Encountering Each Other in Glasgow: Spaces of Intersecting Lives in Contemporary Scotland

Abstract

AbstractThis paper uses the concept of intersectionality to think about the ways people negotiate diversity on a daily basis in Glasgow, Scotland. The paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork, in‐depth interviews and focus groups carried out in semi‐formal spaces such as public libraries, community‐centres and local cafes. Discussing the ways in which people speak about their experiences of encountering others across ethnicity, age, gender, religion, and class, the paper examines situations where different positionalities interconnect to produce mundane and fleeting moments of relation. Despite tensions, misunderstandings and moments of uneasiness, the paper finds that connections and relations are built. Set in the political context of contemporary Scotland, the paper argues that being together in diversity can be a decisive act that marks the everyday as political. It contends that an openness to and through these intersectional relations can counteract notions of crisis and emergency normatively constructed around issues of immigration and multiculturalism in Scotland.