DOMINANT PLURALISM: HOW AND WHY DO XENOPHOBIC SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ALLOW ETHNO-PLURALISM?

Acar Kutay (University of Bergen)

The growth of xenophobia with a social base and institutionalized mobilization within civil society poses a challenge to European democracies. The qualitative analysis in this paper is based on interviews conducted with participants in social movements from Bulgaria, Italy and Austria. Empirical findings showed a tendency of xenophobia to allow a particular form of pluralism in society that suggests the hierarchical incommensurability of ethnic groups, their non-assimilative adaptation to society and their expulsion if this adaptation fails. Space becomes a crucial aspect of exclusion in this discursive frame because aliens are excluded from edifice, agora, public, and communicative spaces. Xenophobic discourse thus reproduces hierarchical relationships among ethnic groups, along with the domination of the space by the majority ethnic group.

Acar Kutay is  affiliated with the EUROSPHERE project, funded by the European Union Sixth Framework Programme and coordinated by the University of Bergen.  His current research is on the theories of civil society, and on political theory. His recent article is “Europeanisation of Civil Society through the Sponsored European Publics” published in Javnost-the Public.

Friday 15 February, 14.15-16.00
Uni Rokkan Centre, Nygårdsgaten 5, 6th Floor

Poster

SEMINAR SERIES ON TRANS-EUROPEAN POWERS AND THE RE-STRUCTURING OF MAJORITY-MINORITY RELATIONS

Seminar organizer: Hakan G. Sicakkan