Living the multicultural city: acceptance,belonging and young identities in the city of Leicester,England

Drawing upon research conducted with young people in the city of Leicester, England, this paper explores what it means for those from black and minority ethnic communities, particularly more recent arrivals, to live within and adapt to specific multicultural urban contexts. After introducing prevailing racisms and accommodations, the paper examines how forms of belonging are expressed, re-produced and negotiated through the spatial trajectories of everyday life. This includes the value of emerging versions of place through community, religious practice as a form of social capital, the importance of routine, and the construction of multifaceted identities. Such experiences relate to contingent hierarchies of acceptance and legitimacy, histories of settlement, economic marginalization, as well as gendered and generational roles. These young people negotiate everyday life and belonging by retaining, extending and forging local and trans-national ties; highlighting the relationship between socio-spatial positions, everyday practice and identity formation.     

Secular citizenship and Muslim belonging in Turkey: migrant perspectives

In recent years, academic critique has worked toward exposing the underlying ethno-religious biases in official formulations of secular citizenship in Turkey. While such studies have highlighted the contradictions and inconsistencies that emerge in these grand narratives of national belonging, they have tended to privilege statist determinants of the bounds of nationhood. In this article, I offer an intervention into this discussion by exploring how citizens themselves encounter and embrace religion as a marker of national belonging in Turkey. In particular, I discuss the case of the 1950s Bosniak migration to Turkey and explore the salience of the migratory journey in informing their experiences of secular citizenship and national belonging.     

White privilege in the lives of Muslim converts in Britain

This paper explores how the whiteness of converts to Islam affects their post-conversion experiences. It shows how white converts are privileged because their whiteness functions as a marker of dominance and respectability. In attempting to go beyond well-established observations about the existence of white privilege, the limits of white privilege are also considered. It is argued that upon converting to Islam, white converts' whiteness is jeopardized, thus showing the precariousness of whiteness. The paper also considers how converts' whiteness can cause them difficulties rather than benefits due to the unique context that they find themselves in. Unlike white supremacists who portray white people as always a victim however, this paper seeks a more balanced understanding of the complexity of whiteness as often-but-not-always privileging. This paper is based on thirty-seven in-depth interviews that were conducted between 2008 and 2009 with Muslim converts in Greater Manchester.     

Scientific racism,popular racism and the discourse of the Gypsy Lore Society

Scientific racism continued to be the guiding paradigm of the oldest scholarly association for the study of Gypsies well into the 1970s. It is important to acknowledge and analyse this when considering the continuing influence of racism on policy towards Roma.     

From ethnic minorities to ethnic majority policy: Multiculturalism and the shift to assimilationism in the Netherlands

Abstract

Recently in numerous European countries of immigration, there has been a widespread ‘moral panic’ about immigrants and ethnic diversity. In The Netherlands, a backlash has occurred in policy and in public discourse, with migrants being blamed for not meeting their responsibility to integrate and for practising ‘backward religions’. Why is it that a self-defined ‘liberal’ and ‘tolerant’ society demands conformity, compulsion and introduces seemingly undemocratic sanctions towards immigrants in a move towards assimilationism? These issues are analysed by providing an overview of modes of incorporation of immigrants in the Netherlands and it presents evidence on the socio-economic situation of immigrants. The article argues that patterns of disadvantage cannot be explained solely by the low human capital attributes of the original immigrants. In spite of multiculturalism, the causes have to be sought in pervasive institutional discrimination and the persistence of a culture of racism. The study argues that a shift to assimilation is more likely to create further societal divisions.     

Post-race,post politics: the paradoxical rise of culture after multiculturalism

Declarations of the end of race ignore the continuing impact of racism upon socio-economic inequality in ‘racial states’. Nevertheless, the idea of post-racialism has gained ground in a post-9/11 era, defined by a growing suspicion of diversity. Clearly racialized, this suspicion is couched in cultural-civilizational terms that attempt to avoid the charge of racism. Hence, attempts to counteract the purported failure of multiculturalism in Europe today pose culturalist solutions to problems deemed to originate from an excess of cultural diversity. This is part of a deepening culturalization of politics in which the post-race argument belongs to a post-political logic that shuns political explanations of unrest and widening disintegration in favour of reductive culturalist ones. The culturalization of politics is elaborated by relating it to the displacement of the political that originated with the nineteenth-century ascendance of race, thus setting ‘post-racialism’ firmly within the history of modern racism.     

Partner notification methods for African American men being treated for trichomoniasis: a consideration of main men, Second Hitters, and Third Players

This pilot study sought information on African American men's preferences for partner notification methods for a common sexually transmitted infection called trichomoniasis. Two focus groups of African American men were convened at a public STI clinic where they were being treated for trichomoniasis. The groups identified a sexual hierarchy in men's preferences for methods of partner notification. The hierarchy consisted of main men (Cake Daddies), second men (Second Hitters), and third or fourth men (Third Players), with placement depending on age, income, and social status. Health department employees affirmed the existence of a sexual hierarchy in a separate focus group. Sexual and economic bartering formed the basis of the hierarchy, and the secrecy involved in such arrangements presented a considerable challenge for STI control. Disease intervention specialists who were responsible for contact tracing spoke of cat-and-mouse methods in contacting the men without understanding fully exactly how the hierarchy influenced men's responses to partner notification. The findings suggest that STI control efforts must take the sexual hierarchy and its privacy implications into account if partner notification methods are to be acceptable to African American men.     

Outsiders and insiders: changing boundaries of radicalism,racism and class

Virdee's book adds enormously to our understanding of two interconnected processes: the ways in which racism and nationalism in England/Britain became totally intertwined and embedded in working-class views of the world, and how at certain key moments those racially cast out from that depressing maelstrom may become the champions of an anti-racist internationalism. I am fractionally less negative than the author about the seemingly total hold of racism/nationalism on the whole working class, and less certain about racialized ‘outing’ as the key to the DNA of universalist anti-racists. Using the Garibaldi mobilizations of 1862–64, I suggest he may have underestimated the potential and reasons for ‘insider’ working-class resistance to racism/nationalism, and suggest greater caution in arguing an association between ‘racialized outsiders’ and internationalist views.     

History textbooks,racism and the critique of Eurocentrism: beyond rectification or compensation

This article is based on the theoretical framework developed within a research project on the construction of Eurocentrism and, more specifically, on the analysis of Portuguese history textbooks. We propose that the textbooks’ master narrative constitutes a power-evasive discourse on history, which naturalizes core processes such as colonialism, slavery and racism. Showing the limits of an approach that merely proposes the compensation or rectification of (mis)representations, we argue for the need to unbind the debate on Eurocentrism from a perspective that fails to make problematic the ‘very idea of Europe’. Accordingly, our analysis of Portuguese history textbooks focuses on three core narrative devices: (1) the chronopolitics of representation; (2) the paradigm of the (democratic) national state; and (3) the definitive bond between concepts and historical processes.     

Community,mobility and racism in a semi-rural area: Comparing minority experience in East Kent

Much research into community, racism and racialization has been conducted in metropolitan urban settings. It is only recently that race in rural areas has received some attention. A key theme of existing research on race in rural areas has focused on the issue of racial violence. Drawing on interviews with a variety of ethnic minority groups in East Kent the article will focus on broader issues of race and ethnicity in a semi-rural area. The study explores the meaning of race, ethnicity and belonging in the partially rural setting of East Kent, UK. The article will raise issues around the intersection of the regional and global, the problematic notion of “community”, and the fluidity of racialization in a setting in which many ethnic minorities were transitory and mobile. We conclude by highlighting the ways in which community, racism and racialization are embedded in differentiated discourses and processes.     

The language of everyday racism and microaggression in the workplace: Palestinian professionals in Israel

Based on interviews with Palestinian professionals in Jewish organizations in Israel, this article discloses a distinctive practice of ‘everyday racism’ and microaggression – a language of everyday racism. This ‘language of everyday racism’ refers to Hebrew words and expressions that are routinely used by Jews in their mundane conversations and that include the word ‘Arab’ when describing a deficiency or defect, some sort of unsightliness, filth, or general negativity (as in the expression ‘You're dressed like an Arab woman’). This article not only describes the language of everyday racism as a specific form of everyday racism and microaggression (national microaggression), it also illustrates how this language activates the Palestinian professionals in a reflexive manner. The discussion section describes how the internal dialectic between structure and agency is critical to understanding the language of everyday racism, which in turn acts as a mechanism of the inequality that underlies face-to-face interactions.     

The uses of racism: whitewashing new Europeans in the UK

In many respects, recent East European migrants in the UK look like past migrants to the UK: they left poorer parts of the world in search of work and the better life in the UK. But in other respects, they look different: they are white. Their putative whiteness, however, has not exempted them from the effects of racism. But while there is growing evidence of how they have been targets of racism, less attention has been focused on how they are also perpetrators of racism. The purpose of this paper is to compare the ways Hungarians and Romanians wield ‘race’ to assert and defend the relatively privileged position their putative whiteness affords them in the UK's segmented labour market. I argue that these migrants mark, evaluate and rank difference in racialized ways to secure both social-psychological and material benefits.     

Fighting racism,battling burnout: causes of activist burnout in US racial justice activists

Social movement scholars have identified activist burnout – when the accumulation of stressors associated with activism become so overwhelming they compromise activists’ persistence in their activism – as a threat to movement viability. This phenomenological study on the causes of burnout among racial justice activists in the United States was designed to bolster understandings of burnout and inform strategies for sustaining racial justice movements. Thirty racial justice activists who had experienced burnout were interviewed. They described four primary burnout causes: emotional-dispositional causes, structural causes, backlash causes, and in-movement causes. Implications for activist and movement sustainability are discussed.     

Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: manufacturing the green scare

Negative attitudes and explicit racism against Muslims are increasingly visible in public discourse throughout Europe. Right-wing populist parties have strengthened their positions by focusing on the ‘Islamic threat’ to the West. Concurrently, the Internet has facilitated a space where racist attitudes towards Muslims are easily disseminated into the public debate, fuelling animosity against European Muslims. This paper explores part of the online Islamophobic network and scrutinizes the discursive strategies deployed by three ‘prominent’ online actors. By combining social network analysis and critical discourse analysis, the study shows that Islamophobic web pages constitute a dynamic network with ties to different political and geographical milieus. They create a seemingly mainstream political position by framing racist standpoints as a defence of Western values and freedom of speech. The study also shows that Islamophobic discourse is strengthened by xenophobic currents within mass media, and by the legitimization of intellectuals and political actors.     

Religion,ethnicity and politics: Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrants in the United States

This article focuses on the political struggles between Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrant groups in the United States over the definition of "Indianness". Hindu Indian American organizations define India as a Hindu society and are strong supporters of the Hindu nationalist movement in India. Muslim Indian American organizations, on the other hand, view India as a multi-religious and multicultural society. They are striving to safeguard India's secularism and towards this end, have entered into coalitional relationships with lower caste groups. Both types of organizations are working to influence American and Indian politics in line with their respective interests, leading to an exacerbation of the conflict between the two immigrant groups. This article examines the reasons for this development and its implications, both for the development of an Indian American community in the United States and for religion and politics in India.     

Knowing,understanding and practising democratic citizenship: an investigation of the role of religion among Muslim,Christian and non-religious adolescents

The aim of this study is to examine the relation between religiosity and civic competences required to practise democratic citizenship. We compare non-religious, Christian and Muslim adolescents in the Netherlands to see whether (a) there is a relation between religion and civic competences, and (b) whether this differs depending on religious denomination. In the public debate, the reconcilability of Islamic beliefs and democratic citizenship is often questioned, but the relation between the two lacks empirical support. Results from analyses on data of 364 adolescents in the Netherlands indicate that religious adolescents have more developed democratic competences than non-religious adolescents. This is the case both for Christian and Muslim adolescents. The strength of religiosity does not play a role in predicting civic competences. Importantly, no differences are found between the civic competences of Muslim and Christian youth.     

Brexit,British People of Colour in the EU-27 and everyday racism in Britain and Europe

This paper foregrounds an understanding of Brexit as unexceptional, as business as usual in Britain and Europe. It reports on original empirical research with British People of Colour who have settled elsewhere in Europe, to bring into view an original perspective to understandings of what Brexit means to Britons living in Europe, and to consider what these testimonies offer to emerging social science research on Brexit. As we argue, focussing on the testimonies of British People of Colour living in the EU-27 offers a unique lens into how Brexit is caught up in everyday racism, personal experiences of racialization and racial violence, and longer European histories of racialization and racism. Importantly, these experiences precede and succeed Brexit, taking place in both Britain and other European Union countries.     

Sexual dichromatism in frogs: natural selection, sexual selection and unexpected diversity

Sexual dichromatism, a form of sexual dimorphism in which males and females differ in colour, is widespread in animals but has been predominantly studied in birds, fishes and butterflies. Moreover, although there are several proposed evolutionary mechanisms for sexual dichromatism in vertebrates, few studies have examined this phenomenon outside the context of sexual selection. Here, we describe unexpectedly high diversity of sexual dichromatism in frogs and create a comparative framework to guide future analyses of the evolution of these sexual colour differences. We review what is known about evolution of colour dimorphism in frogs, highlight alternative mechanisms that may contribute to the evolution of sexual colour differences, and compare them to mechanisms active in other major groups of vertebrates. In frogs, sexual dichromatism can be dynamic (temporary colour change in males) or ontogenetic (permanent colour change in males or females). The degree and the duration of sexual colour differences vary greatly across lineages, and we do not detect phylogenetic signal in the distribution of this trait, therefore frogs provide an opportunity to investigate the roles of natural and sexual selection across multiple independent derivations of sexual dichromatism.     

Perspective: female remating,operational sex ratio,and the arena of sexual selection in Drosophila species

Abstract.— As commonly observed among closely related species within a variety of taxa, Drosophila species differ considerably in whether they exhibit sexual dimorphism in coloration or morphology. Those Drosophila species in which male external sexual characters are minimal or absent tend, instead, to have exaggerated ejaculate traits such as sperm gigantism or seminal nutrient donations. Underlying explanations for the interspecific differences in the presence of external morphological sexual dimorphism versus exaggerated ejaculate traits are addressed here by examining the opportunity for sexual selection on males to occur before versus after mating in 21 species of Drosophila . Female remating frequency, an important component of the operational sex ratio, differs widely among Drosophila species and appears to dictate whether the arena of sexual selection is prior to, as opposed to after, copulation. Infrequent female mating results in fewer mating opportunities for males and thus stronger competition for receptive females that favors the evolution of male characters that maximize mating success. On the other hand, rapid female remating results in overlapping ejaculates in the female reproductive tract, such that ejaculate traits which enhance fertilization success are favored. The strong association between female remating frequency in a given species and the presence of sexually selected external versus internal male characters indicates that the relationship be examined in other taxa as well.