Strangers in our midst: Immigration, social capital and segmented conflict
| Author | Clare E Griffiths |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820986226 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820986226
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2022, Vol. 22(4) 559 –580
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895820986226
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Strangers in our midst:
Immigration, social capital
and segmented conflict
Clare E Griffiths
Keele University, UK
Abstract
Putnam famously stated in his ‘hunkering down’ thesis that residents of diverse communities
experiencing immigration retreat into their homes inhibiting the production of ‘social capital’.
Immigration is therefore often posited to disrupt communities and positive social interaction,
ultimately increasing tension and conflict between groups. Moving beyond Putnam’s simplistic
account that immigration inevitably disrupts social capital, this article aims to instead show the
complex features of civility and conflict that can co-exist among migrant and local communities.
The research was based in a small working-class town in the North West of England that
experienced the migration of Polish workers. Using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative
methods, the key results show how new Polish migrants in particular demonstrate complex
forms of social interaction displaying in-group hostility but out-group civility. Lenski’s notion of
‘status inconsistency’ is used to help explain why migrants with a high level of education but a low
income are particularly mistrustful and intolerant of others.
Keywords
Conflict, crime, Polish immigration, social capital, status inconsistency, trust
Introduction
Living among ‘strangers’ is a reality of contemporary life. However, this is not a new
phenomenon and sociologists have long been preoccupied with how communities adapt
to newcomers, how social relationships are formed in this process and how groups man-
age conflict in such circumstances (Bauman, 1997; Elias and Scotson, 1965; Simmel,
1971 [1908]). In more recent years, there has been an explosion of interest on this topic
in both academic and political spheres with research focusing its attention on new immi-
grants’ social ties, capabilities of integration and the potential for inter-group conflict to
Corresponding author:
Clare E Griffiths, School of Social, Political and Global Studies, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK.
Email: c.e.griffiths@keele.ac.uk
986226CRJ0010.1177/1748895820986226Criminology & Criminal JusticeGriths
research-article2021
Article
560 Criminology & Criminal Justice 22(4)
emerge. Much of this research was sparked after the 2001 riots in the Northern English
towns of Oldham, Bradford and Burnley that famously saw the introduction of the com-
munity cohesion agenda to try and tackle a perceived fragmentation of communities
along ethnic, racial and religious lines (Home Office, 2002). This was claimed to be a
pivotal time for immigration policy that began to focus its attention on promoting such
‘cohesive communities’ (Young, 2007). There are a number of criticisms of this com-
munity cohesion agenda that have been discussed at length elsewhere (see, for example,
Young, 2007) and so a repetition of this is not provided here. One of the concerns with
this approach however is its preoccupation with new immigrants’, rather than with the
established community’s, ability to ‘integrate’. As will also be seen, a further problem
with this agenda is that it was founded on the popular theoretical concept of ‘social capi-
tal’ with subsequent research on the association between immigration and social capital
providing mixed results. This literature can often paint a rather simplistic picture of
migrants’ social relationships seeing the ‘right type’ of social capital as an unequivocal
‘public good’ and as an inevitable inoculation against crime and conflict. The aim of this
article is to add to this theoretical discussion by demonstrating the complexities of new
migrants’ and established residents’ social relationships in a North West town in England
that experienced Polish migration. In doing so, the article aims to understand the nature
of social exchanges in this town and whether tensions and conflict are commonplace as
traditionally assumed. The article turns first to provide a brief overview of the literature
on immigration, social capital and crime before moving on to present the case study and
key findings.
Literature review: Immigration, social capital and crime
There is a long tradition of place-based research that seeks to understand how wider
structural changes to areas, through processes such as migration, might impact the daily
interactions and social exchanges that take place between different social groups, and
how this ultimately might affect the social order. Famously, a wealth of writers that fall
within the ‘Chicago School’ tradition have highlighted how such migration processes
might disrupt social order, increasing rates of crime and delinquency due to a fracturing
of positive social ties (see specifically Shaw and McKay, 1942, social disorganisation
theory). During times of movement and migration, Wirth (1938) suggests that the bonds
of ‘kinship’, ‘neighbourliness’ and ‘sentiments’ are likely to be disrupted or absent alto-
gether: ‘[u]nder such circumstances competition and formal social control mechanisms
furnish the substitutes for the bonds of solidarity that are relied upon to hold a folk soci-
ety together’ (p. 11). The diversity of cultures and the segmentation of social relation-
ships that are argued to result (Suttles, 1968) thus replace primary relationships and
weaken dense social bonds undermining social solidarity, which ultimately disintegrates
the moral order leading to competition for resources, crime and conflict (Wirth, 1938).
According to these researchers, therefore, population turnover and heterogeneity that
specifically resulted from immigration increase disorganisation due to an inability of
neighbours to develop social networks with each other or to establish common goals and
values and to work together to control crime (Newburn, 2007). Blau and Blau (1982)
develop this to claim that it is the consolidation of inequality – that is, membership in
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