'Ethnicities and values in a changing world' by G. Bhattacharrya (ed., 2009)

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Book ReviewsJoyce Marie Mushabena; Laura Alicia Valdiviezob; Julie Nack Nguec; Eliz Sanasariand; Melissa Gregge;Catherine Frostf; Ulrike M. Vieteng; Nora Hui-Jung Kimh; Ann Chinneryi; Roni Bergerj

a University of Missouri-St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA b University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst,MA, USA c University of Southern California & UCLA Center for the Study of Women, Los Angeles,CA, USA d Department of Political Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA e

University of Sydney, Australia f McMaster University, Ontario, Canada g Vrije UniversiteitAmsterdam, The Netherlands h University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA, USA i SimonFraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada j School of Social Work, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY,USA

Online publication date: 14 July 2010

To cite this Article Mushaben, Joyce Marie , Valdiviezo, Laura Alicia , Ngue, Julie Nack , Sanasarian, Eliz , Gregg, Melissa ,Frost, Catherine , Vieten, Ulrike M. , Kim, Nora Hui-Jung , Chinnery, Ann and Berger, Roni(2010) 'Book Reviews',Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31: 4, 425 — 447To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2010.481807URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2010.481807

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Book Reviews

Conceptualising ‘Home’: The Question of Belonging among Turkish Families in

Germany

ESIN BOZKURT

Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2009

245 pages ISBN 9783593387918

This study derives from a dissertation based on fieldwork conducted in Bremen and

Hamburg between 2004 and 2005. The work consists of a brief introduction, seven

substantive chapters, a brief conclusion and methodological appendix. Its aim is to

understand home � ‘‘inscribed within power relations’’ � in the context of self-

placement, competing national environments (sending/receiving countries) and

selectively reconstructed ‘imaginary’ memories. The seven chapters, respectively,

focus on ‘‘Migration and Belonging’’; ‘‘Contextualising ‘Home’: Turkish Immigration

in Germany’’; ‘‘Gender, Migration and Belonging’’; ‘‘Empirical Research’’; ‘‘The

Question of Belonging across Three Generations’’; ‘‘Gendered (Re)constructions of

‘Home’ among Turkish Men and Women in Germany’’; and finally, ‘‘Belonging at the

Crossroads of Gender and Generations’’.

The book’s main strength rests with its competent Big-Picture assessment of

immigration experiences and persistent problems resulting from a lack of proactive

integration policies over a span of nearly 40 years. Bozkurt emphasises crucial

distinctions pertaining to generational factors, changing socio-economic contexts,

added to differences in male/female experiences and identity reconstructions. The

‘emotional warmth’ associated with the Turkish ‘Motherland’ encounters the cold,

authoritarian Vaterland. The author treats naturalisation as a ‘rational’ (I would

prefer ‘instrumental’) decision or strategy allowing younger cohorts, especially, to

take advantage of rights and benefits, if not absolute security, warranted by formal

citizenship.

The book’s main weakness lies with its very unrepresentative sample, although this

reader (a political scientist) recognises that selective ‘discourse analyses’ comprise a

common genre among ethnologists. Bozkurt investigates the homeland recollections

and identity dilemmas found among six families across three generations, selected by

way of referrals in and around Bremen. The Hansa cities are not known to house

heavy concentrations of Turkish migrants, compared to more industrial regions like

Cologne, North-Rhine Westphalia and Baden-Wurttemburg, or areas with extensive

ISSN 0725-6868 print/ISSN 1469-9540 online/10/040425-23

DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2010.481807

Journal of Intercultural Studies

Vol. 31, No. 4, August 2010, pp. 425�447

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service sectors, for example, Berlin and Frankfurt. A ‘small’ minority (12 per cent) is

naturally more likely to feel isolated from majoritarian society than Turkish-German

residents in Frankfurt (30 per cent) or Berlin (14 per cent, albeit 25�30 per cent in

some districts). The author could have compensated for this in a book publication by

including results of representative surveys, most of which suggest a more ‘integrated’

picture of the third generation, despite their persistent lack of educational/

occupational opportunities.

A second weakness rests with the author’s tendency to spend too much time

legitimising the methodology used, (re)defining core concepts or reminding the

reader what will be considered next � things that clearly belong in a dissertation but

not in a text appealing to experts. Generally well written, the text evinces quirky

vocabulary and literally translated Germanisms in some parts, ‘‘individuals [sic]

experience in finding feet’’ (Fuß fassen means to get one’s bearings) (48); refers to

parental efforts to ‘‘ensure a solid basement for their children’’ (147) (rather than a

solid foundation); indicates that a group’s efforts to find identity substitutes ‘‘does

not exterminate the homeland’’ (159) (as opposed to eradicating the memory of the

homeland). European publishing houses should really be encouraged to hire more

native speakers as copy editors.

A bit more troubling is the contradiction this reader noted between the author’s

sincere attempt to do justice to very personal emotions and reminiscences, on the one

hand, while ‘scientifically’ objectifying these persons, on the other, by referring to

them as numbers. The labelling system is supposed to provide us with ‘‘the

opportunity to learn more about the individual who comes to word [sic], so that we

can compare her/his previous statements, follow up with arguments of family

members, and look at similarities/differences between families more easily’’ (90). The

reader would find it easier to grasp the importance of ‘putting a human face’ on

migration if we could follow the reflections of Asye K., Ali K. and Gulten K. rather

than by trying to switch back and forth between F1 A1, F2 B1 and F3 C2.

The author extensively defines and contrasts abstract, collective national identities �German and Turkish � even when the aim is to illustrate meaningful religious and

ethnic differences found within both groups. Alevis are more likely to include Kurds

and Zazas than ‘Turks’, Berliners will have very different attitudes towards ethnic ‘co-

citizens’ than the residents of Idaroberstein. Representative surveys attest to the fact

that younger individuals identify more with local spaces, for example, neighbour-

hood districts which provide a more concrete sense of attachment, but this is also

true of the natives. Empirical studies demonstrate just as clearly that Germans

themselves are not very ‘proud’ to be German.

Occasionally the author’s questions seem to force interviewees into frames that they

would not have wanted to apply for themselves (as indicated in her pre-discussions).

Relying on so few families, the interpretations reinforce the ‘essentialising’ for which

Bozkurt correctly criticises the Germans. A book should move the initial analysis

beyond the case study, to seek out broader points of comparison and contextualisation.

German politicians clearly had economic motives (onset of recession, potential costs to

426 Book Reviews


the welfare state) as well as electoral interests in keeping alive the ‘myth of return’, long

after guestworkers and their descendants had opted for settlement. But that still leaves

the question: What, if anything is so unique about Turkish ‘love for the homeland?’ Is it

really more special than Italian, Greek, Polish or Russian Heimweh and identity loss?

The selective memories and reconstructions portrayed here are actually quite typical of

all migrants who fell for the myth of return (e.g. Mexicans) even in the USA, which

accords citizenship under fairly easy terms.

Perhaps what is really ‘unique’ about this case is the fact that homeland loving

peoples find themselves in a country that still does not love itself, with the results that

too many citizens view all emotional attachments to the nation as suspect. Prior to

the 2006 Soccer World Cup, they even refused to wave flags or sing the national

anthem at major public events. Perhaps positive emotional attachments found among

millions of migrant descendants can be used to teach Germany that it is OK to have

feelings for a country that has brought them so much peace and prosperity.

JOYCE MARIE MUSHABEN

University of Missouri�St Louis

St Louis, MO, USA

# 2010 Joyce Marie Mushaben

Teaching Cultural Skills: Adding Culture in Higher Education

MARIBEL BLASCO & METTE ZØLNER (Eds)

Frederiksberg: Nyt fra Samfundsvidenskaberne, 2009

262 pages ISBN 9788776830182

My interest in reviewing this book edited by Maribel Blasco and Mette Zølner came

from its title, Teaching Cultural Skills and its intended audience, instructors of culture �as a ‘‘secondary skill’’ (249) � in higher education. As a multicultural teacher educator

and ethnographer, I deal with discussions about whether the teaching and learning of

culturally responsive aptitudes is possible within the confines of a classroom. I was

intrigued by similar discussions offered in Teaching Cultural Skills and became

engaged in learning how instructors faced such questions in the context of Danish

universities.

In the introduction, Blasco describes the book’s attempt to examine ‘‘the broader

implications of teaching culture in a new and challenging context’’ of increasing

interrogation of culture as a concept and an explanatory tool (11). The book

illuminates how instructors teach culture in contexts where cultural approaches

contrast the core epistemologies of their unrelated disciplines. Diverse chapters

illustrate how instructors conceive teaching culture based on their own theoretical

and practical deliberations about culture in Danish university settings and how these

deliberations intersect with issues of teacher identity, disciplines and curricula, power

and ideology. I appreciated the instructors’ reflective stance to the complexities of

Journal of Intercultural Studies 427


their endeavours; however, I hoped to read more nuanced accounts of the impact of

their teaching on their students.

Lauritsen’s engaging chapter on ‘‘Classroom Reflexivity’’ presents a refreshingly

candid narrative of her experience as an anthropologist teaching in the Copenhagen

Business Schools. Lauritsen proposes that instructors should strive to teach culture as

a lens to look through instead of something to look at. This chapter stresses the

importance of fieldwork experiences for business students to develop cultural

reflexivity and uncover their own cultural spectacles.

In ‘‘History as an Intercultural Process’’, Bøndergaard Butters reflects upon

teaching the topic called ‘cultural encounters’ to address cultural reflexivity and

identity formation. In a well-structured chapter, the author examines teaching history

in a college of education as a process of meaning-making and a space where cultures

and identities are constructed and negotiated. Additionally, she warns about

‘disastrous consequences’ for being unaware of the impact of instruction on the

formation of cultures and identities. It is, however, left unclear what those

consequences are.

Janne Liburd and Carina Ren discuss the conceptualisation of culture in the

context of tourism education and management in ‘‘Selling Difference’’. The authors

analyse the limitations of common constructions of culture within the tourism

industry and appeal to proactively embracing cultural differences to sustain the

quality of life through tourism as opposed to disrupting local cultural practices to fit

it in a marketable mould.

Continuing the discussion over the conceptualisation and applications of culture

outside the field of anthropology, Jæger examines the challenges of teaching to

confront static views about culture in ‘‘Teaching Culture in and for Practice’’. The

chapter links theory to how teaching about culture concerns challenging assumptions

more than providing boxed solutions to deal with cultural differences.

In ‘‘Teaching Area Studies at Business Schools’’, Blasco and Zølner present a

comprehensive pedagogical proposal addressing the internationalisation of

business programmes and the demand for developing the skills for global business.

Stemming from the importance of fostering cultural awareness and reflexivity in

international business programmes, the authors suggest integrating the learning

of functional aspects of global business with an understanding of their cultural

localities (108).

Using a case study in the field of culture and communication, Flyverbom examines

the institutional and pedagogical challenges of teaching a global lens by questioning

national�cultural views in ‘‘Teaching Culture and Communication from a Global

Perspective’’. Through an analysis of media production examples, Flyverbom tackles

relevant concerns about the epistemology of global perspective and its implications

for teaching and for contemporary theories in the field.

‘‘Teaching Culture on Business School Programmes’’ by Askehave provides a

didactic and honest account of the task of addressing different approaches and

methodologies when teaching culture in business programmes. Readers will find

428 Book Reviews


Askehave’s teaching perspectives, which among other nuanced steps include the

construction of the self and the other, not only instructive but also theoretically

provocative.

Next, Werther highlights the importance of fostering students’ information

competency � conceived as the fundamental skill of our era � while posing central

questions of where and how to develop it. Like most chapters that focus on teaching

inquiry, ‘‘Learning Information Literacy � and Culture’’ examines students’ learning

in light of the literature on teaching and learning information technology; an

understudied area.

‘‘When Culture Becomes a Factor to be Considered’’ by Lynfort Jensen and

Abom is a reflection of cultural issues that arise when teaching Arabic language

proficiency, innovation and intercultural communication to ethnically diverse

students. The topic is intriguing but falls into a deficit portrayal of ethnically

diverse students.

In ‘‘Intercultural Competences and Project Based Learning in the Engineering

Curriculum’’, Hoffmann, Jørgensen and Bregnhøj present a thorough analysis of two

case studies of teaching and learning to discuss the challenges of intercultural

teaching and developing intercultural skills in engineering students. The authors

suggest that cultural aspects of technology and societal differences should be part of

the curriculum because they are necessary elements of an engineer’s professional

work.

Under a different light that parts from the student-centred perspectives in previous

chapters, Egholm Feldt and Egholm Feldt discuss ‘‘Culture and Cultural Analysis at

the University’’. By employing Charles Peirce’s perspective on educational philosophy,

the authors offer a critique of higher education and university politics in Denmark

while appealing for the preservation of university education as something other than

professional training. I hoped for the preclusion of a common deficit characterisation

of minority groups in this chapter.

Finally, Zølner comprehensively analyses all chapters and questions the feasibility

and desirability of a conciliation of teaching and learning cultural tools

within social�constructivist perspectives. It is a welcome reflection that clearly

encompasses an important theme across the volume. Teaching Cultural Skills is a

significant contribution to the instruction of culture in programmes outside the

social sciences disciplines, an area seldom studied in higher education instruction.

And while not intending to delimit a perspective concerning the epistemology

of teaching culture in higher education programmes, this book engages the

curious to learning how teaching of cultural issues is conceived within different

disciplines.

LAURA ALICIA VALDIVIEZO

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Amherst, MA, USA

# 2010 Laura Alicia Valdiviezo



Postcolonial Eyes: Intercontinental Travel in Francophone African Literature

AEDIN NI LOINGSIGH

Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009

224 pages ISBN 9781846310492

Aedın Nı Loingsigh’s Postcolonial Eyes: Intercontinental Travel in Francophone

African Literature represents a strong critical presence against a long tradition of

westward-leaning studies of travel literature. Drawing on diverse theories of travel

and tourism, Loingsigh’s goal is not to establish a core theory of ‘Francophone

African travel literature’, but to outline the various ways in which this literature

recasts standard notions of travel and writing travel from a distinctly African

perspective. Significantly, Loingsigh moves beyond those portraits of educationally

motivated travel to the Hexagon to include tales of tourism, non-Francophone

destinations and highly critical observations of ‘other’ lands.

Loingsigh begins in Chapter 1 with Ousmane Soce Diop’s Mirages de Paris (1937),

focusing her analysis on the protagonist Fara’s travel to the 1931 Exposition Coloniale

in Paris. Employing the Exposition as a backdrop, Loingsigh argues that Fara’s travels

‘stage’, or one might argue, re-stage the exotic encounter between coloniser and

colonised, this time shifting the gaze back to the colonial centre. Although Loingsigh

does an apt job of demonstrating Fara’s illness as the conjunction of Fanonion

complexes and maladies associated with travel, she does not connect it to her ultimate

‘stage’, the exhibition. After all, the colonial exhibition, concerned as it was with

taxonomical ordering aligned racialised, colonial subjects with physical pathologies of

all sorts. As Loingsigh herself argues, Fara is eventually unable to see Africa and

Africans outside of their framed, exhibitionary status.

In Chapter 2, Loingsigh turns to Ake Loba’s Kocoumbo, l’etudiant noir (1960) to

explore the connection between travel, travel technologies and education. Loingsigh

begins with an engaging analysis of the inner dynamics of ship and car travel for diverse

African voyagers. Juxtaposing formal education, the problematic French school system,

with ‘real learning’ which occurs primarily through travel, Loingsigh ultimately reads

Kocoumbo as a student of travel. Interestingly, Loingsigh looks to the Saidian notion of

travelling theories to argue for the un-travelability not only of French theories of

education but of credentials as well; ultimately, she suggests that this un-travelability

‘‘also fails French students’’ in its disregard for non-canonical learning (66).

Chapter 3 considers Bernard Dadie’s Un Negre a Paris (1959) to explore how it de-

centres African intercontinental travel not only by introducing a true ‘tourist’ into the

metropole but by interrogating the city’s very place as centre. Ultimately, Loingsigh

contends that Dadie’s observations force a reassessment of ‘‘how Africans and their

former colonizers relate to each other in the post-independence world’’ (98).

Loingsigh’s most compelling argument, however, is that Dadie strategically counters

Western anthropological conceptions of time and evolution by privileging those

which are instead recursive and non-teleological. As she adeptly argues, Dadie’s

430 Book Reviews


characteristic humour and irony nevertheless reveal how travel and travel writing are

critical practices not to be undertaken lightly.

In Chapter 4, Loingsigh explores the geography of African travel beyond European

destinations to American ones, specifically New York and Harlem. As Loingsigh aptly

demonstrates, Lamine Diakhate’s Chalys d’Harlem (1978) and Bernard Dadie’s Patron

de New York (1994) provide complex and often contradictory perspectives of African

encounters with the American ‘promised land’. Against standard readings of

migration in postcolonial contexts, in Chalys, Loingsigh sees mobility as triumph:

the protagonist exploits various ‘mobile’ commodities and services to assure

economic success. More compellingly, Loingsigh links Chalys’ trajectory as a savvy,

politically aware entrepreneur with that of Senegal, a new actor on the global stage.

Although the section on Dadie’s text represents a fairly linear, and less stimulating,

analysis of the narrator’s discussion of plane travel to criticise the American ‘‘new

world order’’ and its imperial desires, it nevertheless reveals how African travel

writing can engage in potent cultural and political critique beyond France.

In Chapter 5, Loingsigh analyses another text that ‘travels’ outside of French and

African topographies, Tete-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Grœnland (1981). As

Loingsigh argues, this text is the closest to a traditional Western travelogue in form

and objective: to locate an ‘authentic’ Inuit culture. Despite its explicit ethnographic

tone, Loingsigh convincingly demonstrates how L’Africain, in the end, contradicts

various structures of colonial authority such as its educational system. One of

Loingsigh’s most interesting observations is that travel itself stands in counterpoint to

static, oppressive views of tradition in ‘‘its refusal to become rooted to one place, to

adhere to one view of how life should be lived’’ (139). In the end, Loingsigh contends

that Kpomassie’s ‘imperalist nostalgia’ is destabilised by his encounter with an Inuit

whose comfortable adoption of old and new, local and Western, represents a possible

future for African colonial subjects as well.

Chapter 6 is the only chapter to focus on African women’s writing, specifically

Calixthe Beyala’s diptych Le Petit prince de Belleville (1992) and Maman a un amant

(1993). Although the first � a tale of immigrant life in Paris � fits less clearly under

Loingsigh’s rubric of ‘literature of travel’, she for the most part succeeds by examining

the diverse modes of mobility manifest in both novels. Interesting here is Loingsigh’s

recasting of the home (and the women inside it) from a patriarchal space of

confinement and restricted movement to a space of dynamic and distinctly feminine

agency, a ‘‘place of transit’’ as Loingsigh terms it (157). Her analysis, however,

ultimately falls short of elaborating a truly feminist project in Beyala’s texts. For what

transforms the home, after all, is the contact it encourages between diverse women,

contact being a crucial element of travel practices and of transnational feminist

theory. Loingsigh’s analysis of tourism and women’s dress in Maman a un amant is

useful but would have benefitted greatly from the inclusion of critical work that has

been done on gender and dress in African contexts.

In general, Loingsigh’s analyses are well developed, clear and concise. However,

where the reader might want close readings and deeper textual analysis, Loingsigh



disappoints with sometimes lacklustre expository citations from otherwise rich

literary texts. Additionally, some of the citations that Loingsigh includes from

theorists and critics are either redundant, decontextualised or simply unnecessary to

advancing her argument. Despite these weaknesses, the book offers a unique and

much-needed African perspective on journeying and experiencing � albeit tempora-

rily � the world of an-other.

JULIE NACK NGUE

University of Southern California &

UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Los Angeles, CA, USA

# 2010 Julie Nack Ngue

Unity in Diversity: Interfaith Dialogue in the Middle East

MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER, AMAL I. KHOURY & EMILY WELTY

Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 2007

336 pages ISBN 978601270139

In a lucid, objective and concrete style, without abandoning the critical discourse, Unity

in Diversity explains the meaning of interfaith dialogue and its application in several

diverse Middle Eastern settings. It is a testimony to the good intentions of the authors

and all those who have been involved in a careful, honest and exhaustive fieldwork.

The book is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 explains basic challenges facing

interfaith dialogue (IFD) in the Middle East. The basic premise of IFD is that conflict

persists at least partly due to ‘‘ignorance and a lack of constructive interaction with the

‘other’’’ (3). Understanding the faith of the other becomes the core strategy in promoting

peace. The methodology is concise with a standard list of questions as a guide for local

researchers. The authors acknowledge many challenges including a high rate of rejections

from potential interviewers. The ones who agree are a diverse group with at least five years

of experience as IFD activists in their regional setting. Data analysis relies on emerging

themes and general patterns in responses from the fieldwork.

Chapter 2 aptly describes the research in interfaith dialogue and enumerates a

number of models and concepts each with weaknesses and strengths. For anyone

interested in this issue, careful reading of this chapter is a must. IFD does not claim to

be the only viable model for peacebuilding, however, where politics is so intensely

influenced by religion, secular peace plans cannot ignore interfaith dialogue as an

important tool for reducing dehumanisation. This form of conflict resolution uses

religious rather than secular concepts. In this context dialogue is neither preaching

nor debate but simply a process of transformation ‘‘from postures of intolerance or

passive tolerance to attitudes of deep understanding and respect of the other’’ (8).

Authors believe that IFD is often neglected or marginalised by secular politicians or

the non-governmental organisations. In discussion of the IFD models in operation,

people’s attitude towards religion in general is important and may be divided into

432 Book Reviews


four categories of exclusivism, syncretism, pluralism and transformation. Each is

discussed separately assessing their relevance to different situations. For instance, despite

pluralism’s popularity in the Western culture, it remains a problematic model in the

Middle East. General concerns revolve around the refusal of pluralism to engage difficult

issues, to pass any ethical judgment and to value the importance of transformation.

The strength of Chapter 2 is its deep excavation of all the positive and negative

aspects of IFD. It discusses the stumbling blocks of theological dialogues in all

Abrahamic religions and how each have different expectations from the other’s

religious texts. Some models which stem from the common beliefs of these religions

may be useful; the authors describe the use of the confession and forgiveness model yet

remain cognizant of different understandings. Politics is also a contentious issue and

cannot be ignored or dismissed in some cases. Rituals are another powerful mode of

communication and those involved may participate in one another’s spiritual practices.

Yet, even here, the pitfalls are not ignored. Some have criticised interfaith dialogue on

the ground that it does not accomplish anything tangible. In this setting, the action/

advocacy model may be helpful. While this is not a form of dialogue, it can unite the

participants as they carry out a common action or project. The authors further explain

the process of religious transformation from religiocentric to religiorelative views and

set up ground rules which will enable IFD to work in an atmosphere of openness and

honesty. Some of these points are reiterated in the concluding chapter as well.

The next few chapters focus on research findings in the cases of Israel and

Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. Religious identities have played a crucial role

in ‘‘the creation, escalation, and outcomes of the Israeli�Palestinian conflict’’. Yet, the

conflict resolution studies as well as politicians have ignored the role of religion. By

focusing on the goals, assumptions and motivations of IFD workers in the field,

Chapter 3 shows us a different angle of the conflict. Many issues are revealed:

Muslims feel the need to correct the negative images of Islam, Christians are fearful of

their dwindling numbers and their status as a ‘double-minority’, Jews focus on their

history of persecution, and the overall interaction and inquiry about religion is

hampered by the fear of being proselytised. The concerns as well as positive outcomes

are discussed openly with recommendations of how to improve the IFD activities.

Lebanon poses a different challenge. Citizens are constrained by geographical

setting, separate educational system and lack of ‘‘one national unifying collective

memory’’ (101). Dialogue has been viewed as a tool which benefits opportunists on

all sides. One model used by IFD workers focused on the Muslim and Christian youth

in undertaking development projects with a positive outcome such as reforestation.

Here challenges and recommendations are clearly different from those discussed in

Chapter 3, and the pluralist model along with others become relevant.

The case study of Egypt deals with Muslim�Christian relationships, especially the

Copts. Here many who are involved in the interfaith dialogue refused to be interviewed

and those who were interviewed wanted to remain anonymous. Printed materials show

competing narratives. The authors clearly explain Coptic experience in Egypt and

identify a myriad of specific overlapping problems, which are social, political and



administrative in nature. They openly discuss problems among Coptic groups such as

tensions between individual members and the institution of the church. Both Muslims

and Christians blame the state for their problems with religious identity, yet they hold

deep fears and are suspicious of each other. The authors conclude that the state of

dialogue is repressed in Egypt and success seems to lie at local levels with smaller

groups. In conclusion, the obstacles are identified: overpoliticisation, lack of grassroots

initiatives, suspicion and separation, and lack of vision.

Jordan is the final case study. Here Christians have not been subject to persecution and

do hold high-level government and private sector positions. Interfaith dialogue has existed

in Jordan since its establishment; it was formalised in the 1980s. The study discusses

various IFD groups and their activities and principles. Compared to others, Jordan’s case

is less severe. The challenges remain in disseminating information about IFD and reaching

wider groups of people, need for a structured preparation and lack of financial resources.

Finally, while the state and the royal family have supported and sponsored IFD helping its

survival and strength, it may have created ‘‘a high level dependency’’ making it ‘‘vulnerable

to shifts in the dynamics within the royal family’’ (206).

Unity in Diversity is both sincere and practical in its portrayal of the strengths and

pitfalls of interfaith dialogue in the Middle East. Despite an honest identification of

problems, an optimistic overtone runs through the book keeping it refreshing and

interesting.

ELIZ SANASARIAN

Department of Political Science

University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA, USA

# 2010 Eliz Sanasarian

A Passion for Cultural Studies

BEN HIGHMORE

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

151 pages ISBN 9781403997180

Ben Highmore’s latest book emerges at a time of renewed interest in theories of

emotion and affect throughout the humanities and social sciences. As an enthusiastic

participant in these wider trends myself, it is a delight to read his singular take on this

broadening field and its correlation with key concerns in cultural studies. The book

opens with a quote from Clifford Geertz, and one of the pleasures this author excites

is his willingness to share a deep and broad investment in resources gleaned from

anthropology, philosophy, critical theory and popular culture across centuries. Indeed

the introduction, ‘‘Passionate Culture’’, establishes the book’s project by surveying the

ways that passion has become close to hegemonic in present-day public rhetoric and

epistemologies, whether as a sales strategy for real estate, as a job requirement for

service industries or as a means to good health and psychic well-being.

434 Book Reviews


‘‘Passionate Culture’’ is also Highmore’s way of offering a beginner’s guide to the

world of affect. Current scholarship in emotion and affect is extended to a longer

tradition of writing on the passions, through Descartes, William James, David Hume

and others. Gregory Bateson’s idea of ‘ethos’ is also used to illustrate how groups and

societies create their own ‘emotional tonality’ enacted through specific ritualistic

actions: ‘‘hugs, handshakes, kisses’’ (13). In Highmore’s view, we must take notice of

these elements of culture: ‘‘Passion is about the pull and push of your connection to

the social world, about the ebbs and flows of your feelings, the peaks and troughs of

your liveliness, the pounding of your creaturely-ness’’ (3). This approachable writing

style is one of the book’s major achievements, and here it should be acknowledged

that the book is primarily pitched to an introductory student readership. Highmore

covers important ground by explaining culture as ‘‘the field of ‘second nature’’’ (x);

that the importance of studying across cultures � ‘‘both historically and geographi-

cally’’ � is to ‘‘alter our ‘own’ proximal culture’’ (x).

Highmore divides the book into a series of themed inquiries. Chapter 2, ‘‘Bitter

Tastes’’, extends Pierre Bourdieu’s insight that ‘‘aesthetic intolerance can be terribly

violent’’ (25). Covering a range of thinkers, including Julia Kristeva on the ‘abject’,

Charles Darwin in Origin of Species and George Orwell’s ethnographic accounts of

poverty in the 1920s and 1930s, Highmore shows how taste matters across cultures,

across classes and even in the trajectories of individual families. A focus on emotion

reveals how classed and racialised judgments manifest through the body, and here

Highmore acknowledges a tradition that includes Elspeth Probyn, Sara Ahmed,

Beverley Skeggs and Sally Munt, among others. For students in particular, this section

offers an effective way of understanding the basis for conflict between groups when

theories of ideology may be less appealing.

Chapter 3, ‘‘The Feeling of Structures’’, continues this line of inquiry through an

important extension of Raymond Williams’s notion of ‘structure of feeling’.

Highmore notes the problem with Williams’s theory is that ‘‘social structures are

primarily uneven in their distribution and are, thereby, experienced (felt) unevenly’’

(37) depending on context. For students and scholars in intercultural fields of

scholarship, this is a particularly useful chapter, since it uses a number of theorists

(C. L. R. James, Paul Gilroy) and examples (the Bringing Them Home report into the

separation of indigenous children from their families in Australia) to undo some of

the lingering effects of colonialism in formative cultural studies thinking. Highmore

focuses on migration, memory and ‘the slaves’ point of view’ as instructive

experiences of modernity; a discussion that takes on added force and poignancy in

the later chapter, ‘‘Events of the Heart’’. Here the author’s experience visiting the

Melbourne Museum’s Aboriginal Cultural Centre (Bunjilaka) sets the scene for a

longer discussion of sincerity and performativity in passionate culture, and a heartfelt

appeal for scholarship and a politics of reading ‘‘dedicated to hope’’ (109).

Other chapters address the lure of commodity culture, and the capacity for objects

to ignite our passions. ‘‘Commodity culture doesn’t address us as rational beings’’,

Highmore argues, ‘‘it addresses us as passionate sensualists, as willing or unwilling



hedonists’’ (56). This claim is developed by documenting the sensual pedagogies

central to the function of World Fairs and international exhibitions in the past

century. Highmore also reads advertising strategies to show how ‘‘Passions are the

glue that allows commodities to attach themselves to humans: the thrill of danger; the

lure of the erotic; the wonder of new sensual realms’’ (66). This and the following

chapter, ‘‘Keeping in Touch’’, add further dimensions to how we might understand

technology’s relationship to feeling and emotion, how mediated experience has ‘‘re-

orchestrated’’ our passions in ‘‘perhaps surprising ways’’ (83).

Considering photography, sound and other archival media, Highmore follows

Barthes’s melancholic tone in noting the negative affects that are also part of

everyday culture. The propaganda machines of radio and phonograph are

considered as part of a discussion of ‘the uncanny’ in the history of broadcasting,

specifically the ‘‘alienating affects of having disembodied voices and ghostly visions

emanating from domestic furniture’’ (87). Highmore provides a novel reading of the

preconditions for what media scholars call ‘intimacy at a distance’ � how radio and

television overcame their initially unfamiliar properties to become ‘‘domestic and

sometimes comforting’’ appliances (87). The intention here seems to be to remind

readers of the specificity of media platforms and their histories as well as to note

our ongoing exposure to ephemeral spirits in communication. Highmore asks us to

imagine ‘‘this mediated world as spectral as much as spectacular’’ (92), even while

his subsequent reading of the film Moulin Rouge highlights the fun to be had in the

latter.

Given the title, this book runs something of a risk by asking readers to trust that the

subjects chosen for analysis and description will incite a worthy degree of passion,

whether positive or negative. The selections that constitute each chapter are an effort to

avoid the usual format of the introductory textbook genre, and they won’t necessarily

appeal to all in equal measure. Likewise, the book’s conclusion offers alternative

beginnings for cultural studies ‘‘in place of an ending’’ (110). This exercise in

questioning clear narratives of origin for the field may prove frustrating for students yet

to master the basic territory from which they are seductively encouraged to stray.

Ultimately for Highmore, ‘‘Culture is the social as it is intimately experienced; as it

moves from ‘out there’ to ‘in here’ � or at least to ‘near here’’’ (4). In this way, his

project heeds lessons from previous attempts to teach cultural studies. Pushing

beyond the world-weariness of poststructuralism to recognise the potential for

individual agency and sincerity, this book raises ethical questions to match an

increasingly intercultural, commoditised world. Moving quickly and dynamically

between the affects it describes, Highmore’s work issues an invitation for more

readers to embark on the interdisciplinary study of culture, and his example makes

this enterprise a prospect to be welcomed.

MELISSA GREGG

University of Sydney

Australia

# 2010 Melissa Gregg

436 Book Reviews


Everyday Multiculturalism

AMANDA WISE & SELVARAJ VELAYUTHAM (Eds)

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

296 pages ISBN 9780230210370

Multiculturalism has always suffered from a certain level of ambiguity. It can refer to

a normative view of how best to manage cultural difference through state policy. And

it can refer to a demographic reality, where a population includes a variety of cultural

identities. While multiculturalism has been the object of significant scholarly

attention in the past few years, this attention has primarily focused on multi-

culturalism as a normative and policy goal. But there has always been difficulty in

transitioning this analysis into practice, because in the realm of everyday life

multiculturalism remains both an aspiration and a demographic experience. These

difficulties, as well as the sense of disillusionment that inevitably accompanies any

effort to implement theoretical ideals in a real-life setting, are behind a widespread

sense of frustration. The general complaint is that, as presently conceived, the

multicultural ideal contributes to the reification of identity by fostering essentialised

cultural silos instead of productive forms of coexistence.

The Wise and Velayutham volume enters this debate from the side of the everyday

realities of multiculturalism. The editors explain that their volume ‘‘explores how

social actors experience and negotiate cultural difference on the ground and how

their social relations and identities are shaped and re-shaped in the process’’. It adopts

an ‘‘ethnographically oriented approach drawing on the sociology of everyday life’’

(3) and aims to avoid the kind of essentialisation of identity that the state-based ‘‘top-

down’’ multiculturalism model invites (3) by ‘‘recognizing others in their full

humanity, rather than as representatives of a particular category’’ (6). They suggest

that their volume ‘‘reveals complexities and ambiguities hitherto unrecognized in the

dominant paradigm of scholarship on multiculturalism’’ (15).

Scholarly work on multiculturalism can only benefit by becoming re-acquainted

with the everyday practicalities of cultural coexistence. Work in this area has already

begun, including Anne Phillips’s Multiculturalism without Culture (Princeton

University Press, 2007) and Tariq Modood’s Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (Polity

Press, 2007), both of which aim to separate the normative aims around cultural

interaction from our frequent problems in interpreting cultural exchange. This

volume would make a substantial contribution to scholarship and social justice if it

could provide further empirical grounding for this ongoing effort. Unfortunately, the

volume does not succeed in escaping the problems it sets out to problematise, and

while it does deepen the sense of complexity associated with the demands of

multiculturalism (several of the volume’s authors place a stress on ambiguity and

problematising cultural interaction, for example), it’s not clear how the collected

work should be used to chart a path toward an alternative model.

The volume is admirable in its geographic reach, touching on multiculturalism in

Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy, Britain, Canada and the USA. It



includes authors from a number of disciplinary backgrounds although it is weighted

towards Sociology, Cultural Studies or similarly ethnographically focused specialisa-

tions. As with any collected volume the quality varies between chapters, but at its best

it raises tantalising possibilities for the contribution this kind of scholarship can make

to the effort to rework multiculturalism. One standout chapter, for example, by

Goodall, Wearing, Byrne and Cadzow is a collective effort by a historian, a tourism

expert and two environmental specialists to outline the role that fishing plays in the

lives of Vietnamese immigrants to Australia. The chapter suggests fishing helps

newcomers orient themselves in their environment by simultaneously relating them

back to an activity associated with their place of origin, and relating them to the

people and topology of their new location. The activity, they explain, can be

understood as a kind of ‘‘exploration’’ (193), although it is not an unproblematic one.

There are environmental issues around fishing, social issues around engagement with

long-standing locals and cultural issues around nostalgia for homeland. Many of the

other chapters aim to bring out similar kinds of insights, highlighting the multi-

layered quality to everyday practices from shopping to working to volunteering to

simple socialising.

The Goodall et al. chapter works because it treats all parties to the practice with

respect and understanding even when tensions are involved. However, there are

points in the volume when the analysis seems less generous and one can’t help but

feel for the research subjects under scrutiny. The chapter by Duruz, for example,

a Cultural Studies specialist, focuses on the ‘culinary biographies’ of two older

working-class women of Anglo ethnicity. The chapter follows their shopping and

socialising experiences and clearly the women were both cooperative and open about

their daily lives and views. It’s therefore difficult to read Duruz’s comments

associating one woman’s (Meg) response with ‘‘insular and conservative forms of

classed, gendered and generational identity’’ (112�13). While she backs off from

committing to this assessment, she later suggests that Meg’s attempts to enjoy Spanish

or Italian culture while on vacation proved shallow, and concluded that once back at

home ‘‘her cosmopolitanism’’ is ‘‘less useful to her’’ so she abandons it for Englishness

(113). Duruz does not hold back, however, from commenting on the ‘‘incomplete-

ness, unevenness and inadequacy’’ of another woman’s exchanges with an Indonesian

friend (116).

It may be the case that these women lived less cosmopolitan lives than could be

imagined by the researchers who study them. But we must be cautious that analysis

does not become condescension. While Duruz attempts to avoid this tone her

analysis is based on a view of the possibilities that is broader than these two woman

can (apparently) fully appreciate. And this is precisely where the radical potential of

the volume can be lost. If it relies on a privileged point of view, one where we see the

landscape as a whole and can see where others miss their cosmopolitan opportunities,

then it can lay no credible claim to expressing the everyday, which is always situated,

limited and contextual. This problem is especially significant in a work committed to

avoiding the ‘‘top-down’’ error while capturing people’s ‘‘full humanity’’ (3, 6).

438 Book Reviews


At its best, the volume shows an evenhandedness in the evaluation of cultural

interaction that points towards possibilities for positive engagement. But this

evenhandedness takes conscious effort and it’s easy to fall short of this goal. When

scholars rely on established identity categories to pursue their research they may find

these categories tend to colour their own analysis in the same banal but troubling

ways that they colour the everyday life they set out to study.

CATHERINE FROST

McMaster University

Ontario, Canada

# 2010 Catherine Frost

Ethnicities and Values in a Changing World

GARGI BHATTACHARYYA (Ed.)

Farnham: Ashgate, 2009

188 pages ISBN 9780754674832

Haiti January 2010, another natural catastrophe, another shocking feature of human

losses and the ambiguous political causes of its social outcome is hitting the news. Is

it pure aberration or purpose that media spectacle and knowledge production work

together, seemingly, in covering misery as nature?

Whereas nations and individuals all over the world don’t hesitate to offer money

trying to bring disaster relief to the victims of this horrendous earthquake we witness

delays in aid provision. As journalists and media reports suggest, this might be due to a

lack of coordination and destroyed local facilities. Some argue that it also might be

shaped by US geostrategic and home security interests. A striking contradiction

between global human solidarity on the one hand, and the continuity of hegemonic

power interests on the other, demonstrates to us what is the core argument of this edited

collection: we are facing a rapid change in patterns of ethnic and national belonging, in

local and global articulations of race regimes and in concrete approaches to humanity

and ethics. These are vital changes, indeed, as in the twenty-first century most human

catastrophes remain man made, and require both our full political stand and a robust

academic analysis. Accordingly, we should engage forcefully in international debates on

shifting notions of morality, institutionalised racism and collective belonging.

As Winant argues in Ethnicities and Values in a Changing World, among other

elements there is a legacy of conquest, slavery, race and revolution we have to take

on board while teaching how to comprehend race and racism in the twenty-first

century. ‘‘This is an evident but under-explored connection visible, for example, in

the historical legacy of the Haitian revolution’’ (41). One of the strengths of

Bhattacharyya’s edited collection is taking up these challenges while considering left-

wing, feminist and critical community activism as well as thorough academic

argument. Apart from different chapters by outstanding and internationally

renowned scholars on racism, ethnicity and gender, as for example Winant, Lentin



or Bhachu, contributions span those by Ugba, Sandoval Garcia, and Gabriel and

Harding, who show in what ways group agency is articulated more concretely by

African Pentecostals in Dublin, by a bi-national community in Costa Rica and

refugees in London. Finally, the chapters by Farrar and McVeigh exemplify, too,

how the fruitful incorporation of academic views offers strong links to political

activism.

Closer to home and in a British context, the first decade of the twenty-first century

brought the political re-emphasis on community cohesion and national identity.

These debates were played out against multiculturalism as Bhattacharyya’s introduc-

tion makes clear. Hence, ‘morality and loyalty’ as problematic terms have to be placed

at the centre of current debates concerning the formation of ethnic identities, but also

gendered boundaries. As the editor in the beginning emphasises ‘‘ . . . the collection

seeks to challenge the contention that ethnicity is static or that it represents

necessarily traditional values and cultures’’ (1).

The conversation between Bhachu and Bhattacharyya is a particularly inspiring

text. We get insights how biographical locations matter to the journey (geographically

and intellectually) of both female academics, also revealing the impact of national

academic institutions in channelling their critical knowledge. They explore how their

life stories, their belonging to specific generational cohorts and certain national

contexts affects individual perspectives on values and processes of ethnic identifica-

tions. As Bhachu remarks:

I am interested in what are the creative processes through which people produce

their work, how people think about you and how to extend the range of ways that

people perceive you, their perception of what Asians and people of colour are

about. I think that is critical otherwise what are you doing? You just shut up. (64)

McVeigh’s chapter adds another passionate voice to the collection. Tracing back less

known details of the Porrajmos, the holocaust of European gypsies, he links the denial of

the past with contemporary policy and racist actions against Roma in Italy and Ireland.

Racism in that regard is working alongside EU anti-discrimination efforts, which

otherwise target discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity. Remarkably, it is ‘‘racism

without racism’’ (84) that underscores contemporary changes in state agendas. These

changes affect the construction of ethnic belonging as well as attempts to judge minority

and majority values in terms of tolerable or unacceptable values. Sandoval Garcia

discusses the marginalisation of Nicaraguans in a place called La Carpio in Costa Rica;

here, poverty becomes associated not only with a particular city space, but even more it

functions as a stigma of the poor (here, the Nicaraguan immigrant minority).

Therefore, the reader is enabled to understand local processes of exclusion in Costa Rica

operating not unlike those leading to social marginalisation and criminalisation of

Roma in Europe. These two chapters illustrate very well how structural positions of

ethnic and national minorities match; they span distinctive continents and particular

group belonging.

440 Book Reviews


What racism and the racial state mean in the contemporary moment and how to

tackle the ambiguity of race, gender, ethnicity and conflict, is of concern to all authors

though in a variety of styles and sophistication. All chapters highlight how

individuals and different groups re-negotiate ascribed, but also religiously contained

values. Their efforts resonate with a widely embraced, but contested way how to

interpret, translate and communicate group difference and values. The collection of

chapters is framed by Bhattacharyya’s introduction and conclusion, but unfortunately

not further organised through topical sections. Such organisation might have eased

following the logic of the running argument. For example, the useful reprint of

Winant’s 2003 essay in the beginning of the book, setting out an agenda for New

Racial Studies, is taken up as programmatic view in the conclusion (169), but not

worked explicitly through for all chapters.

It is the merit of the editor (and of the publisher, of course) giving space to

significant critical voices, which address the empowering dimension of ethnicity and

the transmittance of religious or cultural beliefs into agency. Not unlike other

(hardback) books focusing on the role of states in prolonging politics of belonging it

is relatively costly though. This is regrettable given that the content is very timely in

its analytical response to what otherwise gets presented to the world as human

tragedy.

ULRIKE M. VIETEN

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

The Netherlands

# 2010 Ulrike M. Vieten

Beyond Multiculturalism: Views from Anthropology

GIULIANA B. PRATO (Ed.)

London: Ashgate, 2009

236 pages ISBN 9780754649427

This volume is an outcome of the XV International Congress of the International

Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences held in Florence, Italy in 2003.

As is true of many edited volumes of selected conference papers, this book embodies

the virtue of exploring a wide variety of topics, but also the vice of discussing issues

too diverse for one work. The authors engage in interesting and intellectually

stimulating discussions about the lived experiences of a set of populations that may

be referred to, for the lack of a better term, as ethnocultural minorities.

Contrary to the implication of the title, only a few chapters of Beyond

Multiculturalism engage the issue of multiculturalism as it has been conventionally

defined. Even in those chapters (e.g. Chapters 4�7), the issue of multiculturalism is a

peripheral topic rather than the centre of analysis. Readers expecting a more focused

discussion of how anthropology can shed new light on the multiculturalism debate



may find this lack of direct references to multiculturalism throughout the book

disappointing and the title of the book somewhat misleading.

In this review, I focus on the editor’s introduction � it is there we find the

major arguments against multiculturalism � and mention other chapters when

relevant. In ‘‘Introduction � Beyond Multiculturalism’’, Prato does a nice job of

summarising the controversies and tensions surrounding multiculturalism, such as

the tension between individual freedom and community rights and the ambiguous

line between cultural relativism and moral relativism in multicultural thinking.

She is also absolutely right in arguing that ‘‘we should ask whether the protection

of minorities or, more generally, of cultural diversity alone eliminate discrimina-

tion’’ (7).

However, Prato’s discussion of multiculturalism, as well as Beyond Multicultural-

ism’s potential contributions to the general discussion of multiculturalism, are

insufficient for several reasons. First, her arguments against multiculturalism are not

sufficiently supported by the following chapters, although Prato argues that they are.

It is a valid concern that multiculturalism, when put into practice, often takes the

form of ‘‘a new cultural production controlled by specialist managers that transcends

reality’’ (15). However, the following chapters do not fully support this concern.

Some of the chapters maintain a neutral stance or lack direct references to

multiculturalism (e.g. Chapters 1 and 9�11). Other chapters can be interpreted as

providing support to multiculturalism (e.g. Chapters 3 and 4). Only Chapter 5

(written by the editor) and Chapters 6 and 7 provide evidence in support of Prato’s

arguments. In Chapter 12, Surrenti provides an insightful understanding of what

culture means and how people consume culture; her discussion is reminiscent of the

arguments Waldron (1995) raised against multiculturalism. Although interesting and

insightful on its own, Chapter 12 does not necessarily provide any support for the

editor’s overall arguments against multiculturalism. In addition, one cannot, as Prato

wants to do, discredit multiculturalism as a theory simply because it has been

inappropriately implemented.

Regardless of whether her characterisation is supported by the chapters in the

book, one may also question whether Prato does justice to multiculturalism as theory

in her characterisation. As Kymlicka (2001) argued, the multiculturalism debate has

witnessed three stages. The first stage is the debate between communitarianism and

liberalism. The second stage is the debate among liberals as to whether or not

multiculturalism is compatible with political liberalism and whether multiculturalism

can indeed advance ethnocultural justice. Acknowledging the role of the state in the

process of nation-building has significant moral and theoretical implications for the

current understanding of liberal states vis-a-vis ethnic diversity. The intended or

unintended consequences of the state’s nation-building efforts are the marginalisation

of cultural minorities and the unfair pressures placed on cultural minorities to

conform to the culture of the dominant ethnic group. Having defined multi-

culturalism as a call for a fairer method of building a nation, Kymlicka conceptualises

442 Book Reviews


different ethnic groups as having varying types of multicultural rights based on the

kinds of injustice they have suffered as a group.

Prato’s discussion considers the first and second stages. However, the third stage of

the multiculturalism debate, that is, considering multiculturalism as a response to the

nation-state-building process, is missing from the discussion. This omission is

significant because, if we understand multiculturalism as a response to the nation-

building process, some of the empirical chapters in the volume support multi-

culturalism. For example, the ‘‘effective immigrant settlement policies’’ (51) Fong

argues for in Chapter 3 and the findings of Chapter 4 align with ideas about

immigrant multiculturalism.

Had the edited volume done what it set out to do, it would appeal to many scholars

and policy-makers across various disciplines, particularly against the backdrop of

waning interest in multiculturalism in Western Europe. Although the volume fails to

achieve this goal, nonetheless it makes a valid contribution to our understanding of

culture and diversity in an age of globalisation. An insightful discussion by Vazquez

and Rodrıguez in Chapter 7 examines how the idea of tolerance assumes the

superiority of the person (in many cases a member of the national majority) who

tolerates the presence of the minority group; according to the authors of the chapter,

this sense of superiority is inherent in the concept of multiculturalism itself. The

authors of the chapter suggest replacing multiculturalism with an alternative notion

of puri-culturalism that ‘‘not only recognizes the multicultural character of societies

but also considers [cultural diversity] to be a driving force for the enrichment of the

society as a whole’’ (136). In Chapter 6, Pardo’s discussion of the difference between

tolerance and toleration seems to suggest a contrasting scenario. Pardo argues that

everyone has a right to decide to what extent to tolerate members of other groups.

From her perspective, multiculturalism as an ideology violates the individual’s right

to choose whether or not to tolerate and ask only majority to tolerate. Whether

multiculturalism entails the majority’s generous gesture of tolerance or the minority’s

imposition of tolerance on the majority is a subject for debate. Indeed, the

discussions of puri-culturalism and tolerance vs. toleration focus on neglected

aspects of cultural diversity and therefore provide a helpful contribution to current

scholarly discussion of multiculturalism.

Works Cited

Kymlicka, W., 2001. Politics in the Vernacular. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Waldron, J., 1995. ‘‘Minority Culture and the Cosmopolitan Alternative.’’ The Rights of Minority

Cultures. Ed. W. Kymlicka. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 93�119.

NORA HUI-JUNG KIM

University of Mary Washington

Fredericksburg, VA, USA

# 2010 Nora Hui-Jung Kim



Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms: New Dilemmas for Teachers

JENNIFER MILLER, ALEX KOSTOGRIZ & MARGARET GEARON (Eds)

Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2009

290 pages ISBN 9781847692160

In recent years there has been a shift in the teacher education literature from seeing

diversity as a problem that had to be dealt with to seeing diverse classrooms as

beneficial for all students. Miller, Kostogriz and Gearon begin their book on this

hopeful note, quoting the European Commission’s assertion that ‘‘[a] successful

multilingualism policy can strengthen life chances of citizens . . . and contribute to

solidarity through enhanced intercultural dialogue and social cohesion. Approached

in this spirit, linguistic diversity can become a precious asset, increasingly so in

today’s globalised world’’ (3). But I think it is safe to say that practice has not yet

caught up to theory, and the book raises several salient issues for teacher educators,

policy-makers and practitioners.

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms arose from the co-editors’ shared

interest in how language education teacher educators might approach the changing

face of classrooms in a globalised context, and how to better serve the needs of pre-

and in-service teachers in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. However,

they recount that as the project unfolded the scope expanded to include policy,

curriculum, pedagogy and changing theoretical conceptions of language learning and

use (6). They have therefore divided the book into three parts: ‘‘Part 1: Pedagogy in

Diverse Classrooms’’; ‘‘Part 2: Language Policy and Curriculum’’; and ‘‘Part 3:

Research Directions in Diverse Contexts’’, and have included contributions by a range

of scholars from the UK, Spain, Finland, Australia and Canada. Given this wide scope

of topics, I cannot do justice to the book as a whole, so I will limit my discussion to

three chapters � one from each part.

In Part 1, I found Jennifer Miller’s chapter, ‘‘Teaching with an Accent: Linguistically

Diverse Preservice Teachers in Australian Classrooms’’, particularly engaging in that it

echoed many of the experiences of students in our own programme for foreign

trained teachers seeking local certification. Miller draws on a subset of data gleaned

from a wider study on English language proficiency and teacher readiness among

non-native-speaking pre-service teachers. She addresses the complexities of identity

formation and negotiation; the role of authority and ‘believing listeners’; and the

cultural gap between the pre-service teachers and the students and staff in their

practicum schools that emerged in written reflections and focus group sessions with

five of the research participants. While many such programmes focus on trying to

reduce the differences between linguistically diverse teachers and their new English-

dominant contexts, Miller challenges teacher educators to ‘‘do more than pay lip

service to the value of diversity’’ (52). This does not mean that teachers from diverse

language backgrounds are exempt from responsibility for their own language

development, but it does mean that as teacher educators, we need to change the

context within which linguistically diverse teachers are measured as more or less

444 Book Reviews


competent. And this in turn means that we must interrogate our own assumptions

and beliefs about language and identity, as well as our assumptions about professional

competence, and build in the necessary supports for linguistically diverse teachers

(52�53). Only then will we be able to ensure that the linguistically diverse graduates

of our teacher education programmes are on the path to becoming successful

practitioners in predominantly English language classrooms.

Part 2 includes Alex Kostogriz’s chapter, ‘‘Professional Ethics in Multicultural

Classrooms: English, Hospitality and the Other’’. Against the backdrop of neo-liberal

reforms in Australian education, Kostogriz draws on Derrida, Levinas and Bakhtin to

explore the possibility of a ‘‘dialogical ethics in linguistic and cultural encounters � in

pedagogical zones of contact and ‘face-to-face’ relations with alterity’’ rather than

‘‘the monological and decontextualized views of professional ethics as caring at a

distance’’ (134). While I am familiar with the literature on Levinas and education

more generally, I am less familiar with how such work might be taken up in language

education, and I am somewhat cautious of attempts to ‘apply’ continental ethics � in

this case Levinas’s conception of responsibility and Derrida on hospitality � to

classroom contexts. I think Kostogriz has successfully resisted the tendency toward

prescriptions for practice and has utilised their work instead as a productive way to

theorise language education as a fundamentally relational and ethical act. Kostogriz

acknowledges that it would require a book-length project to fully unpack ethics and

hospitality as themes in language education but his chapter does a fine job, in my

view, of introducing readers who are unfamiliar with this body of work to a new way

of conceiving pedagogical relations with the Other.

In the last chapter, ‘‘Bringing Home and Community to School: Institutional

Constraints and Pedagogic Possibilities’’, Canadian researchers Suzanne Smythe and

Kelleen Toohey report on an ethnographic study of children from a community with

a large number of English language learners. The study focused on the discursive

contexts for literacy and language learning with the aim of ‘‘interrupt[ing] the

dominance of English-only knowledge and literacy in the classroom, and con-

tribut[ing] to the re-valuing of newcomer children’s linguistic and cultural resources’’

(272). An especially interesting aspect of the research described here is the section on

the photo-story project wherein grade 6 and 7 students were invited to become

‘‘junior ethnographers’’ (283). Smythe and Toohey provided the students with

disposable cameras and asked them to create photo representations of their out-of-

school lives. Through the use of computer software and the addition of music,

captions, etc. the students worked in groups to turn the photos into stories of their

lives which were then shared with their families. Most revealing to the researchers was

the recurring theme of identity transition. It was not, however, as one might expect,

an identity transition from newcomers to Canadians but rather a transition from

young children to children ‘‘claiming identities within a multimodal, culturally

diverse pop and global culture’’ (284). While Smythe and Toohey were pleased with

the students’ enthusiasm for the project, they felt that the research fell short of

making full use of the pedagogic possibilities (286) and they point to possible future



research questions including investigating why such projects, which are potentially

very educative, are so difficult to integrate into day-to-day life in schools. Smythe and

Toohey’s chapter thus challenges us to rethink the traditional separation between

home and school and to work more intentionally at valuing all aspects of students’

lives as integral to their language learning and literacy.

In closing, I commend this book not only for its attention to the complexities of

preparing teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, but also for

opening up new ways of framing language education and teacher education in a

globalised world.

ANN CHINNERY

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, BC, Canada

# 2010 Ann Chinnery

The Ethics of Migration Research Methodology: Dealing with Vulnerable

Immigrants

ILSE VAN LIEMPT & VERONICA BILGER (Eds)

Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press (Distributed by Gazelle Book Services,

www.gazellebookservices.co.uk), 2009

180 pages ISBN 9781845193317

In this co-edited book, diverse methodological issues and their ethical implications

for search with vulnerable, hidden and hard to reach migrant populations are

examined and questions such as access to, building trust in and minimisation of

potential harm for participants with problematic immigration status are explored. In

light of the large and increasing number of undocumented immigrants, refugees and

asylum seekers worldwide, this is an important and timely topic, which deserves an

in-depth scholarly dialogue.

The book is organised in three parts. The first part focuses on the institutional

context of migration research and related ethical and methodological concerns.

Specifically, challenges of conducting research in the prison system are discussed and

illustrated in two reports about studies about incarcerated immigrants in a US and

a Swiss prison.

The second part includes three articles that address questions relative to choosing

the most appropriate methodological approach. The articles in this part discuss

ethnography, document analysis, interviews and experts’ opinions as well as issues

related to translation in cross-linguistic research, sampling issues and strategies for

identification, gaining access and recruitment of participants in populations of

migrant undocumented, smuggled and trafficked immigrants, asylum seekers and

sex-workers in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. Furthermore, ethical issues

are discussed implicitly as well as implied and illustrated indirectly; specifically in the

description by the editors of the power struggle with the scholarly community to gain

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support for the importance of documenting information from individuals who

personally experienced being smuggled (Chapter 5).

The third part of the book emphasises the examination of the role of the researcher

in studying migrants in uncertain situations. One article explores benefits and

challenges of conducting research when the researcher shares the ethnic background

and language of those studied and demonstrates it relative to studying Bulgarian

immigrants in Athens, Madrid, London and Brighton, focusing specifically on issues

of possible bias, manipulation and boundaries. The second article looks at

conceptual, methodological and ethical aspects of studying Moroccan minors who

immigrated to Spain on their own, unaccompanied by an adult. Specifically, the

author looks at the issue of dual role as a researcher and a social worker or a social

educator (the concepts are used interchangeably and are not clearly defined).

The volume has some strengths such as addressing diverse cultures of origins, ages

and precarious situations from Moroccan unaccompanied minors in Spain,

undocumented Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands to Bulgarian immigrants in

Greece and the UK as well as addressing ethical aspects of quantitative, qualitative

and mixed methods projects. Furthermore, the discussion of illustrative case studies

is also helpful.

However, it could also benefit from some improvements. First, while the editors

addressed a timely topic, a more comprehensive review of relevant literature could

have greatly benefited the readers. For example, in light of the editors’ statement that

‘‘we rarely get information on the design of the research or the research processes

such as how participants were identified and accessed, to what degree participants

were involved in the research. How translation issues were handled etc.’’ (2), it is

somewhat surprising that they did not report about the handful of studies that

address exactly these issues (e.g. Weiss, T. and Berger, R. ‘‘Reliability and Validity of

a Spanish Version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory.’’ Journal of Social Work

Research 16 (2006): 191�99). In addition, it would have been interesting to know if

the composition of the authors of the individual chapters supports the editors’

observation that ‘‘Today migration is one of the most cross-disciplinary fields in

academia’’ (2). Furthermore, the organising principle of the chapters and the articles

they contain is sometimes confusing; for example, similar issues of sampling are

discussed in various parts of the book, making the development of a comprehensive

perspective on the issue. A ‘heavier’ editorial hand could have been helpful in

enhancing clarity as well as improving the scholarly quality of some of the chapters.

Finally, a concluding chapter analysing general ethical issues in research of vulnerable

immigrant populations across the diverse methods, population groups and authors’

perspectives would have helped enhancing the cohesiveness of the book.

RONI BERGER

School of Social Work, Adelphi University

Garden City, NY, USA

# 2010 Roni Berger



'Ethnicities and values in a changing world' by G. Bhattacharrya (ed., 2009)

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