ABSTRACT
This chapter examines inequalities arising from ethnicity in a rural context. It identifies how different factors, including recent patterns of international migration and historical legacies of ethnic diversity, intertwine to produce multicultural rural areas. First of all, an overview of the significance of the ‘ethnic’ label is presented, recognising its limitations and also its usefulness. Having established this context the review proceeds by highlighting the way in which rural ethnic inequalities are measured. The processes that produce inequalities among ethnic groups are examined, with particular attention to migration and space and place but mindful of historical legacies along with economic transformations and associated recent migration patterns.
One of the problems in classifying social groups by ethnicity, gender, migration status and so forth is that it can leave individuals in certain groups open to manipulation by more dominant groups (Massey, 1994; Waters & Eschbach, 1995; Eide, 2010). This overlooks important nuances within and between groups and fails to pay attention to the way different aspects of identity intersect, but perhaps more importantly it ignores the fact that ethnicity, like other aspects of identity, is socially constructed (Jenkins, 2014). It is formed through ever changing, social interaction (Bauman, 2004), shifting according to many other factors including culture along with individual experiences, expectations, qualifications and socioeconomic status (Barnard & Turner, 2011). Thus different groups continue to ‘change shape’, altering their social identity according to particular circumstances (Waters & Eschbach, 1995, p. 420). For example, migrants wish to belong rather than remain solely within a static social group, often with essentialised identity (Probyn, 1996). This desire can give rise to hybrid identities and in certain circumstances migrants may use double frames of reference as they position themselves in a new destination (Nowicka, 2012 in Nowicka, 2014). Ethnicity is therefore one aspect of ‘identity as transition’ (Fortier, 2000, p. 8) with symbolic representations produced, reproduced and transformed over time (Waters & Eschbach, 1995).
