Contesting assimilation (Symposia)

An unravelling of the histories of two closely linked political goals - assimilation and empire - which were in many ways interdependent over the past 500 years. Examines the resilience of assimilative ideology across centuries, continents, and empires.

Her exaggerated coiffure, with its imitation curls and soaped curves that stick out at the side of the head like fantastic gargoyles, is an offense to the eye. Her plated gold jewelry with paste stones reveals its cheapness by its very extravagance. This description of a "ghetto girl" was printed in the American Jewish News in 1918, but with slight variation it might easily be mistaken for a description of our current pernicious and pejorative stereotype of Jewish womanhood, the "JAP." What are the origins of these stereotypes? And even more important, why would an American ethnic group use racist terms to describe itself? Riv-Ellen Prell asks these compelling questions as she observes how deeply anti-Semitic stereotypes infuse Jewish men's and women's views of one another in this history of Jewish acculturation in the twentieth century.

Analysis of the assimilation issues and race relations in five novels from the 1950s and 1960s and three non-fiction and texts that were produced in academic and government circles regarding the 'half caste problem' in the 1930s and 1940s; includes overview of assimilation in Australia and definitions of assimilation; management of race relations in Australia; eugenic politics; Aboriginality; 1937 Aboriginal welfare conference; Citizenship for the Aborigines (1944); Australia's Colours Minority: Its place in the community (1947).

This new book shows how citizenship, and its meaning and form, has become a vital site of contestation. It clearly demonstrates how whilst minority groups struggle to redefine the rights of citizenship in more pluralized forms, the responsibilities of citizenship are being reaffirmed by democratic governments concerned to maintain the common political culture underpinning the nation. In this context, one of the central questions confronting contemporary state and their citizens is how recognition of socio-cultural ‘differences’ can be integrated into a universal conception of citizenship that aims to secure equality for all. Equality policies have become a central aspect of contemporary European public policy. The ‘equality/difference’ debate has been a central concern of recent feminist theory. The need to recognize diversity amongst women, and to work with the concept of ‘intersectionality’ has become widespread amongst political theory. Meanwhile European states have each been negotiating the demands of ethnicity, disability, sexuality, religion, age and gender in ways shaped by their own institutional and cultural histories. This book was previously published as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social & Political Philosophy (CRISPP).

In this age of multicultural democracy, the idea of assimilation--that the social distance separating immigrants and their children from the mainstream of American society closes over time--seems outdated and, in some forms, even offensive. But as Richard Alba and Victor Nee show in the first systematic treatment of assimilation since the mid-1960s, it continues to shape the immigrant experience, even though the geography of immigration has shifted from Europe to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Institutional changes, from civil rights legislation to immigration law, have provided a more favorable environment for nonwhite immigrants and their children than in the past. Assimilation is still driven, in claim, by the decisions of immigrants and the second generation to improve their social and material circumstances in America. But they also show that immigrants, historically and today, have profoundly changed our mainstream society and culture in the process of becoming Americans. Surveying a variety of domains--language, socioeconomic attachments, residential patterns, and intermarriage--they demonstrate the continuing importance of assimilation in American life. And they predict that it will blur the boundaries among the major, racially defined populations, as nonwhites and Hispanics are increasingly incorporated into the mainstream.

As we enter the twenty-first century, the role of religion within civic society has become an issue of central concern across the world. The complex trends of secularism, multiculturalism and the rise of religiously motivated violence raise fundamental questions about the relationship between political institutions, civic culture and religious groups. Contesting Secularism represents a major intervention into this debate. Drawing together contributions from leading scholars from across the world it analyses how secularism functions as a political doctrine in different national contexts put under pressure by globalisation. In doing so it presents different models for the relationship between political institutions and religious groups, challenging the reader to be more aware of assumptions within their own cultural context, and raises alternative possibilities for the structure of democratic, multi-faith societies. Through its inter-disciplinary and comparative approach, Contesting Secularism sets a new agenda for thinking about the place of religion in the public sphere of twenty-first century societies. It is essential reading for policymakers, as well as for scholars and students in political science, law, sociology and religious studies.