Introduction

It is through interaction with other people that we learn more about ourselves. This has been a beneficial aspect of my work as a conflict worker in Bristol. I have been fortunate enough to accompany people as they embark on an intimate journey to make changes to their lives, in order to overcome difficulties of belonging, coping on limited resources or dealing with the anxieties that surface when inhabiting a new way of life. I have learnt much about myself as a direct result of my work. I could not have foreseen how much this would affect me and this would not have happened unless I was exposed to such varied facets of the human condition at such difficult times in people's lives. I also took insights from a Master's course, which drew on and encouraged the application of social-scientific knowledge in a community setting. This lent further support to my learning, observations and professional practice; I utilised new theories that I was previously unaware of, by implementing them in my work, by feeding my findings back to tutors as did others, creating a culture of active contribution through lively discussion, and an open acceptance of failure as part of success..

What I was not expecting was to find new words to describe old feelings, transitory existences between states of mind. To learn why my experiences, which were often quite similar to those of the people I worked with (although sometimes 30 years apart), were influenced not just by the human condition, but by the external physical environments and social systems and processes we had been exposed to and, in our different ways and to different degrees, shared. The application of social-scientific insights gained from my Master's also assisted me in gaining new insight into dilemmas surrounding strategies of self-protection and personal interest, and the preservation of collective interests and values. These are the very topics that were governing both my personal story and my everyday working life. This enabled me to highlight my observations on the impacts of difference through the experiences of ‘established’ and ‘newcomer’ immigrant communities and root them in theory. Articulating the indescribable is what my study meant to me.