The making and unmaking of an urban diaspora: The role of the physical environment and materialities in belongingness, displacement and mobilisation in Toxteth, Liverpool

Abstract

Focusing on Toxteth – a distinct and ethnically diverse locality in Liverpool, UK – this article explores the (un)making and re-making of diasporic space in different guises by urban diverse communities and the material aspects or fallouts of this for place and identity. Based on extensive ethnographic research, it shows how a series of localised developments – a history of external marginalisation, an urban trauma of rioting, a protracted experience of eviction, various programmes of regeneration and localised responses to all these – are all inscribed in the physical, as well as cognitive, landscape of the area, both co-creating the boundaries of place, as well as periodically resisting them. The article suggests that this focus on the physical – the material infrastructures of the area – is especially important in understanding how marginalised urban communities are affected by, and galvanise in response to, change.

Youth Justice, Black Children and Young Men in Liverpool: A Story of Rac(ism), Identity and Contested Spaces

“…Within this nexus of loyalties and contested identities linked to specific areas, or places, is the historical and geographic representation of racialized economic and social relations (Ben-Tovim 1997;Boland 2010). These are manifest in the (aforementioned) long established black community of Toxteth, Liverpool 8 5 in particular (Heneghan and Wailey 2015;Hughes 2015;Vathi and Burrell 2020), with a high proportion of black (dual heritage) families, children and young people (Small 1991;Law and Henfrey 1981;Ben-Tovim et al 1986;Liverpool Black Caucus 1986;Brown 2009;Caballero and Aspinall 2018).…”

“…This is also contrasted with a new generation of African families, children and young people who have been moved by the local housing associations into the north and predominantly white areas of the city. Of particular interest is how these relocations and dislocations can inform individuals' sense of identity and belonging, or not, in the city and whether, or how, rac(ism) is negotiated through these daily lived experiences (Heneghan and Wailey 2015;Hughes 2015;Vathi and Burrell 2020).…”

“…The interconnection and intersection of race and place is thus ingrained in the experience of both black and white communities in the city (Hughes 2015;Vathi and Burrell 2020). The youth justice workers say that this historical context of conflict and territorial 'ownership' of place in particular areas of the city has been passed down to children and young people from previous generations .…”

“…However, their understanding of the structural detrimental impact of rac(ism) is mediated through their positioning in the time and place of their biographies. In other words, the youth justice workers, as black and white people born and brought up in Liverpool have a political, social and economic analysis of the ongoing structural discrimination caused through divisions based on rac(ism) in the city (Vathi and Burrell 2020). This is acknowledged by the black children/young men as well, but their everyday lives experience the conflict and division regarding rac(ism) on a micro, individual and group level, with black and white children experiencing some common disadvantages and engaged in both conflict and mutual support (Apena 2007).…”

Interview 8

“…I would like to see more work using a more joined up approach to diaspora whereby all aspects of diasporic lives are considered, not just one facet for example, and across scales and spaces. A good example of recent work which does this is Vathi and Burrell (2020).…”