Policy responses to multiculturalism, integration and diversity - part 1
- 1. Dealing with migration related diversity in Europe Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou, Part 1, Joint Executive Training Seminar
- 2. Integration • In the EU context, integration is understood as a dynamic, two-way process of mutual accommodation by all immigrants and residents of Member States (CBP1). The promotion of fundamental rights, non discrimination and equal opportunities for all are key integration issues. The STOCKHOLM Programme: • Integration is a dynamic, two-way process of mutual interaction, requiring not only efforts by national, regional and local authorities but also a greater commitment by the host community and immigrants. • Member States’ integration policies should be supported through the further development of structures and tools for knowledge exchange and coordination with other relevant policy areas, such as employment, education and social inclusion. Access to employment is central to successful integration.
- 3. 11 Principles guiding integration They aim to assist MS in formulating integration policies a) Provide a means to judge and assess their own efforts; b) set priorities and further develop their own measurable goals; c) a basis for MS to explore how EU, national, regional, and local authorities can interact in the development and implementation of integration policies; d) best engage other actors involved in integration (NGOs, women's and migrants' organisations, businesses, private institutions); e) complementary to existing legislative frameworks, including the international instruments on Human Rights, Community instruments containing integration provisions, EU objectives on gender equality and non-discrimination and other EU policies; f) dialogue between governments and all other relevant institutions and stakeholders at EU-level; e) assist the EU to explore how existing EU-instruments related to integration can be developed further; and f) assist the Council to reflect upon and, over time, agree on EU-level mechanisms and policies needed to support national and local-level integration policy efforts, particularly through EU-wide learning and knowledge-sharing.
- 4. The Challenge • Migrant populations and post-migration minorities present a challenge to nation- states. – Seeking political representation and participation as citizens, – Establishing special minority institutions to ensure the survival of their cultures and traditions. – challenge the dominant view of national history (e.g. colonialism) • Minorities challenge what is considered ‘acceptable’, ‘normal’ or ‘deviant’ behaviour. – different religious beliefs – different conceptions of gender relations, family, community • Migrant and minority groups in several EU countries characterized in media and political debates as ‘unsuited’ for European democratic and secular societies. Most stigmatised Muslims (regardless of their ethnic origin) and (migrant) Roma (regardless of their citizenship).
- 5. What is a nation? • ‘a nation is a named and self-defining human community whose members cultivate shared memories, symbols, myths, traditions and values, inhabit and are attached to historic territories or “homelands”, create and disseminate a distinctive public culture, and observe shared customs and standardised laws’ (Smith 1991, also in Guibernau 2004) • Also: imagined community (Anderson 2006) • Nation state a misnomer
- 6. National heritage, nationalism and citizenship/nationality • a set of cultural forms that characterise a specific nation and which provide for the framework within which the members of the nation are socialised. – There can be competing definitions of the national heritage (e.g. Turkey) • Nationalism = ‘ideological movement for attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity and identity on behalf of a population deemed by some of its members to constitute an actual or potential nation’. • Nationality/Citizenship
- 7. What is diversity? • Ethnic diversity: individuals or groups of different ethnic descent from the majority group in a country • Racial diversity: different physical characteristics of individuals and groups • Cultural diversity: people and groups with different cultural traditions, customs and language • Religious diversity: individuals and groups of a religious faith other than the majority one • These are not hard and fast distinction. In everyday reality they overlap
- 8. What is racism? • Racism is the belief that a person’s identity is predetermined by genetic origin. More specifically, it is the belief that factors associated with a person’s descent (ethnic, national or racial) predetermine not just their physical traits but also their psychological predispositions, mental abilities and other capacities. – Biological racism – Culturalist racism – Racialisation of differences
- 9. Xenophobia, racism and prejudice • Xenophobia is an attitude that expresses itself through hostile reaction to foreigners in general. It is linked to specific preconditions (above all economic factors) that foster its development. • Racism is linked to established practices - social, political and economic - that deny certain groups access to material and symbolic resources. Not simply a negative attitude towards outsiders but rather aims at subordinating the minority group. • Prejudice (Allport, 1957) an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalisation. It may be directed toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because s/he is a member of that group. The net effect of prejudice is to place the object of prejudice at some disadvantage not merited by his own misconduct.
- 10. How to accommodate diversity? • How is cultural, ethnic and religious diversity accommodated in European liberal democratic societies? (which have different historical traditions, contexts, practices, institutional arrangements?) • European level minorities: Muslims, ‘Black’ people, Roma
- 11. Assimilationism and integration • Assimilationism – Full assimilationism: One way street ‘integration’: migrants are expected to gradually adopt the values, culture, language and other traditions of the host country and to abandon their own. – Civic assimilationism: Migrants are expected to confine their religious and cultural traditions to their private life. As regards public life they are expected to adopt the civic values and political culture of the receiving society. • Integration: 2-way street: both migrants and receiving society adapt to one another. In reality integration is often understood as civic assimilation in Europe today
- 12. • Approaches to integration into receiving society • Integration • • Accommodation • • Separation Segmented assimilation • • Marginalisation Assimil. into underclass • • Rejection Accult./Assimil. • into mainstream •
- 13. Four models of migrant-receiving society relationship • Four models proposed by Portes – Integration-accommodation (the migrant asks for her/his needs and the group’s needs to be accommodated – society has to make room in the public space for new traditions, identities, beliefs (see interculturalism and multiculturalism below) – Segmented assimilation: assimilating but to an underclass – Ethnic marginalisation – rejecting the receiving society’s values and culture without strongly identifying with the culture of origin – Ethnic separation (ethnic activism, keeping to your culture and seeking to preserve it intact within the receiving society – revival of ethnic identities)
- 14. Normative approaches: Multiculturalism • Multiculturalism is a diverse set of normative ideals and policy programmes that promote (in different ways and by different means) the incorporation and participation of immigrants and ethnic minorities into state and society, taking into account their ethnic and religious differences. • Extending that thought, multicultural citizenship refers to: • A set of rights and duties that takes into account the cultural, ethnic and religious diversity of the groups that form part of a state and appropriately integrates their needs into an existing set of rights and duties attached to their citizenship.
- 15. Interculturalism • Interculturalism focuses on dialogue between cultures – a process based on dialogue and actual engagement between individuals from different cultures. – The intercultural perspective acknowledges that a multitude of cultures may co-exist within a society. – Individuals are seen as the carriers of different cultures, and thus intercultural dialogue involves dialogue between individuals of different ethnic or religious groups. – This is not a private dialogue (one that takes place, for instance, within a family) but rather a public one that can take place in institutional contexts such as the school or the workplace.
- 16. Tolerance • Relevant concepts: Tolerance, Acceptance, respect • Tolerance: • X tolerates Y, where: • X does not approve of Y • X has the power to interfere with Y but refrains from doing so
- 17. Types of tolerance Passive- Liberal tolerance not interfering with practices or forms of life of a person even if one disapproves of them Active- Egalitarian tolerance institutional arrangements and public policies that fight negative stereotyping, promote positive inclusive identities and reorganise the public space in ways that accommodate diversity
- 18. Acceptance/respect • Egalitarian tolerance is similar to acceptance and respect. • Acceptance and/or respect involve going beyond mere tolerance, changing institutional and societal arrangements to accommodate minority needs and claims • Tolerance and Acceptance/Respect are not hierarchically related (i.e. one is better than the other). They are appropriate for different kinds of claims. Tolerance can be ethically minimalist but politically viable.
- 19. • End of Part 1