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The paper provides ethnographic insight into the social construction of migrants by examining the everyday working of the reception system in one of Italy's regions that is most advanced in terms of multicultural policies. Focusing on migrants' encounters with the professionals employed in two social services, the article sheds new light on the multi-layered forms of discrimination that take place in a controversial arena in which institutions and policies operate at different levels. On one hand, I argue that the prevailing essentialized or racialized categorisation of 'foreign users' framed in the ambiguous context of Italian bureaucracy conveys a form of inequality that reflects the broader asymmetries between the state, local institutions and migrant minorities. On other hand, I explore the discretionary power different categories of workers exercise in their treatment of migrants, highlighting the central role local agencies and their staff play in building symbolic boundaries in Italian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction to the special issue of JEMS on The Cultural Politics of Talent Migration in Asia, we note the movement in the academic literature from a narrow focus on the economic rationalities and corporate logics of transnational mobility among professional, managerial and entrepreneurial elites, to a greater interest in these elite transnational subjects as embodied bearers of culture, ethnicity, class and gender. We draw out two key themes that inform the arguments advanced by the papers in this special issue. First, instead of hyper-fluid global nomads who move effortlessly across frictionless global space, the papers show that moving and belonging are not simply motivated by economic logic but are folded into broader social, cultural and political considerations and conditioned by the power geometries of race, nationality and gender. Second, different groups of talent migrants are attracted to and positioned differently in specific spaces of encounter within cities, generating a politics of identity that influences everyday life. Taken together, these two themes highlight the need to avoid artificially bifurcating the lives of talent migrants into the economic and social/cultural spheres, and instead to argue for interweaving them within the same frame in understanding the mobility of the highly skilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on refugee support groups set up and operated by minority groups themselves, this paper asks how minority groups in Britain use the Internet in their interventions in the politics of asylum/immigration. How do minority groups online attempt to contribute to this politics, and what conclusions can we draw for the relationship(s) between the Internet and (multicultural) democracy? Theoretically, this paper discusses deliberative democracy as the model underlying accounts of the relationship between the Internet on the one side, and politics and multiculturalism on the other. Despite their affinities, these perspectives cannot be easily combined due to the universalising claims of politics and political theory, and the emphasis on identity/difference in multiculturalism. These tensions are also encountered empirically, in the online political conduct of the groups under study: despite a pluralisation of the forms of political conduct, which stretch beyond the public justification of claims, and the stating of reasons associated with deliberative democracy, any political gains will remain ambiguous insofar as they rest on one-sided publicity, which does not offer the possibility for public contestation or negotiation of claims made online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first examines why the concept of civil society should find its empirical expression in the concept of civic community. I then elaborate the concept of civic community by making a distinction between vertical and horizontal relations as two constitutional elements of civic community. I argue that in a multicultural democracy the cleavages in civil society are overcome because the ethnic elites form part of the civic elite. The concepts of ethnic organisation, organisational density, organisational filling and institutional completeness are operationalised as indicators of the degree of organisation of an ethnic community. The paper distinguishes between bridging and bonding organisations and defines a number of network concepts as indicators of social capital of an ethnic community. Finally we develop some measures for the circulation and diffusion of ethnic mass media and of the social trust within an ethnic community, between ethnic communities and between an ethnic community and the dominant community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every day, people from different backgrounds mix together, whether by design or necessity, in our multicultural neighbourhoods and cities. This article explores how senses, sensibilities, habitus and affects influence quotidian intercultural encounters in culturally diverse cities. The article is based upon ethnographic research in an Australian suburb which has seen large-scale Chinese migration to the area in recent years and experienced the associated rapid changes to the shops along the local high street. Focusing on a range of sites or 'contact zones' along the suburban high street, the paper explores the notion of cross-cultural habitus, in particular the sensuous and affective dimensions of what I term the 'haptic habitus'. It then examines the sensuous and embodied modes of being that mediate intercultural interactions between long-term Anglo-Celtic elderly residents in the area and newly arrived Chinese immigrants and their associated urban spaces. Ranging through the senses, from sight, smell, sound and the haptic system, the article reflects upon how the senses, affect, habitus, nostalgia and memory articulate with localised experiences of diversity. I develop the notion of 'sensuous multiculturism'—which foregrounds embodied experience in this scenario of cultural difference—and go on to argue that the dis-synchronisation of senses, embodied place-memory and habitus contribute to some forms of intercultural anxiety and everyday racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on nationalism and the state has examined how immigration and nationality policy create boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. While a handful of countries of immigration have been analysed extensively, explanations of nationality law have not accounted adequately for countries of emigration. This paper's historical analysis of Mexican nationality law and its congressional debate demonstrates that the ways the state has defined nationality at different periods cannot be attributed simply to demographic migration patterns or legacies of past understandings of ethnic or state-territorial nationhood, according to the expectations of received theory. The literature's focus on geopolitically stronger countries of immigration obscures the critical effects of inter-state politics on nationality law in subordinate states. Mexico's nationality laws reflect its experiences as a geopolitically weak country of immigration, despite a net out-migration of its population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how the simple participation of migrant artists in the art scene in Amsterdam over the last three decades has turned into a political issue. Their claims for inclusion led to questioning the closed character of the Western art world. This critique of the closed nature of the Western art scene and of the exclusionary structures of Western aesthetic valuation has been articulated and dealt with on two analytically different, but empirically intertwined levels: cultural policy and the art institutes. Both the redefinition of the cultural policy and the reorganisation of the field of art itself have been accompanied by—sometimes passionate—public debates. The article takes the city of Amsterdam as the unit of analysis, as the city hosts a rich variety of ethno-cultural communities and is characterised by a large and flourishing cultural apparatus. Of course, the developments enacted in the city of Amsterdam are not unique. They are one particular articulation of dynamics occurring on different scales: global, national and regional. My analysis is restricted to the domain of high culture, and focuses on two subfields: the visual arts and theatre performances. For the purpose of this article, the field of high art is of special interest as it is surrounded by a complex set of—mostly implicit—rules and mechanisms that regulate entry. These mechanisms, which affect different groups unevenly, have become the subject of major critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social unity is a challenge for all culturally diverse polities. Britain is no different, as the race riots of 2001 illustrated. Political theorists agree that social unity is important because it is a necessary precondition for social justice, peacefully resolving disputes and effective democratic institutions. Political theorists claim that shared identities can help to foster social unity in culturally diverse polities. Conspicuously, however, many have shied away from the one type of shared identity that has a proven track record of fostering social unity: national identity. This is because national identities are hostile to cultural diversity. I, however, argue that all alternatives to national identities are likely to be ineffective sources of social unity. I try therefore to describe a type of national identity that can foster social unity through cultural diversity. I call such a national identity a multicultural national identity, which Britain would do well to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]