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- Volume 2, Issue 3, 2007
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2007
Volume 2, Issue 3, 2007
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Anglo-multiculturalism: Contradictions in the politics of cultural diversity as risk
More LessThe continuing controversy over the place of multiculturalism within national political cultures has been highlighted by recent international policy debates. Nations with European, and especially Anglo-Celtic, roots have been forced into a major re-assessment of their strategies in relation to culturally diverse populations living within the nation-state. The dynamics underlying these tensions reflect fundamental fissures that global terrorism has exposed, sometimes instigating the portrayal of international rifts as confrontations of civilizations. Great Britain and Australia have long historic links, sharing many cultural orientations, the one of course the founder through invasion of the other. To some extent they have shared a commitment to policies of multiculturalism, which they saw as ways of reducing risks of social conflict in late modernity. They both now experience societal debates where multiculturalism has come under strong political critique ironically, for amplifying risk. Both societies have presented themselves to the international community as beacons of tolerance and diversity, as successful expressions of multiculturalism, and as examples of the power of the core values of Anglo-liberalism. Yet external audiences sometimes comment, and internal critics have persuasively argued, that such representations disguise systematic structures of racialized inequality masked by surface egalitarian discourses. As these contradictions become ever more apparent, we are thus directed towards a re-formulation of what a multicultural project would require if it is to demonstrate sufficient robustness to survive much into this century.
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Nation and diaspora: Rethinking multiculturalism in a transnational context
More LessMulticulturalism has redefined the nation as comprising a culturally pluralist population. However, the increased linkages between countries, produced by accelerated globlisation, have also engendered intricate transnational networks between diasporas residing in several states. The telephone, internet, satellite television and other media help construct a web of connections among these transnations enabling them to maintain and enhance their cultural identities. Diasporas have creatively engaged with transnational media and are participating in a globalisation-from-below. An increasingly cosmopolitan outlook has been fostered by the inter-continental links. But multiculturalism policies tend erroneously to continue viewing members of immigrant communities as having engaged in a oneway trajectory that breaks ties with their past. The current conceptualisation of multiculturalism as fixed within the context of the nation-state does not allow for a well-considered response to the transnational contexts in which immigrants live out their lives. Some migrant-producing states have begun to address these circumstances, but those of immigrant-receiving governments have generally been reluctant to acknowledge them.
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Cities of difference: Cultural juxtapositions and urban politics of representation
More LessThis paper explores urban politics of representation and their role in processes of political and cultural participation for migrant and diasporic urban dwellers. Urban politics of representation are about finding a location in the city and about locating the city (or one's own city) in the world. Living, representing and being represented in the city is attached to looking for and finding (or failing to find) a place in the world. The strangers, the mobile subjects and the migrants seek (and sometimes find) a place of work and of sociality in the city. Often marginalized, patronized and excluded from formal (national) politics, they engage with the urban politics of representation either as actively seeking political representation or, and more often, as a reflection of their mobile status and their everyday engagement with images and representations of the self, community, the city and global culture. Unlike formal and national politics, urban politics of representation involve activities in the street, participation in local life, engagement with creative practices and the arts, among other things all of which increasingly involve appropriations of media and communication technologies. With reference to empirical material from London and New York, this paper argues that in the study of juxtapositions of difference in the city, we can observe politics of representation and forms of active (and mediated) citizenship, which are often ignored in formal politics for the management of diversity.
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Ethnic minorities, cultural difference and the cultural politics of communication
Authors: O.G Bailey and R HarindranathThis paper examines the question of cultural difference in debates of multiculturalism and the related issue of shared values and rights that transcend cultural difference, both in terms of multicultural citizenship within specific nations as well more universally. We argue that alternative media produced in multi-ethnic public sphericules is potentially productive as a space of cultural expression enabling a dialogue across and within cultures both minority and majorities on what constitutes such shared values and rights, and for the redefinition of the identities of multicultural nations in the West. Intrinsic to this is the question of representational politics, in particular the inclusion of voiceless subalterns. We suggest that the public sphericules of diasporic-alternative media might provide a way of engaging ethnic minorities with the mainstream public sphere and cultural difference, and could contribute towards addressing the question of marginalization of minority cultures.
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The Palestinians in Britain, news and the politics of recognition
By Dina MatarThis paper is concerned with how migrants address the politics of recognition from below, or through the politics of theeveryday. It uses a synthesis of theory and original empirical material to address questions of identity, belonging, recognition and participation through their everyday use of various news media. In doing so, it addresses the contexts under which minority and/or diasporic group members may adopt claims to cultural distinctiveness and group rights to challenge perceptions of exclusion from and misrepresentation in the political public sphere, arguing that these politics may be understood as contestations of and negotiations over the right to the public sphere.
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Multiculturalism, progressive politics and British Islam online
More LessMulticulturalism has recently been under attack not only from its traditional adversaries in the right of the political spectrum, but also by left wing, progressive commentators. Multiculturalism is seen as divisive and oppressive, and in the case of Islam in particular as a contributing factor to the radicalization of Muslims. Yet this critique, despite its many important points, focuses on multiculturalism as conceived in state policies overlooking the actual politics of everyday multicultural existence. This article will therefore discuss the critiques of multiculturalism by influential progressive commentators, such as Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Kenan Malik and Gilles Kepel, before embarking on an empirical analysis of the online presence of British Muslim communities. The empirical analysis shows that interventions by Muslim citizens address the left wing demands for justice and equality from a positioned perspective, that of being Muslim in Britain. The open and public new media formats undermine attempts to form an essentialist Muslim identity; indeed, we suggest that the online Muslim sites might be better understood as loose networks rather than closelyknit communities. Additionally, rather than operating from a group enclave mentality, active efforts are made to connect at least to formal British politics.
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 19 (2023)
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Volume 18 (2022)
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Volume 17 (2021)
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Volume 16 (2020)
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Volume 15 (2019)
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Volume 14 (2018)
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Volume 13 (2017)
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Volume 12 (2016)
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Volume 11 (2015)
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Volume 10 (2014)
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Volume 9 (2013)
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Volume 8 (2012)
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Volume 7 (2011)
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Volume 6 (2010 - 2011)
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Volume 5 (2009)
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Volume 4 (2008)
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Volume 3 (2007)
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Volume 2 (2006 - 2007)
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Volume 1 (2005)