Writing is a process of exploration and a process of communication; both a finding out and a revealing. In his book ‘Telling about Society’, Becker (2007) raises the issue of the interpretive space created between the writer and the reader and in the matter of representing society, he considers the form and purpose of different modes of telling. What for example is the purpose of the tabular and quantitative regularity of the census table and how might this differ from the way a reader interprets an untitled photograph? Becker introduces the question for the writer of how to create interpretive space, and at what point it becomes appropriate to limit or to expand this space, through selected modes of representation. The primary question for this paper is how to create interpretive space through prompting the imagination, and I specifically address the issue of how to write about diversity from the vantage point of the everyday life of a multi-ethnic, South London street. In this paper I focus on writing about diversity and the city through the mode of the story; how ethnography and narrative situate and potentially expand our sense of social life. The oral, auditory and visual forms of these modes of story telling construct views of diversity less about objective social facts and more about a compilation of multi-vocal sentiments. But central to this paper, is also the question of how the “serious true fiction” (Back 1996) of ethnography and the “social drama” (Turner 1981) of the narrative, relates the local world to broader impacts and structures. I explore three themes in the project of writing about diversity and everyday life:
- Place
I relate urban ethnography and explorations of diversity through social groups within social settings, and question how different genres of ethnography connect local identity and local place. I select ethnographies where the local research area is segregated and draw relationships to bounded representations of race and class (Whyte 1943, Liebow 1967, Anderson 1999). I also look at the role of meeting places such as sidewalks and youth clubs, to examine how these places impact on the representation of more complex and fluid identities (Duneier 1999, Alexander 2000, Back1996).
- Time
I introduce the narrative to explore the relationship between time and diversity, specifically the tension between a dominant history of central London counter-posed with the multiple histories of Walworth. I introduce my study area through contrasting official archival data including maps, census and surveys, with the diverse oral histories and stories from the street. I expand on the role of the plot (Ricouer 1981) to emphasise diverse experiences over time, above a chronological order of telling.
- Sequence
In this last section I look at how to order the story or how to sequence writing about diversity, and focus on how to connect local life to spatial and structural relationships beyond the site (Marcus 1995). I explore the value of tensions and differing emphases between local particularities and global impacts (Burawoy et al 2000).
Suzanne Hall, PhD candidate, Cities Programme, London School of Economics s.m.hall@lse.ac.uk
