Arguing that ethnicity and multiculturalism are essential for understanding globalization, Jan Nederveen Pieterse offers one of the first sustained treatments of the reach bof these key forces, beyond a limited national context. He shows that multiethnicity, preceded the nation-state by millennia; but argues that states, feeling the threat to their national identities, seek to control or suppress it. Contemporary multiculturalism, another attempt to regulate multiethnicity, is a work in progress in which dramas of global inequality are played out. This groundbreaking book adopts a kaleidoscopic and comparative-historical perspective that intertwines strands of social science and western and non-western research as a strategy to overcome the disciplinary and regional fragmentation of most discussions. Moving beyond worn notions of ethnicity and multiculturalism, Nederveen Pieterse proposes ethnicities and global multiculture as alternative, wide-angle perspectives on cultural diversity. Global multiculture, he convincingly demonstrates, offers a fresh account of layered cultural dynamics amid accelerated globalization.
Special Features:
--Adopts an interdisciplinary approach, including history, political economy, sociology, anthropology, and political science
--Offers a transnational approach to ethnicity and multiculturalism
--Considers not only ethnic conflict but also interethnic cooperation and social capital
--Intertwines western and non-western research
--Devotes a chapter to Islam and discusses Islam and multiculturalism conflicts
--Provides a unique account of cultural dynamics amid accelerated globalization
About the Author
Jan Nederveen Pieterse is professor of sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
