ABSTRACT
Cultural diversity, perceived in some quarters as a threat to harmony across Europe, has recently come under attack while at the same time ideologies of assimilation and forced integration have been making a significant comeback. At a time when such discourses assume an interconnection between difference and segregation and between diversity and inter-ethnic conflict, the vast majority of minority populations experience a very different reality. On one hand, minorities face old and new forms of exclusion and, on the other hand, they become active participants in the production of cultural repertoires of identity, community and belonging1 that only marginally relate to segregation and inter-ethnic conflict and mostly reflect the struggles for self-representation and participation in broader societies and distinct communities.
