Page 39 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

32 Talk, tea and tape recorders
of motherhood, which examines the production of classed as well as raced
and gendered identities.

Who is white?
Given that ‘race’ is a construction and far from fixed, there can be no
hard and fast rule of who fits into racial categories. As was discussed in
the previous chapter, historically, who is included in the term ‘white’ has
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been the result of contestation and alteration. This raises questions of how
one defines whiteness in terms of conducting empirical research. Although
there exist several unclear borderlands between racialised categories, such as
the inclusion or exclusion of certain ethnic groups, or ‘mixed race’ within
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the category ‘white’, many people fit and would place themselves within
the category ‘white’ in an uncomplicated way. I was looking for people
who would be viewed by the (black, Asian or white) person in the street
as ‘white’. This proved to be a straightforward process with most of the
interviewees assuming that they were positioned as white. An exception was
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Jessica, a Jewish woman living in Clapham who was suggested by a friend
of hers, who resisted being categorised as white: ‘I am conscious of not
actually being white . . . quite often [. . .] I am conscious of being Jewish’
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(Jessica, Interview 41). However, in the main, this study is concerned with
those who are positioned in what you might call a ‘zone of comfort’ firmly
within the category ‘white’ rather than those who, for reasons such as reli-
gion or national identity, may lie nearer the shifting boundaries of whiteness.
For instance, they were all (except for Jessica) from Christian backgrounds,
whether practising or not. They were also all British born. The question
of national identity will be considered directly in Chapter 7, ‘How English
am I?’. However, it is worth noting here the inter-relations between racial,
ethnic, religious and national identities. In the case of whiteness and English-
ness or Britishness, they generally serve to shore each other up. Englishness
and whiteness can be mutually re-enforcing (see Parekh 2000).

The interviews
Excepting one, all the interviews took place in the interviewees’ homes.
Meeting in people’s houses provided intimate locations for the interviews.
This domestic space was likely to have an impact on the nature of the con-
versations, which generally took place over kitchen tables or on sofas over
a cup of tea. Barring the tape-recorder, the interviews had some of the feel
of a relaxed conversation and, indeed, the interviews were often embedded
in or interspersed with more social chat (and sometimes lunch). While the
interviewees may not have participated in an interview before, the encoun-
ters would in other senses have had a familiar feel, echoing social occasions.
In some cases, children were present at the interviews, but the interviews
had generally been arranged at times when the children would be out or