Ethnic residential segregation in Britain : concentration or segregation

Abstract EN

Residential segregation is a multi-dimensional and complex phenomenon.

Related to the race thesis, the phenomenon gains additional difficulties.

Opting for an historical analytical perspective, this article attempts to shed the light on the paramount theoretical and methodological issues in residential studies of British ethnic minorities.

As will be shown, the concept itself has not been an easy one to identify, to measure or even to define.

This posed intricate theoretical and methodological challenges to researchers both in urban and race related studies.

Different models have been offered to explain and churn out the various aspects and causes of such urban phenomenon.

Yet what looms large is the inability of residential segregation-related researchers to come to a verifiable and generally accepted paradigm due to the fuzziness and indeterminacy of the concept itself.

Thus this article stresses such methodological and theoretical indeterminacy while arguing that the “ethnicization” of the concept did plague residential urban studies with additional intractable burdens