Debating Diversity: Analysing the Discourse of Tolerance

by Blommaert,Jan

• ISBN13: 9780415191371
• ISBN10: 0415191378
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-09-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Immigration, racism and nationalism are major political themes throughout the Western world, vigorously debated by politicians, the media, and the public at large.Debating Diversityturns these discourses themselves into a topic, and suggests that a major "problem" of diversity may be the way in which it is debated. The authors discuss the "tolerant" rhetoric now finding its way into news reporting, policy statements, social-scientific research reports, government- sponsored antiracism campaigns and training programs. An unlikely and disturbing consistency is revealed between this rhetoric of tolerance and the discourse of radical racist and nationalist groups, in that their discourses share a fundamental non-acceptance of diversity. Based on empirical analysis of data taken from the texts of "migrant policies" in Belgium, this study also situates Belgian policy within the wider context of racism and nationalism throughout Europe and the United States.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Diversity the Issue	p. 9
The Management of Diversity	p. 11
Group Relations, Cognition and Language	p. 22
The Ingredients of an Ideology	p. 41
The 'migrant Problem'	p. 43
The Central Concepts	p. 91
Homogeneism	p. 117
Homogeneism at Work	p. 149
Training for Tolerance	p. 151
Educating the Public	p. 162
Anti-Racism	p. 173
Epilogue	p. 190
Notes	p. 195
Bibliography	p. 219
Index	p. 227
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