Prosjekt nr 151069/S20:
Diversity, togetherness and a society in change
Hakan G. Sicakkan, Yngve Lithman and Margrete Frederiksen, Senter for
utviklingsstudier, Universitetet i Bergen (IMER-Bergen)
Diversity, Togetherness and a Society in Change
The present social and political realities of the globalizing world are different in both scope
and content from the problems faced by states in the 20th century, and they cannot be
understood in terms of the 20th Century’s nation state models. This leaves us with the intricate
challenge of developing new perspectives to understand, describe, and analyze “the new” in
what is happening in our diverse societies. Diversity of many kinds, transnational mobility
and migration, multiple and shifting identities, citizens’ distance to and increasing detachment
from the decision-making bodies, and the geographically distributed and culturally diverse
government are some of these realities. These appear now in a new form and with a new
substance compared to their earlier appearances in the history. Neither governments or
national democratic institutions, nor the supranational and intergovernmental institutions
seem to possess an adequate terminology and policy repertoire to address “the new” in our
diverse societies. Not the least, social sciences also seem to suffer from this lack of scientific
conceptual frames that are sufficiently adequate to analyze and understand the diverse society
and the new types of individuals and social groups that are accommodated in its segmented
public spaces. One of the goals in this NFR-funded project of IMER-UiB is to contribute to
the international and Norwegian scientific communities’ ongoing work with developing
innovative perspectives and terminologies to capture “the new” in our diverse societies.
Another goal is to apply this perspective to different segments and aspects of various diverse
societies, wherein Norway is included as a central case.
The Diversity Perspective as an Alternative to Difference Perspectives
Negatively, we use the term “diversity perspective” to dissociate ourselves from a nation-state
starting point, and in this sense invest the term with both ontological and epistemological
significance. Similarly, we also use the diversity concept to dissociate ourselves from having
a foundation in multiculturalism perspectives, many of which tend to conceptualize the
society in terms of fixed group traits and boundaries (also from those authors who in fact have
this, but uses the term diverse society). However, this is not a political stance against the
nation state or the multicultural society, but an epistemological stance against attempts to
understand the society primarily in terms of the nation state or of groups. Our thesis is that the
diverse society perspective is a better point of departure for analyzing and understanding both
the nation-state and the societies with multicultural traits, enabling at the same time rigorous
analyses of societies that are organized in other forms. We trace the diverse society from two
processes. For one thing, we find an increased manifestation of the diverse society in a
multitude of social and cultural forms and expressivities, i.e., a diverse population. The
nation-state may be seen to have incorporated some of these expressions as legitimate and
“non-difference” (e.g. to some extent seen in the history of its handling of sexual
orientations), or engaged in extensive activities to define legitimate and non-legitimate
difference (as exemplified e.g. with regard to migrants), and set up a variety of institutions to
manage diversity. For another, “the global turn” has provided both specific preconditions,
particular dynamics, and also a texturing of the diverse society. Migrant and migration-related
processes (not just migration per se) are obvious examples of a spatial mobility, creating the
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preconditions for multiple belongings on the one hand, and essentializing, de-essentializing
and hybridization of identities and belongings on the other – a mobility of minds.
At the same time, our citizenship ideals and structures (in the wide, Anglo-Saxon sense) are in
large measure founded on a presumed correspondence between belongings, state boundaries,
and human geography. In the diverse society, this correspondence is fractured, and it thus has
to find, to use a felicitous phrase, ‘togetherness in difference’ (Young 1990). This condition,
together with other expressions of the global turn, prominently those related to new global or
regional international governance and normative regimes, provides for re-shuffling and
emergence in sovereignty patterns. These, in turn, must not be seen as external or frame
conditions to the diverse society. On the contrary, their dynamism must be significantly
understood as emanating out of the tensions, contradictions and conflicts in the diverse
society, and also as recurring upon the diverse society.
The totality of the situation of the diverse society manifests itself in a drama with respect to
the public sphere – how state structure and citizenship practices do and can conjoin around the
social – i.e., civic and social life in general. A significant issue here is how the diverse society
manifests perhaps new forms of inequality based on emergent interpretations of difference,
related to race, gender, geography, migrant generation (1st, 2nd, 3rd), and other distinctions.
How is, then, co-existence and inclusive politics in a diverse society possible? Politicians,
technocrats, and scientists have created many models of public sphere to accommodate
diversity. The mainstream notions of public sphere have been inspired by the discussions
between – and important contributions by – individualists, communalists, multiculturalists,
and pluralists. To accommodate individual differences, individualists suggest a single,
discursive public sphere (e.g. Jürgen Habermas). Communalists and multiculturalists
propose multiple, segmented public spheres at two levels to accommodate separate
historical/cultural communities which meet at the top (e.g., Charles Taylor). Criticizing both
alternatives because of their singular recipes for the good life, pluralists advocate the midway
perspective of accommodating both individual and group differences in multiple and multilevel public spheres (e.g. Nancy Fraser’s subaltern counter-publics).
Although these models are premised upon different ethical and ontological premises, the
solutions that they produced focused on converging models of public sphere in their practical
implications. Such solutions were produced in both the individualistic and communalistic
paradigms – e.g., multiculturalism ideas that came from "liberal nationalists" (e.g., Miller
2000), “liberal multiculturalists” (e.g., Kymlicka 1995) and "communitarian multiculturalists"
(e.g., Taylor 1994). The commonality of these four public space paradigms – individualism,
communalism, multiculturalism, and pluralism – is their embedded perspective of
difference and their focus on accommodation of differences. Difference thinking conceives
individuals/groups as indivisible wholes and potentially restricts our thinking to what is
shared between people and communities. It also underestimates the role of communication
between different types of public spheres and spaces. The Diversity Project tries to address
some of the limitations imposed by these previous analyses, adopting an alternative approach
focused on the perspective of diversity.
The diversity perspective is based upon the notion of otherness rather than difference.
Whereas “difference” signifies disparities between persons or between groups, or between
both, “otherness” signifies both disparities and commonalities. “Otherness” here is not
about being “the Other” (noun); but being “other” (adjective). This removes the ontological
and normative priority of the Self over the Other, and establishes the Self as “just another
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other, that is, as a co-other” (Sicakkan 2003, 2004a-b, 2005; Sicakkan and Lithman 2005a-b,
2006). The egalitarian and difference-sensitive aspect of the notion of otherness can be
illustrated with a hypothetical example: Imagine two persons – A and B – talking to each
other about the four items (1, 2, 3, and 4 in the above figure). “Difference” and “otherness”
are defined in this example with respect to the first choice of B. Statement II limits the
choices of B, whereas statement III extends B’s choices to all the items in the defined
universe. In statement III, the two different objects suddenly become two “equal others”,
but still different.
1
2
3
4
Temporal order of
statements by A
A’s statement
B’s choices
B’s response
Remaining on the
table
I
Pick an item!
B can choose any
one of 1,2,3,4
B picks 1
2, 3, 4
II
Now pick a different
item!
B can now choose
only between 2 and
4; and B cannot
choose 3
B picks 2
3 and 4
III
Now pick an other
item!
B
can
choose
between 3 and 4
B picks 3 or 4
3 or 4
The egalitarian and non-domination features of “otherness” are to be found at this juncture:
both differences and commonalities are included in it. Any choice to be made as a response to
statement III can be based on both differences and commonalities between the alternatives, or,
alternatively, none of them. In response to A’s statement III, B does not necessarily have to
base its decision on the differences between 1, 2, 3, and 4. Based on this notion of
“otherness”, the diversity perspective attributes equal moral priority and equal ontological
status to groups and individuals. However, it substantially differs from pluralism, as well as
from communalism, multiculturalism, and individualism, in that it does not take difference as
an ethical premise or as an objective to achieve, but it simply accepts it as a fact. Similarly, it
also accepts “commonality” – i.e., the shared features of people both within and across the
boundaries of their belongings – as a fact without making it into an ethical value or a political
goal. The diversity perspective supplements the former perspectives by adding to them the
notion of “mobility of minds and bodies”. The diversity perspective thus includes:
•
•
•
(im)mobility of minds between different references of identification – i.e., mobile and shifting
multidimensional belongings
(im)mobility of bodies – i.e., migration and frequent movement across places and different spaces
of interaction
(im)mobility of boundaries – i.e., shifting territorial, political, cultural, economic, social, and
individual boundaries
The alternative image of person implied here is one that regards individuals as physically
(im)mobile between places on the one hand, and on the other, of minds as (im)mobile
between different references of identification. The diversity perspective merges difference and
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commonality on the one hand, and mobility and immobility on the other, in the notion of “coother”. The “co-other” is not a physical reality. It is a state of mind that enables individuals to
see themselves as “just another other”, i.e., as a third person who is different both from the
self and from the concrete others surrounding the self. The co-other can shift and oscillate
between the self and the other and between different references of identification. In this sense,
the co-other refers to mobile, shifting and multidimensional identities. This inclusive
ontological frame both contains and supplements the assumptions of the former four
ontologies. The diverse society is, thus, the community of “selves”, “others” and “co-others”,
which accommodates differences, commonalities, mobility, and immobility at the same time.
This should apply as a supplement to the classical liberal ontology of autonomous individuals
as well as to the classical communitarian ontology of socially embedded persons, which fixes
and limits identities, belongings – and the rights to “be public” and to get involved in politics
– to territories, states, ethnies, communities, nations, religions, genders, etc. The diversity
ontology regards both the presence and absence of such fixities as facts, not as goals to
achieve.
The above outline comprises a set of ontological statements – i.e., about what “being” is and
how co-existence is possible. This ontological frame has important epistemological
implications. If much social science starts in the center of the social (which is one implication
of communalism, methodological nationalism, and multiculturalism), the diversity perspective
forces a focus on the interplays between the internal social dynamics and boundaries of many
kinds – e.g., national, territorial, social, cultural, political, ideological, identity-related, etc.
boundaries. The boundaries are both external and internal to the diverse society, also when
they constitute geographical borders. What happens at the boundaries simultaneously also
recurs onto the shape of the diverse society and vice versa. This requires a focus on
movement, on transgression and retreat, on multiple, multidimensional and shifting
belongings, and on the person in different positions to the social – from socially ensconced to
being marginalized – as well as on the impacts of the social and political structures which
accommodate these.
This outline also has important methodological implications. It focuses on the interplays
between boundaries, internal dynamics, and change. Furthermore, there is also an observed
continuous change in citizens’ involvement patterns, belonging modes, identity patterns,
mobility patterns, interest configurations, relations between citizens, as well as in the political
responses to reflect these in governance and policymaking. The simple fact is that one has to
deal with dynamic and continuously variable situations. Therefore, the Diversity Project has
also developed both qualitative and quantitative research tools that take change and diversity
rather than steadiness and stability as the norm.
The Analytical and Empirical Focus
To address the question of co-existence in diverse societies, the diversity perspective imposes
an analytical distinction between communicative public spaces and public spheres. The
former is a space of interaction and deliberation that is relatively separate from the state. It is
a social and political space in which individuals, groups, and other social/political actors with
a certain level of in-group feeling form and formulate interests and views to be explicated
outwards. These public spaces are also arenas where persons’ belongings and identities are
mediated, confirmed, shaped, and re-shaped. The public sphere, on the other hand, is an arena
where views articulated in communicative public spaces confront and are confronted by state
actors. In the diversity perspective, individuals’ and groups’ ability to act as co-others beyond
the boundaries of their particular communicative public spaces is seen as a prerequisite
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for a well-functioning diverse society. This includes individuals belonging to both “the
majority” and “minority groups”.
By exploring the relevant features of existing public spaces in Europe and Norway, the
Diversity Project assesses the possibility of increasing interaction between and across various
communicative public spaces. Our citizenship ideals and structures are in large measure
founded upon a presumed correspondence between communicative public spaces, public
spheres, and different boundaries – i.e., boundaries of belongings, group boundaries, cultural
boundaries, state boundaries, etc. Citizenship structures functioning on this principle of
correspondence and the (limited) opportunity structures they provide for citizens’
involvement and recognition may obstruct some individuals’ and groups’ inclusion and
facilitate the inclusion of others. They may also obstruct or facilitate inclusion in a certain
type of public space and/or in a certain public sphere by limiting or enhancing citizens’ ability
to think/act as co-others beyond the boundaries set by the social and political actors operating
within these boundaries. Therefore, the Diversity Project assesses also the guiding and
structuring relationships between persons’ ability to think and act as co-others, features of
communicative public spaces, and citizens’ involvement in public spaces and politics. Based
on the above-given theory frame, the Diversity Project has been organized as three subprojects focusing on the different features of and the interrelations between:
•
•
•
national public spaces
transnational public spaces
glocal public spaces
These represent the three of the different types of communicative public spaces in today’s
diverse societies. The “Diversity Project” comprises, therefore, three main sub-projects,
which constitute a whole targeting the goal of analyzing co-existence in diversity:
Randi Gressgård’s sub-project is entitled “Women’s Dual Identity”. Gressgård analyzed the
construction of gender and sexuality within the framework of modern structural
ambivalences, particularly related to the nation/state. Instead of “dual expectations” etc. from
ethnic/national group on the one hand and Norwegian society on the other, gender
construction and process are investigated as the main source in a gap between immigrant
women’s claimed and accorded belongings and demands for recognition. The project is also
footed in an argument about social justice.
Margrete Frederiksen’s sub-project is entitled “Radical transnationalism – stretching
localities, creating space, making scenes". It focuses on social, political, and artistic
expressions of youths in Oslo with migrant background or radical transnational orientations.
Based upon earlier migration studies of identity formations among youth with minority
background in Norway where a diversity of international orientations and imagined
communities became apparent, it analyzes new cartographies of belonging. It maps different
forms of transnational processes in relation to national hegemonic practices and discourses.
The project’s theoretical grounding is entrenched in perspectives from race and ethnicity
studies with a focus on communication, signs and semiotics. Central themes are related to
minority and majority, nationality, race and arenas of expression.
Hakan Sicakkan’s sub-project is entitled “Diversity, Citizenship and Democratic Institutions
in Glocalization”. It is founded upon the premise that new forms of belonging in the diverse
society, which are emerging as a consequence of globalisation, and the ambiguous co-
5
existence of the state with these new forms, makes nationality no longer an adequate basis for
an inclusive, egalitarian, and democratic practice of citizenship. The main question is “how
can inclusive democratic institutions and norms be created under such conditions?” The
project comparatively analyzes the new public spaces, i.e. ‘glocal spaces’, in six European
countries, which can be the prototypes of our future diverse societies and from which we can
possibly learn how co-existence in diversity can be made possible. The development of the
diversity perspective constitutes a large part of the project.
In addition, it should also be mentioned that IMER-UiB researchers have had several parallel
projects that were funded by other programmes of NFR and by the European Commission,
which contributed to our theory and method development work as well as empirical focus in
the Diversity Project. One of these is Mette Andersson’s NFR-funded project entitled “’Og
gullet går til…’ Ikke-hvite toppidrettsutøvere som representanter for etnisk minoritet, nasjon
eller en ikke-vestlig verden?”. Another is an accompanying measure project about glocal
spaces, GLOCALMIG, which was funded by the European Commission and internationally
coordinated by Yngve Lithman and Hakan Sicakkan.
Preliminary Findings
It is not an easy task to present in the findings from the Diversity project at the level of the
detailed findings in each of the sub-projects. In addition to the limited space available for this
purpose, this is also due to the fact that two of the sub-projects are at present in the conclusion
phase. However, already at this stage, some general lines can be drawn. These lines concern:
•
•
•
The features of public spaces of diversity
The features of individuals attending to such public spaces
The implications of these regarding certain aspects of the future diverse societies
The features of public spaces of diversity
Based on Gressgård’s, Frederiksen’s, and Sicakkan’s data from six countries, including also
Norway, the alternative public spaces of diversity are found to be emerging from and growing
on individuals’ and various social groups’ need to escape from and to struggle against the
national spaces’ homogenizing and discriminatory consequences. This is the general trend in
our data and across the sub-projects no matter whether individuals and social groups attending
these kinds of public spaces “belong to” the “majority population” or to immigrant or native
“minority groups”. The fieldwork sites comprise the below-described characteristics of an
incipient structure entailing a web of diverse sociopolitical interactions. Incipient
organizations comprise emerging/decaying/loose structures that represent semi-patterned and
changing interactions between persons, groups, or other social entities. The most
distinguishing features of such incipient structures that are uncovered are:
•
•
•
•
fluid external organizational boundaries
frequently changing patterns of interactions (a) between persons, (b) between groups,
(c) between persons and groups, (d) between persons and the incipient organization
proper, and (e) between groups and the incipient organization proper
acceptance, cooperation, and symbiosis of a diverse set of groups and persons with
conflicting, contradicting, supplementary, and complementary political projects
(immigrants, historical minorities, third country nationals, majority citizens, hybrid
collective and/or multidimensional individual identities)
accepting, encouraging, promoting diversity (at the collective level) and
multidimensional belongings and identities (at the collective and personal levels).
6
•
•
vague operative boundaries between organizational leaders, opinion leaders and other
participants
openness to all (everybody can define himself/herself as belonging or not belonging
there at anytime and can use this space to deliberate his or her preferences
Concerning the transnational public spaces in Oslo, where Fredriksen did her fieldwork,
individuals and groups attending to these spaces engage in various forms of social and
political work inspired by similar groups in other countries. Although fostered in arenas
characterized by a striking multitude of cultural hybridism, the activities the informants
engaged in were clearly related to antiracist, artistic and anarchistic discourses explicitly
intending to invoke upon public impressions, experiences and interpretations of Oslo and
Norway as cultural and political locations. The inspirations for the antiracist activities came
mainly from public discourses, debates and projects in England, other EU countries, South
Africa and the Caribbean, while the artistic expressions drew upon a variety of traditions
mainly stressing non-western cultural inspirations. The various forms of political activism
were furthermore inspired by emerging transnational social movements and alternative
networks.
The fieldwork sites for the project were activity centers, cultural houses, youth cultural
centers, theatres, semi-squat houses, scenes and cafés which the youth groups, organizations
and networks had struggled to claim and keep as locations since the beginning of the nineties.
These discursive struggles were documented through posters, newspaper articles and pictures
which both functioned as reminders of their historical struggles and as a motivational ground
for discussion topics and further engagements. These struggles were intensified by
privatization processes. Three of the cultural and semi-squat houses were in the process of
being sold during the time of the fieldwork, and the informants had critical reactions to the
neo-liberal developments and various house building projects in the city center. They
negotiated their relations to Oslo and Norway as significant places, for example with
expressions, posters and graffiti slogans like “let multiculturalism become a reality, not just an
idea”, “reclaim the streets”, “if they [the politicians] are too though on us, we’ll move on and
flag out”. The forms of involvement in these spaces included the creation of new public
discourses through a wide range of theatre plays, concerts, artistic workshops, public
performances and anti-racists’ project participations, partly supported by the City Council or
the Norwegian Art Council with public funds, but also demonstrations and political activism
both in Norway and abroad. Although partly split by discursive struggles about aims and
methods the nodal point in the various activities were nevertheless work against
marginalisation and exclusion by the majority population, the promotion of cultural diversity
and attempts to change the premises for their marginalized positions. Thus the social,
political and artistic activities derived from and energized to specific transnational
processes which restructures the nation state premises and limitations for societal
integration.
The biographical narratives of the youth were characterized by transnational mobilization
which influenced upon their activities and interactions. These biographies and life experiences
were exchanged and used as contextual backgrounds for interpreting events, life worlds
and societal developments; to reflect about the increased diversity and the social changes in
Oslo, their own social networks in relation to others, the validity of concepts such as national
identity and the democratic limitations of political structures like the nation state and the EU.
The transnational biographies were also used as motivational grounds for engagements and
7
activities; as inspirational sources for the development of specific artistic expressions, for
attempts to fulfil social obligations in Oslo and abroad; to give economical support to poor
relatives, for engaging in pro forma weddings and celebrations, for trying to adjust
economical differences abroad and locally through low cost life styles and ethical or
conscious consumption. Social and youth workers were found to be attempting to give work
assignments and engage in solidarity projects besides the official bureaucratic procedures. As
such the informant’s lives and activities were characterized by the paradoxical loyalties
inherited in the various contexts of belonging actualized through globalisation.
The fieldwork sites in Oslo also revealed some significant and meaningful connections
between globalization, global events and the features of transnational spaces. The Iraq-war
prompted some momentarily transnational publics, created through the antiwar demonstration,
which is most massive in Norwegian history mobilizing 80.000 persons in Oslo (10 million
people world wide). This event resulted in a larger distribution of public images; pictures
from demonstrations around the globe, like a clockwise uprising and influenced the
perceptions of the political, cultural and geographical localization of Oslo. Public speeches
ahead of the demonstration promoted individual detachments from the political actions
potentially approved by various political instances through slogans like: “Not in my name”,
and activist groups twisted well known mall commercial series into contexts of urgent
actualization through the slogan; “In the urban jungle everything is possible, even war”.
Public debates, which revealed discursive struggles of the war’s contexts; agendas behind the
political rhetoric and the Norwegian nation state’s institutional affiliations influenced the
informants’ expressions of belonging, forms of activism and conversation issues. The
development of the war, as it was commented on by politicians and discussed among the
informants, influenced directly on their lives and live world perspectives. As such the
meaning of news, events and happenings were perceived, experienced and negotiated
within the diverse community settings; it inflicted on their ascribed and self ascribed
identities and their expressed modes of belonging.
Concerning the glocal public spaces in Bergen, Budapest, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Tallinn,
and Vienna, the features of which Sicakkan analyzed based on qualitative data collected in
collaboration with Norwegian and foreign project partners, the hypothesis was strengthened
that such alternative spaces of diversity emerge from the need to bypass the homogenizing
and discriminatory consequences of the national and ethnic spaces. The main concern in these
places proved to be preservation of diversity. Basically, this refers to both the diversity of
individual identities and collective belongings.
The Fieldwork Sites in Sicakkan’s Sub-Project
Place
Austria
Vienna
Denmark
Copenhagen
Estonia
Tallinn
Finland
Helsinki
Hungary
Budapest
Norway
Bergen
–
–
–
–
–
–
Site Name
Site Type
Sponsors
WUK – Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus
Glocal
Vienna City,
Government
NAM – Nørre Allé Medborgerhus
Glocal
Copenhagen City
Intercultural
Estonian
Government,
Phare (EU), Private
CAISA – International Cultural Center
Glocal
Helsinki City
CEU – Central European University and
various glocal sites connected to it
Glocal
BIKS – Bergen internasionalt kultursenter
Glocal
EUNM –
Minorities
Estonian
Union
of
National
8
Austrian
No public sponsors –
Private
Bergen City, Norwegian
Government
Glocal public spaces are distinguished from the transnational public spaces through the fact
that they also include individuals and groups with national orientations. The glocal sites are
found to comprise attendants with globalized, transnationalized, essentialized (e.g., ethnic,
religious, diasporic), and national belongings. In a European comparative perspective, Estonia
and Hungary, represent two important models here. In Estonia, the focus seems to be on
organizations and associations which emphasize “particularistic belongings and identities”.
This is in order to reverse a “glocal” development which was shaped by the previous relations
with the Soviet regime and which was based on a Russia-centered globalization. In other
words, this is a re-nationalization and de-globalization process as a reaction against the Soviet
cultural standardization attempts in the past, which is also reflected in the characteristics of
the Estonian glocal sites (Lagerspetz and Joons 2004). The Estonian fieldwork site may,
however, be seen as a glocal site in the making, on new European premises. On the other
hand, as the city of Budapest proper functions as a glocal site itself, the Hungarian case is a
good example of a society which does not need institutionalization of the glocal sites. At this
point, one should be cautious and bear in mind that the Hungarian data-set mainly comprises
people with high education and with high spatial mobility (Bozóki and Bösze 2004:131)
because the fieldwork sites selected in Budapest were closely related to the milieu in the
Central European University. In this sense, the features of the glocal sites in Budapest are
somewhat different from those in the other five cities we did field work in. Concerning the
glocal sites in Bergen, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Vienna, their organizational structures as
well as the statements by their attendants reveal that there is a real need on the part of the
inhabitants to use these places as alternative sites of socializing, interaction, and political,
social, and even leisure activities, because they eliminate discrimination based on different
sorts of belonging, including also gender. The general finding is, thus, that glocal sites of
interaction, where effective participation and social interactions are not primarily based on
persons’ belongings, are most needed in societies functioning on standardized, homogeneous
premises for belonging. At least, statements by the respondents in Austria, Denmark, Hungary
and Norway point in this direction. On the other hand, as one respondent from Austria pointed
out, glocal sites are also important for both majority citizens and citizens/residents with
minority backgrounds who want to interact in non-prejudiced, non-racist environments.
Comparing primarily the Finnish and Norwegian fieldwork sites, what we call a glocal space
embraces not only people with transnationalized and globalized belongings, but also
individuals and groups with essentialized (e.g. ethnic, religious) belongings as well as people
who derive their belongings primarily from the national or non-governmental spaces of
interaction – such as NGOs, transnational/multicultural/intercultural organizations, etc. What
is significant in almost all cases is that most of those who attend to glocal spaces – both the
majority citizens and others with minority backgrounds – emphasize their need to be in an
alternative environment of diversity. The most important motive of most majority citizens
attending glocal sites is the homogeneous and discriminatory (towards others) lifestyle
dominant in their society at large. As to the native minorities, their primary motive seems to
be to use the glocal sites’ infrastructural facilities (e.g. locales, etc.) in order to conduct their
own organizational activities as well as participation in some other activities such as courses
(cf. Salmenhaara and Saksela 2004:64-65). An interesting observation is that, with the
exception of Finland, they participate in glocal sites less than the other groups do, as in most
countries native minorities have other channels of influence through the national spaces.
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The features of attendants of the public spaces of diversity
The findings about the features of the individuals attending to public spaces of diversity
which are presented here are primarily related to the third sub-project (glocal spaces). The
individuals attending to these spaces are observed to share the following characteristics:
•
•
•
multidimensional belonging patterns
multiple participation patterns
cognitive and actual ability to act as co-others
The respondents who are involved more in the glocal spaces are observed to have a higher
level of multidimensionality in their belonging patterns. They exhibited loyalties and
sympathies, and feelings of attachment, simultaneously to multiple references of identification
more than those respondents who participated less in glocal spaces and more in other types of
spaces (e.g. essentialized, national, and transnational spaces). Although the fieldwork was
conducted in glocal spaces, most of the respondents stated that they also attended to other
types of public spaces. The general pattern here is that those attendants who participated more
in glocal spaces, also participated more in other types of participation channels such as
national, essentialized, and transnational spaces. However, the inverse of this statement was
not found to be true. Furthermore, the respondents who attended to glocal spaces more also
proved to have a higher level of mind mobility between different references of identification
(e.g. times, places, groups, nations, religions, etc), which resulted in that they were more able
to regard themselves “as just another other”, that is, as a “co-other”.
The respondents’ level of “co-otherness” comprises two aspects. The works of Daniel Lerner
(1958) and John Rawls (1971) as well as our earlier research constitute the theory background
of the cognitive aspects of this variable. Lerner’s was a classical modernization theory, which
was tested in six Middle East countries in the 1950s. The major hypothesis was that the macro
indicators of modernization become observable only after individuals gain a certain level of
“psychic mobility”. By psychic mobility, Lerner meant empathy, i.e., “the ability to imagine
oneself in other places and in place of other persons”. In measuring “mobility of minds”,
however, our way of using Lerner’s notion of psychic mobility is not based on modernization
theories’ criticized assumptions. Firstly, we gave a Rawlsian twist to this notion, which
extends it also to encompass persons’ ability to imagine themselves as stripped off categorical
belongings (the veil of ignorance, Rawls 1971). Secondly, to this, we added new dimensions
relevant to individuals’ imagining themselves in abstract times, places, and situations
(Sicakkan 2004a,b). Thirdly, we assessed citizens’ ability to move mentally in and out of their
selves – i.e., their self-ascribed categorical belongings such as ethnic, national, European – in
consciousness of their both immediate and distant surroundings and of their attributed and
essentialized belongings (Sicakkan 2004a,b). In operative terms, the cognitive ability to act
as co-other entails the ability to imagine oneself:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
as belonging to multiple social categories that seem mutually exclusive – hybridity,
as stripped off one’s categorical belongings – the veil of ignorance (Rawls 1971),
in abstract situations, places, and times that seem unreal or surreal (Sicakkan 2004a,b)
in place of some other concrete persons – empathy (e.g., Lerner 1958)
as a third person different from both oneself and concrete others – self-otherness (e.g.,
Sicakkan 2003)
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(6) as shifting between different references of identification – mobility of minds
(Sicakkan 2004, 2005, 2006)
In addition to these cognitive aspects, we measured citizens’ actual ability to act as co-others.
Citizens’ actual exercise of co-otherness manifests itself, in operative terms, as:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
geographical mobility between multiple types of places – i.e., mobility of bodies
participation in multiple types of communicative public spaces
mobility between different types of communicative public spaces
seeking out of contexts of unidimensional, fixed belongings
seeking/having contact with people of other types of belonging
volatility in own belonging/identity preferences
volatility in political preferences
participation in post/trans/inter/supra-national or global political processes/
organizations.
The basic finding here is that individuals possessing these characteristics seem to have a
higher capacity and willingness to live in the contexts of diversity and they are less willing to
living in homogenizing and discriminatory contexts no matter whether they “belong to” the
“majority” population or “minority” groups.
How Did the Diversity Perspective Contribute to Our Analyses of the Society?
Based on our diversity perspective, the Diversity Project resulted in findings which would not
be possible to uncover with the existing difference-perspectives. The IMER-UiB researchers
who worked in this project uncovered certain conditions under which co-existence and
politics in diversity can be made possible, by using the public spaces of diversity as
laboratories. The first set of conditions relates to the norms and institutions of the society (see
the section on “features of public spaces of diversity”). The second set of findings relate to the
features of individuals which can make a life in diversity possible (see the previous section).
The third set of findings relate to the factors which can increase/decrease the mismatches
between different modes belonging and the public spaces’ institutions. The fourth set of
findings relate to the factors leading to the emergence of “co-otherness”, which can enable
individuals to peacefully co-exist with other types of individuals.
The diversity perspective also showed the relevance of the public spaces of diversity as a
legitimate and fruitful research area. These spaces comprise persons from all types of
conventional categories of the social sciences. The general trend is to analyze different groups
separately – e.g. the majority populations, native minorities, and immigrant minorities are
each analyzed separately. Making these categories redundant through the concept of “coother”, the diversity perspective reduces them to being just another characteristic of
individuals. Such spaces of diversity may be seen as prototypes of the diverse societies of the
future, encouraging diversity on the societal level and difference, diversity and multidimensional belongings on the individual and collective levels. Therefore, the incipient
organizations we focused on should be considered as laboratories where one can discover the
features of a future diverse society, as opposed to the idea of multicultural society, which is
largely based on the premise of a co-existence of essentialized or embedded identities.
***
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Central Publications from the Diversity Project
Books
2006 – Sicakkan, Hakan G. & Lithman, Yngve G., eds.: What Happens When the Society is
Diverse. Exploring Multidimensional Identities.
Anthology in print at The Edwin Mellen Press, New York (available in the market by August 2006).
This book aims to bring our thinking about diversity one step further towards making coexistence and
politics in diverse societies possible. Diversification in our societies takes place on at least three levels.
On the societal level, one can speak of a multitude of cultural/social groups. On the group level, the
multitude and intersectionality of individual belongings comes to the fore. On the individual level, the
mobility of individuals’ minds between different references of identification becomes a crucial
element in theorizing the diverse society. What happens in society, politics, and communicative public
spaces when the society is diverse in these terms? Much of the recent intellectual and policy work has
not been able to comply with societies that are increasingly diverse and with groups/individuals whose
relations with political institutions are becoming more complex than ever. By focusing on social
groups and individuals with multidimensional and shifting identities, which are structured along the
intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, ideology, physical disability, generation,
mobility, and migrancy, this volume aims to increase the understanding of the complex social and
political relations in diverse societies.
2005 – Sicakkan, Hakan G. & Lithman Yngve G., eds.: Changing the Basis of Citizenship in the
Modern State. Political Theory and the Politics of Diversity.
New York: The Edwin Mellen Press (available in the market since December 2005; for book reviews,
follow the publisher’s link: http://www.mellenpress.com/mellenpress.cfm?bookid=6390&pc=9 ).
How should political institutions, and not least social scientists, transform their conceptions of
membership in order to include diverse modes of belonging? This is the central question for a
normative theory of diverse society. The essays in this book, authored by scholars from several
European universities, propose answers to this question. The book starts with a substantial overview of
the theoretical and conceptual challenges linked with the topic. The terms identity, identification, and
belonging are discussed at length in the editors’ introductory chapter, as they are crucial components
in the conceptual array of the analyses in the book. The book continues with an excursion into the
modern history of Western Europe, the United States, Canada, and Turkey. This effort exemplifies the
context-specific historical relationships between belongings, memberships, and political institutions.
In the second part, the book presents the mainstream visions of citizenship, and it suggests alternative
normative visions of citizenship in diverse societies. Finally, in the concluding chapter, the editors
delineate the basic principles of theorizing citizenship. In their elucidation, citizenship in diverse
societies becomes the center of focus. To provide a solid interdisciplinary basis for theorizing the links
between belongings and memberships in contexts of diversity, this volume brings together the
conceptual and methodological tools of political theory, social theory, history, political science, and
sociology.
2004 – Sicakkan, Hakan G. (Series editor): Glocalmig Series: Migrants, Minorities, Belongings and
Citizenship
Bergen: BRIC. http://www.svf.uib.no/sfu/imer/publications/hs-glocalmig.htm
The Glocalmig Series comprises eight volumes. The first volume devises and delineates the
theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and analytical standards of the GLOCALMIG-research
activities that took place in six European countries. It presents the methods of data collection,
measurement, analysis as well as the variables, questionnaires, and interview guides to be used during
the country studies and reporting activities that are conducted by six research institutions in six
countries. Volumes 2-7 present findings from the country studies that were conducted according to the
guidelines given in the first publication. They present and analyze the data collected during the
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country studies. Volume 8 is the final comparative study. It is based on the above seven publications,
and it also presents an independent comparative analysis of the raw data collected in six countries.
Refereed Articles
Gressgård, Randi 2005. Hva mener regjeringen med flerkulturelt mangfold? Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift vol.
22, nr. 1, 72-79.
–––– 2005. Muslimer med slør, anorektikere og transseksuelle: Hva har de til felles? Kvinneforskning
nr. 1.
–––– 2004. Angsten for det kvinnelege. Syn & Segn 1.
–––– 2004. Den rettferdige rasismen. Norsk Tidsskrift for Migrasjonsforskning vol. 5, nr. 2
–––– 2003. Questions of Gender in a Multicultural Society. NORA, No.2, Vol 11.
–––– 2003 Ein paradoksal integreringspolitikk. Syn & Segn. Nr. 3.
Lithman, Yngve 2004. Europe, Wars, and Visions of the Future. Social Analysis 2004:2.
–––– 2004 Anthropologists on Home Turf: How Green is the Grass? Anthropologica 2004:2.
–––– 2004. When Researchers Disagree: Epistemology, Multiculturalism, Universities and the State.
Ethnicities 4(2):155-184.
Sicakkan, Hakan G. 2005. How is A Diverse European Society Possible? An Exploration into New
Public Spaces in Six European Countries. AMID Series No. 46. Aalborg: University of Aalborg.
–––– 2005. Guest Editor’s Introduction to the Special Issue “Minorities, Minority Politics, and the
European Union”. Norwegian Journal of Migration Research, 5(2).
–––– 2005. Senses That Make Noise & Noises That Make Sense. Three Techniques for Scaling
Attitudes to Immigration”. Norwegian Journal of Migration Research, 5(1).
–––– 2004. The Modern State, the Citizen and the Perilous Refugee. Journal of Human Rights, Vol.
3(4). pp. 445-463.
–––– 2003. Politics, Wisdom and Diversity. Or Why I don’t Want to be Tolerated” Norwegian Journal
of Migration Research, 3(1).
Book Chapters
Gressgård, Randi and Christine Jacobsen 2005. Beyond ’Man’
In Defence of Multidimensional Identities. In Sicakkan, Hakan G. and Yngve Lithman (eds.) What
Happens When the Society is Diverse? Exploring Multidimensional Identities. New York: E. Mellen
Press.
Lithman, Yngve 2006. Mcjihad: Globalization, Radical Transnationalism, and Terrorism of The
Diaspora. In Sicakkan Hakan G. and Yngve Lithman (eds.) What Happens When the Society is
Diverse? Exploring Multidimensional Identities. New York: E. Mellen Press.
–––– 2005. The Cultural Constructions of Nationalisms. Nation, Person, Time and Territory in First
Nation – White Relationships in Canada. In Sicakkan, Hakan G. & Lithman Yngve G., eds. Changing
the Basis of Citizenship in the Modern State. Political Theory and the Politics of Diversity. New York:
The Edwin Mellen Press.
–––– 2003 Epistemology and Multiculturalism. Austrian Sociological Association. Proceedings from
the 2003 congress "Integrating Europe". Vienna: ÖSV.
–––– 2003 Globalization and Terrorism in and of the Diaspora. Sydney & Canberra: Australian
National University Europe Study Centre Technical Papers No 71, 2003; (In the series: The
Challenges of Immigration and Integration in the European Union and Australia)
13
–––– 2003 Radical Transnationalism and Terrorism of the Diaspora. In Cesari, J., ed., European
Muslims and the Secular State in a Comparative Perspective. Paris: G.S.R.L. (CNRS & Ecole des
Haut. Etudes).
Lithman Yngve and Hakan G. Sicakkan 2006. Diversity and Multidimensional Identities. In Sicakkan,
Hakan G. and Yngve Lithman (eds.) What Happens When the Society is Diverse? Exploring
Multidimensional Identities. New York: E. Mellen Press.
Sicakkan Hakan G. 2006. Glocal Spaces as Prototypes of a Future Diverse Society: An Exploratory
Study in Six European Countries. In Sicakkan, Hakan G. and Yngve Lithman (eds.) What Happens
When the Society is Diverse? Exploring Multidimentional Identities. New York: E. Mellen Press.
–––– 2005. State Formation, Nation Building and Citizenship in Western Europe. In Sicakkan, Hakan
G. & Lithman Yngve G., eds. Changing the Basis of Citizenship in the Modern State. Political Theory
and the Politics of Diversity. New York: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Sicakkan, Hakan G. and Yngve Lithman 2005. Politics of Identity, Modes of Belonging and
Citizenship. An Overview of the Conceptual and Theoretical Challenges. In Sicakkan, Hakan G. &
Lithman Yngve G., eds. Changing the Basis of Citizenship in the Modern State. Political Theory and
the Politics of Diversity. New York: The Edwin Mellen Press.
–––– 2005. Theorizing Identity Politics, Belonging Modes and Citizenship. In Sicakkan, Hakan G. &
Lithman Yngve G., eds. Changing the Basis of Citizenship in the Modern State. Political Theory and
the Politics of Diversity. New York: The Edwin Mellen Press.
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