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Shared space, divided society
Cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue
Focal point Migration is part of modern society, meaning more and more people of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds live together in Europe. The multitude of perspectives and experiences represents an enormous resource, but as cultural conflicts inherent in today's urban societies become visible, doubts are also raised about the value of diversity. In cooperation with the European Cultural Foundation, Eurozine presents a broad take on the issue that goes beyond the common dichotomy between multicultural segregation and the forceful assimilation of the "melting pot".
Cooperation This focal point represents an ongoing cooperation between Eurozine and the European Cultural Foundation on cultural diversity. New articles are added on a continuous basis.
Culturalism: Culture as political ideology
cultural diversity The controversy on multiculturalism has changed the political fronts. The Left defends minority cultures while the Right stands guard over national culture. But these are merely two variants of a culturalist ideology, argue Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt. [ more ]
Shadow of the fatwa
20 years fatwa Salman Rushdie's critics lost the battle but they won the war against free speech, writes Kenan Malik. The argument at the heart of the anti-Rushdie case - that it is morally unacceptable to cause offence to other cultures - is now widely accepted. [ more ]
You've got to swing your hips!
A conversation with Feridun Zaimoglu
Interview "This whole ethnic crap gets on my nerves!" Forthright as ever, Feridun Zaimoglu explains why the discourse on integration and multiculturalism serves conservative interests and demonizes young Muslims. [ more ]
Take me to your leader
Post-secular society and the Islam industry
Muslims in the public sphere A new cadre of "professional Muslims" have realized that kudos is to be gained in speaking on Muslim issues. But the "take me to your leader" approach, practised by government and the media, cuts out the majority of Muslims. [ more ]
"I won't be an Uncle Tom"
A conversation with Navid Kermani
Islam and Europe "Either I play my part and become a defender of Islam or multiculturalism – or indeed a denouncer of Islam, whatever role I get landed with – or else I write my books, with a view to people still reading them in twenty years." Navid Kermani explains why he won't have anything to do with the Islam industry. [ more ]
Muslims and the decadent West
Liberalism and Islam Young Muslims in Europe who criticize western "decadence" are rejecting mainstream norms, argues Jörg Lau. Nevertheless, some commentators interpret young Muslims' self-segregation as the fault of the majority. What motivates this alliance between liberal self-critique and Muslim religiosity? [ more ]
Beyond the clash of intolerances
intercultural dialogue Today, we are not experiencing a clash of civilizations, but a clash of intolerances. "We must encourage opposing forces to adhere to values of moderation, tolerance, and non-violence", says the Iranian philosopher. [ more ]
The Muslim woman
The power of images and the danger of pity
Islam and feminism Western feminists who speak on behalf of "oppressed" Muslim women assume that individual desire and social convention are inherently at odds. But veiling should not be confused with a lack of agency or even traditionalism. [ more ]
They removed the veil
islam and feminism Pernilla Ouis and Anne Sofie Roald adopted the headscarf back in the 1980s at the same time as political Islam began to grow. Now they are part of a global trend towards secularization in which more and more women are shedding their headscarves and veils. [ more ]
Peripheries and borders in a post-western Europe
europe's borders Europe is taking not just a post-national but also a post-western shape. The relation between the inside and the outside is complex and ambivalent; while often exclusionary, the periphery can also be viewed as the site of cosmopolitan forms of negotiation. [Slovenian version added.] [ more ]
Superlocal identities
The European in the youth experience
cultural diversity European youth culture voices local concerns while simultaneously connecting to global trends. Two-way interests have developed between brands and artists, leaving politics and mainstream media, after years of indifference, with a lot of catching up to do. [ more ]
All history is the history of migration
Cultural bridges Throughout history, the ambivalent presence of the migrant Other has aroused extremes of sentiment within the host community. [ more ]
Multiculturalism and liberal democracy
cultural diversity Liberal values can be twisted to justify limiting the civil rights of ethnic groups, warns Will Kymlicka in interview. "The same forces that support ethnic politics within liberal democracy also channel it in democratic ways." [ more ]
The dialectic of secularization
multiculturalism The opposition between "multiculturalism" and "Enlightenment fundamentalism" is misconceived, argues Jürgen Habermas. "The universalist claim of the political Enlightenment does not contradict the particularist sensibilities of a correctly understood multiculturalism." [ more ]
Mistaken identity
cultural diversity Multiculturalist advocacy of collective rights opens the door for religious law to take precedence over civil law, argues Kenan Malik. Partly responsible is the idea that people are bearers of a particular culture as opposed to social and transformative beings. [German version added] [ more ]
Multiculturalism and diversity
A reply to Kenan Malik
cultural diversity Kenan Malik's critique of multiculturalism as a perpetuation of racist thinking is based on false conclusions, writes Radostin Kaloianov. Yet institutionalized multiculturalism should be challenged for its concentration on only a narrow spectrum of differences. [ more ]
Doing the world differently
In defence of multiculturalism
Cosmopolitan society Multiculturalism, long the bête noire of the Right, has come under increasing attack from the Left. But whether multiculturalism poses a threat to Enlightenment values or not, the real debate must be over how we interpret the term itself. [ more ]
Multiculturalism: A failed experiment?
Debate Commonality is all very well but it must work both ways: three responses to Ted Cantle's re-evaluation of nationality, citizenship, and community. [ more ]
Parallel lives
Multiculturalism We may live in a multicultural society, but we need a more positive approach to breaking down segregation. [ more ]
The birth of the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia
Minorities in eastern europe The Bronze Soldier controversy in Tallinn in April 2007 was more a product of the fears of national conservative groups than an integration problem among Estonia's Russian-speaking minority, writes Martin Ehala. [ more ]
A tale of two communities
UK While business may be the great integrator, cultural tensions have not disappeared in two Asian communities in the UK. Understanding these means dropping multiculturalist clichés about "the Asian community". [ more ]
Racism and migrants
Russia Russian society is deeply divided amongst "ethno-centric lines". Bureaucracy and the police possess intricate means with which to discriminate against immigrants whilst the media reinforces stereotypes about non-Slavic minorities. [ more ]
A history to be handed down
Interview with Lilian Thuram
"I'm not black, I'm French" The Caribbean-born French footballer Lilian Thuram talks about his longstanding interest in the history of slavery, about how sport can teach mutual respect, and why he still believes in the French model of integration. [ more ]
Zinedine Zidane or games of belonging
Identity Zinedine Zidane is a figurehead around which young Muslims in France and Germany form a sense of community. The footballer's style of play is a direct expression of the immigrant experience; even the head-butt had an instructive value. [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
An anthropologist between "banlieues" and globalized world
Ethnicization In the 1970s, taboos on acknowledging working-class racism hindered urban research. Today, both academic and media discourse has become ethnicized; this can have both positive and negative consequences, says Monique Selim. [ more ]
The Beur uprising
Poverty and Muslim atheists in France
Exclusion it is not so much cultural difference and Islamism that is taking young Muslims to the street as a mass reaction to two centuries of colonialism and racism, compounded by recent poverty and exclusion. [ more ]
Political representation as response to urban rioting
A comparative perspective
French multiculturalism Urban rioting in France has highlighted that assimilation policy is outdated. A "French multiculturalism" needs to be introduced along with a rethinking of the system of political representation. [ more ]
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Free speech in a plural society
Opening address at the 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
The public sphere Multiculturalist censors turn the notion of respect on its head, said Kenan Malik as he opened the Eurozine conference. In a truly plural society we need the fullest possible extension of free speech. [ more ]
Culture as battlefield
The public sphere A sea change in the public sphere has brought a "language of ethical demands", in which religion becomes the medium of conflict, writes Isolde Charim. [ more ]
The irrepressibility of Mangifera
memory and migration How do memories transmit the effects of movement between places, amongst things, and within people into the urban environment? A literary-sociological narrative describes the sensations of a Caribbean immigrant to Britain. [ more ]
Identities and the subversion of borders
"Where are you from?" The British-born Ghanaian travelled to his parents' homeland to find an answer to the familiar question: "Where are you from?" But far from getting away from the myth of European superiority that still resonated in the Britain of Eshun's youth, he found himself at its core. [ more ]
An apprenticeship in assimilation
Closing speech at the 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
growing up different Assimilation is a dirty word in multicultural politics. But as a child of German-Jewish immigrants growing up in postwar Britain, it was what Ursula Owen most desired. [ more ]
Ich wäre gerne European
) "Pieter Brueghel d. Ä., Tower of Babel")
In varietate concordia? European identity as confusion of tongues? The Tower of Babel casts its shadow over Marco Pautasso's experiment in authentic European essay writing. [ more ]
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More focal points
Olympic indifference
The Beijing Olympics 2008 are unusual insofar as not one country has boycotted them. This, despite the fact that the political dimension of the Games has seldom been more controversial. Are we seeing a new kind of "Olympic indifference"? With this in mind, Eurozine compiles articles on sport, politics, and protest. [ more ]
1968: Beyond soixante-huite
Forty years on, the differences between the 1968 uprisings in western and eastern Europe move into ever sharper focus. "In retrospect, the great event of '68 in Europe was not Paris, but Prague. But we were unable to see this at the time." Including articles on '68 in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, France and West Germany. [ more ]
Illiberal Europe?
Parliament or the soapbox? Populist politics are enjoying renewed success in Europe, above all in the former socialist countries. Ivan Krastev, G.M.Tamás, Ralf Dahrendorf, Jacques Rupnik and others investigate the rise of "democratic illiberalism". [ more ]
Cultural citizenship
The concept of cultural citizenship responds to the multicultural context of contemporary societies, in which the concern with equality is increasingly being complemented with a concern with difference. Contributors include Gerard Delanty, Axel Honneth, Rainer Bauböck, Ivaylo Ditchev, Charles Taylor, Rada Ivekovic, António Sousa Ribeiro. [ more ]
Decentring Europe
Any reinvention of the concept of Europe that takes into account the complexities inherent in Europe's place in a globalized world must contain a critique of Eurocentrism. Learning from the South, i.e. absorbing the full critical impact of alternative approaches may be a key element in the rethinking – and unthinking – of "Europe".
[ more ]
The future of war
Are wars that are fought between nations a thing of the past, and are the future challenges more a case of ethnic strife, break-up of failed states, secession and civil wars? In a special focal point, Eurozine analyzes the changing face of warfare in the twenty-first century, in which terrorism and new security threats have profoundly transformed the way wars are conducted. [ more ]
The city as stage for social upheaval
From the western European city to the Third World megacity, one is able to observe how a single principle asserts itself in the social structure of the urban space. That principle – privatization – is geared towards the concentration of wealth and assets on an increasingly global scale, a manoeuvre its beneficiaries seek to naturalize. [ more ]
Big Brother goes global
Post 9/11, governments are increasingly tailoring "international standards" to ratify domestic policies that intrude on civil liberties. Welcome to the phenomenon of "policy laundering". [ more ]
Changing Europe
As political Europe turns 50, the questions about its future are as open as ever. A special focus featuring some of Eurozine's most outstanding contributions on the European project: From analyses of the current crisis to a hilarious parody of Brussels' literary ambitions. [ more ]
Post-secular Europe?
Is religion a public or a private matter? Can there be such a thing as a European Islam? If so, what characterizes it? What role can religion – or religions – play when it comes to the emergence of a European solidarity? [ more ]
European histories: Towards a grand narrative?
In order for there to be solidarity within the enlarged EU, it will be necessary to develop a broader historical consciousness that includes both western and eastern experiences. [ more ]
Europe talks to Europe: Towards a European public sphere?
The European integration project has made the discussion about transnational spaces for cultural and political debate acute. Can there at all be a common Europe without a pan-European public sphere? [ more ]
Politics of border making and (cross-)border identities
Have borders become irrelevant with the project of a united Europe? No, just the opposite. On the dilemmas of border building and cross-border cooperation in the EU and its neighbourhood. [ more ]
Documenta 12 magazines
Eurozine is participating in the Documenta 12 magazines project, which links over 90 print and on-line periodicals worldwide. Read Eurozine's contributions to the documenta leitmotifs "Modernity" and "Bare Life" here.[ more ]
Freedom of speech and the Danish cartoon controversy
Free speech is a fundamental human right and a central tenet of democracy. Or is it? Reactions to the Danish cartoon controversy show that liberals are re-evaluating what the right to free speech entails. [ more ]
Politics of translation
Translation today is as much about the translation of cultural, political, and historical contexts and concepts as it is about language. [ more ]
Conferences
Changing places (What's normal anyway?)
The 20th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Sibiu, 21-24 October 2007
Under the heading "Changing places (What's normal anyway?)", the Eurozine network conference 2007 in Sibiu, Romania, addressed the challenges facing societies, literature, and the media as the need for change meets the urge for normality. Read the conference texts here. [ more ]
Friend and foe. Shared space, divided society
The 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
London, 27-30 October 2006
Speakers at the 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals opened up the discussion on cultural diversity in two directions: first, as it is experienced in the physical urban space, and second, as it is reflected in the mirror of the media. [ more ]
Neighbourhoods
The 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Istanbul, 4-7 November 2005
Contributions on the notion of neighbourhood and the Turkey-Europe question from a range of intellectual and geographic perspectives. [ more ]
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