Publisher's Synopsis
This book offers a new sociological approach to the slippery and contested concept of "community" Here, 'community is understood not as a 'thing' or even as a place, but as a radical social imaginary, a metaphor which guides people's struggle to live in a society which offers justice, equality and the absence of racialised conflict. Preface; This book represents a labour of love and this Preface is a thank-you to all those who have made it possible. It started in 1970 when I moved to Spencer Place, in Chapeltown, while a third-year student at Leeds University. Alan Dawe, Bob Towler and Dennis Warwick made sociology seem worthwhile, and almost commensurate with my revolutionary aspirations. John Rex's work, and his kind words, inspired me to engage in a study of a multi-ethnic inner city. Bob got me a SSRC grant (1972-4) during which I started research-and he smiled indulgently when I gave it up, having concluded that sociology was a bourgeois deviation. I had realised, as well, that I could learn little that was worth saying about Chapeltown within the period of a research grant.;As this book shows, a notion like 'the people of Chapeltown' is too woolly for sociology-but the Preface claims the privileges of everyday life. It is 'the people of Chapeltown' who have to be thanked most of all: without the affection and help from innumerable people this book would never have materialised. Many of those who have criticised me have contributed to my self-knowledge and sociological understanding, and I thank them, too. People who were kind enough to allow me to record interviews are named in the list of primary sources. Some of them, and many others to whom I am indebted, are referred to in the text. Pseudonyms have been used where the material is personally sensitive. I hope that this book-despite its jargon and its fairly neutral tone of voice-betrays my personal, political support for the extraordinary struggles of ordinary people to realise their dream of a better life for all, to attain an earthly paradise. I also hope that it is used by those who wish to develop and extend those struggles in Chapeltown, and elsewhere. That, for me, would justify this enterprise.
