The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, Identity and Community (Postcolonial Encounters)

Pnina Werbner

ISBN 10: 1856494225 / ISBN 13: 9781856494229

Published by Zed Books, 1997

About this Item

Is multiculturism simply a novel project of social engineering? This book rejects this view by demonstrating that multiculturalism is the political outcome of ongoing power struggles and collective negotiations of cultural, ethnic and racial differences. Editor(s): Modood, Tariq; Werbner, Pnina. Series: Postcolonial Encounter Series. Num Pages: 288 pages, bibliography, index. BIC Classification: 1D; JFC; JFF; JFSL1; JHMP; JP. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 216 x 135 x 18. Weight in Grams: 360. . 1997. 1st Edition. paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9781856494229

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, Identity and Community (Postcolonial Encounters)
• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1856494225
• ISBN 13: 9781856494229
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Europe has become a novel experiment in multiple, tiered and mediated multiculturalisms. It is now a supranational community of cultures, sub-cultures and trans-cultures inserted differentially into radically different political cultural traditions. The consequences of this re-imagining and re-making of a new Europe are variously seen to be threatening or utopian. In a post-Communist, post-national era, multiculturalism has been theorized as a paternalistic, top-down solution to the 'problem' of minorities, a dangerous reification of 'culture', or a new way forward to a politics of 'recognition' and 'authenticity'.

But is multiculturalism simply a novel project of social engineering, devised for the twenty-first century by well-meaning liberals or communitarians? The authors of this book reject this view by demonstrating that multiculturalism is the political outcome of ongoing power struggles and collective negotiations of cultural, ethnic and racial differences.

About the Authors

Pnina Werbner is professor emerita in social anthropology at Keele University. She is an urban anthropologist who has studied Muslim South Asians in Britain and Pakistan and, more recently, the women's movement and the Manual Workers Union in Botswana.

Richard Werbner is emeritus professor of African anthropology at the University of Manchester. Among his books are Tears of the Dead (1991) and Postcolonial Subjectivities in Africa (Zed 2002).