Ethnicities 

Abstract: This article contributes to the growing debate on intersectionality by proposing a theoretical framing which attends to different levels of analysis in terms of what is being referred to (social categories or concrete social relations); societal arenas of investigation; and historicity (processes and outcomes). It discusses questions of social ontology, categories, groupings and more concrete social relations relating to boundaries and hierarchies in social life. The article presents a particular analytical sensitivity which attends to the dialogical nature of social relations, the centrality of power and social hierarchy, and the importance of locating these within spatial and temporal contexts.

Abstract: L'A. examine la maniere dont la solidarite sociale - et sa manifestation individuelle dans un sentiment d'appartenance a des dispositifs culturels ou sociaux specifiques - est marginalisee et souvent stigmatisee dans l'imaginaire asocial des nouvelles variantes cosmopolites du liberalisme. Il s'interroge sur le statut possible de la culture ou de l'ethnicite dans ce type de theorie, autre qu'en tant que stigmatisation de l'alterite, plus ou moins toleree : la theorie cosmopolite peut-elle valoriser l'humanite non seulement dans l'abstrait, mais dans la variete concrete de ses modes de vie ? Selon l'A., les liberaux cosmopolites souvent ne reconnaissent pas les conditions sociales de leur propre discours. Il soutient egalement qu'une approche qui part des individus et traite la culture comme contingente ne peut rendre justice aux revendications legitimes faites au nom de communautes et aux raisons qui fondent l'importance encore actuelle des attachements en profondeur a des solidarites particulieres, quelle qu'en soit la forme (nation, ethnicite, communaute locale, religion). Finalement, si le comopolitisme n'est pas l'ennemi universel des solidarites particulieres, certaines de ses theories meritent d'etre ameliorees de ce point de vue. [Reponses des auteurs]

Abstract: Contemporary anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia is reproduced through a racialization that includes well rehearsed stereotypes of Islam, perceptions of threat and inferiority, as well as fantasies that the Other (in this case Australian Muslims) do not belong, or are absent. These are not old or colour-based racisms, but they do manifest certain characteristics that allow us to conceive a racialization process in relation to Muslims. Three sets of findings show how constructions of Islam are important means through which racism is reproduced. First, public opinion surveys reveal the extent of Islamaphobia in Australia and the links between threat perception and constructions of alien-ness and Otherness. The second data set is from a content analysis of the racialized pathologies of Muslims and their spaces. The third is from an examination of the undercurrents of Islamaphobia and national cultural selectivity in the politics of responding to asylum seekers. Negative media treatment is strongly linked to antipathetic government dispositions. This negativity has material impacts upon Australian Muslims. It sponsors a more widespread Islamaphobia, (mis)informs opposition to mosque development and ever more restrictive asylum seeker policies, and lies behind arson attacks and racist violence. Ultimately, the racialization of Islam corrupts belonging and citizenship for Muslim Australians.

Abstract: In a number of western countries we are now seeing a ‘new second generation’ – the children of the migrants who came to Europe and North America in the second half of the 20th century and who are now completing their education and entering the labour market. Many of these migrants came from less-developed countries such as Pakistan, Turkey, North Africa or Mexico as migrant workers. How this new second generation has fared within western educational systems may well prove crucial for the eventual integration and cohesion of western countries. Pessimists have been concerned that this new second generation may be much harder to integrate than the older migrants of European ancestry: cultural differences may make it harder for the new second generation to thrive within western educational systems, and in the current political context, there are particular worries about the incorporation of Muslim groups. In contrast, optimists believe that immigrants tend to be ‘positively selected’ for their ambition and drive and that their high aspirations will lead to educational success for their children and, in turn, to occupational integration. The educational outcomes of the new second generation also provide a challenge to orthodox explanations of educational inequalities in the western academic literature. Can traditional explanations be used exactly as they are to account for ethnic inequalities? Do they need to be broadened in order to apply to the circumstances of the new second generation? Or do we need radically different kinds of explanation? Western literature in the sociology of education has tended to focus on class inequalities in G U E S T E D I T O R I A L