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Paper short abstract

This presentation brings a framework of (in)visibility centre stage to discuss how Black residents of a multi-ethnic urban locale in northwest England use “Africans” as a political and moral tool to achieve visibility; and thus, recognition as respectable citizens in local socio-political contexts.

Paper long abstract

This presentation examines how a group of Black British traders negotiate visibility in Grandville, a pseudonym I use for a multi-ethnic, economically deprived urban area in the North-West of England. (In)visibility here refers to the experience of being “Othered” through perceived racial distinctions within a diverse urban context, as well as to a process of securing political representation that was felt to be lacking from the local city council. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in and out of shops on the neighbourhood’s high street, I explore how my co-conversationalists self-identify as “Africans” in a multicultural cityscape. I argue that while “Africans” was used as a political category to access political representation from the city council (Rapport, 2002), it was also a moral category to reconfigure the stigmatised image of Black people in Grandville. To exemplify these processes, this presentation shows how local Black traders present themselves to the council and fellow residents as “good” people; and that is, responsible citizens who look after themselves, others and their neighbourhood. In this regard, the paper illustrates how my co-conversationalists’ efforts of visibility build on ideas of “moral citizenship” as it is understood in advanced liberalism (Hyatt, 1997). By tracing how (in)visibility is enacted and negotiated, I show how Black traders purposefully make (in)visible the heterogeneity of their group through the “elegant category” of “Africans” (Gilroy, 2003). And yet, it is through the very (in)visibility of their group that, I argue, they achieve visibility in political contexts.