Beyond the Dutch "Multicultural Model": The Coproduction of Integration Policy Frames in The Netherlands

The Netherlands has been internationally known for its multicultural approach to immigrant integration. The aim of this article is to delve into the "coproduction" by researchers and policy makers of this so-called Dutch "multicultural model". As this article shows, researchers and policy makers have in The Netherlands been joined in several discourse coalitions. Indeed, one of these discourse coalitions supported an integration paradigm with multicultural elements, but at least two other types of discourses can be identified in The Netherlands, one of more liberal-egalitarian nature and one more assimilationist. In spite of the persistent image of The Netherlands as a representative of the multicultural model, it is in fact this multiplicity of discourses that characterizes the Dutch case. Moreover, labeling Dutch integration p

Materials and Devices of the Public: An Introduction

This introduction provides an overview of material- or device-centered approaches to the study of public participation, and articulates the theoretical contributions of the four articles that make up this special section. Set against the background of post-Foucaldian perspectives on the material dimensions of citizenship and engagement - perspectives that treat matter as a tacit, constituting force in the organization of collectives and are predominantly concerned with the fabrication of political subjects - we outline an approach that considers material engagement as a distinct mode of performing the public. The question, then, is how objects, devices, settings and materials acquire explicit political capacities, and how they serve to enact material participation as a specific public form. We discuss the connections between social studies of material participation and political theory, and define the contours of an empiricist approach to material publics, one that takes as its central cue that the values and criteria particular to these publics emerge as part of the process of their organization. Finally, we discuss four themes that connect the articles in this special section, namely their focus on 1) mundane technologies, 2) experimental devices and settings for material participation; 3) the dynamic of effort and comfort, and 4) the modes of containment and proliferation that characterize material publics

Cultivating Humanity in Bio- and Artificial Sciences

The question asked in this book, Will Science Remain Human?, focuses on the fact that contemporary science is primarily performed through technological means. This unprecedented technological apparatus is not only reducing some human roles, but seems to have the potential for altering some fundamental structures of science itself. The supply of data from all knowledge domains as well as the availability of artificial forms of reasoning, judging, and deciding is radically transforming how science has been working lately, and even more how it will operate in the future. From this perspective “a renewed understanding of the human character of science” seems necessary as rationality tends to be constructed more and more as a sequence of machine readable codes and a series of ultrafast processes for elaborating information. Moreover, the risk exists for scientific knowledge to be “represented in a simplified way, hiding human responsibility, freedom, creativity and choice