence of Internet activity addressing the experiences of young people in two British communities: South Asian and Chinese. We focus on two web sites: http://www.barficulture.com and http://www.britishbornchinese.org.uk, drawing on interviews with site editors, content analysis of the discussion forums, and E‐mail exchanges with site users. Our analysis of these two web sites shows how collective identities still matter, being redefined rather than erased by online interaction. We understand the site content through the notion of reflexive racialisation. We use this term to modify the stress given to individualisation in accounts of reflexive modernisation. In addition we question the allocation of racialised meaning from above implied by the concept of racialisation. Internet discussion forums can act as witnesses to social inequalities and through sharing experiences of racism and marginalisation, an oppositional social perspective may develop. The online exchanges have had offline consequences: social gatherings, charitable donations and campaigns against adverse media representations. These web sites have begun to change the terms of engagement between these ethnic groups and the wider society, and they have considerable potential to develop new forms of social action.

Mark: That's the down side of setting up a grand narrative of sociology, people read the books when they're thirty, become professors of sociology and then do about one book every five years … ‘What should we mean by the “classics of sociology”? Does the term “classical social theory” have some real force, or is it just a vague label of convenience? And are “classics” the same as “founders”?’ (Giddens, 1995: 4). Ashfaq: People are saying, some close friends of mine who I meet regularly, they say to me that the western disciplines, western education of social sciences, the whole framework which they follow is a non-starter for us and the whole thing has to change, change the rules of the game, goalposts … you name it.

A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact eprints@nottingham.ac.uk In previous work we have drawn attention to the relative absence of British Chinese voices in public culture (Parker 1995;Song 1999). No one is more aware of this invisibility than British-born Chinese people themselves. Since 2000 the emergence of Internet discussion sites produced by British Chinese young people has provided an important forum for many British-born Chinese to grapple with questions concerning their identities, experiences, and status in Britain.In this paper we explore the ways in which Internet usage by British-born Chinese people has facilitated a) forms of self-expression and forms of collective identity production; and b) forms of social and political action.i This examination of British Chinese websites raises important questions about inclusion and exclusion, citizenship, participation and the development of a sense of belonging in Britain. These issues are usually overlooked in relation to a group which appears to be well integrated and successful in higher education.Unlike the South Asian and African Caribbean populations in Britain, whose cultural and political presence is undeniably felt in Britain, there are hardly any references to British Chinese people in mainstream cultural and political life. One reason for this is that the British Chinese are a numerically smaller group. Estimates of the Chinese population in Britain vary. According to the Office of National Statistics, the Chinese comprise 0.4% of the total population -about 247,000 (ONS 2005), of whom 38% are aged 16-34 (ONS 2002). The true figure is likely to be considerably higher, because many recent migrants from mainland China are undocumented and work in the Chinese informal economy. One Chinese organization, Min Quan, suggests that the total population is more likely to be around 400,000.The dominant image of Chinese people in Britain stems from their long-standing presence in most cities and neighbourhoods running restaurants and take-away businesses. New Chinese migrants have also recently received attention as vulnerable and exploited undocumented workers, in the aftermath of the 58 Chinese people suffocated in a truck in Dover in 2000 and the death of 23 Chinese cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay in 2004.While many Chinese people still run such ethnic catering businesses (especially new Chinese migrants to the UK), this image of the Chinese is increasingly dated, given the increasing diversification of the British Chinese population as a whole. Research suggests that many second generation British Chinese are now young adults, are highly regarded by their teachers (Francis and Archer 2005), and have entered into higher education and ...