BrAsian ‘Invasion’ of White Suburban English Village Life

Abstract

Picture a place that is suburban in terms of its residential landscape and close proximity to the city of Leicester rather than a ‘typical’ English village set in rural landscape well away from urban areas. It is in the face of Greenville’s ambiguous village identity, situated as it is between the city of Leicester on one side, and the rolling countryside of Leicestershire on the other, that the White middle-class residents in my study reflexively defend their area’s village status. In the course of so doing, they contend that it is the area’s ‘community spirit’ centred on village activities that sustains Greenville’s village identity, in spite of its geographical location and suburban landscape.¹