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Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

This book originated from the second annual conference held by the Centre for Research, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism at the University of Surrey. The preface informs readers that it is “based on a selection of the keynote addresses presented” at this event, which suggests that the conference must have involved many keynotes (nine are published here) and numerous other papers.

 

This book originated from the second annual conference held by the Centre for Research, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism at the University of Surrey. The preface informs readers that it is “based on a selection of the keynote addresses presented” at this event, which suggests that the conference must have involved many keynotes (nine are published here) and numerous other papers. Edited volumes from conferences are notoriously difficult to produce to a high standard and often contain inconsistent papers with varying lengths, as well as lacking clear focus. This particular volume falls into all of these traps. The longest essay stretches to 34 pages, while the shortest is a mere 12. Some of the papers are certainly of a high quality, while others are simply pointless. It is disappointing that the editors did not look beyond the keynotes to some of the numerous other speakers who attended the event from which the book evolves. Not only did less established scholars not get the chance to publish their findings, many of the essays under consideration here represent summaries of the work of extremely established scholars. The best edited books from conferences use the best papers presented. The editors claim that the essays come from “a genuinely multidisciplinary event” which included “anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, geographers, economists and educationalists”. What about historians? How can a volume or a conference on nationalism, ethnicity and citizenship have no input from historians? At the same time, despite this multidisciplinary claim, the essays in the volume come from a small range of social science disciplines, including psychology, political science and education. There is also a heavy focus upon Great Britain.

As the essays consist mostly of keynotes, few of them come from any innovative methodologies and tend to consist of overviews. Some of these general pieces are certainly of the highest quality. The piece by Hans van Amersfoort, for instance, entitled “Citizenship, Ethnicity and Mainstream Society: The European Welfare States Navigating between Exclusion and Inclusion”, is an all-embracing essay written by one of the pioneering scholars in the study of migration and citizenship in Europe. Some scholars producing these overview pieces take a specific theme and dissect it in a variety ways. Nira Yuval-Davis, for example, in an essay entitled “Nationalism, Belonging, Globalization and the ‘Ethics of Care’”, approaches the topic suggested in the subtitle from a range of perspectives. Ulf Hedetoft’s article entitled “Is Nationalism an Anachronism? Notes on the Mutations of National Idealism in a Global Age” is precisely what its subtitle suggests, with the author thinking out loud. Nevertheless, it does contain some interesting assertions dismissing ideas about the decline of the nation state. This particular author inevitably has to interact with the key texts on nationalism including the work of historian Eric Hobsbawm.

Some of the essays cover more specific themes, and like the essays as a whole, are of varying quality. I am not really sure how the essay by Richard Race made it into this book as it is simply a 12-page analysis of a few British government education policies. One of the most interesting, well-thought out and intelligent pieces in the whole volume consists of Susan Condor’s “Rebranding Britain? Ideological Dilemmas in Political Appeals to ‘British Multiculturalism’”. Condor focuses upon speeches given by two New Labour cabinet ministers about this theme. The first was delivered by Keith Vaz in Vienna in 2001, and the second by Robin Cook in London in the same year. Condor carefully dissects the meanings of the two speeches and develops several ideas. Above all, she persuasively argues that this new form of multiculturalism has its origins in the multi-ethnicity of the British Empire, as well as in the belief in British exceptionalism. Her points of comparison include the rhetoric of the right-wing contemporary British National Party. While the essays by Condor and Amersfoort are extremely interesting, the best essay in this volume is from Chris Flood, Stephen Hutchings, Galina Miazhevich and Henri Nickels, “Representing the Nation and the Muslim Other: Television News Coverage in Three Countries”. This is the most original piece in the collection, resulting from a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in Great Britain and based upon a clear methodology which involves watching and dissecting the main evening news bulletins in Britain, France and Russia over a period of two years. The authors place the broadcasts which they analyze in their national political and historical contexts and provide an excellent and deeply comparative conclusion.

I came away from this book feeling that I had read some interesting, well-researched and provocative essays. On the other hand, the volume reads more like an issue of a journal (and not even a special issue) than a book. The approaches are too diverse, although the vagueness of the title and subtitle suggest this. The essays are too inconsistent and of varying lengths. This would not have happened in a rigorously quality controlled journal production process. The editors do not appear to have taken pieces by any young scholars, which, in view of the difficulties of securing academic appointments, is disappointing. I have to conclude by asserting that, while this book contains some first-rate articles, it provides a good example of the pitfalls of producing edited books from conference proceedings.


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