Everyday experiences of identity

We're examining how, in their everyday lives, individuals relate to and reflect on their experiences of the categories and markers (including religion) that ethnicity produces and how these processes have changed over time.

Muslim women shopping at Longsight market

At which points do differences of ethnicity or religion come to matter in everyday encounters – with neighbours, in the workplace and the local neighbourhood – and what shapes that process?

  • How have social, educational and work networks been shaped (or not) by ethnicity?
  • What kinds of interactions are enabled or impeded by difference?
  • How have changes in consumption and employment impacted on encounters between different ethnic groups?
  • In what ways does the interplay between different identities (such as, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality and class) carry significance?
  • How are identities produced and policed in social interactions?

We are analysing how different conceptions of national identities in England, Scotland and Wales shape the experience of migration and the ways in which migrants position themselves and are positioned.

For example, what does it mean for those with South Asian ancestry to call themselves ‘English’, ‘British’, ‘Welsh’, or ‘Scottish’? Does Irishness (or having Irish ancestry) feel different in Glasgow compared with Manchester, or London?

Researchers