Paper short abstract:

Problematising the use of the community concept to describe urban minorities as social groups, the paper suggests alternative conceptual tools to grasp a diversity of migrant cultural forms. The focus is on queer migrant club cultures in Berlin and London that are interethnic 'contact zones'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper argues that attention to social practices and forms of sociality in urban space can provide a productive focus for studies of migrants in urban contexts beyond the community paradigm. It is based on research that is carried out in the context of a project funded by the AHRC Diasporas, Identities and Migration Programme, focusing on cultural identifications and forms of sociality among 'queer' migrants participating in the diasporic club cultures of London and Berlin. Culturally marginal both on the basis of their sexual orientation/ gender expression and their ethnic minority belonging, queer migrants rely on club culture as an opportunity for socialising among themselves, developing positive identifications in protected spaces, and challenging the confines of dominant cultural labels. Problematizing the wide-spread use of the community concept to describe migrants and other minorities as social groups, the paper identifies a need to develop alternative conceptual tools to more adequately grasp a diversity of migrant cultural forms of identification and social practice. By focusing on urban cultural contexts that are interethnic 'contact zones', yet created and dominated by people of migrant background, it aims to offer a different approach to researching migrant cultural practices that can help to decentre ethnic community as a central explanatory device in dominant academic understandings.