Offers an examination of debates on multiculturalism, in the context of discussions on security, integration and human rights. This book explores the nature of a range of inter-related areas of public policy, including anti-terrorism, immigration, integration, community cohesion, equality and human rights, examining the Government's strategies.
"...the book is a brave and authoritative analysis of multiculturalism... McGhee successfully locates his subject in the context of recent developments in both community cohesion and human rights and shows with great skill how differing impulses within government and the wider community pull multiculturalism in various different directions... With this book, McGhee manages to be both topical and well-informed: it deserves a wide readership." Professor Conor Gearty, LSE This topical book provides a thorough examination of debates on multiculturalism, in the context of current discussions on security, integration and human rights. Recent debates on national identity and the alleged failure of multiculturalism have focused on the social disorder in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in the summer of 2001 and the bombings and attempted bombings in London in July 2005. Derek McGhee assesses how these events and the events that have occurred outside Britain, especially the attacks on the USA on 11th September 2001, have resulted in the introduction of a number of high profile debates in Britain with regards to immigration, integration, citizenship, ‘race’ inequality and human rights. McGhee examines these debates on multiculturalism and terrorism in light of enduring questions regarding ‘Muslim integration’ and ‘Muslim loyalty’ in contemporary Britain. He also explores the nature of a diverse range of inter-related areas of public policy, including anti-terrorism, immigration, integration, community cohesion, equality and human rights, critically examining many of the Government’s key strategies in recent years. The End of Multiculturalism? will appeal to a wide readership of students and academics in sociology, politics, international relations and law.
This book offers several insights into cross-cultural and multilingual learning, drawing upon recent research within two main areas: Language Studies and Multilingual Language Learning/Teaching. It places particular emphasis on the Polish learning environment and Poles abroad. Today’s world is an increasingly complex network of cross-cultural and multilingual influences, forcing us to redefine our Selves to include a much broader perspective than ever before. The first part of the book explores attitudes toward multiculturalism in British political speeches, joking behaviour in multicultural working settings, culture-dependent aspects of taboos and swearing, and expressive language of the imprisoned, adding a diachronic perspective by means of a linguistic study of The Canterbury Tales. In turn, the studies in the second part focus on visible shifts in contemporary multilingualism research, learners’ attitudes towards multiple languages they acquire, teachers’ perspectives on the changing requirements related to multiculturalism, and immigrant brokers’ professional experience in the UK.
Multiculturalism is now seen by many of its critics as the source of intercultural and social tensions, fostering communal segregation and social conflicts. While the cultural diversity of contemporary societies has to be acknowledged as an empirical and demographic fact, whether multiculturalism as a policy offers an optimal conduit for intercultural understanding and social harmony has become increasingly a matter of polarised public debate. This book examines the contested philosophical foundations of multiculturalism and its, often controversial, applications in the context of migrant societies. It also explores the current theoretical debates about the extent to which multiculturalism, and related conceptual constructs, can account for the various ethical challenges and policy dilemmas surrounding the management of cultural diversity in our contemporary societies. The authors consider common conceptual and empirical features from a transnational perspective through analysis of the case studies of Australia, Canada, Columbia, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Uruguay. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, comparative politics, international studies, multiculturalism, migration and political sociology.
Leading scholars from a range of countries and academic disciplines, and representing different political viewpoints and faith traditions, explore the complex issues surrounding the legal recognition of religious faith in a multicultural society.
Proposes a common European intellectual framework to evaluate recent developments in European multiculturalism. The heightened security awareness in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the London and Madrid bombings has resulted in a 'crisis of multiculturalism'. Now is the time to look at the renewed challenges that multiculturalism faces today.Each chapter in this interdisciplinary book reviews the actual state of affairs in several countries in relation to the theories behind immigrant minority claims. With a special focus on Muslim immigrants, the contributors look at the value issues entrenched in multiculturalism and the policy challenges and measures adopted to address them.
In a relatively short time, many European governments have been purposefully dropping the notion ‘multicultural’ or other references to cultural diversity in their policy vocabularies. More and more politicians and public intellectuals have criticized a perceived shift towards ‘too much diversity’. This volume goes beyond the conventional approaches to the topic offering a careful examination of not only the social conditions and political questions surrounding multiculturalism but also the recent emergence of a ‘backlash’ against multicultural initiatives, programmes and infrastructures. Featuring case-study based contributions from leading experts throughout Europe and North America, this multidisciplinary work seeks to assess some of these key questions with reference to recent and current trends concerning multiculturalism, cultural diversity and integration in their respective countries, evaluating questions such as Is there is a common ‘sceptical turn’ against cultural diversity or a ‘backlash against difference’ sweeping Europe? How have public discourses impacted upon national and local diversity management and migration policies? Are the discourses and policy shifts actually reflected in everyday practices within culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse settings? The Multiculturalism Backlash provides new insights, informed reflections and comparative analyses concerning these significant processes surrounding politics, policy, public debates and the place of migrants and ethnic minorities within European societies today. Focusing on the practice and policy of multiculturalism from a comparative perspective this work will be of interest to scholars from a wide range of disciplines including migration, anthropology and sociology.
Drawing on various disciplines and case studies from several corners of the world, this volume offers insights about the breadth and complexity of the (inter)relation between the socio-economic partcipation of minorities and their right to (respect for) identity.
This book provides powerful insights into the dynamics, nature, and experiences of the terrors of counter-terrorism measures in the UK. Abbas links her analysis to wider concerns of nation construction and belonging; racial profiling and policing; the state of exception and pre-emptive counter-terrorism measures; community-based counter-terrorism measures; and restrictions to political engagement, freedom of speech and hate speech. What makes this work distinct is its advancement of an original framework - the Concentrationary Gothic - to delineate the racialised mechanisms of terror involved in the governance of Muslim populations in the ‘war on terror’ context. The book illuminates the various ways in which Muslims in Britain experience terror through racialised surveillance and policing strategies operating at state, group (inter- and intra-), and individual levels in diverse contexts such as the street, workplace, public transport and the home. Abbas situates these experiences within wider racial politics and theory, drawing connections to anti-Semitism, anti-blackness, anti-Irishness and whiteness, to provide a complex mapping of the ways in which racial terror has operated in both historical and contemporary contexts of colonialism, slavery, and the camp, and offering a unique point of analysis through the use of Gothic tropes of haunting, monstrosity and abjection. This vital work will be of interest to students and scholars across sociology, criminology, anthropology, terrorism studies, Islamic studies, and critical Muslim studies, researching race and racialisation, security, immigration, nationhood and citizenship.
Multiculturalism and multicultural education are at a paradoxical moment. There is work that continues as if the multicultural hegemony was still intact and on the other hand work articulated as if multiculturalism was decidedly passe. The essays in this collection will be of considerable interest to academics, policy makers and students of both multiculturalism and multicultural education principally because they touch on both perspectives but concentrate for the most part on the thorny problematic of the workings of multicultural education in its present precarious moment. Given the renewed, urgent attacks in various western countries, the cottage industry of “death of multiculturalism” texts and the rise of the interculturalism, transnationalism, diaspora alternatives, is multiculturalism dying? Are the ends of multiculturalism- the management or celebration of diversity; representation and recognition for all in society; creation of just and equitable communities at the global, national and local school classroom levels- better theorized and realized through the ascendant alternatives? Representing the precarious moment in Canada, Ireland, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, the essays in this collection address these questions and both depict and trouble hegemonic multicultural education and contrast it with its supposed successor regimes.
