Inter-Minority Coalition or Conflict? Identity Formation and Inter-Minority Relations between Asian and Black communities in the UK and US

Although dominant accounts of race relations focus on white majorities and racialised minorities, inter-minority relations are increasingly relevant as western nations rapidly diversify. Conflict and coalition-building between minority groups are of growing salience to contemporary life in the UK and US, where racial minorities navigate complex racial hierarchies. With greater access to economic and political resources, British Asians and Asian Americans are upheld as ‘model minorities’. Meanwhile, other minorities including Black British people and African Americans are often stigmatised.

This research will identify where interracial convergence and divergence exist in social and political attitudes, memory and popular representations. We will analyse the role of social values, local community memory-making and representations of inter-racial relationships and lived experiences of minoritisation in popular culture in shaping inter-minority relations.

Principal Investigator: Dr Neema Begum, University of Nottingham