Bridging Boundaries of Difference: Intergroup Contact between Immigrants and Natives in the Context of Work

Abstract

Purpose

Tribeca is a predominantly wealthy, white neighborhood in New York City and is a microcosm of the service-and-information-based economy that characterizes many communities in global cities today. Tribeca residents are mostly affluent and work in high-end, service-oriented professions, consuming low-end personal services produced locally. Many of the people who provide these personal services in Tribeca are foreign-born. This chapter explores the nature of intergroup contact between native residents and immigrant service workers to understand how they navigate social boundaries of race/ethnicity, nation-of-origin, occupation, and social class.

Methodology/approach

This chapter is based on six years of ethnographic data collection and participant observation, in addition to interviews with 66 informants, including both immigrant service workers and Tribeca residents.

Findings

This research highlights the importance of local contextual factors in shaping how people perceive one another and interact. Although in Tribeca this intergroup contact fails to alter boundaries of race, class, and nation-of-origin, residents and immigrants still have meaningful interpersonal contact, which is the result of bridging, or overlooking, existing social boundaries.

Originality/value

The results of this research challenge the assumption that relations between natives and immigrants in stratified settings are characterized by resentment or hostility. Instead, contextual factors in Tribeca shape intergroup perceptions and contact in a way that allows for positive interpersonal, albeit largely superficial, relationships to take root.

Citation

Miller, E. (2015), "Bridging Boundaries of Difference: Intergroup Contact between Immigrants and Natives in the Context of Work", Immigration and Work (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 289-313. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320150000027025