Being and Belonging in Scotland: Exploring the Intersection of Ethnicity, Gender and National Identity among Scottish Pakistani Groups

Abstract

Through an analysis of the views and attitudes of a small sample of the largest minority ethnic group in Scotland, I seek to examine two key issues in relation to recent research on ethnicity, national identity and belonging in Scottish social and political studies (McCrone and Kiely 2000; Bond and Rosie 2002; McCrone 2002; Bond 2006; Miller and Hussain 2006; McCrone and Bechhofer 2010). Firstly, I analyse how Scottish Pakistani groups name and claim their hyphenated identities as a practice of asserting their belonging in Scotland in spite of systematic institutionalised racism and exclusion. In particular, I demonstrate how Scottish Pakistani groups appear to occupy the identity of 'Scottish' on fairly unproblematic terms. That Scottish Pakistani groups are able to claim a hyphenated identity that incorporates Scottishness