Inside the Core - April 2024
No, but where are you really from?
That’s a question I have been asked countless times in my life. Leeds is seemingly not a good enough answer for curious (nosey) people who I have often just met. When I was in high school, I got called into the headteacher’s office to speak to a representative from the council about my experiences as a Traveller of Irish Heritage in a mainstream school in England. I failed, of course, having zero experience of the question, and had to explain that I had answered Traveller of Irish Heritage in the recent ethnic origin question on a school form because I hated the question, could never find a category that I fit into, and also thought that requesting that information on a careers questionnaire was ridiculous as my ethnicity should not have any influence on my future career choices.
“Oh, so it’s a political statement then?” the headteacher concluded with a sigh, and sent the council representative away, even if at 12 I was probably too young to even realise that it was a political statement or not, I just knew that I hated the question. It wasn’t my last run in over this question, and my disdain for the question remains to this day.
I recalled this story recently during a discussion amongst SRP members when discussing the need for some new questions for gathering information about the membership as part of the Strategic Action Plan Action DC1.1 – Set up fields in “MySRP” to gather more information on Diversity, and ethnic origin was one of these. As a person of mixed heritage, my father is from Indonesia and my mother from England, I can never find a box that fits how I feel.
Looking back at the history of these kinds of questions to understand population groups, the census is undertaken by the Office for National Statistics every 10 years in England and Wales to give a snapshot of society at that moment. It dates back to 1801 and back then, there wasn’t even a question about ethnicity. It was only in 1991 that the question was introduced, with the options for answers being: White, Black Caribbean, Black African, Black Other, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese or Any Other Ethnic Group, and you could write in at that point what your ethnicity was.
In 2001, mixed categories were introduced in response to feedback that people wanted to be able to describe themselves as mixed, and included: White and Black Caribbean, White and Black African, White and Asian and in fact, the 2011 census showed that mixed-race people is the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK. In the most recent census in 2021, we were up to 19 ethnic groups to choose from, again in response to feedback about what people identified with as their ethnic origin, however with the write in function, 287 ethnic groups were identified, proving that the question of identity is incredibly complex and involves many different factors such as geography, where people originate from, racial decent, skin colour, etc.
You’d also be forgiven for questioning the reliability of the census after it was revealed that in the 2001 census 390,000 people identified as being followers of the religion “Jedi”!
Ticking a box doesn’t tell you what ethnicity actually means to people; you can tick a box, but it doesn’t tell you the extent to which a person feels they occupy the ethnicity they’ve ticked. Even with the “Other Mixed” free text option, am I English – Indonesian, or am I Indonesian – English? Do I identify with one more than the other? Do I look like one more than the other? Does one take precedence over the other?
The census recognises this, with this statement on its website:
Ethnicity is multi-dimensional and subjective, with various ways in which a person may choose to define their ethnic group. This may include common ancestry, elements of culture, identity, religion, language and physical appearance. It is generally accepted that ethnic group does include all these aspects, and others, in combination.
So, the real question is, does it really matter? Or, more relevant to this blog, does it really matter to SRP?
Will this information benefit SRP? Will it help us to serve our members better if we know this detail about them?
I’m not sure it does.
There will be a poster up at the conference in Eastbourne about the data gathering - let us know what you think if you’re attending or via the usual contact details below.
Let me know what you think by getting in touch via the usual:
Email: engagement@srp-uk.org
Twitter: chai_khaneh
Instagram: @saragoli