Description: Explicitly comparative in its approach, Paradoxes of Cultural Recognition discusses central issues regarding multiculturalism in today's Europe, based on studies of Norway and the Netherlands. Distinguishing clearly the four social fields of the media, education, the labour market and issues relating to gender, it presents empirical case studies, which offer valuable insights into the nature of majority/minority relationships, whilst raising theoretical questions relevant for further comparisons.
Review Quotes: 'This volume compares multiculturalist reasonings with national realities, mainly in Norway and the Netherlands, and it thus cuts a critical edge. Focusing on two proverbially liberal welfare states and civil societies, it contrasts them by factors ranging from moral (or moralizing) public policies to popular(-izing) moral panics. Importantly, its well-grounded ethnographies locate themselves in current conceptual and globally comparative contexts.' Gerd Baumann, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands '...Paradoxes of Cultural Recognition gives the reader an accurate and disturbing update on the position of immigrants in Northern Europe and the need to tackle their alienation with future hope for a form of inclusion.' Nations and Nationalism