TY - JOUR
T1 - Making community under shared conditions of insecurity
T2 - the negotiation of ethnic borders in a multicultural commercial neighbourhood in Santiago, Chile
AU - Ramírez, Carolina
AU - Chan, Carol
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/10/2
Y1 - 2020/10/2
N2 - Multicultural commercial neighbourhoods are key spaces where individuals learn to relate to cultural difference in increasingly diverse cities worldwide. Host countries’ pre-existing social dynamics and environmental conditions mutually shape everyday interactions between people from different ethnonational backgrounds within specific spaces. This article examines two kinds of community-making practices consisting of both intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic exchanges and collaborations, under conditions of shared insecurity in a multicultural commercial neighbourhood in Santiago, Chile. Drawing on ethnic Chinese experiences and responses to crime, we discuss how inhabitants of multicultural sites create more hospitable spaces by building and overcoming boundaries with co-ethnics, other migrants and ‘locals’. Our ethnographic study finds that Chinese residents engaged in what we term ‘strategic ethnic groupism’, which aims to prompt the solidarity of an ‘ethnic-based’ collective in order to politically organise towards long-term solutions. Yet, simultaneously, with other migrants and citizens, the Chinese negotiated everyday intercultural conviviality through creating relations of trust and care to address more immediate insecurity concerns. Discussing both strategies, this article contributes to understanding the productive frictions between ethnicity, community and belonging, under shared conditions of insecurity, in multicultural urban spaces.
AB - Multicultural commercial neighbourhoods are key spaces where individuals learn to relate to cultural difference in increasingly diverse cities worldwide. Host countries’ pre-existing social dynamics and environmental conditions mutually shape everyday interactions between people from different ethnonational backgrounds within specific spaces. This article examines two kinds of community-making practices consisting of both intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic exchanges and collaborations, under conditions of shared insecurity in a multicultural commercial neighbourhood in Santiago, Chile. Drawing on ethnic Chinese experiences and responses to crime, we discuss how inhabitants of multicultural sites create more hospitable spaces by building and overcoming boundaries with co-ethnics, other migrants and ‘locals’. Our ethnographic study finds that Chinese residents engaged in what we term ‘strategic ethnic groupism’, which aims to prompt the solidarity of an ‘ethnic-based’ collective in order to politically organise towards long-term solutions. Yet, simultaneously, with other migrants and citizens, the Chinese negotiated everyday intercultural conviviality through creating relations of trust and care to address more immediate insecurity concerns. Discussing both strategies, this article contributes to understanding the productive frictions between ethnicity, community and belonging, under shared conditions of insecurity, in multicultural urban spaces.
KW - Chinese migrants
KW - South American cities
KW - community
KW - conviviality
KW - groupism
KW - insecurity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049980710&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1497953
DO - 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1497953
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85049980710
SN - 1369-183X
VL - 46
SP - 2764
EP - 2781
JO - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
JF - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
IS - 13
ER -