Middle class neighbourhood belonging in Overtoomse Veld, Amsterdam and Peckham, London

(1)

1

MIDDLE CLASS NEIGHBOURHOOD BELONGING

IN OVERTOOMSE VELD, AMSTERDAM AND

PECKHAM, LONDON

Masters Thesis, Research Masters Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam William Stuttard, 11230053, wstuttard10@gmail.com March 2019 Thesis Supervisor: Fenne Pinkster (and Myrte Hoekstra)

(2)

2

Acknowledgements

This project (and the failed ones before it) took a long time. Thank you everyone who has helped and supported me during that time.

Thank you Myrte Hoekstra for your excellent supervision. Fenne Pinkster thank you for taking over supervision. Richard Ronald, Jeroen Van de Pelt and Jan Rath, thank you for collectively getting me back on track.

Thank you Goldsmiths University for the use of your library. Thank you colleagues and friends of UvA Urban Studies 2018. Thank you Manu.

Thank you friends and family in the UK

And thank you to the people of Overtoomse Veld and Queens Road Peckham for taking part.

(3)

3 ABSTRACT

This thesis looks to understand how the middle-class practice neighbourhood belonging in two different neighbourhoods. It shows how middle-class neighbourhood belonging is based on practicing attachment to certain characteristics of the neighbourhood and disaffiliation to others. Through practicing belonging, the middle-class also shape the neighbourhood through inscribing meaning onto the space. This affects what power that neighbourhood holds in the urban hierahy and contributes to the politics of belonging at the neighbourhood scale by determining who belongs where, and for what reasons. My research looked to explain the middle-class belonging of middle-class young professional in two relatively marginalised and ethnically diverse neighbourhoods – Overtoomse Veld (OV) in Amsterdam and Queens Road Peckham in London. I used a Bourdieusian

framework which defines neighbourhood belonging as a congruence between habitus and field.

I found that A) Living around people of the same age, class, tenure and

subsequently the same lifestyle strengthens a sense of neighbourhood belonging. B) The residential choice of my middle-class respondents’ affects their neighbourhood belonging. C) In Peckham, I found that neighbourhood belonging is the strongest for those whose bohemian habitus matches the cultural field of Peckham. The same bourgeois-bohemians are also diversity-seekers and have a stronger sense of engagement with the ethnic diversity of the neighbourhood than those with a more traditional middle-class identity. Those who are more traditionally middle-class practice more disaffiliation socially and spatially from the ethnic or classed ‘others’. D) In both cases, belonging to either middle-class faction (bourgeois-bohemian or traditional middle-class) is explained,

(4)

4 in part, through a development of their habitus linked to their spatial and social trajectory. E) In Overtoomse Veld, I found that a lack of middle-class youth presence in the

neighbourhood detracted from a sense of belonging. A lack of amenities catering for middle-class cultural consumption in the neighbourhood meant that the neighbourhood had mostly a practical function rather than a symbolic function. In OV, the width of social difference in terms of class and ethnicity between the middle-class newcomers and the long-term residents, practiced in the neighbourhood and influenced by national discourses of immigration, weakened a sense of neighbourhood belonging.

(5)

5

1. Introduction

The objective of this thesis is to understand the class belonging of middle-class, young professionals in two neighbourhoods - in Overtoomse Veld, Amsterdam and Queens Road Peckham, London. These are diverse, relatively marginalized

neighbourhoods. I follow Savage et al (2005) and explain neighbourhood belonging using a Bourdieusian framework that looks at practices as the intersection of habitus and field, and defines neighbourhood belonging as the congruence between habitus and field. Residential choice is used to explain neighbourhood belonging. Whilst consumption practices and the social relations of middle-class people in the neighbourhood are

examined as indicators of neighbourhood belonging. This was done through twenty-seven in-depth interviews with thirty-one people across both locations.

The scientific relevance of this research is to add further case studies to the theory of middle-class belonging. It has been shown that there are general or universal ways in which the middle-class practice neighbourhood belonging, yet there are also particular or varied ways which stem from the specific context of the neighbourhood. This has different implications as to the (re)production of middle-class identities and the maintenance or disruption of class and ethnic difference. Gentrifying and ethnically diverse

neighbourhoods in the UK and The Netherlands have been a site of this type of middle-class belonging research before, but these are broad terms and there is room for research into different types of ‘gentrifying’ and ‘ethnically-diverse’ neighbourhoods. Moreover, places do change and research into the same place (or type of place) but further down a trajectory of urban change is scientifically relevant.

(8)

8 The societal relevance to this research concerns the politics of middle-class

belonging. How the middle-class claim belonging to different neighbourhood

characteristics has pollical implications. Their practices of belonging have an impact on wider society. Claims and practices of belonging that are exclusionary have the potential to exacerbate division between the metropolitan middle-class and the post-industrial working class. This could be on the scale of the neighbourhood, where gentrification or urban regeneration is contested, but also on the scale of the nation-state, where belonging to the socially diverse urban core or the post-industrial periphery is a source of contestation. Research can therefore answer - what is it about this case that has led to belonging that is not formed along the traditional lines of social division - class and ethnicity. Furthermore, this has been an area that is of interest to policy makers. Neighbourhoods do have the power to create spatial notions of belonging that cut across traditional lines of social division, and policy makers have tried to harness this power through policies of neighbourhood social mixing - with mixed results.

Furthermore, there is a societal relevance to the scientific pursuit of theoretically understanding the reproduction of class and ethnicity. Understanding the interrelationship between urban space and the construction of class and/or ethnic boundaries is central to understanding the reproduction of the class and ethnic structures of society. Making social reproduction transparent and not hidden is societally relevant because hidden social structures create myths that argue that social division is ‘natural’. This prevents

progressive social change as it upholds inequality. Understanding social reproduction from a Bourdieusian standpoint is therefore important to create social change.

(9)

9 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Savage, Bagnall and Longhurst (2005) and Watt and Smets (2014) both introduce their books on belonging by discussing the role of the local scale during globalisation. Savage et al (2005: 2), write how their work is trying to understand how the local scale is the site of global processes. Their work “draws upon network and relational conceptions to suggest the need for an account of the local which is not contrasted with the global, but which situates the local against other locals in an environment where comparisons and references are multiple and complex” (Savage et al 2005: 7). They use Bourdieu’s

relational concepts of habitus, field and capital to explain the practice of local belonging – and to understand what meaning the local scale has for the residentially mobile middle-class. I will now explain these concepts before discussing how middle-class

neighbourhood belonging has been found to have universal qualities but also different qualities for different factions of the middle-class under different local conditions. 2.1. Habitus

Habitus is a learnt understanding of social reality that people embody and practice when they interact in social fields. “For Bourdieu, the habitus is a way of knowing the world, a set of divisions of space and time, of people and things, which structure social practice” (Dovey 2009: 32). It is the way of knowing the world and being comfortable in the world - yet this is not reflexive knowledge but an embodied way of knowing. King (2000: 417) in the quote below, emphasises it goes between structure and agency, or objectivism and subjectivism. The social structure in the quote below could be social categories such as class or gender which is generative of the habitus (and generated by it).

(10)

10

“For Bourdieu, the habitus which consists of corporal dispositions and cognitive templates overcomes subject-object dualism by inscribing subjective, bodily actions with objective social force so that the most apparently subjective individual acts take on social meaning.”

Below Dovey (2009:33) writes that you feel your habitus in a similar way to how you feel at home in a place.

“The habitus is closely linked to the phenomenology of ‘home’ as both a form of

unreflexive knowledge and of ontological security (Giddens 1990). The agent engaged in practice knows the world ... without objectifying distance, takes it for granted, precisely because he is caught up in it, bound up with it; he inhabits it like a garment (un habit) or a familiar habitat. He feels at home in the world because the world is also in him, in the form of habitus. (Bourdieu 2000: 142–143)”

2.2. Field

Field is a network of relations between people who are all using their capital to position themselves in the field. Position in the field is determined by power (or capital) relative to the others in the field.

“In analytic terms, a field may be defined as a network, or a configuration, of objective relations between positions. These positions are objectively defined, (…) by their present and potential situation (situs) in the structure of the distribution of species of power (or capital) whose possession commands access to the specific profits that are at stake in the field” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 97)

A crucial relationship between habitus and field is that “people are comfortable when there is a correspondence between habitus and field, but otherwise people feel ill at ease and

(11)

11 seek to move – socially and spatially – so that their discomfort is relieved” (Savage et al 2005: 9). For Bourdieu, this drives mobility and stability as people move between fields in order to find correspondence between habitus and field (ibid).

Bourdieu looked at various social and cultural fields, while the focus of this research is on the neighbourhood as a field, which has a close relationship to physical space. This is important; as a high degree of spatial fixity of the field and low access to those fixed spatial sites provides a potential source for distinction (Savage et al 2005: 10). Access to that space comes only to those with the capital to do so. Savage et al (ibid) give the example of going to a premier of a film compared to going to see the same film at the local cinema later – the premier has higher claim to social distinction as it only happens once in space and time. This is important in relation to neighbourhood belonging as being a resident is an important component of neighbourhood belonging, and physically being a resident means having the economic capital to be able to choose to live there.

When I discuss the neighbourhood as a social field itself, I am looking at the holistic social landscape of the neighbourhood, and of that neighbourhood in relation to other neighbourhoods. As described in the quote above, what is at stake is social position based on possession of capital. Individuals practice and take a social position based on how they play (and co-determine) the specific rules of the game. Much like Bourdieu has

looked at smaller spaces (e.g. the home), the neighbourhood can be looked at holistically as a space that has social positions staked out within them (and between neighbourhoods) – based on capital. Benson (2014: 3098) describes the neighbourhood as a “locus of other fields” (such as housing and education), and also as a field in itself with its own “stakes

(12)

12 and struggles”. To define the neighbourhood as a field is to determine what capital

relationships structure the field.

Bourdieu’s concept of habitus has been criticised as being overly structural and for not allowing space for social change (King 2000). It is overly structural because habitus on its own, without being in relation to field, can look like it is a just the embodied

reproduction of a fixed social structure that doesn’t allow for the agency of individuals. Relatedly, habitus explains social reproduction well but doesn’t explain social change well. In defence of this criticism it is important to note that habitus is in relation to field and the field is itself subject to change depending on how individuals play the game / practice in the neighbourhood (see Benson and Jackson 2013). Also, habitus does change, albeit slowly, in relation to practice in the neighbourhood (see Benson 2014). So, by living and engaging in a neighbourhood that they were not used to, people can become

knowledgeable in how to culturally value that neighbourhood. This embodied knowledge is a change in habitus.

2.3. Capital

According to Bourdieu there are four types of capital: economic, social, cultural and symbolic. These have different abilities to position the individual in the field

depending on the characteristics of that field. Economic capital is the economic resources that you can deploy. Social capital is the resource which comes from your social relations and social network (Dovey 2009: 34). Cultural capital can be embodied (e.g. in manners and disposition), objectified (e.g. contained in objects) or institutionalised (e.g. in a university degree) (ibid). Cultural capital is related closely to symbolic capital which Dovey defines as:

(13)

13

“the symbolic component of goods which demonstrate the aesthetic ‘taste’ of the owner. Thus it is a form of ‘honour’ or objectified cultural capital that accumulates in objects and individuals.” (ibid).

In terms of the neighbourhood field, capital provides access to the neighbourhood for example through the economic capital needed to rent or buy, or through the social capital of your social network that helps to find an available home. The neighbourhood is also a source of capital in numerous ways. The neighbourhood is sometimes related to what education opportunities are available. Also, symbolic capital can be acquired through the aesthetics of other buildings and businesses on your street, and social capital can be generated from neighbourhood social networks. Your neighbours can also be an indirect source of economic capital. For example, in the UK council tax is collected and

redistributed at a local level, therefore living in a wealthier neighbourhood means a wealthier local council and more funding for public services.

2.4. Elective Belonging

Savage et al’s (2005) concept of elective belonging based on Bourdieusian theory has been influential in defining the theory of middle-class neighbourhood belonging. Based on their research around Manchester (UK), they describe how their respondents electively belong to the local environment when they are “able to biographically make sense of their decision to move to a place” (ibid: 207). Their attachment to their place of residence is made as a choice in correspondence to their middle-class social and spatial trajectory and the functionality and symbolic identity of the place. The place and who they are is corresponded through combining the ethical decision of residential choice and an appreciation of the aesthetic characteristics of the place (Savage 2010). Savage describes

(14)

14 that what is appreciated are such things as the heritage of the buildings or the aura of the place. The cultural and symbolic capital of these characteristics are highly valued by the middle-class resident.

The politics of this sense of belonging is that they “claim moral rights over the place through their capacity to move and put down roots” (Savage 2010: 116), as opposed to those who do not have the resources to move – the longer-term residents – who claim belonging based on nostalgia or dwelling. These two different ways of claiming

neighbourhood belonging create difference between social groups in terms of class - between the middle-class, mobile newcomers (the powerful – with economic capital to move and the economic and symbolic capital to determine the field of objectified cultural capital in the neighbourhood) and the (working-class) long-term residents (the unpowerful) (Savage 2010). The difference between the ‘dwellers’ and those that electively belong can also be seen to correspond to a range of social and cultural differences.

“(…) certainly, their politics, their gender politics in particular, differ. They have different tastes and interests in food, drink, cars, clothes, holidays, music, TV and so on. Their interest in sport differs radically. Their attitudes and beliefs more generally are different. And their accents differ” (Burrows 2010: 146)

Those longer-term residents, that were perhaps ‘born and bred’, did not choose to live in a place like those that electively belong. These are for Savage the ‘dwellers’ – those that “present themselves in passive terms, not choosing their location, but literally placed by it” (ibid: 131). The place for them “is seen as a container for the personal relationships [and] a site of memories (Savage 2010: 129). These personal relationships are complex networks of historic family and friendship connections. Nostalgia is another way that longer-term

(15)

15 resident’s practice belonging in the neighbourhood. This is about re-visiting past

experiences with each other to share again in the place that was formational in their lives, and that has now changed (Lager et al 2013).

Missing from Savage’s ‘elective belonging’ and ‘dwellers’ dualism are those that don’t fit the two categories. There are those that don’t choose or are restricted in their residential choice but are still residentially mobile. For example, if you are an aspirational middle-class person, but without the economic capital to elect to belong in a setting that exactly corresponds with your habitus, then you may end up in a place that doesn’t quite fit your habitus (Watt 2009). People may therefore move not so much through choice, but due to an external circumstance. This difference, between choice and constrained choice, Devadason (2010) found to explain the difference in cosmopolitan neighbourhood belonging between national/ethnic groups in North London. Those with the freedom to choose elected to belong to the place based on its (and their) cosmopolitanism, those who moved due to external circumstances did (or could) not.1

2.5. Selective Belonging and Middle-Class Disaffiliation

Paul Watt (2009) adapted elective belonging in his conceptualisation of ‘selective belonging’. His research looked at a middle-class housing estate in suburban south-east England. He found that his respondents distanced themselves from the space and class of a nearby part of the suburb, so that they only belonged selectively to a space (and social class) that was physically separate from the other space (and social class). He writes that

1_{Cosmopolitan attitude is defined in this thesis as the attitude of being “open-minded towards the otherness}

of the other, [being] able to process equivocal meanings of local, national and global phenomena and manage this diversity, and [being] respectful and tolerant towards other ideas, opinions and cultures.” (Pichler 2012: 24)

(16)

16 there may be some regional differences in the UK born out the particularly high-pressure housing market in the South-East of England, leaving middle-class people having to trade-off their residential location so that they are successful in the field of employment or housing. I.e. they had less choice, ended up near to people not like them in terms of class, so distanced themselves discursively and spatially (Watt 2010). Both elective belonging and selective belonging involve choice – but selective belonging is more about the practices of selection within the neighbourhood whilst the elective part of elective belonging is more about the choice to move neighbourhood and the influence of that choice.

If you are selectively belonging to one part of the neighbourhood then you are disaffiliating from the other (Pinkster 2014: 811). Scholars have researched how the middle-classes disengage with parts of their neighbourhood under different contexts (Atkinson 2006, Boterman and Musterd 2016, Ellison and Burrows 2006, Pinkster 2014). This involves the middle-class putting social and/or spatial distance between themselves and others. For example, Pinkster (2014) found that her respondents in West-Amsterdam disengaged from their neighbourhood and valued their home mostly on a value-for money and accessibility basis. For Atkinson (2006 cited in Elison and Burrows 2006: 302), middle-class disaffiliation is about not wanting to come into contact with ‘the other’ – whether that is class or ethnicity. This is motivated by a fear of crime and danger; and leads to a withdrawal from urban life. Atkinson has a three-part terminology for how strong the disaffiliation is – from the weak disaffiliation of ‘insulation’ (which is like

(17)

17 selective belonging) through ‘incubation’ to ‘incarceration’ at the extreme end of

disaffiliation.2

A mild form of middle-class disaffiliation which doesn’t involve separate physical space entirely but does involve separate neighbourhood social networks (and

corresponding separate levels of social capital), has been described as “social tectonics” (Butler and Robson 2001). This is where different class and ethnic groups overlap in space but slide past each other without meaningful contact. Some studies into the social effects of tenure mixing in the UK have supported this theory. Different tenure in these cases reflect the different social class of the people. Davidson (2006, 2010) found that new build developments in mixed tenure neighbourhoods do not create social mixing but the incoming and longer-term residents tend to use different amenities and have different social and labour circles. Atkinson and Kintrea (2000) also found residents to separate on tenure fault lines. In Amsterdam, Tersteeg, and Pinkster (2016: 66) in a fine-grained tenure-mixed development found “highly problematic social divisions” between tenure and corresponding ethnicity. Van Gent et al (2016: 247) found that perceptions of social

division were “structured by physical characteristics, activity patterns and symbolic boundaries”.

An alternative to social tectonics is that the new urban middle-class in gentrifying areas may, in certain conditions, like to be close to or consume diversity even though they maintain a social distance. They may use their contact with other ethnicities or working-class groups as a symbolic marker of cultural differentiation (Junhke 2016). Florida (2003)

2_{Ellison and Burrow’s (2006) write that this fear can be in competition with an excitement about living in an} area with risk. An excitement that leads to more engagement in the area.

(18)

18 describes the creative class as ‘diversity seekers’. Importantly, diversity for the creative class may be cultural wallpaper and living next to cultural or social difference may not lead to social networks across class and ethnicity (Butler 2003). May (1996: 208 quoted in Blokland & Van Eijk 2010: 317) writes that diverse residential groups are “‘little more than the object of (. . .) an ‘‘exotic gaze’’’ to the gentrifying urban middle class. A way to measure this effect is to look at the social networks or belonging of diverse groups in the neighbourhood. Blokland and Van Eijk’s (2010) research into the heterogeneity of social networks in the diverse neighbourhood of Cool, Rotterdam did this. They found that residents tended to have homogeneous ethnic social networks.

2.6. Diverging Practices of Belonging

Importantly there is difference within the middle-class as to how far they

disaffiliate or selectively belong, both discursively or spatially to the ethnic-diversity in the neighbourhood. Weck and Hanhorster (2015) found that there is a difference in the social practices of the middle-class between those seeking urbanity and those seeking diversity. Those seeking diversity are those “which encompass a genuine interest for or at least tolerance towards social ‘‘others’”, and those that seek urbanity are those “which

[diversity] is kept at arm’s length, so to say as a spectacle, that does not enter one’s own social world, but is effectively neutralised and limited to consumable elements” (Ibid: 478). Another example of this is in Bosch and Ouwehand (2018), who found that middle-class diversity seekers, in their ethnically diverse neighbourhood in Rotterdam, felt more at home than those who were not diversity seekers and relatedly the diversity seekers did not try to segregate themselves away from diversity. Similarly, Lelévrier (2013: 413) found that it was those who had a residential history of living with ethnic and classed ‘others’,

(19)

19 who had become more familiar with ethnic diversity, and who therefore interacted with it more than those who did not. These papers support the idea that there is differentiation within the “metropolitan habitus” of the middle class, and that “mini-habitus” may form neighbourhoods of distinction based on differential deployment of capital (Butler and Robson 2003a: 1795, Butler and Robson 2003b quoted in Webber 2007: 206). A key division between these middle-class factions is the differential cultural capital of living with diversity.

Different practices of belonging within the middle-class, including the less ethnically-segregating practices of diversity seekers for example, also points to a less simplistic situation with more cross-ethnicity engagement than ‘social tectonics’. This situation is what Jackson and Butler (2015) found in their research in Bellenden Village, Peckham. They found a level of engagement with difference by the middle-class who define themselves, in part, through their relationship with difference. They described how “the middle classes do not just slide past Rye Lane but grapple with it, adapt to it,

sometimes incorporating part of it into their story of ‘elective belonging’ but also pushing against it as a boundary” (ibid: 2361). 3_{They found that this ability to live with difference} and incorporate it into their life was a part of what it meant to be a middle-class Peckham resident as opposed to a middle-class resident of an adjoining neighbourhood.

2.7. Young Professionals and Neighbourhood Belonging

When looking at the reproduction of the middle-class using Bourdieu’s framework a common theme is to look at the role of parenting, the neighbourhood and schooling (e.g.

3_{Rye Lane is a place of social and cultural difference for the white middle-class in Peckham. See section 3.6:} ‘Research Sites’.

(20)

20 Boterman 2013). Yet different life-stage groups do have different influences on urban restructuring (Hochstenbach 2018). Young professionals are at an interesting life-stage in terms of neighbourhood as they are likely to be constrained by their economic capital about where they can live. Rabe and Taylor (2010: 549) in their UK wide survey found that the life-event of leaving the parental home and entering work were events that caused a move into a more deprived area than the individual had previously lived in. This means that young professionals may live in neighbourhoods that do not correspond with their middle-class habitus.

Young professionals also face difficulties in accessing housing in neighbourhoods they have traditionally been attracted to – as Hochstenbach and Boterman (2015: 258) explain.

“Furthermore, the accessibility of housing markets for young people in

economically successful cities is also increasingly constrained by the processes of gentrification. The upgrading of inner-city boroughs leads to decreasing

affordability of housing in these boroughs (Van Gent 2013), and tenure conversions from social and affordable private rent to owner occupancy

increasingly restrict access to affordable rental housing (Boterman and Van Gent 2014).”

It is young professionals who are likely to be the vanguard of middle-class colonisation of neighbourhoods, especially when the traditional young professional neighbourhoods have too much demand and not enough supply of housing. Their relationship to the

neighbourhood is therefore important for policies of urban regeneration that are looking to alleviate the problem of supply of housing for this demographic and class. Whether the

(21)

21 middle-class see marginal and ethnically diverse neighbourhoods as a place to invest in and possibly raise a family, or just a place to sleep in and then move away from, is important for the neighbourhood. This research therefore looks to explore further

differentiation of middle-class belonging and to focus on young professionals to see how their age, class and tenure, combine to form a middle-class lifestyle, and to see if and how this, in relation to the characteristics of the relatively marginalised and ethnically diverse neighbourhood and the general mechanisms of belonging and social difference that this entails, produces neighbourhood belonging.

(22)

22 3.0. METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research Aim and Research Questions.

The aim of the research is to explore young middle-class renters’ neighbourhood belonging in ethnically diverse, relatively marginalised neighbourhoods. There is one main research question:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): How do young professional, middle class, privately-renting residents practice neighbourhood belonging in an ethnically diverse and relatively marginalised neighbourhood?

This is broken down into two sub-questions which separate identity and place. This separation is for analytical purposes, as it is easier to describe the explanatory factors with a place or person factor leading the explanation. This point is made in light of the core theoretical understanding of neighbourhood belonging being a relational concept, so place and person are not separate in theory. The sub-questions are:

RQ2: How does an individual’s social identity influence neighbourhood belonging?

RQ3: How do the place-based characteristics of the neighbourhood influence neighbourhood belonging?

3.2. Conceptual Framework

3.3. Operationalising Middle Class

This research is about understanding what being middle-class means relative to a spatial location. The respondents were selected based on their educational level (see Weck

(23)

23 and Hanhörster 2015: 475 – who did the same). Except for two current undergraduate students in the Amsterdam case, all my respondents had completed a higher education degree. A discussion of their lifestyle, biography and profession enabled me to make a further judgement that my participants were middle-class. A judgement was also made through how my participants presented and expressed themselves (and presented their homes in the OV sample). An explicit discussion with my participants of the social category of ‘middle-class’ and how they applied it to themselves was not included, as the above operationalisation was enough (cf. Bacque et al 2015). Furthermore, this lack of explicit discussion of their classed identity (except at end of the interview) was chosen as I did not wish to specifically frame the interview in terms of class. I was looking to

understand the neighbourhood belonging of middle-class people - not how middle-class people described their sense of belonging based on their middle-class identity. With my operationalisation, if they did explain their belonging in terms of class, then it was up to them to do.

(24)

24 3.4. Neighbourhood Belonging as a concept

Neighbourhood Belonging in this thesis is defined as a congruence between habitus and field. This means that when people feel they belong, their habitus and the field of the neighbourhood are matched. Neighbourhood Belonging is expressed as the emotional attachment that enables people to call a place ‘home’. This involves “feelings of familiarity, comfort, security and emotional attachment” (Antoisch 2010: 646).

Neighbourhood Belonging is therefore whether you feel this way towards the space of the neighbourhood (ibid). It is operationalised in this research by asking a set of questions relating to the concept itself. These are: ‘do you feel at home in the neighbourhood? Do you feel like you are a part of a community? Do you feel like this is neighbourhood is a good fit for you?’

As well as this direct questioning of belonging, there are practices of belonging that work as indicators or expressions of the strength of neighbourhood belonging. By looking at people’s social relations in the neighbourhood and their consumption practices, their emotional attachment to the neighbourhood is made clearer. Bourdieu’s theory looks to interpret an individual’s social practices to understand the link between field and habitus (Nettleton and Green 2014: 240). It is through practicing that the individual is interacting with the field. Residential choice is the practice that Savage et al (2005) focus on.

Alternatively, Benson and Jackson (2013) have shown how neighbourhood belonging is a performative act in the neighbourhood. They studied how discursive practices in London (including Peckham) shape the neighbourhood as well as generate resident’s subjectivities. Other practices that are reproductive of the neighbourhood and identity are neighbourhood

(25)

25 boundary-making processes (Jackson and Benson 2014) and consumption practices in the neighbourhood (Bridge and Dowling 2001, Zukin 2008). These practices are

(re)productive of varied middle-class identities within the field of the neighbourhood and are also reproductive of the neighbourhood field itself (Bacque et al 2015). In this thesis, ‘social relations’ and ‘consumption practices’ are the categories of practicing belonging which are examined. These are conceptualised as expressions (or indicators) of

neighbourhood belonging as shown in Figure 1 above. 3.5. Case Selection

My conclusions will be made in relation to the comparative case and in relation to other cases of middle-class belonging. In my research the cases were designed to be an extension to the theory of middle-class belonging (Savage et al 2005, Bacque et al 2015) by providing another examination of neighbourhood belonging but in a different context and with a different population. Thereby this research was not designed to challenge the theory of middle-class neighbourhood belonging, but it is designed to explore the use of the theory in a different context (and from there comment on the theory.)

Both neighbourhoods are places where the young professional middle class rent in neighbourhoods where the majority of people are ‘not like them’ in terms of ethnicity and class. This will lead to an expected result of middle-class disaffiliation (see Atkinson 2006, Watt 2009, Pinkster 2014), or non-belonging to the neighbourhood, which can be

explained by an incongruence between the habitus of the individual and field of the neighbourhood. In respect to the explanatory theory of habitus and field - the two cases would be “typical” cases of middle-class belonging in various neighbourhoods, as they are representative of the general cross-case relationship explained by the relationship between

(26)

26 habitus/field and belonging (see Gerring 2007: 89). Furthermore, they are typical cases in respect to the theory of middle-class neighbourhood belonging, as the theory is constructed through case-studies researched in geographically different neighbourhoods (as outlined in the literature review). My case-studies are a continuation of this empirical variation.

In another respect the two case studies were designed to be “extreme” cases of middle-class neighbourhood belonging as I selected young, middle class renters, who you logically would expect to have weaker ties to the neighbourhood than families (ibid: 101). They are expected to be weaker than families because families adopt strategies of social reproduction related to where they live. In the UK, where you live can determine where you go to school which leads to residential choice being intertwined with middle-class social reproduction (Butler and Robson 2003). Local schools can be the foci around which strong social networks form (Butler and Robson 2001: 2150). In the Netherlands, there is more freedom about where to send your children to school, yet school choice is still linked to neighbourhood characteristics through a desire to send children to schools which have majority same-ethnic background as the child (Boterman 2013). Furthermore, childless adults access different amenities to families in the neighbourhood which may affect there belonging.

Furthermore, this research is designed to be an extreme case as the neighbourhoods that were selected were from the poorest in the city, combined with the characteristic of having one of the largest ethnic minority populations in the city (BAME in the UK,

Allochtoon in the Netherlands). In theory this accentuates the difference between the new

(27)

27 habitus and field, with the predicted result being a strong form of middle-class

disaffiliation.

Although the two cases were designed to be the same, the outcome is that there is a more homogeneous ethnic composition of the long-term residents in in Overtoomse Veld than in Peckham, and less of a middle-class presence in OV compared to Peckham. The national discourse about multiculturalism, and the housing market structure of the two cities also create contextual difference between the cases.

These differences enable an analysis of the two cases to show how a difference in this context affects the outcome. It is possible to use Gerring’s (2007:131) ‘most-similar’ classification of cases to understand how the logic of a cross-case analysis between my cases works. In his classification all the independent variables remain the same, while a change in one factor can be shown to lead to a change in the outcome. Although my cases are not exactly ‘most-similar’, as they vary in the multiple ways described above, the logic can be used to draw inferences between my cases. To explain: as written above, in my research there is a change in more than one placed-based explanatory factor causing change in my research. This lack of ‘control’ on other explanatory factors could be assumed to discredit analysis based upon Gerring’s ‘most-similar’ classification, however in my opinion it only goes so far as to discredit an attempt to determine which single factor causes a difference between the cases, and by how much that single factor does so (and that is not the purpose of this research). As a logic of analysis, even with changes in multiple independent variables, the ‘most-similar’ cross-case classification helps as a model to analyse the empirics.

(28)

28 3.6. The Research Sites

3.6.1. Queens Road Peckham, London

Queens Road Peckham is situated between New Cross and Peckham in the borough of Southwark. As shown in Figure 3, Queens Road Peckham is an area high on the

rankings of the most socio-economically deprived in London, even though there have been significant house price rises in the private sector in recent years. Between 2004 and 2015, house prices in Peckham more than doubled from £200 000 to over £400 000 (Foxtons 2019). So, it is both a deprived and gentrifying neighbourhood. Queens Road has seen significant urban renewal recently, which is visible in the building of new flats along Queens Road and the appearance of shops and amenities catering to the middle-class. New Cross is home to Goldsmiths University, whilst The University of the Arts London is nearby in Camberwell, so there is a significant arts focused student population. Peckham itself has seen rapid gentrification since around 2000, focused in the area to the east of Peckham Rye – in Bellenden Village (see Jackson and Benson 2014, Jackson and Butler 2015). The wider area of Peckham has become symbolic for being the leading edge of gentrification. Leading to headlines such as “9 reasons Peckham is the best place to live in London” to be unsurprising media commentary (Metro 2014). The housing in the area is characteristic of London in that the quality, tenure and age of the buildings change from road to road. There are large Victorian Terraces on one street, many subdivided into flats, and the next street over could be redeveloped social housing. This mixed tenure explains how there can be high rent caused by gentrification in the private sector whilst still pockets of deprivation concentrated in socially rented housing. The large area of the redeveloped

(29)

29 North Peckham estates borders Queens Road to the north-west. To the North, the area around the Old Kent Road is in the stage of planning to become a huge area of state led regeneration coinciding with a proposed extension to the Bakerloo underground line. Rye Lane forms the Western Boundary of the Queens Road neighbourhood. This is a central shopping street in Peckham running north to south. It is visibly ethnically diverse – seen through the aesthetics of the shops (and the people - see Hall 2015). Jackson and Butler’s (2015 :2359) middle-class respondents described Rye Lane “in terms of an overwhelming of the senses, the smell of meat, the noise of the shoppers.” They found it to be “a site of both fascination and repulsion” (Ibid).

Historically, before this rapid gentrification, Peckham has been associated with Afro-Caribbean immigration, the famous UK sit-com Only Falls and Horses and at times - crime. The waves of Afro-Caribbean immigration into the area in the post-war era was initially led by Caribbean immigration (notably Jamaican) and it is now a centre of Nigerian immigration (Economist 2015). Peckham has been rated the number one in the Top 10 Nigerian neighbourhoods of London and is dubbed ‘mini Lagos’ by a London-based Nigerian website (The London Nigerian 2018). However, although the Afro-Caribbean influence is visible, Queens Road is a super-diverse area. Jackson and Butler (2015: 2356) described Peckham as an “iconic socially and ethnically mixed area of South London”. For example, when Suzanne Hall (2015) surveyed 70 shop-keepers on Rye Lane, which approximately forms the western boundary of Queens Road, she found countries of origins to be:

(30)

30 “Pakistan (32%), England (16%), Afghanistan (10%), Nigeria (7%), India (6%), Eritrea

(4%), Iraq (4%), Iran (3%), Ireland (3%) Jamaica (3%), Sri Lanka (3%), with Ghana, Kashmir, Kenya, Nepal, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Yemen collectively comprising 9%”

Figure 2: Location of Queens Road Peckham (in red). Within the green boundaries of Southwark (on the right). Ward boundaries with names are in Blue. (Adapted from Southwark Council 2015)

(31)

31

Figure 3: Queens Road Index of Multiple Deprivation. Queens Road in Red. (Adapted from Southwark Council 2015)4

4_{“The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) measures the level of deprivation in each ‘lower super output} area’ (LSOA) in England and ranks each LSOA (about 1,500 people) according to how deprived it is compared to the others…. Relative deprivation within Southwark wards can be measured using local quintiles, where LSOAs are ranked by deprivation and divided into five equal groups.” (Southwark Council 2015: 8)

(32)

32

Figure 4: Percentage of ‘White British’ ethnic group in the wards of Queens Road. London Average is 44.9% (UK Census 2011).5

3.6.2 Overtoomse Veld, Amsterdam

Overtoomse Veld is a neighbourhood situated in centre of the New-West of Amsterdam. The boundary of the A10 ring-road and Rembrandt Park separate it from the pre-WW2 neighbourhoods of Amsterdam (see Figure 5).

5_{As you can see from the maps above, the neighbourhood of Queens Road Peckham overlaps 4 different} census boundaries. This means that getting accurate data on the exact neighbourhood was beyond the capacity of this thesis. This contrasts with the data related to neighbourhood boundaries for the Overtoomse Veld case.

33.2% 38.5%

26.7% 18.3%

(33)

33

Figure 5: Location of Overtoomse Veld (Source: Van Eesteren Museum)

The first construction of the neighbourhood started in 1959 and it has historically had “almost 100 percent” socially-rented housing (Van Kempen and Bolt 2009: 470). Since 2007, under the “Policy for the Empowerment of Neighbourhoods (Krachtwijkenbeleid)”, there has been neighbourhood renewal involving pulling down old buildings and building the new (Albers 2012 :21). Part of this neighbourhood renewal is a policy with a “clear intention” to create a socially mixed neighbourhood through neighbourhood renewal, including creating more mixed tenancy, in order lessen the perceived problems associated with a high density of poor people (Van Kempen and Bolt 2009: 470).

In Overtoomse Veld; 25% of the population live below the poverty line, and this co-insides with a high level of non-Dutch residents in the neighbourhood (see Figure 6). The history of migration into the area describes how these national-ethnic groups came to live in the neighbourhood. In the 1960s, OV was a destination for the middle-class Dutch looking to move out of the inner-city (Van Huis et al 2004: 2). In the 1960’s and 1970’s a shortage of low-skilled labour in the Netherlands led to guest workers arriving from

(34)

34 Morocco and Turkey (ibid). Family unification led to a continuation of this population increasing who were drawn to OV due to the cheap rents (ibid). In 2011, the percentage of OV residents who are counted as ethnically Moroccan was 34% while the percentage of Turkish was 13.5% (see Figure 6). The majority of these consider themselves Muslim. In 2015, 94% and 86% of Dutch nationals with Moroccan and Turkish roots respectively; described themselves as Muslim (DutchNews.nl 2018).

The neighbourhood’s built environment is pre-dominantly apartment blocks. The latest wave of migration to the area are those middle-class migrants who are moving to live in the newly built apartment blocks. My respondents live in a newly-built block at the heart of Overtoomse Veld on August-Allebeplein, which is the shopping centre of the

neighbourhood. At the time of the data collection (July 2018), I was informed of only three businesses in the neighbourhood that market using the aesthetics of gentrification (or aesthetics of urban middle-class consumption). On the square is a mixture of independent restaurants, snack-bars and shops; and three large multinational supermarkets. Overtoomse Veld is therefore far less gentrified than Peckham overall.

(35)

35

Figure 6: OV population characteristics (Amsterdam department of research and statistics quoted in Albers 2012: 24)

3.7. METHOD

Eleven interviews with thirteen people (there were two interviews with more than one person contributing) were conducted around Queens Road, Peckham. Sixteen

interviews (with 18 people) were recorded for my Overtoomse Veld case study. All but one interview in Amsterdam was done in a respondent’s flat whilst in London they were

(36)

36 conducted in cafes, bars or a park. The interviews were all recorded except one, and were on average around 40 minutes long, but ranged from 20 minutes to 1 hour 10 minutes.6 This number of interviews provided a sufficient quality of data to be able to draw conclusions for the purposes of this thesis.

My respondents were all young, middle-class renters. Being part of the young middle-class was operationalized as being between the ages of 16 and 35. The respondents in my research were between the ages of 19 and 32. Being a middle-class renter was operationalized as renting your permanent residence from a private landlord or private-company landlord (as opposed to state or housing association landlord). In the UK this is known as the ‘private rental sector’ and in The Netherlands as the ‘free-market sector’. All but one (Matt in London, who was a co-homeowner) of my respondents were renters under this definition. There is almost an even balance of male / female respondents in both cases (7 women to 6 men in the London case, 8 each in Amsterdam). Around half the

respondents were living in the country of their nationality (8 British in the London case, 9 Netherlanders in the Amsterdam case). Whilst the other half were international migrants. In both cases the respondents were predominantly White, in relation to the BAME or Allochtonnen populations in the respective neighbourhoods. All my respondents were migrants to the neighbourhood and to the city – not one grew-up near to where they now live. There was no born-and-bred Amsterdammers or Londoners in the corresponding cases.

6_{The data from the one non-recorded interview was created through taking extensive interviews as soon as} the interview was over.

(37)

37 There was a small difference in the length of residence between the two cases, which I assume to be caused by the recruitment difference as well as the different stage in urban renewal. This is because in OV the block of flats is relatively new, and it is one of the first new blocks to be completed during OV’s urban renewal, so there is a lack of other middle-class accommodation nearby, compared to Queens Road which has had a longer history of gentrification. The details are, that in the Amsterdam case, the majority (16/18) have been living in their flats between a year and a year and a half. The maximum time of a year and a half is due to the building only being open for that period of time. Two respondents in the sample had previously lived in the neighbourhood, and for six respondents this was their first permanent (longer than a month) place of residence in Amsterdam. In comparison, in Peckham five had previously lived in the wider area of Peckham and had therefore stayed within Peckham during their last residential move. The longest someone had lived in the wider neighbourhood was three years. The majority (12/13) had been living in their current residence for between six months and two years. All my respondents in this case had been living in London for over a year, and for only one respondent was this was their first permanent place of residence in London. So overall, the respondents in London tended to have lived for longer in the city and/or the neighbourhood than the respondents in the Amsterdam case.

3.7.1 Recruitment

In Amsterdam I recruited all the participants from one housing block with a systematic door-to-door method. This recruitment got approximately a 25% acceptance rate. I had previously lived in the block and knew that it was all private rental

(38)

38 accommodation. It is also one of the first blocks of private accommodation to be

completed during the neighbourhood renewal process.

In London, I was initially looking to emulate the research in Overtoomse Veld by sampling from one block of newly built flats (built within 5 years), and through online estate agent searches, I found a block of flats just off Queens Road in Peckham. Due to the mixed tenure composition of this block, only 4 interviewees were recruited here, so I expanded my recruitment along Queens Road. The other new housing blocks in the Queens Road area are also mixed tenancy so going door to door was not an option (plus the high security of the buildings impeded this). The result is that the other nine

respondents privately rent in a range of buildings, all within approximately 500m of the Queens Road Overground Station. I recruited the other respondents in public places around the station. These respondents were recruited randomly, as opposed to the systematic approach in Amsterdam. My method was that I tried to recruit whoever I could; who looked in the age range. To reduce potential recruitment biases I recruited in different places, although some places, where people were sitting down, proved to be more

successful. Four were recruited in a bar on the street, one from on the street, four were in the park, one was recruited from my hockey team, one from snowballing, two from a cafe next to the station. Around 50% of people who qualified for recruitment accepted the invitation to be interviewed, although around 50% of the total people approached did not fit the criterion of renting in the catchment area. The recruitment in both cases took place in the summer, and the good weather made it easier to approach people on the street. 3.7.2. Interviews

(39)

39 The interview was chosen as a method because the subject matter – neighbourhood belonging – is a complex subjectivity. A more quantitative approach would have run the risk of losing the depth and richness of personal accounts of belonging.

The interview was designed to be semi-structured and to encourage the interviewee to speak at length about narratives of practices in the neighbourhood. A semi-structured interview guide meant that there was some fluidity to the way in which the questions were posed to the respondents. This allowed follow-up questions that were off-script but proved to be interesting to the main topic of the interview. As much as possible I followed Weiss’s (1995: 75) advice on how to help respondents expand on their answers and fill in detail in their narratives so that I got a more in-depth narrative of the event or place they were describing.

The interviews covered three different themes (see Appendix 1 for the interview questions). These three sections were chosen to cover different aspects of neighbourhood belonging. The first asked about residential history and their choice to live in the

neighbourhood. The second looked to explore consumption practices and social relations in the neighbourhood and across the city, and the third asked explicitly about their neighbourhood belonging. Belonging is therefore operationalised as a practice and a feeling, which is understood through an interview - which is a reflexive interpretation of these practices by the participant, co-produced with the interviewer in a social situation (Denzin 2001: 25).

In terms of the subjects of the interview, residential choice proved to be relatively easy to elicit longer narratives from the respondent. It linked the characteristics of the place to the motivations of the individual in a narrative that all respondents found easy to talk

(40)

40 about. This is in comparison to talking about practices around the neighbourhood, where in general, respondents didn’t connect their actions with their attitude towards the place. For example, when talking about why someone liked to visit a certain shop - it was hard to get past the simple fact that ‘they like it’, whereas with residential choice there was more articulation about how they made the choice.

3.7.3. Analysis

The interviews were transcribed verbatim and then coded using the software ‘QDA Miner Lite’. The transcription was a source of analysis itself. Re-hearing the interviews allowed me to get to know the data and to remember the social situation of the interview. The analysis was directed by the aim of the research which was to explain neighbourhood belonging in another context, using the theory and concepts that had been applied

elsewhere, but also to be aware to explore the data as well to see if there were any themes that could come forward from the empirical data which can add to the theory. Therefore, coding was done both inductively and deductively in relation to the theory. For example, conceptualising belonging as a congruence between habitus and field was a model of analysis taken from theory and applied to the data. Whilst the Bourgeois-bohemian category came from the data (although there are similar concepts in the litreture).

I found that analysing individuals across all their neighbourhood belonging practices to get a rounded impression of the individual was appropriate. This is because using habitus as a concept requires understanding an individual’s biography and taste. Every neighbourhood practice that they described was in the context of their residential choice and residential trajectory’s. Forming an overall impression of the individual from the data, and then finding patterns between the individuals was therefore paramount.

(41)

41 The analysis is based on descriptions of individuals’ experiences and practices of belonging. Residential choice and social practice in the neighbourhood are the two

categories that make-up these descriptions. Residential choice is the answer to why people moved to the neighbourhood. The social imagination of neighbourhood space is at the forefront as to how people practice this. Whilst social practice is what consumption

practices and social relationships people do in the neighbourhood (and why they do them). How people describe these practices will show their habitus being congruent to certain characteristics of the neighbourhood and not others. This habitus will be shown to be related to their identity. Together, residential choice and the practices of belonging in the neighbourhood will show how a young middle-class identity is (in part) developed through a relationship of belonging to where they live.

3.8. Positionality

Since the cultural turn in geography, acknowledging your positionality, and being reflexive about how that position of power may have affected the production of knowledge is part of doing research (Rose 1997). The most interesting elements of researcher

positionality is when the contents of the research interact with positionality. So even though my gender effected the interview process differently for different people - in general the interviews were not about gender. What is more interesting is my class, ethnicity and attitude towards the politics of the research, as these were central to what I was asking about, and therefore my social position is more likely to affect the outcome. The sense of ethical or political importance that I gave to the subject affected the research. For example, my respondents in Overtoomse Veld and Peckham tended to assume that it was ethically bad that they weren’t involved more in the community and my

(42)

42 questions brought those ideas about themselves to the fore. However, they evidently didn’t think that being involved in the community was essential or they would do it. I was

therefore perhaps projecting, through my choice of subject, what I thought was important to me, which were community values as well as cosmopolitan values framed similarly through the discussion of diversity. I was aware that this frame of communitarianism and liberal cosmopolitanism might not allow people the space to discuss ideas that were not in correspondence to the values that I projected through my choice of research subject (and projected through the liberal cosmopolitan habitus of myself). To mitigate this, I designed the interview questions so that they didn’t have interviewer bias. And I explicitly stated that that there was no right or wrong answers at the beginning of the interview and

repeated this statement and encouraged people when they were on the cusp and struggling to say something that wasn’t politically correct. (That is politically correct in the liberal cosmopolitan sense, as that is the ethnical framework of the research and myself).

It was evident that many of those that I interviewed did broadly share the same values as me, and they also had a similar young, middle-class (and white - for some), identity. This research is therefore insider research as I am studying people with a similar identity. I am also researching something about them that I have had as well –

neighbourhood belonging in OV and Queens Road. I lived in the block I recruited from in OV for one month in 2018. In Queens Road, during the research process I worked in a local pub for a couple of weeks. The similarity of having a middle-class habitus, between me and the respondents, meant that there was a commonalty between us that helped for us to get on better with one another, and I understood what they meant when they used social or cultural references relevant to class, age or living in the two places.

(43)

43

4.0. Results

4.1. Queens Road, Peckham

Habitus – Field Congruence in Peckham

For some of the middle-class respondents in Peckham there is a strong congruence of habitus and field. The habitus-field relationship is based on more than one explanation. These factors come together to explain the combined habitus-field relationship and therefore their strong neighbourhood belonging. Firstly, in Peckham the larger size of the middle-class in-group in relation to the smaller size and more diverse ethnic composition of the other socio-economic populations created both: a strong enough middle-class presence in the neighbourhood for a middle-class person to feel like they are living around people like them and for a perceived sense of balance between young, middle class renters and other longer-term working-class residents. Secondly, a strong sense of neighbourhood belonging is explained by a congruence of a bourgeois-bohemian habitus with the

bourgeois-bohemian cultural field of Peckham. The bourgeois-bohemian cultural field is where the area has high cultural capital that is based on – in part - the high aesthetic value created in part by artists. Ley (2003: 2540) describes a bourgeois-bohemian place like this:

“The aesthetic appropriation of place, with its valuation of the commonplace and off-centre, appeals to other professionals, particularly those who are also higher in cultural capital than in economic capital and who share something of the artist’s antipathy towards commerce and convention. Like the artists, they are indifferent to the charms of suburban

(44)

44

life and have stretched an alternate topography of meaning across the space of the metropolis”

I found that in Peckham, this appreciation of the bohemian or the counter-cultural

corresponded with a cosmopolitan attitude and an appreciation of diversity. Interestingly, belonging based on this cosmopolitan attitude is related to different national background. In the Peckham sample, those six in the group that had the strongest neighbourhood belonging were those that were immigrants to the UK, and to a certain extent considered themselves part of the diversity of Peckham. Whilst for four UK nationals who grew up in more homogeneously white middle-class rural or peripheral urban locations in the UK – there was evidence that they had an attachment to more of a traditional middle-class urban aesthetic that they didn’t find in Peckham.7_{These points will now be elaborated upon with} evidence drawn from the Peckham case.

One consistent consideration in why people choose to move to Peckham was because it was somewhere they could afford. For Matt (UK, 26, Cyber Security)8, who had co-bought a flat 2 years ago in Queens Road, the high cost of housing had the effect of moving him into a neighbourhood field that he wouldn’t have naturally chosen. If he had the economic resources to move to somewhere more traditionally middle-class like

Battersea then he would do so. He appreciates the historic character of the buildings there, and a quieter type of urban environment than found in Queens Road. Here he is comparing Battersea to Peckham:

7_{A similar national / international difference in habitus and belonging was found in OV}

8_{In the brackets after respondents names the three points are country of origin, age and area of occupation} (or education if not available).

(45)

45

Matt: So, its I’d say it’s less, you feel safer, its cleaner, it’s a bit more gentrified if you use that word, there is less kind of rough off-licences and dodgy people hanging on the streets. Like there is less character, like Peckham's great, you got the Afro-Caribbean side to this place, which is awesome. So, you probably feel a little less safe at night in Peckham rather than in Battersea. But some of the character, it’s awesome. I'm really happy with living here. If that makes sense. So, it’s got character, in that It’s got nice architecture and buildings and streets in Battersea, really really nice.

I: So, you would like living in Battersea?

Matt: Oh yes, definitely, if I could afford it?

Matt was one of the respondents’ in Peckham who had a more conventional UK national middle-class habitus. Even though he enjoys the counter-cultural atmosphere in Peckham he does not identify completely with it; and relates this to his ‘forced’ residential choice.

Matt: But I’d say certain people love it. You speak to people who go to the arts college, Peckham is for them, it’s like edgy kind of a cool place, I didn't come here because of the edginess like an arts student, I was kind of forced here but I really like the vibe, really like the vibe.

Even though he wouldn’t naturally choose to live in Peckham, he does enjoy living there, and is “proud” to show off the middle-class “cool” places to his friends when they come and visit. Therefore, for Matt, the neighbourhood is a status marker of his middle-class identity – he uses his position as resident close to places of high cultural capital to

(46)

46 reproduce his middle-class identity. Rye Lane however, doesn’t get the same reaction. A place for him, not imbued with the same level of middle-class cultural capital.

I: Do you like living here?

R: Yes, I think that a good test of that is that if people come to visit you, are you proud about showing them around Peckham, are you excited to show them places, and normally I do. I've got mates that come from outside London, and I go to show them Peckham Levels, and Franks9 and you know things like that, and normally people are like "Peckham's awesome" , you never get people saying 'this is a bit', maybe when they walk down Rye Lane it can get a bit like 'ok this is a bit...' and then you take them up to Bellenden Road and you’ve got that contrast of cultures.

Below, Matt describes how he feels at home in Peckham in the ‘gentrified’ places that are predominantly white and middle-class and feels out of place in the spaces in Peckham that are not. He mentions that around his flats on Queens Road in the north-east of Peckham there is less gentrified places than in the south near Peckham Rye.

I: So, a main question is whether you feel at home here in this neighbourhood? Matt: So, places like... it’s strange... it depends where you go. Exactly what we talked about, there are little pockets, so if I was here [Beer Rebellion], I would be very at home, there are many places that I feel very at home. But go towards Peckham Rye and all the gentrification that has happened along there, the new cafes and these different restaurants popping up

9_{‘Peckham Levels’ is a transformed 7-storey car-park in the centre of Peckham. It is a creative workspace for} artists and entrepreneurs and an event space for various activities such as dance, yoga and art. It also has bars and small restaurants. ‘Franks’ is the rooftop bar of Peckham Levels.

(47)

47

I: At the top near the park

Matt: Yes at the apex, so you've got Mr Bao, (…) all these restaurants, that’s very much gentrified, young, white professionals - so you feel very at home there, but when you are on the high street and even walking around my flats, you somehow feel that you stand out and that you not quite... feels very Afro-Caribbean culture, and historically it has been for a long period of time and you won't really see... so in that sense you feel a bit out of place, so if I was walking down Rye Lane I might feel a little bit out of place in that sense, just a little feeling that you get when you walk down. Maybe that is my unfamiliarity with [this] sort of setting, in Kent where I’m from you don't get that. I come from a town in Kent which is completely different from that so, and it’s just getting used to it. Maybe that’s London.10

Matt’s account shows how class and race/ethnicity in Peckham are inter-linked in explaining a sense of belonging. The places where he feels at home are places that are congruent with his own class and/or ethnic identity. They are middle-class places, as can be seen from their aesthetic production and the type of people that use them, and these spaces are predominantly White places. Matt links his sense of belonging to his social and spatial trajectory. His middle-class, White habitus was developed in a town in Kent. The sort of rural place that Matt hopes that he will be able to move to, to bring up his own children - in five or ten years’ time.

Bourgeois-Bohemians

10_{‘Beer Rebellion’ is a gentrified bar on Queens Road. Mr. Bao is a Taiwanese Restaurant in the south of} Peckham.

Middle class neighbourhood belonging in Overtoomse Veld, Amsterdam and Peckham, London