Multiculturalism In Transit

Given German history and Germany's current substantial non-citizenship population, it is hardly surprising that multiculturalism with its treatment of "the other" is as controversial there as in the US. Sixteen papers derived from an unspecified conference co-hosted by the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown U., Berlin's Humboldt U., and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation address: theorizing comparisons; gender and race; American studies in Germany; German studies in America; and multiculturalism in the transatlantic sphere. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

“[R]ecommended to anyone interested in multiculturalism and migration....[and] food for thought also for scholars studying migration in less privileged contexts.”—Social Anthropology In this compelling study of the children of serial migrants, Danau Tanu argues that the international schools they attend promote an ideology of being “international” that is Eurocentric. Despite the cosmopolitan rhetoric, hierarchies of race, culture and class shape popularity, friendships, and romance on campus. By going back to high school for a year, Tanu befriended transnational youth, often called “Third Culture Kids”, to present their struggles with identity, belonging and internalized racism in their own words. The result is the first engaging, anthropological critique of the way Western-style cosmopolitanism is institutionalized as cultural capital to reproduce global socio-cultural inequalities. From the introduction: When I first went back to high school at thirty-something, I wanted to write a book about people who live in multiple countries as children and grow up into adults addicted to migrating. I wanted to write about people like Anne-Sophie Bolon who are popularly referred to as “Third Culture Kids” or “global nomads.” ... I wanted to probe the contradiction between the celebrated image of “global citizens” and the economic privilege that makes their mobile lifestyle possible. From a personal angle, I was interested in exploring the voices among this population that had yet to be heard (particularly the voices of those of Asian descent) by documenting the persistence of culture, race, and language in defining social relations even among self-proclaimed cosmopolitan youth.

In Permanent Transit: Discourses and Maps of the Intercultural Experience builds interdisciplinary approaches to the study of migrations, traffics, globalisation, communication, regulations, arts, literature, and other intercultural processes, in the context of past and present times. The book offers a convergence of perspectives, combining conceptual and empirical work by sociologists, anthropologists, historians, linguists, educators, lawyers, media specialists, and literary studies writers, in their shared attempt to understand the many routes of the intercultural experience. This Permanent Transit generates an overlapping of cultures, characteristic of a site of cultural translation. In their incessant creation of uncertainties, these pages also produce new hypotheses, theories and explanations, while pushing limits, bringing about epistemological changes, and opening new spaces for independent discussion and research. The potential for change is located at peripheries marked by hybridity, where the â ~new arrivalsâ (TM) and the â ~excludedâ (TM) â " like this book and many of its contributors â " are able to use subversion to undermine the strategies of the powerful, regardless of who they are. Cultural translation â " both as Judith Butlerâ (TM)s â ~return of the excludedâ (TM) and as Homi Bhabhaâ (TM)s hybridity â " is a major force of contemporary democracy, also in the academic field.

Publisher description

In this compelling study of the children of serial migrants, Danau Tanu argues that the international schools they attend promote an ideology of being “international” that is Eurocentric. Despite the cosmopolitan rhetoric, hierarchies of race, culture and class shape popularity, friendships and romance on campus. By going back to high school for a year, Tanu befriended transnational youth, often called “Third Culture Kids”, to present their struggles with identity, belonging and internalized racism in their own words. The result is the first engaging, anthropological critique of the way Western-style cosmopolitanism is institutionalized as cultural capital to reproduce global socio-cultural inequalities.

The management of ethnic diversity has become a topical and often controversial subject in recent times, with much debate surrounding multiculturalism as a systematic and comprehensive response for dealing with ethnic diversity. This book engages with these debates, examining the tangible outcomes of multiculturalism as a policy and philosophy in a range of traditional and 'newer' multi-ethnic nations. Exploring the questions of whether multiculturalism can promote 'ethnic harmony', employment equity and trust between various minority and non-minority groups, Managing Ethnic Diversity also adopts a comparative perspective on the experiences of multiculturalism in various international contexts, in order to examine whether lessons learned from some jurisdictions can be applied to others. With an international team of experts presenting the latest research from the UK, North America, Europe, China and Australasia, a truly global dialogue is fostered with regard to the utility and limits of multiculturalism in local and comparative contexts. As such, Managing Ethnic Diversity will appeal to social scientists interested in race and ethnicity, multiculturalism and migration.

This book is open access under a CC BY license. This edited collection focuses on theories, language and migration in relation to multiculturalism in Japan and the Asia-Pacific. Each chapter aims to provide alternative understandings to current conflicts that have arisen due to immigration and policies related to education, politics, language, work, citizenship and identity.

This is the first comprehensive, multi-author survey of German history that features cutting-edge syntheses of major topics by an international team of leading scholars. Emphasizing demographic, economic, and political history, this Handbook places German history in a denser transnational context than any other general history of Germany. It underscores the centrality of war to the unfolding of German history, and shows how it dramatically affected the development of German nationalism and the structure of German politics. It also reaches out to scholars and students beyond the field of history with detailed and cutting-edge chapters on religious history and on literary history, as well as to contemporary observers, with reflections on Germany and the European Union, and on 'multi-cultural Germany.' Covering the period from around 1760 to the present, this Handbook represents a remarkable achievement of synthesis based on current scholarship. It constitutes the starting point for anyone trying to understand the complexities of German history as well as the state of scholarly reflection on Germany's dramatic, often destructive, integration into the community of modern nations. As it brings this story to the present, it also places the current post-unification Federal Republic of Germany into a multifaceted historical context. It will be an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in modern Germany.