From Textile Mills to Taxi Ranks: Experiences of Migration, Labour and Social Change

Experiences of Migration, Labour and Social Change

Virinda Kalra

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351770286
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000: Contemporary academic studies on economic activity and South Asians in Britain have tended to concentrate on self-employment and entrepreneurial business success, and it may be possible to forget that many South Asians came to Britain to work in declining manufacturing industries. The phrase "from textile mills to taxi ranks" is not only a metonym for the movement to a service sector economy, but also presents a shift in place of work for many (Azad) Kahmiri/Pakistani men. The author explores the way in which issues of employment, work, income generation and economic status affect, and are affected by, a section of the Mirpuri/Pakistani "community" based in Oldham. The men discussed have strong emotional, spiritual and material ties to the geographical district of Mirpur and stories of workers and industry, home and aborad, dreams and realities, merge and entwine with the practices of everyday life.

1 Constructing Labour

Introduction

The relationship between the labour market and South Asian settlers in Britain has been an area of political and academic concern since the first wave of mass migration in the early sixties. Occupational concentration of Black workers in the lower skill levels of industry throughout the 1960s and 1970s warranted concern and academic explanation, as has the contemporary large proportionate number of South Asians in business and self-employment. In order to assess, explain and understand the impact which employment in the textile mills, unemployment and a shift into taxi ranks by Mirpuri/Pakistani workers has had, it is necessary to review the literature that has theorised about these issues and to construct a framework which is most appropriate to the ethnographic chapters.¹ When considering the history of the labour market position of South Asian settlers, it is possible to view the literature in what can be crudely called British race and ethnic relations, in two competing frames of explanation. Anthias (1992) labels these perspectives 'structuralist' and 'British ethnic school'. For the purpose of clarity, and as a useful heuristic device, in this chapter and throughout the book I follow Anthias' use of the term 'structuralist' but prefer 'culturalist' to 'British ethnic school'.² While these generic terms gloss over many subtle differences between authors, they are legitimate in terms of the polemic nature of the debate engaged in by writers of both schools (see Dahya 1974 vs Rex and Moore 1967 and CCCS 1982 vs Saifullah Khan 1977).

Central to structuralist standpoints is the notion that the operation of capital determines the economic status of Black workers in Britain (Miles 1982). Therefore, the initial concentration of Black workers in manual and semi-skilled occupations was a result of the needs of capital for cheap labour (Duffield 1988). The socio-economic position of Black workers in Britain, at that time, is explained in terms of an 'underclass' or of a class fraction (Rex 1969; Miles 1982). After the decline of industrial manufacturing, the subsequent high rates of unemployment and uneven distribution across the spectrum of occupations of Black workers is also deemed a result of structural constraints; such as limited access to new jobs and low availability of training (Ohri and Faruqui 1988). Contemporary high rates of Asian self-employment are therefore seen as a response to the lack of access to formal employment and other economic resources (Aldrich et al 1981). Despite the historical changes in the class make-up of South Asian settlers and the changing structure of the British economy, throughout the structuralist literature stress is placed on locating and describing disadvantage and exclusion from the norms of British society (Ballard 1992). Evidence for this perspective is provided by a large body of statistical and quantitative data which compares the socio-economic position of the white population to that of the racialised minorities. In qualitative terms the focus that develops from the structuralist viewpoint is on how white management and workers develop practices and policies which exclude Black workers (Fevre 1984; Duffield 1988).

In contrast to the structuralists, the culturalists give primacy to group solidarity, arguing that South Asians have set themselves goals separate from those of the majority society. The fact that they are not fully participating in British society is considered a 'strategy of resistance' (Ballard 1992), rather than a result of discrimination. The occupational position of South Asian migrants was, therefore, a result of them following these objectives, taking work that required little long-term commitment and paid relatively well. From the time of industrial occupation to present day self-employment, South Asian settlers pursued these 'culturally' inspired goals relying on their own resources. Therefore, in general terms, culturalists theorise ethnicity in terms of the mobilisation of symbolic and material resources to particular ends (Wallman 1979). Ethnic resources consist of solidarities based on ties of religion and kin and can be utilised for the furtherance of collective group aims (Werbner 1990). The emphasis here is on the deployment of 'ethnic' resources to resist and circumnavigate structures of exclusion (Ballard 1992). Evidence for this point of view comes from detailed ethnographic studies of particular minority communities (Dahya 1970; Anwar 1979; Werbner 1990), rather than statistics. However, this situation has changed somewhat with the results of the 1991 census and more recent surveys providing more detailed information about the increasing economic mobility of certain South Asian groupings (Iganski and Payne 1996; Peach 1996).

Given the mutual concern with the economic status of black/South Asian settlers, there should be a marked degree of overlap at the juncture between the structuralist and culturalist schools. However, this is often not the case where mutual polemical criticism, rather than constructive engagement, is more often the outcome of theoretical encounters.³ In this book I attempt to weave a path between these two distinct theoretical approaches to the study of minority economic activity, illustrating some common assumptions of both approaches and using this as a base to develop my own framework. The structuralist and culturalist schools have remained remarkably consistent in their portrayal of South Asian minorities over the last thirty years. On the one hand, arguing that from industrial manufacturing to present day self-employment, the socioeconomic status of minorities has been determined by barriers to their participation and on the other hand, arguing that minorities have remained true to their original aims on arrival and that these determine their pursuit of self-employment. In each case the historical transformations from industrial work to service sector employment and the ramifications of these kinds of shifts are not considered sufficient to alter the original thesis. Therefore, theories relating to the fully employed, industrially located male migrant population of the 1960s are assumed to apply to women engaged in homeworking in the 1990s. My second main criticism of both structuralists and culturalists stems from the fact that both schools rely on singular determinants, be it 'race' or 'ethnicity,' to determine the economic status of minorities. In so doing a reduction comes into play, which makes differences of gender or class secondary to those resulting from 'ethnicity' or 'race'.

Developing a perspective which can account for the specificity of the ethnographic study requires an interaction between ethnography and theory in order to establish which analytical tools best advance the understanding of a particular set of social and economic circumstances. This approach requires a move away from polemical positions, such as structuralist and cultural ist, to an analysis which more closely reflects ethnographic work. In this way, my ethnography utilises the work of both structuralists and culturalists. In so doing, I develop a standpoint which can account for the historical change from textile mills to taxi ranks with an explicit recognition of the multi-determinant nature of soci al action. Brah's (1993, 1996) recent theoretical intervention on South Asian employment issues develops on a study carried out on the labour market position of young South Asian Muslim women (Brah and Shaw 1992). Brah (1993, 1996) argues that to understand the labour market position of these young women requires a framework which can overcome the divide between structure and culture, address the multiply determinant nature of social action and also account for a historical appreciation of colonialism and migration. An adaptation of Brah's theoretical outline to take into account the crucial specificity of work place, be it textile mills, taxi-ranks or takeaways, forms the final section of the chapter.

Class and Ethnicity

Structuralist explanations of the occupational position and general socioeconomic status of South Asian migrants and their offspring can be divided into theoretical and empirical sections. The theoretical thrust attempts to develop a relationship between race/ethnicity and class, while the empirical corollary investigates, exposes and demonstrates the impact of discrimination on racialised groups. Drawing on Marxist interpretations of society, the theoretical terrain traversed by structuralist writers reflects changing theorisation within general Marxist theory. In reviewing the various theories of the relationship between race and class, Anthias (1992) notes four distinct approaches (Miles 1982; Solomos 1986; Gilroy 1987). In the review presented here, I only consider two, exemplified by the writing of Miles and Rex. This involves a review of the notions of 'underclass', unfree labour as developed by Rex and the contrary idea of 'class fraction' developed by Miles. I then criticise their theoretical positions from the position of Gilroy (1987), who argues that racialised groups can operate in a manner autonomous of class structures.

One of the more theoretically consistent positions developed to explain the specific socio-economic status of Black migrants on their arrival in Britain is presented in terms of the requirements of capitalism via the demands of the mode of production - and as a category of labour. In these accounts, the specificity of the migrants' various historical and social conditions are secondary to their situation within the class structure. This point of view is best outlined by Castles and Kosack's (1973) study of immigrants in Europe:

In this work we shall describe other similarities, such as subordinate position on the labour market widespread prejudice, and discrimination from the indigenous populations...These similarities, we contend, make it necessary to regard immigrant workers and their families in all the four countries as having the same function irrespective of their original backgrounds. Immigrants should be looked at not in terms of their specific group characteristics - ethnic, social and cultural - but in terms of their actual social position (Castles and Kosack 1973: 5 my emphasis).

Theoretical perspectives of this kind have informed empirical work on industrial location of Black migrants. Allen et al (1977) and Fevre (1984) focus on the Bradford woollen textile industry while Duffield (1988) considers the foundries of the West Midlands. Both Fevre and Duffield are more interested in the attitudes of management and unions, respectively, than that of the Black workers themselves. Fevre's (1984) work on the woollen textile industry in Bradford is detailed and well informed. In the opening pages, Fevre states his intentions to focus on the industry rather than the Black workers:

Nor will we spend much time discussing Black workers themselves since we will be more interested in their employers....it would be indefensible for a White researcher to turn the 'Blacks' into an object of study (Fevre 1984: ix).

In pursuing this point Fevre puts forward an argument that is strongly against any perspective that relates characteristics of workers to their socio-economic position, a theme which is expanded on in a later section. In a similar vein Duffield (1988) considers the position of Black (Indian) workers in the foundries of the Midlands. Duffield's main focus is on the role (or lack of role) of the unions in the support of Black workers in the Midlands in the late 1950s. His interest in Indian workers is in terms of their role in resisting the imposition of certain work practices on them. Both of these studies offer useful, historical detail about the workings of British industry in the 1950s and 1960s. The theoretical debates in which they engage offer new insights into the methods by which Black workers were excluded or included in certain British industries. However, they offer little illustration of the actual experiences of the Black workers in the industrial setting.

Miles (1982) develops Castles and Kosack's approach by questioning the usefulness of differentiating various groups of workers in terms of racial categories and then attributing significance to these differences. From his standpoint, "'race' is nothing more than an ideological effect, a phenomenal form masking real economic relationships analogous to a mirage" (Gilroy 1987: 22). For Miles, the task is:

... to explain, inter alia, why the category of 'race relations' came to be used to categorise a certain group of social relations which, once examined from a different perspective, cannot be shown to be essentially distinct from any other social relations (Miles 1982: 16).

Miles is, therefore, interested in the phenomenon of racism and how it is produced as a part of the struggle between capital and labour in the form of migrant labour. He is keen to emphasise that there is nothing unique about the migration of Black immigrants that warrants a separate analysis in terms of race. He portrays this by reference to the similar treatment of other migrant groups, such as the Irish and Jews, in other historical periods. Miles (1982), in fact, lays great emphasis on cultural differences between migrant groups but only in the sense that these 'differences' are' a blockage to pan-migrant unity. He maintains that there is no possibility of 'race' forming a unifying political force and actually that to promote this type of organisation is harmful for the possibility of finding unity with the white working class (Miles 1982).⁴ Miles repeats the move made by Castles and Kosack (1973) which erases the importance of the migrants' history from the model of analysis, thereby not taking into account their independent agency. Before considering this point in greater detail, it is necessary to consider the parallel debate about the socio-economic position of Black immigrants forwarded by Rex.

Perhaps the most influential proponent of a race relations school in British sociology is John Rex. As his work spans the last thirty years his theoretical concerns have shifted on a number of occasions. However, his early research is significant for the influence it exerted on empirical studies of discrimination in employment.⁵ Writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Rex developed two related concepts to explain the housing and labour market position of what he termed 'colonial migrants', that of unfree labour and the underclass. The socio-economic position of 'colonial migrants' in British society is structured by their antecedent status as unfree labour in the colonised country. 'In the new context, discrimination against the worker is achieved by the production of negative imagery of the colonial worker' (Rex 1973: 154-156). Racism is therefore the medium through which the exploitation of labour required by the economic system is rationalised and reinforced. The new workers are seen as unwelcome competitors rather than fellow workers by the indigenous working class and are therefore discriminated against. This discrimination occurs primarily in terms of restricted access to certain central resources housing, education and employment. Rex argues that because of the intense forms of discrimination and disadvantage which 'colonial migrants' face:

..instead of identifying with working class culture, community or politics they formed their own organisations and became in effect a separate underprivileged class (Rex and Tomlinson 1979: 275).

Even though Rex employs the term underclass, he is not using the term class in the Marxist sense of a relationship to the mode of production. Rather, class is used in the Weberian sense of a stratum of society. Writing at a time where there was full employment of Black workers in various industries, Rex is not concerned with employment discriminati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Constructing Labour
• 2 Methodology
• 3 Migration and Repercussion
• 4 Textile Tours
• 5 Of Mills and Men
• 6 Of Men and Mills
• 7 Redundant not Despondent
• 8 Take-Αway Lives
• 9 From Textile Mills to Taxi Ranks
• 10 Beyond Labour?
• Appendix I
• Bibliography
• Index