Staff Profiles

Her doctoral research ‘Negotiating identity and belonging among the British-born Vietnamese in London’, explores the relationship between processes of categorisation, Orientalism and identity. It examines the capacity of Vietnamese individuals to challenge and disrupt more dominant constructions of ‘racial’ and ethnic groups in Britain. Tamsin’s methodological expertise lies in qualitative research methods, particularly qualitative interviewing and the Biographical Narrative Method.

She has been involved in a number of research projects including two EU funded projects of the EC 5th and 6th Frameworks; FeMiPol  ‘Integration of Female Immigrants in Labour Market and Society’, and EthnoGeneration ‘The Chances of the Second Generation in Families of Ethnic Entrepreneurs’. She has worked on projects on Greek-Cypriot Cultural Identity at Oxford Brookes University, and more recently for the Policy Studies Institute (PSI) in London researching housing, neighbourhood and unemployment.  She teaches Research Methods, ‘Global Youth Cultures’, ‘Race’, Ethnicity and Exclusion, and Introductory Sociology.

My book was nominated by Palgrave for the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2016.

 

Research grants and awards

Project Funding:

 Newton Mobility Grant Scheme 2016 Round 2:  Award Ref: NG160319

“New Labour Migrations Between Vietnam and the UK: Motivations, Journeys and Reflections” (with Dr Nguyen Van Phuc, Trung Vuong University, Vietnam)

The grant will be used to fund international research trips and workshops in Vietnam and the UK, fostering a stronger research collaboration between the co-investigators and their research teams.

The project seeks to investigate the factors behind the recent increase in youth migration between Vietnam and the UK and provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding into why young Vietnamese migrants come to the UK, what they hope to achieve through migrating, their experiences once in the UK, and how they evaluate their migration retrospectively on returning to Vietnam.  The project will research prospective migrants prior to leaving Vietnam, those in the UK, and those who eventually return to Vietnam 

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant for the project (2017-2019):

Becoming East Asian: Race, Ethnicity and Youth Politics of Belonging in Superdiverse Britain (with Dr. Diana Yeh, City University, London).

This project examines emerging East Asian youth identities and social spaces in urban Britain to investigate the changing significance of race and ethnicity in ‘superdiverse’ contexts. Due to migration, East Asians in Britain are now one of the fastest growing ‘ethnic’ groupings (ONS 2011), with the highest percentage of international students (HESA 2014), yet they remain invisible in both academic and policy debates on citizenship, integration and multiculturalism. This project investigates how and why young people in London and Birmingham are engaging in racial and pan-ethnic group-making around the problematic racial category of ‘Oriental’ or ‘East Asian’ when recent social surveys suggest that race is losing its significance as a dominant identity (Aspinall and Song 2013). Re-embedding questions of power, inequality, exclusion and racism in discussions of superdiversity, it will provide new knowledge on invisible minorities, exploring affiliations and divisions among them and their place in wider society. It will contribute to debates on how political mobilization and belonging are changing under superdiversity and lead to a research agenda on emerging East Asian youth politics in Britain.

 

Books

• Barber T, Oriental Identities in Super-Diverse Britain: Young Vietnamese in London, Palgrave Macmillan (2015)
  ISBN: 9781137275196 eISBN: 9781137275196
  Abstract Tamsin Barber addresses the experience of the British-born Vietnamese as an overlooked minority population in 'super-diverse' London, exploring the emergence of the pan-ethnic 'Oriental' category as a new form of collective consciousness and identity in Britain.--Supplied by publisher.Website 

Journal articles

• Barber T, 'Achieving ethnic authenticity through "return" visits to Vietnam: paradoxes of class and gender among the British-born Vietnamese'
  Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2017) pp.1-18
  ISSN: 1369-183X eISSN: 1469-9451
  Abstract The Vietnamese in Britain are a small and less visible community who remain largely unrecognised in wider society. For those born in Britain, constructing a Vietnamese identity and a sense of ethnic belonging is often rendered problematic due to a lack of inclusion in, and identification with, their local Vietnamese community. Instead, ‘return’ visits to Vietnam occupy a particularly important space in their narratives of ethnic authentification. Drawing upon the literature on migrant-homeland relations, this paper highlights the importance of divisions of gender, class and migration trajectories in understanding patterns of transnational participation and engagement among Vietnamese migrants. It is argued that British-born Vietnamese women are more likely to engage actively in their ‘return’ visits and make personal and emotional investments compared to their male counterparts whose visits remain largely symbolic. These differences are shaped by social class configurations and gender expectations both in Britain and Vietnam. However, while ‘return’ visits provide more effective ethnic authentification strategies for women than men who experience a more compromised masculine status and negative experiences in the ‘homeland’, paradoxically their class differences with the majority of the population weakens and questions this authenticity leading to an ‘arrested’ achievement of ethnic authenticity.
  KEYWORDS: ‘Return’ visits, British-born Vietnamese, ethnic authenticity, transnationalism
  
  Website 
• Barber T, 'Chinese, Japanese or "Oriental"?: Vietnamese-passing in "super-diverse" London'
  Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 22 (4) (2015) pp.524-542
  ISSN: 1070-289X eISSN: 1547-3384
  Abstract The young British-born Vietnamese are a relatively invisible group in ‘super-diverse’ London who are often misidentified in their everyday encounters. Eluding more straightforward processes of ethnic or racial assignment, the young Vietnamese ‘pass’ in various different ways as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai or ‘Oriental’. Drawing upon primary interview data and participant observation, this article traces ‘passive’ and ‘deliberate’ forms of passing to highlight how intersecting processes of class, gender and place enable/engender different kinds of passing. It is argued that Vietnamese-passing challenges more ‘celebratory’ readings of (super-) diversity by concealing (and depoliticising) difference and erasing Vietnamese voices rather than allowing for their proliferation. It is suggested that practices of passing may become more common in super-diverse societies, as markers of visible difference become increasingly complex and less determinable, especially among newer, non-colonial migrant groups who are more ambiguously positioned within existing identity regimes.
  Keywords: passing, British-born Vietnamese, British East/Southeast Asians, orientalism, ‘super-diversity’, intersectionality
  
  Website 
• Barber T, 'Performing "Oriental" masculinities: embodied identities among Vietnamese men in London'
  Gender, Place & Culture 22 (3) (2015) pp.440-455
  ISSN: 0966-369X eISSN: 1360-0524
  Abstract The young British-born Vietnamese are a largely unrecognised group in society and are generally not considered part of multiethnic Britain. A key characteristic of their racial positioning has been the very specific forms of hegemonic gendered labelling shaped by discourses of Orientalism. These Orientalist discourses subject Vietnamese men to pernicious stereotyping linked to ‘passive’ and effeminising forms of ‘subordinate’ masculinity. The ethnic and gendered dimensions of male Vietnamese youth experience are further compounded by the intersecting processes of social class and urban geographies which provide a distinct range of identity outcomes; these are particularly acute for working-class men living in highly urbanised areas. This article explores how young Vietnamese men subvert Oriental labels and stereotypes by using a range of unexpected, creative and ‘spectacular’ manipulations of hair, dress, style and comportment. I argue that Vietnamese men negotiate and perform ethnic masculinities through conscious and strategic forms of agency which entail everyday mundane forms of ‘risk’. The article draws upon primary data from in-depth, narrative interviews and participant observation.Website 

Book chapters

• Anthias F, Cederberg M, Barber T, Ayres R, 'Welfare Regimes, Markets and Policies: The Experiences of Migrant Women' in Anthias, Floya, Kontos, Maria, Morokvasic-Müller, Mirjana (ed.), Paradoxes of Integration: Female Migrants in Europe, Springer (2013)
  ISBN: 978-94-007-4842-2
  Website 
• Ayres R, Barber T, Anthias F, Cederberg M, 'New female migrants in European societies: analysis of migration flows and the integration of female migrants into labour markets and society' in Paradoxes of integration: female migrants in Europe, Springer (2012)
  ISBN: 9789400748415
  

Barber, T (2018) 'The integration of Vietnamese Refugees in London and the UK: fragmentation, complexity and ‘in/visibility’. UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2018/2

 

Barber, T and Nguyen, H (2016) ‘Becoming adult by remaining a minor’:  Reconfigurations of Adulthood and Wellbeing by young Vietnamese migrants in the UK', Becoming Adult Project, Working paper 3. [https://becomingadultproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/cultural-media-in-vietname-working-paper-barber-nguyen-2016.pdf] 

  

Singh, P. & Barber, T. (2014) 'Rereading Einstein on Socialism' The Oxford Left Review November