Locating Jewish Self in Multicultural Leeds

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• Leeds University
• School of Geography
• Locating Jewish Self in
• Multicultural Leeds Narratives on Jewish
  Immigration as remembered and recalled by Leeds
  Jewry
• by Irina Kudenko supervisor Debbie Phillips

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• Outline
• Research Issues
• Studies in multiculturalism, ethnic relations and
  immigration
• Framing group and individual identity
• British Institutional Setting
• British Discursive Environment
• why to study Leeds Jewry
• British Jewry
• Leeds Jewry historical and socio- economic
  background
• Research Aims
• Research Methodology

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Research Issues

• Multiculturalism as
• Problem implications of cultural diversity
• Normative issue
• Ontology of identity
• Group vs. individual right
• Solution political principle
• Implementation and its consequences
• Institutions and discursive practices

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Studies in multiculturalism, ethnic relations and
immigration

• Discursive theories
• cultural codes, collective identities,
  discursive contents of political contention
• Identity Politics mobilisation of ethnic groups
  for the recognition of cultural diversity

• Structural approach
• Class, race, ethnicity, institutional settings
• Citizenship and immigrant incorporation regimes
  as sets of formal institutions

Political Opportunity Structure Citizenship
regime as the cultural setting that determines
the political opportunities available for the
intervention of migrants in the national public
space and affect the content of their claims
(Giugni and Passy 2004 75)
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Framing group and individual identity in the
discursive and institutional structures
political opportunity structure
Discursive Space
Institutional Settings

• citizenship rights
• representation of minority groups in politics
  party system,
• governmental advisory bodies (inc. local level)
• spatial location (segregation)
• welfare arrangement

• Cultural definition of nationhood and
  citizenship
• racism
• pluralism-assimilation
• Individual rights vs. group rights

Groups discursive space
group identity
Individual identities
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British Institutional Setting
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British Discursive Environment
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Why to study Leeds Jewry

• Why to study Jewish Experience
• one of the oldest immigrant communities in the UK
  
• Different frameworks of integration
• The duality of meanings of Immigration and
  Diaspora
• Jewish Grand Narrative
• Inclusive Narrative of Immigration
• Why to study Jewish people in Leeds
• a contextualised place-specific experience of
  self and community

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British Jewry
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Leeds Jewish population

• History
• Stages of Jewish migration
• 1880s, 1940s, 1950s
• Location
• Leylands (1880-1920)
• Chapeltown (1920-60) Moortown (1960- today)

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Community todayDemographics and Socio-economic
changes
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Community todayReligious Outlook of Jews in
Leeds as compared to London Jewry, JPR survey
2001 ()
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Research aims

• To study Jewish narratives of immigration by
  revealing how Jewish people in Leeds
• remember and recall their immigrant past
• locate personal and group narratives in todays
  discourse on immigration, British citizenship and
  multiculturalism
• distinguish among other minority groups (type of
  minority and spatial scale)
• To examine the connection between Jewish
  inner-group narratives and national, local
  discursive fields by identifying
• how narratives changes over time (historical
  perspective)
• how and why narratives vary within the Jewish
  population (sociological perspective)

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Methodologies

• Multi-method approachindividual and collective
  levels of analysis

• Complementing qualitative methods with a
  quantitative survey