We now turn to ethnicity and ‘race’. Building on earlier chapters our account rests on the themes that there is difference within difference, and that difference is regulated. Thus diverse individual and group experiences and strategies among minorities are set within broader patterns of difference linked to structural factors which condition ongoing practices of social regulation. In this chapter we touch on diversity and the defining of needs, and note questions about particularism and ownership. Most of our discussion concerns ‘non-white’ minority ethnic people, although certain white groups clearly have also been subject to racist discrimination (notably Irish and Jewish people, some refugees, and gypsies and travelling people).

The first section below provides selected information about housing and black minority ethnic households, noting diversities of experiences alongside continuing commonalities of adverse circumstances. The chapter then turns to selected aspects of ‘human agency’. Black and minority ethnic communities resist racisms and pursue a variety of housing strategies, albeit in difficult economic and political environments. Their achievements have included not only individual successes for households, but also creation of black-run housing organisations. We then comment on policies and practices of government and provider organisations, where it is important to acknowledge change. As well as being affected by general ideas about ‘race’, black and minority ethnic households have been subject to specific regulation through the negative and positive practices of numerous housing and allied institutions. A discussion of housing need follows, covering the potentially contested nature of the concept, its links with security, empowerment and ownership, and issues of ethnic managerialism, particularism and universalism. Finally we draw brief conclusions.

Experiences, preferences and constraints

In reviewing housing experiences we must look not only beyond a simple black/white divide, but also beyond assumptions about broad distinctions between (say) Asians and African/Caribbeans. There have been marked differences between various minority ethnic communities “in terms of household size/structure, tenure patterns, dwelling types, amenity levels and density of occupation” (Ratcliffe, 1997, p 130). Phillips notes that there are “forces for both minority ethnic inclusion and exclusion from competition for economic rewards and social status”, and that these forces “produce different outcomes for different groups and a variable experience within minority ethnic groups according to generation, gender and class” (Phillips, 1998, p 1681).