The 'Parekh Report' - national identities with nations and nationalism

‘Multiculturalists’ often advocate national identities. Yet few study the ways in which ‘multiculturalists’ do so and in this article I will help to fill this gap. I will show that the Commission for Multi-Ethnic Britain’s report reflects a previously unnoticed way of thinking about the nature and worth of national identities that the Commission’s chair, and prominent political theorist, Bhikhu Parekh, had been developing since the 1970s. This way of thinking will be shown to avoid the questionable ways in which conservative and liberal nationalists discuss the nature and worth of national identities while offering an alternative way to do so. I will thus show that a report that was once criticised for the way it discussed national identities reflects how ‘multiculturalists’ think about national identities in a distinct and valuable way that has gone unrecognised

National identity - A multiculturalist's approach

‘Multiculturalists’ in Britain have advocated the importance of national identity since the 1970s. Yet many claim that multiculturalists do not do this and few study how they do it. We thus do not know why and how multiculturalists in Britain advocate the importance of national identity. In this article I will examine how one of Britain’s most prominent multiculturalists, Bhikhu Parekh, has done so since the 1970s. I will show that Parekh’s way of thinking about national identity is distinct from the ways in which other prominent thinkers discuss such an identity, and valuable, as Parekh has insights into what such an identity is and why we should value it. This article will identify a previously unnoticed, distinct and valuable way of thinking about national identity, which comes from a multiculturalist in Britain

The opposition between ‘Britishness’ and multiculturalism is more complex than it seems

While politicians invoking ‘Britishness’ once construed it in traditional terms, many now frame the notion in terms of inclusivity. Varun Uberoi and Tariq Modood survey the landscape of contemporary multiculturalism and argue that important questions remain for those talking of ‘Britishness’

Inclusive Britishness: A Multiculturalist Advance

Scholars argue that policies of multiculturalism in different countries are in retreat or in question. Britain is often used as an example of this, and leading British politicians and commentators often criticise such a policy. Yet a long-held multiculturalist goal has been to make Britishness more inclusive and this is something leading politicians were until recently uncommitted to. We use interviews with politicians who have served in this government and the last, the measures they have introduced, their media contributions, speeches and policy documents, to show that they are now committed to this goal. At a time when a British policy of multiculturalism is said to be in retreat or in question we identify a multiculturalist advance and show that this raises a range of difficult questions about government approaches to ‘Britishness’. </jats:p

Diversity and extremism

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Britishness: a role for the state?

The full-text of this article is not available in ORA, but you may be able to access the definitive version of the article via the publisher copy link on this record page. [The definitive version is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118532018/home]

The centre for the study of ethnicity and citizenship: Multiculturalism, racialisation, religion and national identity twenty years on

In November 2019, a conference was held at the University of Bristol to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship. This special issue of Ethnicities brings together a set of articles by a number of the keynote speakers at that conference. By doing so, it celebrates the Centre’s achievements over these two decades, reveals how the field has changed over the last twenty years, gives a good indication of the range of the Centre’s current activities and also hints at some of the directions which it may take in the future