‘Them and Us’: ‘Black Neighbourhoods’ as a Social Capital Resource among Black Youths Living in Inner-city London

Introduction

This paper will examine the views and experiences of Black youths living in socially deprived areas of London in order to examine the way in which they recognise the term ‘Black neighbourhood’ as a resource for ethnic identity formation and collective mobilisation. ¹ The analysis shows that these neighbourhoods represent urban spaces through which a range of bonding social capital resources are generated including ties of reciprocal trust, solidarity and civic participation. These urban spaces also hold intrinsic value in the lives of young people, providing them with a sense of wellbeing and belonging. This is despite the apparent problems of socioeconomic disadvantage, social inequality and exclusion that are typically associated with ‘Black neighbourhoods’. The positive value that is attached to ‘Black neighbourhoods’ by Black youths and their desire to be embedded within these networks must be understood within the broader societal context of multiculturalism in contemporary Britain and the particular ways in which Black and minority ethnic youths experience social exclusion and racial discrimination across many areas of social life—such as within the education system, the labour market and the criminal justice system. The analysis is concerned with understanding the extent to which Black youths utilise neighbourhood networks, such as youth community programmes, to generate social resources and redress wider issues of social exclusion and inequality that they continue to experience in their everyday lives. Of course, it is important to recognise that the young people’s experiences of their neighbourhoods are not always positive ones. The analysis highlights some of the more negative implications of these spaces. These include the restrictive capacity of ‘Black neighbourhoods’, which limit Black youths’ opportunities to ‘get on’ in terms of social mobility and their ability to move beyond neighbourhood boundaries.

This article draws from the research findings of two projects. The first project, entitled Caribbean Families, Social Capital and Young People’s Diasporic Identities, is one of a number of projects within the Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group’s programme at London South Bank University, 2002–06. ² As part of this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 80 young people (aged between 16 and 30 years old) and their family members. These interviews took place in the British cities of Birmingham, London, Manchester and Nottingham, ³ and the Caribbean countries of Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana. ⁴ The research project primarily explored how transnational family and kinship bonds operate in the lives of Caribbean young people and their construction of ethnic identity. The interviews with the young people also focused on understanding their neighbourhood and community networks (see Reynolds, 2004, 2006a and 2006b). The second project, the ‘RAW Leadership Programme’, involved research and evaluation of five community-based youth programmes spread across London in the boroughs of Brent, Haringey and Lambeth (Reynolds and Briggs, 2008). Largely focused on Black youths at risk of school exclusion or engaging in anti-social behaviour, this project assessed the material, emotional and psychological factors that inhibited young people from achieving educational success. An important dimension of this work was also to explore Black youths’ understandings of family, neighbourhood and community networks, and the ways in which these informed their constructions of ethnic identity and belonging. Small-group discussions and one-to-one semi-structured interviews took place with a total of 28 Black youths within the age category 16–19 years old (18 female and 10 male participants).

Contextualising Black Youths, Urban Spaces and Social Capital

Broadly speaking, much of the research exploring youths in city contexts has tended to focus on young people as active agents of social change and the social resources and relationships utilised by young people to achieve their independence and aspirations in these spaces (Tienda and Wilson, 2002; Briggs, 2010). A second counter-narrative has been to highlight the challenges encountered by urban youths that results from urban poverty and their increased likelyhood to engage in risk-taking behaviour (Collinson, 1996; Browning et al., 2004). How urban spaces might represent social resources for young people in the formation of their ethnic (and racial) identity has received comparatively little research attention. Evidence suggests that neighbourhoods across many UK cities and towns are becoming increasingly racially, ethnically, culturally and socioeconomically heterogeneous. Some commentators have argued that such ‘super-diversity’ (Vertovec, 2007) should be celebrated. These writers point to the way that multicultural neighbourhoods reduce the barriers to social integration by encouraging ‘mixing’ and ‘cultural hybridity’ among inner-city youths (Alexander, 2007; Reynolds, 2006a, 2006b; Heath, 2008; Goulbourne et al., 2010). There is also the view that migrant and minority ethnic youths born and raised in multicultural neighbourhoods have greater opportunities to integrate socially and to achieve social mobility when compared with their first-generation migrant parents (Platt, 2005).

While there are several studies recognising the positive value of multicultural urban spaces in terms of facilitating social inclusion and social integration by migrant and minority ethnic youths, other studies take a more critical stance. It has been suggested that Vertovec’s (2007) notion of ‘super-diversity’ that is a result of multiculturalism brings its own form of ‘super-exclusion’ (Reynolds and Zontini, forthcoming). Studies suggest that in large multicultural cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester, traditional problems associated with urban development—such as high rates of unemployment, crime and juvenile delinquency—encourage individuals voluntarily to segregate themselves from other individuals belonging to different social class backgrounds and racial/ethnic communities (Phillips, 2005; Runnymede Trust, 2007). Despite the relatively high levels of interracial mixing across a range of social relationships, successive studies highlight that in policy terms multiculturalism is publicly expressed as diverse ethnic groups living side-by-side in small enclaves or pockets of racially/ethnically defined geographical settlement patterns rather than as a genuine desire by diverse communities to integrate socially with each other (Zhou, 1997; Runnymede Trust, 2000; Ouseley, 2001; Modood, 2007).

There is the concern too of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners alike, that Black and minority ethnic youths are increasingly marginalised and isolated from the rest of the city (Commission for Racial Equality, 2005). Young Black men in particular are finding themselves without a place in the public space of the city. As Wright et al. (2010) point out when Black youths are within their own neighbourhoods they are accepted and embraced by family, friends and community members. However, once they leave these community spaces they are immediately stigmatised, avoided or directly excluded from public engagement. The danger ascribed to Black male youths in the public sphere is reflected by their marginal position in the UK labour market. Statistically speaking, Black male youths living in economically deprived neighbourhoods suffer greater risk of unemployment, lack of education and job training (Modood, 2004; Cheung and Heath, 2007; Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2010). The rising rates of NEETs (not in education, employment and training) disproportionately affect Black male youths living in inner-city areas (BBC News, 2010), and recent figures indicate that half of young Black males are currently unemployed (The Guardian, 2012). Among Black male youths with few academic or technical qualifications and also living in inner-city neighbourhoods with high indices of poverty and deprivation, it is further estimated that three-quarters are NEETs (IPPR, 2010). Such is the size of the problem, particularly in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods, that some commentators are now referring to NEET youths as the ‘lost generation’ because they are unlikely to ever secure upward social mobility and legitimate success through the conventional routes of employment, education and training (BBC 2, 2011). Black youths facing socioeconomic constraints and cultural displacement also have very restricted access to places within the city and this limits their rights of citizenship (Harding, 2010). The marginalisation and alienation of Black youths in urban spaces are characterised by public and media debates concerning the dangers of the ‘hoodie’, gang culture and inter/intra-ethnic violence between groups of young men and, more increasingly young women (The Independent, 2009). More recently, in light of the August 2011 riots in several London boroughs and in other cities, questions have been raised about how youths (re-)engage with urban spaces and their understanding of rights and responsibility towards other members of their neighbourhoods (Runnymede Bulletin, 2011).

It is important to stress that there are therefore several dimensions at play when considering Black youths’ relationships to urban neighbourhoods and the differing potential this creates for Black youths living within such spaces. Particularly useful to the analysis is Hansen et al.’s (2008) study of Black youths in Zambia, where a trajectory framework is applied to understand the experiences of youths growing up in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Of course, this study operates in a vastly different cultural and social environment from the one in which this study is located. Nonetheless, the trajectory framework that is presented can be similarly applied to Black and minority ethnic youths in Britain living in marginalised communities. Hansen et al.’s study takes the position that Black youths living in crowded households, with a lack of education and limited means of employment and legal income, easily fall into ‘getting stuck’. Young people that are ‘getting by’ are able to navigate their way through a range of educational courses and community programmes funded by statutory and third-sector agencies to maintain their existing living and social conditions. ‘Getting by’ also means not falling behind and ‘getting stuck’ in a cycle of deprivation. But, ‘getting on’ in these communities is about young people taking advantage of the networks and contacts that exist there in order to craft options and opportunities for themselves, which will potentially lead to social and geographical mobility.

A very similar approach is used by Holland (2007) when she refers to ideas of ‘getting by’ and ‘getting on’ to develop a typology of youth transitions in disadvantaged communities across Britain. Drawing on the concept of social capital to examine youth transitions within the context of family, locality and community relationships, Holland asserts that young adults living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and housing estates in the northern parts of England and Northern Ireland regard their localised networks as highly constraining, tying them into their community and allowing them to ‘get by’ but stifling individual progression and social mobility. Among some of the young people who resided within these communities, there was a strong desire to ‘get out’ and ‘move out’ using education and employment opportunities as a means to ‘escape from the bubble’ of the socially disadvantaged local neighbourhood. A common strand linking these two studies by Hansen et al. (2008) and Holland (2007), despite occurring in vastly differing social and cultural contexts, is that young people who are ‘getting by’, ‘getting on’ and getting stuck’ are by and large dependent on the availability of and access to social capital. Certainly, findings from my own study would support this fact. In general, those Black youths who tended to ‘get on’ and to progress socially typically lived in households with social and cultural resources and networks that they could utilise for their own benefit. In such cases, rather than seeing the neighbourhood as restrictive and constraining their opportunities for success, their neighbourhoods instead offered them a place of attachment, security and belonging from which to build social progress and mobility. In essence, the possession of networks and resources meant ‘staying put to get on’ for these Black youths.

These perspectives of young people’s social mobility in disadvantaged communities implicitly or explicitly emphasise the importance of social capital. As a concept, social capital acts as an important analytical tool in capturing the various ways that young people from marginalised and minoritised communities negotiate routes out of poverty. Social capital as a theoretical model also highlights the role of location and social networks as resources in negotiating youth transitions to adulthood (Morrow, 2000; Raffo and Reeves, 2000). Social capital theory raises the distinction between bonding ties (involving relationships and networks that reinforce bonds and connections within groups) and bridging ties (involving relationships and networks between different groups). Of course the notion of bridging and bonding social capital, made popular by theorist Robert Putnam (2000), represents one of the many ways in which social capital has been constructed and theorised by various authors (see Field, 2003). Nonetheless, despite the differing approaches to social capital theory, when taken together a broad understanding of the concept reflects the values that people hold and the resources that they can access, which result in, and are the result of, collective and socially negotiated ties and relationships (Edwards et al., 2003). It is regarded as a concept that deals either with the dilemma of collective action and integration, or the dilemma of social injustice and inequality (Kovalainen, 2004; Adkins, 2005). The work of Bourdieu (1986), for example, falls into the social injustice and inequality camp. Bourdieu’s contribution is a typology of different forms of capital (economic, social, cultural and symbolic) and his concern is with how social and cultural capital are linked with economic capital, the fundamental resource in capitalist societies, and the reproduction of societal inequality.

Research evidence demonstrates both the importance of social capital for minority ethnic and migrant youths, and also the ways in which ‘race’ and ethnic inequality impact upon capital formation (Ryan et al., 2008; Weller, 2010). Issues of social and racial inequalities experienced by Black youths further inform understanding of how these young people utilise social capital (alongside other forms of capital) as a resource in ethnic identity formation (Reynolds, 2006b; Song and Parker, 2009). Such an analysis confirms that young people are not merely passive receivers of their families’ capital, but are also active players who, through “their positioning and work orientation” can contribute to generating such capital (Devine, 2009, p. 532; see also Weller, 2010). Yet, despite the growing recognition in the literature of young people’s agency in social capital (Morrow, 1999; Schaefer-McDaniel, 2004; Weller and Bruegel, 2009), what is less understood is the extent to which young people’s meanings and knowledge of their local neighbourhood’s urban spaces inform the particular types of cultural and social resources they are able to access (Green and White, 2007).

Moreover, there is a relative dearth of theoretical discussion about Black youths’ relationship to urban spaces; and the notion that ‘Black neighbourhoods’ can be valued as important cultural and social resources by Black youths residing there. Instead, in much of the analysis, a deficit model is generally assumed and what is primarily highlighted is the lack of available social resources and opportunities that exist for Black youths within these communities. How ‘Black neighbourhoods’ have been typically viewed and constructed could be partly to blame for this recurring deficit model of understanding. Some of these issues are examined in the following section, alongside some of the positive meanings and practices associated with ‘Black neighbourhoods’ from the perspective of Black youths who reside here.

‘Black Neighbourhoods’, Belonging and Identity

Historically, the term ‘Black neighbourhoods’ is a reflection of African-Caribbean migration and settlement patterns in the UK, particularly established settlement in urban neighbourhoods within Greater London, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire (Owen, 2006). In policy terms, ‘Black neighbourhoods’ are generally characterised as being poorly resourced neighbourhoods where there are high indices of poverty and deprivation. Factors that correlate with poverty and unemployment—for example, underachieving schools, large concentrations of social housing and high rates of mental ill-health—are also portrayed as being significant characteristics of these neighbourhoods. In the US context, there is the view that bonding social capital in ‘Black neighbourhoods’ entrenches Black youths into these economically deprived urban spaces and sustains intergenerational poverty. This in turn restricts them from accessing resources that are outside their community which may facilitate social mobility (Orr, 1999). With regards to my own study, a main research finding was that many Black youths were choosing to remain in the ‘comfort zone’ of their ‘Black neighbourhoods’, where there existed far fewer educational institutions that were well resourced. Such institutions tended to be concentrated in the leafy outer suburban areas where White middle-class people generally resided. A number of participants who discussed their university experiences spoke of their decision to attend universities close to their local neighbourhoods, and where other Black students from working-class backgrounds also attended en masse, rather than attending the élite university institutions that were far better resourced (and may provide them with better opportunities) but that would also take them out of their ‘comfort zones’. The following statement by David was one example of many recounted by Black youths concerning how this desire to remain close to their neighbourhoods dictated the choice of university attended

I was offered two university places. University X [post-1992 inner-city London university], which is a short 10-minute bus ride from home, and University Y [a top UK university in a northern provincial town] to study for a degree in mechanical engineering. University Y has one of the best reputations for the course. What put me off going there was … at the Open Day I’m the only Black person. … It was a really White place and I didn’t feel I belonged. The lecturers I met in the department were all White. I think the tutors were a bit intimidated by this big Black guy. I thought to myself ‘I can’t live here for four years. It’s too White’. I wouldn’t be able to settle down and that would affect my work. I’d always be running back home [south London] where I feel most comfortable. So I decided the University X was the place for me. This University doesn’t have such a good reputation and the standard of students being accepted onto the course is much lower. …. But I have no regrets. I’m happy and comfortable at college. We have all nationalities on my course, I don’t stand out. I have made lots of friends and we help each other out with our studies (David, age 21, interview December 2005).

David’s case reveals the complexity of social capital. On the one hand, his account emphasises the positive value of strong bonding social networks associated with ‘Black neighbourhoods’ in that it allowed him to establish bonds of trust and reciprocal relationships with his fellow students from diverse nationalities. He was also able to establish interethnic bonds and networks, although it is important to recognise that these students shared a very similar social class background to David. On the other hand, however, David’s account can be viewed as representing a more negative association with ‘Black neighbourhoods’. Although David’s choice of a local (but not as good) university allowed him to ‘get by’ through accessing and utilising local resources and networks in order to complete his studies, it could be argued that his desire to remain in the ‘comfort zone’ of the neighbourhood greatly diminished his opportunities to access other forms of capital that would be more likely to be available to him if he attended the élite university that was geographically and socially far beyond his neighbourhood space.

David’s was one of many accounts provided by Black youths choosing to remain in or close to ‘Black neighbourhoods’ where resources and opportunities for social mobility may be limited. This raises the question as to why these youths are choosing to remain in comfort zones where resources are limited instead of venturing out into unfamiliar territory where they stand a greater chance of success. Perhaps Granovetter’s classic paper, ‘The strength of weak ties’ (1973), has particular relevance in seeking to understand these young people’s experiences. Granovetter’s work suggests that different ties generate different resources. The ‘strong ties’, in this case most associated with ethnic-specific bonding ties of the ‘Black neighbourhood’, imbue individuals such as David with a sense of belonging, practical resources and coping strategies in the face of discrimination. In contrast, ‘weak ties’, such as those crossing racial or social class lines, and which are generally found outside ‘Black neighbourhoods’, enable individuals to develop networks and resources outside their own immediate networks and with people belonging to different social and cultural backgrounds. It is important to stress, however, that the value of these ‘weak ties’ is very much dependent on an individuals’ ability to utilise these ties to their own advantage and to access further resources, knowledge and capital. To a large degree, entrenched forms of societal inequality or social mobility are determined by intersecting and interrelated forms of capital: cultural, social, economic and symbolic capitals (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). These differing forms of capital create social stratification among young people. They also determine the factors that influence young people’s social wellbeing, such as attachment to place, belonging and security (Schaefer-McDaniel, 2004; Adkins, 2005; Reynolds, 2006b).

Brann-Barrett’s (2010) study of Australian youths in disadvantaged working-class communities interpreted Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ (ways of being) to identify how youths growing up in disadvantaged communities are linked by a “collective habitus” (2010, p. 262). This work suggests that any understanding of community is fundamentally underpinned by ideals of unity, related histories and the interconnectedness of its residents, despite variations in socioeconomic experiences, lived experiences and perceptions. Brann-Barrett’s notion of communities and the “collective habitus” they establish among their residents is highly relevant to my analysis of Black youths’ community experiences in the UK context.

It has been well documented that a long established history of racial discrimination experienced by Black communities in Britain provided the basis for the emergence of ‘Black neighbourhoods’ in urban working-class areas. Crucially, ‘Black neighbourhoods’ acted as critical sites of struggle and resistance by Black communities and created public spaces for the development of day-to-day strategies and networks of survival and self-reliance (Goulbourne, 1989; Wright et al., 2010). ⁵ Through such urban spaces, social solidarity is formed. The dilemma expressed by many of the Black youths in my study was whether “staying put to get on” was more likely to be achieved by utilising the ties of trust and solidarity within their neighbourhood to collectivise, mobilise and improve the collective social conditions or by taking a more individualistic approach which centred on them ‘moving out’ into better-resourced neighbourhoods and focusing more on improving their individual lives and potential for individual social mobility.

One also has to consider the socio-structural contexts of young people’s lives in order to understand their desire to be embedded within their local ‘Black neighbourhoods’. The young people’s accounts suggest that issues of social exclusion encouraged a desire for collective and cultural belonging, even if this is at times detrimental to them individually and towards them generating other forms of capital. To counter frustrations experienced around feelings of alienation and social exclusion many participants turned ‘inwards’ towards their neighbourhoods drawing on the social resources that exist there to generate acceptance, belonging and social progress. In these urban spaces, there are areas of social life that are racially and culturally specific—including, for example, Black night clubs/pubs; Black hairdressers and barbers; restaurants/take-aways selling African-Caribbean food; theatres/exhibitions focusing on Black cultural events; licensed and unlicensed radio stations; and shops selling products for Caribbean and African markets such as food goods, hair products and music. For these young people, their neighbourhoods represented identifiable and physical spaces in which they could access a range of ethnic-specific social resources and create a sense of belonging.

The importance of the neighbourhood for structuring social relations is explored by Harding (2010) in his study of adolescent boys living in ‘Black neighbourhoods’ in the US context. Harding observes that the working-class, socioeconomic disadvantaged neighbourhood serves an important form of identity that defines insiders and outsiders. Whilst ‘insiders’ are entitled to reciprocal support and mutual protection, ‘outsiders’ are viewed with hostility, treated with suspicion and subject to conflict. Certainly within my own study, the young people highlighted the significance of ‘Black neighbourhoods’ for drawing racial/ethnic boundaries whereby Black/Caribbean neighbourhood members are regarded as being ‘one of us’ and those outside this (i.e. White/English as being ‘one of them’). This insider/outsider status also helped them to establish bonds and trust among neighbourhood residents

In this area, it’s Brixton. Yeah it’s got its problems with shootings and muggings, but that’s mostly drug-related. I like living here because I feel safe; my bredrins [friends] live round the corner. I feel safer in here in Brixton than in some leafy suburb where you don’t see any Black faces around for miles. Why would I want to live like that? Brixton is a Black area; it’s our [Black] place (Tony, age 29, interview April 2004).

We live in an area where there are lots of Black people that have lived here for over 50 years. So, I have a strong sense of who I am as a Black woman. I live in a Black neighbourhood. White people who don’t know the community think it’s an area with crime, drugs and poverty but living here I see lots of good things that go on. I make a point to share that with people who don’t know any better (Sam, age 23, interview December 2003).

The bonding ties that exist within the urban space of the ‘Black neighbourhoods’ also encouraged the Black youths to participate in ethnic-specific community associations within their respective neighbourhoods. Indeed, many of the youths interviewed demonstrated high rates of ‘civic engagement’ in these areas and actively participated in a diverse range of faith-based and community associations. These included Black-led church groups, youth groups and Saturday/supplementary schools. They also discussed the sense of duty and obligation they felt to act as role models for younger children within the locality and ‘give back’ to their neighbourhoods (see also Reynolds, 2006a).

In many ways, therefore, ‘Black neighbourhoods’ represented a key site of ethnic identity formation. The process of constructing ethnic identity involved a continual renegotiation of identities and drew upon a variety of social resources—transnational family networks, community, regional and diaspora racial connections—which they utilised in different social contexts (Goulbourne et al., 2010). Their understanding of ethnic identity was also contextual, timebound and shifting according to time, audience space and place, wherein at times they highlighted or downplayed the different dimensions to their identities (including gender, social class, sexuality and regional identities amongst others) (see also Reynolds, 2006b).

The distinctive youth styles originating out of ‘Black neighbourhoods’ but symbolically linked to diasporic Black youth cultural expressive forms also emerged as a key factor in identity formation among the participants. Embracing urban hip-hop clothes, language, mannerisms and music is a convincing expression of meaning, belonging and power in 21st-century global youth culture (Clay, 2009). Many Black youths (alongside youths belonging to diverse ethnic/racial groups) are inspired by talking, walking, dressing and acting like the US rappers (for example, Lil Wayne, Drake and Jay-Z) whom many youths see as having found a resilient voice amid diversity, betrayal, adversity and struggle. Evident in the analysis was the way in which some of the youths were able to make connections with the Black diaspora by incorporating Black urban cultural styles into their everyday practices and cultural consumption patterns, and in defining group identity (Reynolds, 2006b). In the field of ‘Black neighbourhoods’, aspirations to, and appropriation of, particular Black urban expressive forms such as US hip-hop/rap music constituted a legitimate form of cultural capital in negotiating the ‘politics’ of urban spaces. This youth style also encouraged social integration, inclusion and bridging social capital across ethnic/cultural groups in a way that other formal institutions and practices (for example, schooling) was not always able to achieve.

Black Youth Collective Mobilisation and the Urban Landscape

Participation in community activism and involving themselves in community programmes provided an opportunity for Black youths to examine their understanding of neighbourhood and community relations, their identities within these spaces and to elaborate further on some of the problems and constraints experienced within their neighbourhoods. The case study of the RAW Leadership Programme was used to explore some of these issues in greater depth.

In recent years, across the UK the policy shift towards establishing youth participatory programmes would seem to suggest that the state is giving more power to young people themselves to develop their own programmes, based on specific needs and issues particular to their locality. Young people within urban landscapes are also increasingly being utilised by policy-makers and practitioners to develop more inclusive approaches to solving youth-related issues, such as anti-social behaviour. A primary objective of the RAW Leadership Programme was to develop a youth perspective on the causes of urban youth poverty and marginalisation, as opposed to the much-debated policy consequences of this. By assuming a holistic approach and focusing on a whole range of social, psychological and material conditions that affect Black youths living in ‘Black neighbourhoods’, the programme focused attention on encouraging its participants to develop autonomy in negotiating the social landscape of their urban neighbourhoods.

Over the course of the 16-week programme, the participants were asked to reflect on the extent to which the urban landscape and their existing social conditions informed their everyday lived experiences. It was recognised by these youths that the cultural conditions they have grown up in played an important part in shaping their attitudes and expectations. ‘Street culture’, ‘the streets’ or ‘being on road’, in particular, was significant in shaping the lives of many of these youths and to varying degrees ‘the streets’ directly impacted on their motivation to engage in criminal activities and anti-social behaviour. During the sessions, the youths discussed the immense pressure they were under to conform to the code of ‘the streets’. In addition, many of these young people had very difficult relationship with their schools and, in some cases, this relationship encouraged a belief that institutional routes to success were unavailable to them. Or if such routes were available to them, they felt that they had to choose between aspiring to success through the route of the ‘institution’ (for example, education)—and this was a space where they did not feel valued—or success through the route of ‘the streets’—and this was a space where they felt that with luck and the right connections they could build respect and achieve status within their communities. On a related point, a culture of “avoiding school”, “dropping out” or being excluded from school in order to “take care of business” on your own and with the “odds stacked against you” was commonly regarded by these youths as an important way to achieve the respect and status among their peers.

The RAW Leadership Programme created the space and platform for these youths to explore this valorisation of ‘street culture’ and to explore their dreams and future aspirations in a relatively safe environment. During the workshop discussions, various practices and techniques were used so that the young people were able to talk freely and also consider the views, perspectives and aspirations of the others without judgement. An example was the ‘truth chair’ whereby any individual sitting in the chair was allowed to discuss any issue of their choice for 30 minutes free from interruption by the session participants. In one of the sessions with the ‘truth chair’, Franklin, age 17 and unemployed, spoke openly about his childhood dream and aspiration to become an airline pilot. He reflected on the fact that he never pursued this ambition because, according to Franklin, this career aspiration did not conform to the ‘street code’ and the type of ‘street culture’ he associated with his neighbourhood. He was also fearful of being ostracised by his peers and community members for wanting to develop a transition pathway into adulthood that would ultimately require him to ‘move out’ of his geographical and social class location. This session with Franklin opened a flood-gate discussion with the other programme participants about their own personal dreams, ambitions and aspirations, which they also had previously been afraid of publicly admitting because of their fear of being judged and victimised by community members.

Franklin’s case, and the many others that participated in these sessions, clearly demonstrates a negative outcome of ‘Black neighbourhoods’: the potential of ‘getting stuck’. The example of Franklin also offers an important counterpoint to the positive value of such neighbourhoods identified earlier in the discussion. The cases of Franklin and of David, previously highlighted, show that individuals living within the same neighbourhood may have different outcomes because they have different networks from which to draw on and may choose different strategies of action. With regards to David, the university student, his choice to ‘stay put’ and remain within his neighbourhood is framed by an aspiration of educational success and social mobility. Importantly, he has friends and individuals within his neighbourhood networks who were able to support him in this endeavour. In contrast, with Franklin, his choices are motivated by the ‘street culture’ and the valorisation of ‘street life’ that is popular among and supported by his peers and networks. The community programme in which Franklin participated exposed him to this negative aspect of his neighbourhood and enabled him to view an alternative cultural frame of ‘Black neighbourhoods’, which is not rooted in crime, anti-social behaviour and conflict.

What the analysis also confirms is that Black youths in their everyday lives are faced with the challenge of striking a balance between recognising their individual needs and the desire to ‘get on’ and responding to the collective needs of the community, which is typically premised by ‘staying put’ within the neighbourhood boundaries to create a positive outcome. To achieve such a balancing act might require the creation of publicly funded, purposely linked networks and structures that ‘bridge’ and collaborate with ethnic-specific associations in these urban spaces. A comprehensive system which supports a range of community-based initiatives for young people is unlikely to be forthcoming during this period of austerity and where the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government emphasise reducing public expenditure. Nonetheless, the views of the young people offer a starting-point towards paradigm shift: from dealing with Black youths and their neighbourhoods as deviant and deficient, to one where Black youths and the spaces they occupy are accorded dignity, respect and participant status.

Conclusion

To conclude, this discussion introduces the notion of the ‘Black neighbourhood’ and brings into sharp focus the way in which such urban neighbourhoods are viewed and utilised by Black youths as a resource for ethnic identity formation and collective mobilisation. These urban spaces and neighbourhoods provide Black youths with different trajectories of transition into adulthood, which range from being viewed as ‘getting stuck’ ‘getting by’ or ‘staying put’ and ‘getting on’. To a large extent, the meanings and knowledge of their local neighbourhood are informed by the particular types of cultural and social resources they are able to access. For those Black youths who regard their networks as strongly embedded within their locality, ‘Black neighbourhoods’ represent a social capital resource in actively combating racial inequality and exclusion, which they experience as part of their everyday lives. The social resources that exist here generate acceptance, belonging and social progress. In these urban spaces, there are areas of social life that are racially and culturally specific and so, for the young people, these neighbourhoods represented identifiable and physical spaces in which they could access a range of ethnic-specific social resources, and draw ethnic and racial boundaries.

Yet, it must also be acknowledged that ‘Black neighbourhoods’ also create a negative outcome for Black youths. The evidence suggests that the cultural and social conditions existing within these urban spaces played an important part in shaping attitudes and expectations. In particular, ‘street culture’, ‘the streets’ or ‘being on road’, played a significant role in shaping the young people’s aspirations and attitudes towards social mobility. To counter some of the negative outcomes associated with ‘Black neighbourhoods’, a range of community initiatives (such as the RAW Leadership Programme) are emerging to encourage young people’s participation in making changes to their local community and to foster a greater sense of community cohesion.