Exit, Voice or Accommodation?: white working-class responses to ethnic change in Britain

在过去的十年里，“白人工人阶级”一直是英国媒体和政策关注的焦点，这是前所未有的。虽然阶级是一个长期存在的话语范畴，但前缀“白色”是一个重要的附加条件。我们生活在一个全球移民的时代。来自全球南方的人口压力，以及发达的北方对工人的需求，将推动一些人所说的“第三次人口转型”，涉及西方世界白人人口的显著下降（Coleman 2010）。在英国，与中产阶级相比，种族多样性的激增对英国白人中的工人阶级构成了更大的挑战。为什么?首先，因为对于地位较低的主导群体成员来说，他们的种族身份往往是他们最负盛名的社会身份（Yiftachel 1999）。其次，少数族裔往往来自弱势背景，因此更有可能与白人工人阶级争夺住房和工作。最后，由于与中产阶级相比，白人工人阶级在驾驭新的全球知识经济的轮廓方面不那么自在，因此他们更依赖于根植于地方和国家背景下的存在主义安全（Skey 2011）。白人工人阶级会如何应对日益增长的多样性？根据阿尔伯特·赫希曼的经典著作《退出、声音和忠诚》（1970），我们假设了三种可能的回应：“退出”、“声音”和“迁就”。第一种可能是白人“退出”：地理隔离，或者，在极端情况下，“白人外逃”。第二种途径是“发声”：引领一种基于反对移民和投票支持白人民族主义政党的身份政治。第三种可能是迁就，在这种情况下，白人工人阶级的成员对他们所在社区和国家种族多样性水平的提高感到更舒服。从探索性研究和现有文献来看，我们认为发声、退出和迁就的三阶段模式可能是思考英国白人工人阶级对多样性的反应的一种有用方法。换句话说，最初的多样性遇到了白人工人阶级的强烈抵制，这种抵制表现在态度和投票上。随之而来的是一定程度的白人外迁，然后是反移民情绪和极右翼投票的下降。然而，这些广泛的模式需要细粒度的分析，将个体特征和本地上下文都考虑在内。本项目将通过定量和定性研究来检验这些命题。我们试图解释白人工人阶级的态度和行为有三个主要方面。也就是说，白人工人阶级的成员是否：1)比其他群体更有可能离开或避开少数民族人口众多或不断增长的地区；2)如果他们居住在多样化或种族变化的地区和地方当局，则更强烈地反对移民；3)如果极右翼政党居住在多元化或种族变化的选区和地方政府，他们会得到更多支持。定量研究将基于国家统计局的纵向调查和人口普查数据，以及大规模的公民调查和了解社会调查。我们将从定量研究中确定个别受访者，并通过定性工作探索他们的回答，以三个焦点小组的形式-两个在大伦敦，一个在伯明翰。这些调查将探讨受访者的地方和国家身份之间的联系，他们搬家的意图，以及他们对移民、种族间关系、社区凝聚力和投票行为的看法。我们试图回答的一个核心问题是，种族间的接触是否会减少白人工人阶级对少数民族的敌意（接触假说），或者多样性的增加是否会导致白人外逃，使相对宽容的白人留在不同的社区。后者，“液压”过程模拟接触假设，但并不意味着增加适应。

In the past decade in Britain, the 'white working-class' has been the focus of unprecedented media and policy attention. While class is a longstanding discursive category, the prefix 'white' is an important rider. We live in an era of global migration. Population pressure from the global South, and demand for workers in the developed North, will power what some term a 'third demographic transition' involving significant declines in the white majority populations of the western world (Coleman 2010). In the UK, the upsurge in diversity arguably presents a greater challenge for the working-class part of the white British population than for the middle class. Why? First, because for lower-status members of dominant groups, their ethnic identity tends to be their most prestigious social identity (Yiftachel 1999). Second, minorities tend to be from disadvantaged backgrounds and are therefore more likely to compete for housing and jobs with the white working class. Finally, because the white working-class is less comfortable navigating the contours of the new global knowledge economy than the middle class, it is more attached to existential securities rooted in the local and national context (Skey 2011). How might the white working class respond to increasing diversity? Drawing upon Albert O. Hirschman's classic book Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970), we posit three possible responses: 'exit', 'voice' and 'accommodation.' The first possibility is white 'exit': geographic segregation, or, in the extreme, 'white flight'. A second avenue is 'voice': spearheading an identity politics based on opposition to immigration and voting for white nationalist parties. A third possibility is accommodation, in which members of the white working-class become more comfortable with elevated levels of ethnic diversity in their neighbourhood and nation. From exploratory research and existing literature, we suggest that a three-stage pattern of voice, exit and accommodation may be a useful way of thinking about white working-class responses to diversity in the UK. In other words, initial diversity meets strong white working-class resistance, expressed in attitudes and voting. This is followed by a degree of white outmigration, and then by a decline in anti-immigration sentiment and far right voting. Yet these broad patterns require finer-grained analysis that takes both individual characteristics and local context into account. This project will test these propositions through quantitative and qualitative research. There are three major dimensions of white working class attitudes and behaviour we seek to explain. Namely, whether members of the white working-class: 1) are more likely than other groups to leave or avoid areas with large or growing minority populations; 2) oppose immigration more strongly if they reside in diverse or ethnically changing wards and local authorities; and 3) support far right parties more if they reside in diverse or ethnically changing wards and local authorities. The quantitative research will be based on ONS longitudinal survey and census data, as well the large-scale Citizenship Surveys and Understanding Society surveys. We will identify individual respondents from the quantitative research and explore their responses through qualitative work, in the form of three focus groups - two in Greater London, one in Birmingham. These will probe connections between respondents' local and national identities, their intentions to move neighbourhood, and their opinions on immigration, interethnic relations, community cohesion and voting behaviour. A central question we seek to answer is whether inter-ethnic contact reduces white working-class antagonism toward minorities (the contact hypothesis), or whether increased diversity leads to white flight, leaving relatively tolerant whites remaining in diverse neighbourhoods. The latter, 'hydraulic' process mimics the contact hypothesis but does not signify increased accommodation.