Progress in Human Geography 32(3) (2008) pp.

323–337

Progress in Human Geography lecture

Living with difference: reflections
on geographies of encounter†
Gill Valentine*
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane,
Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Abstract: In this Progress in Human Geography annual lecture I reflect on geographical contri-
butions to academic and policy debates about how we might forge civic culture out of difference.
In doing so I begin by tracing a set of disparate geographical writings – about the micro-publics
of everyday life, cosmopolitanism hospitality, and new urban citizenship – that have sought to
understand the role of shared space in providing the opportunity for encounter between ‘strangers’.
This literature is considered in the light of an older tradition of work about ‘the contact hypothesis’
from psychology. Then, employing original empirical material, I critically reflect on the notion of
‘meaningful contact’ to explore the paradoxical gap that emerges in geographies of encounter
between values and practices. In the conclusion I argue for the need for geographers to pay more
attention to sociospatial inequalities and the insecurities they breed, and to unpacking the complex
and intersecting ways in which power operates.

Key words: encounter, inequality, intersectionality, power, prejudice.

I The contact hypothesis the implicit role of shared space in providing

Stuart Hall (1993: 361) has argued that ‘the the opportunity for encounters between
capacity to live with difference is, in my view, strangers, the importance of contact in medi-
the coming question of the 21st century’. This ating difference has a longer tradition in the
question – framed in the more specific terms discipline of psychology.
of how we might forge a civic culture out of Here, seminal work in the 1950s on pre-
difference – is something that has come to judice by the social psychologist Gordon
preoccupy a number of geographers recently Allport (1954) developed what became widely
through diverse writings about new urban known as the ‘contact hypothesis’. His thesis –
citizenship, cosmopolitanism, hospitality which was influential across the social sci-
and activism (eg, Amin, 2002; Yeoh, 2004; ences more widely – was that the best way
Barnett, 2005; Binnie et al., 2006; Chatterton, to reduce prejudice and promote social
2006; Iveson, 2006; 2007; Bell, 2007). While integration was to bring different groups
Geography might seem to us to be a natural together. The basis of his argument was that
disciplinary arena for such concerns given people are uncomfortable with the unknown

†
Given at the annual conference of RGS-IBG, London in August 2007
*Email: [email protected]

© 2008 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0309133308089372

324 Progress in Human Geography 32(3)

and so feel anxious about encounters with 2002). Rather, it is implied that cultural dif-
difference. He argued that contact is an effec- ference will somehow be dissolved by a pro-
tive prejudice reduction strategy because cess of mixing or hybridization of culture
it lessens feelings of uncertainty and anx- in public space (eg, Young, 2002). For ex-
iety by producing a sense of knowledge or ample, Mica Nava (2006: 50) describes
familiarity between strangers, which in turn the everyday domestic cultures in many of
generates a perception of predictability and London’s neighbourhoods as signalling
control. This behaviourist approach fell by ‘increasingly undifferentiated, hybrid, post-
the wayside in the 1980s as the focus in the multicultural, lived transformations which
social sciences shifted away from a concern are the outcomes of diasporic cultural mixing
with majority prejudice, towards a concen- and indeterminacy’. She further argues
tration on the experiences of minority groups that, what she terms the ‘domestic cosmo-
and a focus on recognition and rights as the politanism’ of London represents a ‘generous
basis for social change. With this emphasis on hospitable engagement with people from
the specificities and validation of ‘difference’, elsewhere, a commitment to an imagined
the issue of contact between majority and inclusive transnational community of dis-
minority populations, alongside a concern parate Londoners’ (Nava, 2006: 50).
with prejudice as a concept, became some- Focusing on the micro-scale of everyday
what obscured (Valentine, 2007a). public encounters and interactions, Eric
It is a matter, however, that has recently Laurier and Chris Philo (2006) claim that
rematerialized within Geography and Urban low-level sociability, for example, in terms
Studies. After a decade or so in which the of holding doors, sharing seats and so on,
city was characterized as site of crime, con- represents one ‘doing’ of togetherness, one
flict and withdrawal (eg, Valentine, 1989; facet of mutual acknowledgement. Laurier
Davis, 1990; Smith, 1996; Mitchell, 2003), the et al. (2002: 353) write: ‘The massively ap-
city of the twenty-first century is being re- parent fact is that people in cities do talk to
imagined as a site of connection. Iris Marion one another as customers and shopkeepers,
Young was one of the first commentators to passengers and cabdrivers, members of a bus
celebrate the city as a site of difference. She queue, regulars at cafes and bars, tourists and
described city life as ‘a being together of locals, beggars and by-passers, Celtic fans,
strangers’ (Young, 1990: 240). More recently, smokers looking for a light, and course … as
Doreen Massey (2005: 181) has referred to neighbours.’ Ash Amin (2006: 1012) refers
our ‘throwntogetherness’ with others in the to such civil exchanges (after Lefebvre) as
city; Laurier and Philo (2006: 193) describe ‘small achievements in the good city’. Like-
the city as ‘the place, above all, of living with wise, Nigel Thrift (2005) has argued that
others’; while Sennett (2001) argues that: ‘[a] the mundane friendliness that characterizes
city is a place where people can … enter into many everyday urban public encounters re-
the experiences and interests of unfamiliar presents a baseline democracy that might be
lives … to develop a richer, more complex fostered. He talks about overlooked geog-
sense of themselves’. raphies of kindness and compassion and
Much of the writing that is associated with about the potential for leaching these prac-
what might be regarded as a ‘cosmopolitan tices into the wider world (Thrift, 2005).
turn’ in thinking about the city celebrates Richard Boyd (2006) goes one step further
the potential for the forging of new hybrid to suggest that civility has a vital place in
cultures and ways of living together with contemporary urban life and should be
difference but without actually spelling out understood as form of pluralism predicated
how this is being, or might be, achieved in on moral equality. However, I want to argue
practice (Sennett, 1999; Bridge and Watson, that the extent to which these everyday
 Gill Valentine: Reflections on geographies of encounter 325

spatial practices and civilities truly represent, adults who were interviewed across 167
or can be scaled up to build, the intercultural constituency-based sampling points. The
dialogue and exchange necessary for the kind data was weighted to reflect the national
of new urban citizenship that commentators population profile. The results of the poll
(Isin, 2000; Staeheli, 2003) are either already were published in a report titled Profiles of
celebrating – or at least calling for – needs Prejudice (Citizenship 21, 2003).
much closer consideration. The subsequent qualitative study upon
Some of the writing about cosmopol- which this paper draws was funded by
itanism and new urban citizenship appears to Citizenship 21 to understand some of the
be laced with a worrying romanticization of patterns identified in the national survey. It
urban encounter and to implicitly reproduce involved nine focus group discussions and 30
a potentially naïve assumption that contact in-depth autobiographical interviews with
with ‘others’ necessarily translates into re- white majority participants. The research
spect for difference. In this paper, I therefore design included both group and individual
draw on a wider literature review, and ori- methods because previous research has
ginal material from a research project about shown that some individuals feel more com-
white majority prejudice, to think more fortable expressing particular attitudes in a
closely about what Sennett (2000) refers social context with others, whereas others
to as the importance of the ‘collectivity of may only talk freely in a private, one-to-one
space’. I begin by critiquing some of the situation. The focus groups were used to look
work celebrating urban encounters through at shared values and general issues, whereas
using empirical examples of where contact the individual interviews were designed to
with difference leaves attitudes and values examine the particular processes that shaped
unmoved, and even hardened, before going individuals’ biographies and the develop-
on to consider debates about what kind of ment of their social attitudes. Like the survey
encounters produce what might be termed this qualitative research focused on the white
‘meaningful contact’. By this I mean contact majority informants’ attitudes towards a
that actually changes values and translates range of minority and marginalized social
beyond the specifics of the individual mo- groups (including, for example, disabled
ment into a more general positive respect for people, lesbians and gay men, transsexual
– rather than merely tolerance of – others. people, gypsy and travellers, women, children
In doing so, I identify a paradoxical gap that and young people, asylum-seekers, minority
emerges in geographies of encounter be- ethnic and faith-based communities). In this
tween values and practices. sense, this research extends much of the
The empirical material employed in this writing about geographies of encounter be-
paper comes from a qualitative research cause it focuses on a complex range of inter-
project funded by Citizenship 21 as part of secting differences rather than adopting
a two-stage investigation into the nature the more common bipolar approach of con-
of prejudice. This study addressed negative sidering only relations between white maj-
social attitudes towards a range of minority ority and minority ethnic groups.
groups, not just minority ethnic and migrant The qualitative research was based in
communities. In the first stage, MORI (a three contrasting UK locations: London, the
social research company, now known as West Midlands, and the southwest. Details
MORI IPSOS) conducted a nationwide of the specific locations are withheld to pro-
questionnaire survey about prejudice for tect the anonymity of those who partici-
Citizenship 21. The survey asked respond- pated in the study. The quotations presented
ents which groups, if any, they felt less pos- in this paper are verbatim.1
itive towards. It was completed by 1693
326 Progress in Human Geography 32(3)

II Parallel lives? different from themselves. Spatial prox-

There is increasing evidence that contact imity can actually breed defensiveness and
between different social groups alone is not the bounding of identities and communities
sufficient to produce respect (eg, Valentine (Young, 1990). Both the Home Office
and MacDonald, 2004). Indeed, many (2001) and the Chair of the UK Commission
everyday moments of contact between dif- for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips (2005)
ferent individuals or groups in the city do [now head of the new Equality and Human
not really count as encounters at all. In a Rights Commission], have raised con-
study of social interactions in urban public cerns about self-segregation within some
places in Aylesbury, UK, Caroline Holland UK communities. A report by the Home
and colleagues (Holland et al., 2007) found Office community cohesion independent
that, although their research sites were fre- review team describes, for example, a picture
quented by a range of different groups, this in which ‘[S]eparate: educational arrange-
did not necessarily mean that there was any ments, community and voluntary bodies,
contact between the diverse inhabitants. employment, places of worship, language,
Rather, their observations suggested that social and cultural networks, means that
while different groups coexisted and even ob- many communities operate on the basis of a
served each other, none the less there was series of parallel lives. Their lives often do not
little actual mixing between different users seem to touch at any point, let alone
who self-segregated within particular spaces, overlap and promote any meaningful inter-
carving out their own territory. A similar change’ (Home Office, 2001: para 2.1).
study, by Dines and Cattell (2006) in east Indeed, Debbie Phillips (2006) has recently
London, UK, found that good relations tended demonstrated that, contrary to popular
to emerge in spaces such as a park attached stereotypes of British Muslims as self-
to a school where the parents’ interests and segregating and culturally inward-looking, her
attachments to place were able to converge research participants had a range of housing
and evolve. Likewise, Ash Amin (2002) aspirations and neighbourhood prefer-
has observed that city streets are spaces of ences, and some had sought to live in mixed
transit that produce little actual connection neighbourhoods. However, these prefer-
or exchange between strangers. A process ences for greater interaction with people
exacerbated by the emergence of a mobile from other backgrounds were frustrated by
phone culture, which Deborah Cameron white self-segregation in the suburbs, insti-
(2000) has observed, contributes to incivility tutional racism in housing markets and racial
in public space as individuals move in and harassment. This quotation from one of the
through locations while locked in the private focus groups captures a sense of the per-
worlds of their conversations with remote sistence of divided communities (albeit in
others. Other studies have also provided evi- relation to other ethnic groups):
dence that low-level incivilities still persist,
with so-called ‘respectable people’, including R1: Like the Jew boys … I mean I wouldn’t
go to Stamford Hill (a Jewish neighbourhood)
the middle-aged and elderly, being most and I wouldn’t be allowed to go in their
likely to be rude to strangers in interpersonal community …
encounters (Phillips and Smith, 2006).
Beck (2002; 2006; see also Beck and R2: You would be allowed but.
Sznaider, 2006) argues that, although an
R1: But I wouldn’t feel right in their community
internalized globalization of society has
… and they wouldn’t feel right in my
occurred, not everyone sees themselves as community.
part of this cosmopolitanism or will choose
to participate in interactions with people (London, focus group)
 Gill Valentine: Reflections on geographies of encounter 327

Indeed, it is close proximity which often the local neighbourhood (Valentine, 2007a),
generates or aggravates comparisons be- as these quotations demonstrate:
tween different social groups in terms of
They forget that they’ve been born and bred
perceived or actual access to resources and here [referring to British minority ethnic
special treatment. The West Midlands site groups] but they’re not putting anything into
where this research was conducted is an the country … you know they’re taking …
area of relative social and economic de- you know people who haven’t worked for
privation. Many of the informants were in over 20 years and they’re getting this, that
and the other, to me they’re not putting
comparatively low-income or unstable forms anything in … Because most people round here
of employment and had either housing or they’re workers, they’ve always worked and
health concerns relating to themselves, everything and everybody works. (Woman,
their children or older parents. They told 60s, West Midlands)
community-based narratives of injustice and
If there’s an English bloke, or a white bloke
victimhood, for example that migrants are let’s say and you get one of these coloured
stealing jobs, that minority groups such as ones, these immigrants coming in the country.
Muslims, lesbian and gay men and disabled They struggle between them and it’s always
people are receiving unfair cultural support the white bloke’s fault, not the other’s fault,
they always take the side of these immigrants
or legal protection and so on. In both forms
which they shouldn’t. (West Midlands,
of account – of economic and cultural in- focus group)
justice – minority groups were represented
as dependent on the State. This position R1: To be truthful, it’s like they had a mosque
of parasitism was contrasted in these nar- put on Station Road and on a quiet day, like a
Sunday morning you will hear it, yeah.
ratives with the perceived unacknowledged
rights and contribution to society of the white R2: Wailing.
majority community. The research in London
R1: To be truthful when I hear it I do, I will say
was conducted in one of the most culturally
I feel like I’m in some other country, do you
diverse boroughs that has an indigenous know what I mean?
white working-class population as well as
significant Afro-Caribbean, South Asian Interviewer: It’s cultural strangeness?
and Turkish communities and a growing R3: Yeah it is strange.
number of refugees and asylum-seekers.
This area has also undergone a process of R4: It doesn’t mix.
gentrification in the past 10 years and so is
R1: No, it don’t feel right to have that on
also socio-economically diverse. Here, the your doorstep anyway. But they’ve built that
white majority interviewees’ accounts were when they should I think have other important
also laced with examples of perceived eco- things to build …
nomic and social injustices. These included
R2: There’s schools and hospitals that are
claims that minority groups were taking needed and they build a mosque. They closed
advantage of the welfare system and receiv- the Children’s Hospital … that children’s
ing preferential treatment in terms of be- hospital had been there for years and years.
nefits, housing and health care as well as
Interviewer: So the mosque you’re saying?
receiving financial and political support for
their own faiths, languages and wider cul- R2: It was taken from taxpayer’s money.
tural practices. In each research location
such narratives provided the basis for the R1: It came from the council it shouldn’t have
… it’s a grievance.
interviewees’ justifications of their openly
held prejudices towards minority groups in (London, focus group)
328 Progress in Human Geography 32(3)

In the context of such personal and com- don’t abide by our rules. (West Midlands,
munity insecurity, it is possible to see why focus group)
some find it hard to have mutual regard I can remember at least on one occasion,
for groups they perceive as an economic working with a colleague whose got a physical
or cultural threat. Indeed, being prejudiced disability and I guess getting pissed off with his
can actually serve positive ends for some immobility in the classroom. Cos I was kind
of like … well I was kind of running what was
people, for example, by providing them with
going on and he would be, kind being slow or
a scapegoat for their own personal social or immobile or whatever. (Male, 30s, London)
economic failures (Valentine, 2007a). This
means that prejudiced individuals can have Even where contact is instigated between
a vested interest in remaining intolerant different social groups, for example, in the
despite positive individual social encounters institutional space of the school, rather than
with communities/individuals different from generating intercultural exchange it can
themselves. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, actually be socially divisive. Here the social
everything from hate crimes and violence to studies of childhood and youth literatures
discrimination and incivility, motivated by includes evidence of the repetition of gender,
intolerance between communities in close sexual, class, and race practices among young
proximity to each other, is commonplace. people which cement, rather than challenge,
The geography literature documents many animosities (Valentine, 2004). This inter-
examples of socially mixed neighbourhoods viewee describes how divisions between his
that are territorialized by particular groups peer group at school have persisted beyond
and rife with tensions over different ways of the boundaries of the institution:
‘doing’ and ‘being’ in shared space (Webster,
There was a time from about, probably at
1996; Watt, 1998; Watt and Stenson, 1998). school, when we left school about sixteen or
These include power struggles and conflicts something, for quite a few years, when people.
over the ownership and control of public Different groups established their identities
space not only between different ethnic and didn’t mix with the other groups. We
groups but also between people of different might not even kind of acknowledge each
other if maybe we saw each other in the street.
ages – particularly between teenagers, who (Male, 30s, London)
often feel unjustly marginalized in public
space by adults, and the elderly who are com- Nonetheless, despite the often parallel lives
monly fearful of groups of young people of different groups within the city, it is true
in what in effect are often age-segregated that people do – as Laurier, Philo, Thrift
neighbourhoods (Valentine, 2004; and others have observed – generally be-
Vanderbeck, 2007). Indeed, contact with have in courteous ways towards strangers
any manifestation of difference – in the neigh- in public space including the performance
bourhood or elsewhere – can breed frustration of everyday acts of kindness. Nigel Thrift
and generate different scales of resentment, (2005: 147) characterizes these everyday
from rudeness in one-to-one situations to the moments as providing ‘resevoirs of hope’.
threat of vigilante action. These quotations However, the evidence of my research on
illustrate some of the everyday tensions in white majority prejudice is that we should
neighbourhoods and workplaces: be careful about mistaking such taken-for-
granted civilities as respect for difference.
You know they have come from a country As Tim Cresswell’s (1996) seminal book In
where they chuck their rubbish in the street and
that’s it, that’s the end of it. Dogs come and
place/out of place demonstrated, the pro-
eat it whatever, and the cats, and it rots away duction of space is shaped by normative
and it stinks and everything. And they seem codes of behaviour. Encounters in public
to think that they can still do [it] here … they space therefore always carry with them a
 Gill Valentine: Reflections on geographies of encounter 329

set of contextual expectations about ap- as a positive attitude, yet it is not the same
propriate ways of behaving which regulate thing as mutual respect. Rather, tolerance
our coexistence. These serve as an implicit conceals an implicit set of power relations.
regulatory framework for our performances It is a courtesy that a dominant or privileged
and practices. As Mick Smith and Joyce group has the power to extend to, or
Davidson (2008) argue – echoing in some withhold from, others. Waltzer (1997: 52),
respects the classic work of Elias (1978) – for example, writes: ‘toleration is always a
urban etiquette matters because ‘publicly relationship of inequality where the tolerated
reiterated performances of social mores groups or individuals are cast in an inferior
define an individual’s persona’. Since the en- position. To tolerate someone else is an act
lightenment, dominant western discourses of power; to be tolerated is an acceptance
have associated civility and etiquette with of weakness.’ The danger of everyday civil
notions of moral and aesthetic development. encounters therefore is that they obscure or
Individuals therefore regularly act out mun- leave untouched this question of who has the
dane and ritualized codes of etiquette such power to tolerate, and therefore wider issues
as holding open doors for, or exchanging of equality and mutuality (Weymss, 2006).
banalities in queues with, ‘others’ because Moreover, some of my informants argued
these conventions are sedimented into pub- that encounters in contemporary public
lic modes of being and are constitutive of our space are regulated by codes of so-called
self-identities as citizens. Indeed, for some of ‘political correctness’ to such an extent that
my informants, behaving in a civil or decent they feel obliged to curb the public expression
way in public, regardless of your privately of their personal prejudices and negative
held views and values, is what Britishness is feelings. Their actual attitudes are only
all about. As such, this urban etiquette does allowed to leak out in ‘privatized’ spaces,
not equate with an ethics of care and mutual such as at home or when part of a ‘closed’
respect for difference. For example, Jim, who group of friends. These are spaces where
admits to holding openly, in some cases quite they know their opinions will be shared and
extreme, prejudices, none the less describes validated, and, even if challenged, will have
the civilities he exchanges with new migrants no wider public or personal consequences
in his neighbourhood: for them. In this way, anti-discrimination
legislation regulates public civilities but not
All these … have come over, you don’t private moralities; while prejudice-reduction
know if there’s a terrorist amongst them …
There’s one, there’s a college up here, and he initiatives rarely address spaces like the home.
comes home and comes [past] here, and … he These quotations capture the privatized
talks pretty good English. At first he didn’t nature of many prejudices:
want to talk English, you know what I mean?
I don’t know why, I’m talking. Then all of a R1: … you can’t ask for black coffee you have
sudden he got to know me like. Cos I used to to ask for coffee with no milk [edit].
clean the car outside there sometimes, out-
side their house, clean my car, you know what R4: And baa baa black sheep you can’t say
I mean. He’d stand on his step and he used that now can you?
to watch me, like and talking and I used to
go ‘alright’. And I go out now, since I started R1: It’s the Government bringing these laws
saying hello to him, and they come out to chat in isn’t it?
… like we’ve all, been neighbours for years
[laughs]. (Male, 60s, West Midlands) R2: Well that’s going back to respect, the
Government aren’t gaining respect because
they’re changing things so much [edit].
Such civil encounters represent a tolerance of
others in shared space. However, tolerance R4: Gollywogs … That’s not doing anybody
is a dangerous concept. It is often defined harm is it? [edit].
330 Progress in Human Geography 32(3)

R1: I think the Government personally have know how people say you know all the bad
gone over the top, I think now the white things that happen to disabled people, like
person is sort of discriminated against a lot people talking to the person pushing them
more than any ethnic groups. (West Midlands, or shouting or whatever … All this flashes
focus group) through my mind and I think act normal, act
normal … My brain automatically goes onto
I don’t think we’ll change people’s attitudes. things you shouldn’t do and the things you
I mean I know just from like doing my job in are told are bad … and I get paranoid that I’m
working for the Council, they’ve got a policy going to do one of these things … I can’t act
of you know fair discrimination [sic] … I think natural. (Woman, 20s, London)
it makes people in fear of it … it makes people
think more before they speak, be more careful In both situations – where a person holds
about what they say about minority groups,
so you know you can’t sort of like, voice your prejudiced values and yet behaves in a polite
opinions, so I think it makes people tread on way in public encounters with minority
egg shells. (Male, 20s, West Midlands) groups, and where a person holds liberal
values and yet behaves in an implicitly dis-
You feel that whatever you say about colour,
race, gender whatever, you say something respectful way towards others by avoiding
wrong, you can get picked up and you can get encounters with difference – a clear gap
sued, you know they’ll call you something … is evident between individuals’ values and
or someone takes it the wrong way and [you’ll] practices in public space. If we are to pro-
end up having a fight … because people say it’s duce meaningful contact between majority
a free country, to say what you want, but it
isn’t … like they [minority ethnic groups] could and minority groups which has the power to
call us [white people] racist, but we can’t call produce social change, this gap needs to be
them, it’s a one way kind of thing, and that addressed. We need to find ways in which
just really irritates me … [edit]. Yeah, it’s everyday practices of civility might trans-
renowned that you know they can you know form prejudiced values and facilitate liberal
get us arrested or whatever [for] being nasty
to them, but it’s never the [other] way around. values to be put into practice.
They can assault us, but we can’t assault
them. (Woman, late teens, West Midlands) III Space of interdependences and
cultural destabilization
Moreover, some informants who identified Writing in the aftermath of race distur-
themselves as holding liberal values and of bances which took place in three British cities
having a conscious desire to be non-prejudiced (Oldham, Burnley and Bradford) in 2001,
nonetheless described themselves as being Ash Amin (2002) recognized that proximity
fearful of contact with minority groups be- on its own is not enough to bring about social
cause of what Sennett (2003: 22) might term transformation. Rather, he argued that we
the ‘anxiety of privilege’. They talked about need to create spaces of interdependence
being aware of, and uneasy about, their own in order to develop intercultural under-
economic and cultural positions of power, standing. If, as Sara Ahmed (2000: 279–80)
yet did not know how to show respect across argues, ‘collectives are formed through the
the boundaries of inequality. Fearful of being very work that we need to do in order to get
condescending or ‘getting it wrong’ and closer to others’, then the question for geog-
causing offence, they eschew encounters raphers is what work needs to be done – and
with difference (an option in part facilitated in which kinds of spaces – to generate this
by their privilege) and in doing so produce the interdependence?
very effects of which they are fearful, as this For Amin (2002: 959) this is best achieved
woman describes: in what he terms the ‘micro-publics of every-
day social contact and encounter’ rather than
If you see someone in a wheelchair I do think engineered through larger-scale events like
oh there’s someone in a wheelchair and you public festivals or policies framed in terms of
 Gill Valentine: Reflections on geographies of encounter 331

rights and obligations at the national scale. (2008) suggest that the creation of con-
These ‘micro-publics’ include: sports or music viviality as a state of encounter should be an
clubs, drama/theatre groups, communal intent of planning. Here, they identify the
gardens, youth participation schemes and characteristics of particular spaces where
so on. They represent sites of purposeful they believe this productive activity can
organized group activity where people be produced or facilitated. Libraries, they
from different backgrounds are brought to- argue, are spaces of encounter that have a
gether in ways that provide them with the redistributive function. They offer free and –
opportunity to break out of fixed patterns of facilitated by design – equal access and a
interaction and learn new ways of being and safe space for individuals and groups. The
relating (Amin, 2002). Leonie Sandercock information resources and provision of areas
(2003) shares Ash Amin’s characterization to sit and read or drink coffee can enable
of micro-publics as sites of not only cultural users mutually to negotiate their common
exchange, but also cultural destabilization status as library users and to build social
and transformation. This analysis is extended capital. Community centres in contrast are
further by Mica Nava (2006) who uses the spaces which emphasize recognition. Social
term ‘domestic cosmopolitanism’ to signal encounters in these spaces are relatively
that she understands cosmopolitanism to informal and can quickly become familiar
emerge from engagements with otherness, or home-like through repeated visits. As
not just in the micro-publics of the city (which such, these encounters are not completely
she defines somewhat differently from Amin incidental like meetings on the street, but
to include more abstract sites such as the neither are they as organized and purpose-
street and the shopping centre, as well as ful as ‘micro-publics’ such as sports clubs
spaces organized around purposeful activity and drama groups. They can also operate as
like the baby clinic, the gym, and the dance therapeutic spaces because they provide the
floor), but, also in the space of the home. chance for individuals to show an interest
Here, she argues: ‘the intimate albeit medi- in or support for the well-being of others
ated form of TV must also be included here (Conradson, 2003).
insofar as, cumulatively, it generates in the These diverse accounts of how we might
familiar domesticscape of the living room begin to build what Ash Amin (2004: 43)
an increasing deterritorialisaton of the globe has called a ‘politics of connectivity’ through
by normalizing difference in the spheres specific spaces, however, need to be treated
of music, fashion, even politics, although with a degree of caution for two reasons.
often against the message of individual pro- First, intergroup contact – while potentially
grammes’ (Nava, 2006: 49–50). beneficial in reducing majority prejudice –
Rather than leaving to chance the emer- can be very stressful for minority groups.
gence of openness to otherness, some They may be unsure of how they will be
writers have argued that the commercial received (Crocker et al., 1998), may not wel-
hospitality industry (Bell, 2007) and also come the burden of representation (Bassi,
design (Rishbeth, 2001; Fincher, 2003; 2003), and may even dread such encounters
Fincher and Iveson, 2008) can play important because their experiences of marginalization
potential parts in fostering integration and and discrimination taint their willingness to
interaction between different groups. Bell engage in relations with majority groups. For
(2007), for example, argues that hospitality example, Deaf people’s everyday experiences
should not merely be seen as an instrumental of discrimination in public space – as a cul-
or economic exchange but might also offer tural and linguistic minority – are so negative
broader possibilities for transforming urban that they have developed separatist spaces
public culture; while Fincher and Iveson of withdrawal from hearing society and are
332 Progress in Human Geography 32(3)

often reluctant to engage with hearing people expectation appears plausible. Research
unless it is on their own terms (Valentine and (Allport, 1954) on the causes and transmis-
Skelton, 2003; 2007), whereas other studies sion of prejudice suggests that when an indi-
have identified gendered and generational vidual has a negative experience with a
divisions in terms of opportunities for, and member of a minority group as part of routine
types of, encounter between respondents everyday encounters this moment is often
from minority ethnic communities and the mobilized to produce and justify powerful
white majority population (Uitermark et al., negative generalizations about the whole
2005; Valentine et al., 2007). For example, population that the minority individual is seen
different generations have their own norm- to represent. We might expect, therefore,
ative values and practices because of the par- that positive encounters with individuals from
ticular socio-economic and political contexts different social groups in micro-publics such
within which they are born (Vanderbeck, as the sports club, drama group or communal
2007), while the voices of women are often garden might also produce correspondingly
underrepresented in formal ‘community’ powerful positive changes in attitudes to-
consultation processes and organizations. wards minority populations in general.
We need to think more carefully, therefore, However, the evidence of my research is
about which types of encounters are sought, that this is not the case. Positive encounters
and by whom, and which are avoided, and by with individuals from minority groups do not
whom. The same contact may be read and necessarily change people’s opinions about
experienced very differently both between, groups as a whole for the better with the
and within, majority and minority groups same speed and permanence as negative
(cf. Bell et al., 1994) and may have unrec- encounters. In other words, in the context of
ognized negative outcomes for particular negative encounters minority individuals are
individuals. As such, we need to pay more perceived to represent members of a wider
attention to the intersectionality of multiple social group, but in positive encounters
identities (not just to ethnicity), and par- minority individuals tend to be read only
ticularly to consider which particular iden- as individuals. In the following quotations,
tifications these purposeful encounters with informants describe friendships and family
difference are approached through, and how relationships with individuals who are lesbian
these encounters are systematically em- and gay, and who are of dual heritage, yet
bedded within intersecting grids of power they then go on to articulate homophobic and
(Valentine, 2007b). racist comments, respectively, demonstrating
Second, if a common ethics of care and the limits of encounters with difference:
mutual respect emerges from these par-
ticular kinds of purposeful, organized micro- I’m an open guy, I’ve had some gay friends and
lesbians. I got on very well with them, and I
public encounters – which I am not neces-
find them funny. I find them, in the most part
sarily sure it always does – then how can to be quite well educated as well, you know.
this connectivity be sustained and scaled They know how to party, I’m all for that. I
up in both space and time beyond these just think there could be people out there that
moments? well, it’s [social change] going … just a wee bit
too fast … I mean when you see the [lesbian,
gay and bisexual pride] rallies at Parliament
IV Scaling up a politics of connectivity
Square and places like that. I mean I’ve been
Ash Amin (2002) argues that ‘micro-publics’ working in my van and I’ve been sitting parked
are spaces that can transmit wider inter- up, and you see two guys … and then they’re
cultural understanding and social trans- really camp and they’re trying to get their
formation because they are sites of cultural message across. They’re going about it in
destabilization. Taken at face value, this completely the wrong way, because all they’re
 Gill Valentine: Reflections on geographies of encounter 333

doing is disgusting people. When you have be explained you know logically then therefore
families and mothers and kiddies walking then it isn’t prejudice. (Male, 40s, London)
along the pavements, and they’re camping it
up and two guys kissing and … they’re going The certainty in respondents’ justifications
over the top, they’re not going to get much of of their prejudices makes them hard to chal-
a sympathy vote there. (Male, 50s, London)
lenge, especially where groups feel they
R1: I’ve got blacks in my family, my grandson’s have little ability to control events and that
half baked. I’m not racist but they’ve let them they are being treated unfairly. I would sug-
all in, they’re taking over the country. gest, therefore, that more emphasis needs
to be placed not just on immediate contact
R3: I think she’s got a very good point.
experiences, but on how people’s accrued
R2: My son can’t even get a flat [edit]. histories of social experiences and material
circumstances may also contribute to their
R1: There’s nothing worse than when you’re feelings about urban encounters from both
standing, especially in the street, and walk to
sides (ie, from the perspective of participants
the bottom and you walk from the bottom
to the top and you haven’t heard an English from both majority and minority groups).
word spoken. (London, focus group) In particular, how do ‘real’ and ‘imagined’
feelings of injustice (here, I refer to imagined
These examples of the failure of individual injustices in the sense that some identified
contact to produce generalized respect for threats are symbolic or future orientated)
difference explain why there was no contra- inhibit an emotional bridge being made
diction between Jim’s story (quoted earlier) between people’s attitudes to particular
of exchanging everyday civilities with his individuals and their attitudes to wider
neighbours who are asylum-seekers while social groups?
cleaning his car, and his support for a right- Encounters never take place in a space
wing, anti-immigration political party. free from history, material conditions, and
The reason that such individual every- power. The danger is that contemporary
day encounters do not necessarily change discourses about cosmopolitanism and new
people’s general prejudices is because they do urban citizenship, by celebrating the poten-
not destabilize white majority community- tial of everyday encounters to produce social
based narratives of economic and/or cultural transformations, potentially allow the knotty
victimhood. It is these narratives (which have issue of inequalities to slip out of the debate.
a geographical dimension, differing in their Yet the informants who participated in my
focus in different places according to spe- research who had the most cosmopolitan
cific local socio-economic contexts) which and non-prejudiced attitudes were those
enable people to justify their prejudice – and who considered their own lives to be full of
indeed, therefore, not to recognize their own opportunity and who were most optimistic
attitudes as constituting prejudice, because about their own futures. I argue, therefore,
they believe their views to be predicated on that we need to scale back up from recent
well-founded rationales (Valentine, 2007a). preoccupations with contemporary mani-
This informant explains when prejudice is not festations of the ‘contact hypothesis’ to
prejudice but fair comment: acknowledge the relationships between indi-
viduals’ prejudices and the processes through
Obviously there’s prejudice in the world that which communities become antagonized and
we live in. [It’s a] prejudice society. But ob-
viously prejudice is a logical response to sort
defensive in, first, the competition for scarce
of phenomenon and so therefore if it can be resources, and, second, in the debate about
explained, if you have a certain doubt or a conflicting rights. Here, I use resources to
certain feeling about something then if, if it can refer not just to work, housing, benefits and
334 Progress in Human Geography 32(3)

so on, but also to the provision of financial exchange public civilities with individuals
and legal support for cultural practices and from the minority groups despite their politics.
different ways of living. I use rights to refer Rather, everyday convivial encounters often
not only to the rights of groups to social mark instead a culture of tolerance which
and political equality and to live free of leaves the issue of our multiple and inter-
discrimination, but also to the rights of indi- secting identities (including generational dif-
viduals, for example, to freedom of speech. ferences) – specifically, the identifications
Such an approach also requires the need for through which these encounters are ap-
researchers to reflect on the research tools proached and the differential capacity of par-
that might provide the most effective ways ticular voices to participate – unaddressed, as
of exploring and understanding the trans- well as the question of who has the power to
mission of values and practices. This might tolerate.
include, for example, employing methodo- Even if a respect for difference can be pro-
logical techniques that are not commonly duced from particular kinds of purposeful,
used in researching geographies of encounter, organized micro-public encounters (ie, if the
such as life histories, biographical inter- contact is meaningful), it still leaves the ques-
views or intergenerational studies. tion of how this can be scaled up beyond
the moment given that white majority pre-
V Conclusion: difference matters judices appear to be rooted in narratives of
In this lecture I have sought to reflect on economic and/or cultural victimhood, which
progress in human geography in relation themselves are a response to a risk society,
to the question of how we might live with in which old securities and certainties are
difference. In doing so, I have traced emerg- continually being eroded by unprecedented
ing geographies of encounter, making con- socio-economic change (Beck, 1997).2
nections with a longer tradition of work in As such, we need an urban politics that
psychology on prejudice. addresses inequalities (real and perceived) as
On the one hand, the positive focus on well as diversity, and recognizes the need to
social transformation that characterizes fuse what are often seen as separate debates
much of this writing about cosmopolitanism about prejudice and respect with questions
and new urban citizenship provides a wel- of social-economic inequalities and power.
come antidote to a previous emphasis on Here, the respondents’ resentment towards
cities as sites of social exclusion and conflict. what they dubbed ‘political correctness’
On the other hand, however, I remain wary suggests that there is a general lack of
about being too quick to celebrate everyday understanding of diversity, difference and
encounters and their power to achieve cultural rights, as well as misunderstandings about
destabilization and social transformation. resource allocations which have important
Specifically, the evidence of my research implications for the work of equality bodies.
is that proximity does not equate with mean- In particular, there is a need to address issues
ingful contact. While taken-for-granted nor- about the perceived fairness of resource
mative codes of behaviour in public space distribution between majority and minority
mean that people do commonly behave in populations. Policies to develop meaningful
courteous and sometimes kind ways to- contact also need to build the capacity to
wards others, this is not the same as having participate of those who are commonly
respect for difference. Indeed, there is often marginalized within purposeful organized
an uncomfortable gap between some people’s groups.
professed liberal values and their actual While this paper has focused on white
practices, and vice versa those who hold pre- majority attitudes towards a range of mi-
judiced views can none the less willingly nority groups, thus extending previous
 Gill Valentine: Reflections on geographies of encounter 335

studies which have concentrated on relations which have directly or indirectly shaped my
between white majority and minority ethnic thinking about prejudice, meaningful contact
groups, it nonetheless did not have the and intersectionality.
scope to explore prejudices and bad relations
within, and between, minority groups them- Notes
selves. Yet these are clearly neglected ten- 1. Three ellipsis dots are used to indicate minor edits
sions (at a range of scales) that are particu- of a few words. Where [edit] is used this is to
indicate that a more significant chunk of text has
larly worthy of attention given competing been edited out.
values and rights claims that are beginning 2. It also leaves the issue of whether the home – as
to emerge in contemporary equality debates a space where values are contested and reworked
(Valentine, 2006): to give just one example, between intra-familial generations – might also be a
between faith-based communities and les- potentially important site of social transformation.
3. These competing values and rights-based claims
bians and gay men (eg, Crilly, 2007).3 In sum, are currently the subject of an Arts and Humanities
this paper reiterates calls by Philo (2000) Research Council funded study being conducted by
and others for a rematerialization and re- Gill Valentine, Robert Vanderbeck and Kevin Ward
socialization of human geography: a return at University of Leeds.
to focusing on sociospatial inequalities and
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