Racialisation and the Micro-Ecology of Contact

This article reviews and comments on the six articles presented in the special focus section of this issue of the journal on ‘Racial isolation and interaction in everyday life’. Taken together, the articles call for a reinterpretation of the spaces of contact in everyday life, with a new focus on the ‘micro-ecology’ of racialised divisions. Contributions are made in three areas: (a) meta-theory, with a turn to materiality, (b) new methodologies, and (c) understandings of racial segregation and contact. The contact hypothesis is reconsidered with new emphases on relations between bodies–space–time. A ‘relational model’ is given in efforts at explanation.