ABSTRACT
Questions of ethnicity, international migration, integration, and multiculturalism are hotly debated in many countries. There is growing popular attention to and concern about the meanings, experiences, and politics surrounding ethnic identity. Ethnicity is a main axis of differentiation and identification for many people and in various contexts. It structures relationships at the global, national, and local level, in institutions and everyday interactions, and it has become centrally important to many people’s sense of themselves. No single Western nation can resist or reverse the developments of ethnic pluralism and migration. And no nation can control processes of globalization that challenge old boundaries and produce a new framework within which identities are shaped in relation to diaspora, transnationalism, and hybridity. These developments produce uncertainty because they challenge existing frames of reference, including people’s sense of who they are. Politicians, institutions, and ordinary people struggle with the associated questions and problems. Increasing xenophobia and racism, but also multicultural programmes and anti-racism initiatives, are but some of the ways in which these quite different groups have responded. A politics of identity or one of assimilation, is another. Immigration and the presence of ethnic minority groups can be conceived as a valuable addition to society, leading to multicultural notions, or as posing threats to the majority group and hampering the upward social mobility of minorities, leading to assimilationist thinking. Ethnicity, migration, and notions of cultural diversity are key social issues and have led to a proliferation of theoretical and empirical studies in the social sciences.
