Abstract: This article examines the everyday thinking on multiculturalism of majority group members in The Netherlands. Using material from two empirical studies, it investigates what ethnic Dutch people think about multiculturalism and how they justify or criticize multicultural notions. The first study examines the reasons and arguments perceived to exist in society for supporting or questioning multiculturalism. This study maps the meanings that have been created within Dutch society in response to increased ethnic diversity. The reasons used to justify or criticize multiculturalism were found to form two sets of arguments. The second study examines the ways that people in the context of an interview actually construct different versions of multiculturalism and account for their positions. Here, the focus is on the interpretations used and the discursive consequences of their deployment. Two main interpretations were identified and it is shown how these are actually and strategically used to justify and criticiz...

Abstract: This article examines the ethnic identity of the offspring of Mexican/white (non-Hispanic) intermarriages, or multiethnic Mexican Americans, using 20 in-depth interviews with multiethnic Mexican Americans in California. Interviews indicate that respondents gravitate toward a Mexican American ethnic identity since it is the most salient ethnicity in their social environment. But as respondents choose their identities, they confront ethnic boundaries, or sharp division between ethnic categories, that influence the extent to which they feel free to assert any one particular identity. They respond to these boundaries by taking a symbolic approach, a Mexican American approach, a multiethnic approach to their ethnicity, and a combination of these approaches.

Abstract: This article considers the production of an Islamic utopian or millennial discourse by British South Asian Muslims in the diasporic public sphere and its possible impact on the younger generation of Muslims growing up in the UK. Associated with such a discourse, the article considers the vulnerability of diasporas – the process whereby global events can precipitate radical diasporic estrangement, leading to self-estrangement. Such estrangement is fed by moral panics, expressed in the speeches of politicians, in newspaper columns and global news reports. This exposes the fragility of multicultural discourses in the public sphere in the UK.

Abstract: It is increasingly possible to detect a split in regard to current analyses of multiracial identity in the United States. On the one hand there remains a relatively naOve brand of multiracial activ...

Abstract: What are the implications of the social constructionist insight about race for the political struggle against racism? This question has sparked a vigorous cross-disciplinary debate. At issue is whe...

Abstract: Numerous scholars and activists have advocated a notion of language rights as a tool by which minority ethnic groups may protect their cultural integrity against the incursions of hegemonic groups. At the same time, critics have problematized language rights as a dangerous notion that may provoke inter-ethnic competition or worse. This article seeks to contribute to this debate a case study of the ‘rights mediation function’ of the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), a central component of South Africa’s uniquely progressive language rights framework. First, it is considered whether PanSALB’s support of ‘group’ language rights gives incentive to potentially divisive ethnic mobilization. Second, the efficacy and equitability of PanSALB’s service delivery is interrogated, as are the responses of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to ethnolinguistic grievance. This article concludes that PanSALB does not give incentive to ethnic mobilization, but fails to protect language rights, and, as a st...

Abstract: Political anger in New Zealand is anger in a postcolonial society The emotions that circulate around perceptions of injustice and inequality, and which are framed through constructions of ethnic difference, significantly colour social and political life In New Zealand, historical processes of colonization and settlement have created conjunctions of ethnic identity which shape the law and may ultimately determine when and how human rights legislation is used in this society The search for justice in relations between Maori and Pakeha in New Zealand involves anger, played out in a variety of social, political and legal contexts Members of the two principal ethnic groups become angry about many of the same things but in ways whose difference reflects the differences of ethnic identity

Abstract: This article examines the correlation between migration to the United States from Mexico, ethnicity, and changing gender relations among Mexicans on both sides of the international border. For exam...

Abstract: Two epistemological roots are traced for the social sciences, one related to wonderment over how society is possible, the other to their auxiliary role in the political-administrative system. The conflict between these epistemological traditions, it is argued, has had beneficial effects upon the social sciences. In the scholarship about multicultural societies, it is shown that these two epistemological traditions result in very different accounts of immigrant/minority life, designations of deviancy, etc., and also in terms of defining areas of legitimate interventions from the surrounding society. It is argued that present-day changes in the universities, including the specific interpretation of excellence, as well as research funding mechanisms, significantly serve to impoverish the epistemological pluralism in the social sciences, with malevolent results for our understanding of multicultural challenges. The article builds mainly on some case material from Norway, but the arguments are meant to have wi...

Abstract: This article seeks to assess the impact of development on the lives and livelihoods of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers in Sub-Saharan Africa. It queries the discourses on human rights and on indigenous peoples and whether they accurately describe and address the situation confronting pastoralists and huntergatherers. The importance of access to land for pastoralists is examined and evidence is presented showing how policies have undermined livelihoods. The effect of ‘forced’ and of ‘voluntary’ sedentarization is discussed, and is followed by a review of the situation of contemporary hunter-gatherers. Finally, the article concludes by arguing for the need to move beyond the rhetoric of rights and to better understand how and why policies create and undermine pastoralists and hunter-gatherers.

Abstract: The A. explores the linguistic practices of lesbian and gay social movement networks in Canada. She specifically focuses on Egale, the main advocacy group for lesbian and gay rights issues, describing its linguistic practices with regard to public presentation, recruitment and participation, as well as its relationships to other lesbian and gay rights groups. The main finding is that French-speaking activist networks are largely separated from English-speaking activist networks. The concept of consociationalism is applied to the relationship between the two linguistically based networks and adapted for social movement politics. The linguistically based social movement networks function separately from each other but occasionally cooperate at the elite level in pursuit of common goals.

Abstract: This article considers the future of relations between African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latina/os in the political process in the United States and evaluates the prospects for social change....

Abstract: Focusing on staff writers’ articles and editorials published in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion, this article examines the Los Angeles Times by paying attention to how race in general, a...

Abstract: It is not pleasant to study Islam these days. One is constantly interrogated by the media, by one’s students, by intellectuals from right to left to explain the ‘backward’, ‘aggressive’, ‘unpleasant’ religion Muslims are supposed to have. If such explanations are felt to be somewhat sympathetic to the plight of Muslims they are often considered to be unduly apologetic. As long as Muslims lived ‘unreformed’ lives in the colonies under the benign rule of western powers the cosmopolitan intellectual could be pleasantly mystified by the oriental mystique of the seraglio, of sultans and nabobs. After de-colonization, however, these former colonies have become independent nation-states whose despotism has to be kept in check by the advanced states. Moreover, the poor economic conditions in Muslim majority states R E V I E W A R T I C L E

Abstract: In his article, ‘Justice in Ethnically Diverse Societies’, published in Ethnicities 3(3), Shane O’Neill (2003) considers the experience of political alienation that occurs when some individuals are unjustly forced to choose between the expression of their particular group identity and their status as equal citizens. As he acknowledges, forcing individuals to make this choice may not always be unjust, especially when their particular group outlook is fundamentally intolerant of other ways of life or of democratic values more generally. But if the pressure to choose is rooted in structural inequalities – if, for example, the constitution grants formal privileges to members of a dominant religious group while arbitrarily denying them to others – then those structures must be considered unjust (2003: 371–2 and passim). I agree with O’Neill that diversity is not something that we can simply ignore or wish away, at least not if we want to do justice to those groups and cultures within which individuals form and sustain their particular identities. I also agree that one of the ways in which we can take diversity seriously is by eliminating structural inequalities that lead the members of particular groups or communities to feel politically alienated. Given these points of agreement, I support the following basic norm of constitutional justice that motivates so much of O’Neill’s article:

Abstract: Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s Unequal Freedom is a superbly put together account of how race and gender inequities in the Unites States are both structured and contested in the arenas of labor and citizenship, ostensibly the private and public arenas of life in liberalism. She juxtaposes the histories of Mexican Americans in the Southwest, African Americans in the South, and Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i from Reconstruction through the Progressive era between 1870–1930 to show that although universal citizenship rights were allegedly accessible to all those who held formal citizenship, those deemed persons of color were excluded. The resistances against oppression by these communities of color in these three regions where agriculture dominated the economy transformed the meanings attributed to labor and citizenship. This book is an absolutely crucial intervention on the debates on citizenship, effectively questioning critiques of race activism in present-day United States. Conservatives’ take on race politics – their misreadings of American history as all-inclusive with perhaps slavery as an unfortunate aberration, their rather standard arguments that communities of color illiberally politicize race and destroy so-called American ideals of non-sectarianism and equality – are not worth rehashing here. But on the other hand we have progressives, who say they are rooted in socially emancipatory traditions, but will argue that race politics are merely palliative measures that do not R E V I E W S Y M P O S I U M

Abstract: O’Leary, B., T. Lyne, J. Marshall and B. Rowthorn (1993) Northern Ireland: Sharing Authority. London: Institute for Public Policy Research. O’Neill, S. (2002) ‘Democratic Theory with Critical Intent: Reply to Newey’, The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 4(1): 98–114. O’Neill, S. (2003) ‘Justice in Ethnically Diverse Societies: A Critique of Political Alienation’, Ethnicities 3(3): 369–92. Parekh, B. (1999) ‘Defining National Identity in a Multicultural Society,’ in E. Mortimer (ed.) People, Nation and State: The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism, pp. 66–74. London: I.B. Tauris. Sisk, T. (1996) Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. Taylor, C. (1994) ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in A. Gutmann (ed.) Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, pp. 25–73. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Taylor, C. (1995) ‘Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate’, in C. Taylor, Philosophical Arguments, pp. 181–203. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walzer, M. (1983) Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism and Equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, R. and R. Wilford. (2003) Northern Ireland: A Route to Stability? (The Devolution Papers). Birmingham: ESRC. Young, I.M. (1997) Difference as a Resource for Democratic Communication,’ in J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds) Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, pp. 383–406. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Young, I.M. (2000) Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Abstract: I want to thank Andrea Baumeister (2003) for her thoughtful engagement with my work. In this response, I will try to advance the dialogue she has initiated, while linking our exchange at points to some of the other articles in the same issue of Ethnicities (3(3)). My response seeks to make two basic points. First, it is a mistake to assume that the state is the only meaningful site of political community in the modern world or to grant the state an unexamined normative privilege in its activities compared with non-state political communities. Second, it is helpful to have a range of concrete cases in view in discussions of multiculturalism. Indeed, there is much to be said for an approach that begins with intuitive evaluative judgments about the ways in which people respond to differences of culture and identity in various contexts, next tries to articulate the reasons for these judgments (refining them in the process), and only then attempts to weave these reasons into a systematic account. In other words, if we start from reflective engagement with multicultural practices, we may be able to build a more satisfactory theory of multiculturalism than if we start from general principles or the claims of political philosophers. The two points work together because our actual political practices accord far more normative space to non-state political communities than our theories normally do. Baumeister is broadly sympathetic to the project of rethinking citizenship to make more room for differences of culture and identity, but she has some concerns about the concept of ‘deep diversity’ as a way of advancing this project. I will focus on her worries about deep diversity’s potential negative effects upon political unity and upon liberal protections of D E B A T E

Abstract: Aspects of both educational development and multicultural interrelationships are frequently related to school ethnic composition, with arguments that ethnically segregated schools both retard the d...

Abstract: The environmental justice literature is characterized by a strange fact: the vast majority of research on this topic is about racial inequality, yet there is almost no mention of social scientific theories of race and racism. It is as if statistical correlations alone are enough to prove or disprove the existence of racism. While there are exceptions to this rule, the overwhelming majority of environmental justice studies make no mention of well-established theoretical frameworks on racism from the social sciences. This article is an effort to place the problem of environmental racism/inequality in the broader context of sociological theories of racism. To that end we focus on the theory of racial formation – specifically the concept of racial projects – and extend this model to the question of environmental racism. By applying this theoretical framework to the case of immigrants and people of color in Silicon Valley, we argue that institutional racism – as is the case with environmental racism – is a com...

Abstract: The aim of this article is to present a conceptualization of cultural groups and cultural difference that provides a middle course between the Scylla of essentialism and the Charybdis of reductionism. The method I employ is the social mechanism approach. I argue that cultural groups and cultural difference should be understood as the result of cognitive and social processes of categorization. I describe two such processes in particular: categorization by others and selfcategorization. Categorization by others is caused by processes of ascription: the attribution by outsiders of certain characteristics, beliefs, and practices to individuals who share a specific attribute. Self-categorization is caused by processes of inscription and community-building: the adoption of certain beliefs and practices as a result of socialization and enculturation. I therefore shift the focus from groups to categories, and from categories to processes of categorization. I show that this analytical distinction between categorization by others and self-categorization can clarify an ambiguity in dominant debates in contemporary multiculturalism. I conclude by indicating how injustices, commonly associated with multiculturalism, can better be understood as socially generated injustices, and how government should deal with these injustices.

Abstract: The traditional distinction between race and ethnicity is considered highly problematic. In the literature, ethnicity is frequently assumed to be the cultural identity of a group within a nation st...

Abstract: Les AA. se proposent d'analyser les politiques du New Labour concernant la race et la migration en Grande-Bretagne. Ils soutiennent que, meme s'il y a eu des glissements dans ces politiques - par exemple du multiculturalisme a la cohesion sociale, et vers la promotion d'une migration selective et un renforcement des attitudes envers les demandeurs d'asile -, ces glissements demeurent en concordance avec une croyance partagee collectivement apres la Deuxieme Guerre mondiale, et a travers le spectre politique : que la cohesion sociale et l'harmonie dependent de la limitation et du controle de la migration de certains groupes vers la Grande-Bretagne. Selon les AA., cette croyance fondamentale n'est toujours pas remise en question, malgre les echecs continues des politiques d'immigration. (Debat et reponses d'auteurs).