Claire E. Alexander – författare

The Art of Being Black explores how young black Britons create their cultural identities. Claire Alexander rejects the common tendency to view black communities in terms of conflict, or as the focus of a problem; she offers a fresh exploration of the strengths and ambiguities of black youth representations as they are imagined and lived through, focusing in particular on community, `class', social life, and masculinity. Young black men have been typecast as hostile and culturally confused, alienated from their parents and from society; as `folk devils' (the stock images of the black mugger, the Rastafarian drug dealer, the rioter, the Yardie), creating problems for society in general. To get a truer view, Dr Alexander spent twelve months as `one of the boys' in a group of young black Londoners; the resulting highly personal, in-depth, and very readable study counters the usual image of ethnic identity as fixed and immutable. Drawing on contemporary debates about culture and ethnicity, this book offers the close observation and informed analysis needed to bring to life theories of black cultural identity.

In her groundbreaking ethnography The Asian Gang, published in 2000, Claire Alexander explored the creation of Asian Muslim masculinities in South London. Set against the backdrop of the moral panic over ‘Asian gangs’ in the mid-1990s, and based on 5 years of ethnographic fieldwork, the book explored the idea of ‘the gang’, friendships, and the role of ‘brothers’ in the formation, performance and negotiation of ethnic, religious and gendered identities.The Asian Gang Revisited picks up the story of ‘the Asian gang’ over the subsequent two decades, examining the changing identities of the original participants as they transition into adulthood in the context of increased public and political concerns over Muslim masculinities, spanning the War on Terror, ‘grooming gangs’ and increased Islamophobia. Building on her ongoing relationships with the men over 25 years, the book explores education, employment, friendship, marriage and fatherhood, and religious identity, and examines both the changes and the continuities that have shaped this group. It traces the lives of its participants from their teenage years through to their early-mid 40s. A unique longitudinal study of this small, diverse but still close cohort of men, the book offers an intimate, rich and textured account of what it means to be a Muslim man in contemporary Britain.

In her groundbreaking ethnography The Asian Gang, published in 2000, Claire Alexander explored the creation of Asian Muslim masculinities in South London. Set against the backdrop of the moral panic over ‘Asian gangs’ in the mid-1990s, and based on 5 years of ethnographic fieldwork, the book explored the idea of ‘the gang’, friendships, and the role of ‘brothers’ in the formation, performance and negotiation of ethnic, religious and gendered identities.The Asian Gang Revisited picks up the story of ‘the Asian gang’ over the subsequent two decades, examining the changing identities of the original participants as they transition into adulthood in the context of increased public and political concerns over Muslim masculinities, spanning the War on Terror, ‘grooming gangs’ and increased Islamophobia. Building on her ongoing relationships with the men over 25 years, the book explores education, employment, friendship, marriage and fatherhood, and religious identity, and examines both the changes and the continuities that have shaped this group. It traces the lives of its participants from their teenage years through to their early-mid 40s. A unique longitudinal study of this small, diverse but still close cohort of men, the book offers an intimate, rich and textured account of what it means to be a Muslim man in contemporary Britain.

This collection of original pieces brings together critical perspectives on the intersection of ethnic and gender identities as spatialized forms of embodied social practice, tackling important recent themes such as whiteness, masculinity, the body, sexuality, diaspora and globalization. Designed to bring these debates to students in a way that bridges contemporary theory with vivid case material, this is a lively and wide-ranging text of relevance to a range of social sciences.

This collection of original pieces brings together critical perspectives on the intersection of ethnic and gender identities as spatialized forms of embodied social practice, tackling important recent themes such as whiteness, masculinity, the body, sexuality, diaspora and globalization. Designed to bring these debates to students in a way that bridges contemporary theory with vivid case material, this is a lively and wide-ranging text of relevance to a range of social sciences.

In recent years the British mass media have discovered a new and urgent social problem - the Asian gang. Images of urban deprivation and the Underclass have combined with fears of growing youth militancy and masculinities-in-crisis to position Asian, and especially Muslim, young men as the new folk devil. This reimagination of Asian young men has focused on violence, drug abuse and crime, set against a backdrop of cultural conflict, generational confusion and religious fundamentalism. The Asian gang, it seems, is the inevitable product of these social forces. But what is the reality? Based on three years fieldwork with a group of Bangladeshi young men in inner-city London, this book attempts to explore the complex mythologies and realities of contemporary Asian youth experience. Taking the gang as its starting point, the study examines the interaction of representation and reality, ethnicity and masculinity in a textured, in-depth and personal perspective that challenges traditional views on Asian communities and identities.