Series:

Research in Ethnic Relations

2 total works

Cover of Migration, Socialism and the International Division of Labour

Cover of Paradoxes of Multiculturalism
Sweden is unique in Europe, both in the development of its general welfare policies and in its avant-garde immigrant policy aims. Yet, mainstream ideology and praxis tend to render a prescribed multiculturalism a form of cultural determinism veiling the structure of power underlying racial, ethnic, gender and class inequalities. Within a comparative framework Alexsandra Alund and Carl-Ulrik Schierup scrutinize paradoxes of multiculturalism inherent in the intersection between the programmed society's enlightened monitoring and a communicative public interchange. They critically reasses dominant political, institutional and academic discourses as reflected within a number of fields: a changing refugee poicy, the representation of immigrant women and youth, the public space of immigrant communities and contemporary social movements. Discussing dilemmas of a dismantling welfare state under the complex conditions of globalization-localization in Europe, the book focuses on pertinent issues of trans-ethnic agency and exposes the need for more composite notions of "politics", "class", "state", "civil society" and "everyday life".