The introduction of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia, 1960s–1970s

This article compares the emergence of a policy of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia between the 1960s and 1970s. It charts the rise of the policy in the two countries through the adoption of a philosophy of multiculturalism as the basis of their national identities. There is a distinction between philosophy and policy: a multicultural policy emerged out of a philosophy of multiculturalism. Furthermore, a philosophy of multiculturalism replaced the ‘new nationalism’ as the foundation of the national identities of both English‐speaking Canada and Australia. The abandonment of the White Canada and White Australia policies and the adoption of non‐discriminatory immigration policies in both countries were also of importance in the emergence of a policy of multiculturalism. There are many similarities in the Canadian and Australian experiences. However, the major differences are explained by the presence of the French‐Canadians in Canada and the early non‐British migration that Canada received in the late‐nineteenth century compared with Australia.     

Multicultural iteration: Swedish National Day as multiculturalism‐in‐practice

This paper examines the creation of ‘national day’ in Sweden in order to understand how such a holiday works to shape the Swedish nation's relationship with diversity. Analyzing parliamentary debates and press coverage, the author finds that official national day coverage tends to invest the nation with progressive and multicultural meanings, foregrounding immigrant voices. However, this multiculturalism is polysemic, vague and subject to contestation, both from far right ‘traditionalists’ seeking to ‘protect’ Swedishness from outside influences and cosmopolitans who see the nation as outdated and dangerous. The creation of a new national holiday can be seen as a ‘democratic iteration’ wherein democracy is restated and reinvested with meanings, and new lines of cleavage are drawn, and also as a ‘multicultural iteration’ where multiculturalism is invested with new meaning. Finally, the author argues that multiculturalism benefits from polysemy in that the concept can then adapt to changing circumstances, and, thus, survive.     

Common Starting Points,Different Directions

In the late 19th century, political debates emerged in Sweden and Norway as well as in Finland concerning Travelling families – in this article defined as indigenous itinerant families whom the settled population pejoratively designated with terms such as ‘tatere’ (Norway), ‘tattare’ (Sweden) or ‘zigenare’ (Finland). In this article, these debates are compared, and the transfer of ideas and proposals between the three countries is analysed. It is argued that, on a local level, similar politics of ‘territorial exclusion’ were enacted in all three countries. This was, however, challenged by ‘liberal social politics’, a strategy aiming not at exclusion but at forced assimilation by means such as, for example, removing children from their parents. This strategy was proposed in all three countries, and socio-political agents were well aware of the debates in the neighbouring countries. But it was only in Norway that the most far-reaching proposals were realized. This is explained mainly by pointing at the way in which leading agents chose to act when trying to implement their proposals. The article also problematizes some conclusions drawn in earlier research, where the emergence of debates on Travelling families has been explained by pointing at the rise of ethnic nationalism. Instead, the article argues, the emergence of the so-called ‘social question’ in Western Europe in the 19th century should be considered as an at least equally important background factor.     

Swedish wage policy and Australia three years after Australia reconstructed

During the 1980s, and with increasing speed, there have been major changes in the determination of wages in Sweden; changes which involve the substantial breakdown of the ‘Swedish model’ of social and economic policy which had developed since the 1930s. These changes are of much interest in themselves but have a special relevance to Australia because of admiration for the Swedish system within the Australian labour movement, exemplified by the major report Australia Reconstructed, published in 1987. Some of the complexities and difficulties involved in the Swedish system were not fully dealt with in this report, while others have become clear since its publication. Australians, as well as others, need to appreciate what has occurred. Centralised wage negotiation, essential to the Swedish model, has in fact survived better in Australia than in Sweden; though in Australia too it is potentially vulnerable to tendencies towards decentralisation. Those interested in the concept of ‘corporatism’ should also note these developments, Sweden having been thought of as a highly ‘corporatist’ polity.     

'Homo Sacer' out of left field: communist "slime" as bare life in 1930s and Second World War Sweden

This article maps ways in which radical left‐wing politics in 1930s and Second World War Sweden were conceived in medico‐biological and eugenic terms that expressed strong dehumanizing sentiments. The article engages Agamben's and Foucault's thinking on ‘biopolitics’ and ‘biopower’, and extensively exemplifies dehumanizing discourse as deployed by leading Social Democratic politicians, leading figures of government within the police and military, as well as by editors of both right‐wing and Social Democratic press. Ways in which individuals labelled ‘Communists’ were spatially managed in terms of extensive surveillance, registration, detainment planning and forms of incarceration are addressed. I further discuss state measures that may be seen as elements of a state of exception, some measures implemented against ‘Communists’, and others against individuals deemed to have undesirable characteristics seen to be hereditary. In employing Agamben's notion of ‘inoperosity’ in a discussion of a state paradigm of social productivity, eugenic measures in the building of the Swedish welfare state are then related to the dehumanizing framing of ‘Communists’. In conclusion, conditions for regaining a place in the body politic are briefly addressed. The article's focus on ways in which the ethnic and racial same was dehumanized within a democracy on political grounds results from a conscious effort to complement studies of dehumanization as related to colonialism, dictatorial regimes as well as identity politics.     

Marie Monsen: Charismatic Revivalist - Feminist Fighter

After leaving the diplomatic post vacant for over a year, Richard Nixon in 1970 surprisingly appointed African-American Jerome H. Holland as the new US ambassador to Sweden. When Jerome Holland arrived at the Stockholm airport, antiwar protesters allegedly shouted ‘nigger go home’ at him. A week later, as Dr. Holland submitted his credentials to the Swedish king, demonstrators may have again shouted the racist epithet ‘nigger’. These incidents were widely reported in the US media and now appear in history books. This article examines what happened in April 1970, and concludes that the evidence showing that antiwar demonstrators said any of these things is weak. It may be that someone simply misunderstood what had been said. Another possibility is that the Nixon White House wanted to smear the Swedish antiwar movement with the stain of racism, trying to undercut the legitimacy of Sweden's criticism of the Vietnam War. This article examines the evidence behind a historical puzzle that still allows various interpretations of meanings and motives.     

SWEDEN AND THE LONG ‘1968’: BREAK OR CONTINUITY?

The first part gives a chronological overview of the Swedish ‘1968’, in this article defined as a phenomenon with its roots in the late 1950s and it's end around 1980. Three phases are identified: a ‘liberal’ until 1965, a ‘red’ in the late 1960s and the ‘diversified’ 1970s. Underlying this time schedule are two characteristics of the Swedish ‘1968’ in its extended form: the role of the social movements and the interaction between old and new movements; and the unique role of the intellectuals. The second part discusses the (late and limited) research so far on this topic in Sweden. The academic works are still few and the critical debate little developed. One of the topics discussed is to what extent ‘1968’ was something fundamentally new and to what extent it was influenced by older social movements.     

Canada's history wars: indigenous genocide and public memory in the United States,Australia and Canada

In this article, I explore the slow development of a national debate in Canada about genocide in the Indian residential schools, which I compare to earlier ‘history wars’ in Australia and the United States. In the first section I begin with a brief introduction to the history of the IRS system and some of its legacies, as well as attempts at redress. These include financial compensation through the 2006 IRS Settlement Agreement, an official apology and the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which has been a nodal point for articulating claims of genocide. I follow this in the second section with an analysis of the history wars in the United States and Australia over indigenous genocide, before engaging in the third section with debates about genocide in Canada. Overt debates about genocide have been relatively slow in developing, in part because of the creation of a TRC, mandated with collecting the ‘truth’ about the IRS system while similarly engaging in ‘reconciliation’ (a contested term) with settler Canadians. While Canada's history wars may seem slow in getting off the ground, the TRC's more ‘balanced’ approach and wide-ranging engagement with non-Aboriginal societal actors may have a greater effect in stimulating national awareness than in the United States and Australia.     

Translation on Trial: The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) in Sweden

Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France, this article is a study in the translation of politics and the politics of translation. Specifically, it shows how the Swedish translator, physician and publisher Lorents Münter Philipson (1765–1851) reached for it in 1792 to add to domestic arguments against hereditary office, the purpose of which, the article argues, was to revive and legitimise a more indigenous but by now slumbering rights revolution. The article first outlines the reception of America in Sweden and the ways in which Sweden figured in American debates. It then provides a detailed analysis of the trial that ensued as a response to the Swedish translation of the Virginia Declaration. Having reconstructed the process of transmission and the trial, during which the translator was charged with attacking Sweden's monarchical constitution by means of ‘wrongly’ translating the term ‘magistrate’, the article places the translation of the declaration in political context. The contextual analysis shows that translating the declaration at this particular point in time makes most sense against the background of the events unfolding in revolutionary France, which the translator hoped would influence political developments in Sweden and which the authorities sought to suppress.     

Danish and Swedish immigrants’ cultural policies between 1960 and 2006: toleration and the celebration of difference

In the late 1960s, as non-Nordic immigrants became an important component of their immigration flows, despite their similar policy backgrounds Sweden opted for multiculturalism, while Denmark did not. Their policies diverged even further from the so-called migration crisis of the 1990s. This article compares and analyses Sweden and Denmark’s respective policies between 1960 and 2006, arguing that their policies effectively diverged in the late 1960s; Danish assimilation is constituted of the toleration or acceptance, albeit disapproving, of immigrants’ cultures. Swedish multiculturalism, by way of contrast, celebrates difference, holding that immigrants’ cultures are necessary for their well-being and that ethnocultural diversity enriches the national culture. However, both policies deemed some aspects of immigrants’ cultures unacceptable, in that they were looked upon as illiberal or repugnant. This study also contends that, alongside citizenship and national identity studies, Ministries of Culture’s policies are a relevant field of enquiry into states’ policies on immigrants’ cultures.     

The Ties that Unwind: Civic and Ethnic Imaginings in New Zealand

Abstract. This paper argues that examining the interweaving of ethnic and civic elements best explains current tensions in ethnic politics in New Zealand in elite state and nation‐building and how these shape patterns of inclusion or exclusion of aboriginal and immigrant minorities. Theories of ethnic and civic nationalism are discussed briefly and the distinctiveness of settler societies is explored. Recent trends promoting biculturalism and multiculturalism are examined. A discussion of legal citizenship since 1840 reveals the linkages and persistence of three historical trajectories – the decolonising of aboriginal people (Maori), the de‐colonial movement among Pakeha (‘white Europeans’), and the partial de‐alienising of immigration. These trajectories, I conclude, reflect in‐built tensions between different historical and current ethnic and civic representations of the New Zealand nation‐state.     

Theorising the anti-nation: George Woodcock,anarchism, and Canadian nationalism

George Woodcock was anarchism's most influential historian and an important public intellectual in Canada. This article focuses on his engagement with Canadian nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that a ‘philosophical anarchism’ was at the heart of his intellectual project, and this informed his reading of Canadian cultural development and subsequent political challenge to Pierre Elliott Trudeau's civic nationalism. Woodcock decoupled the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ in order to develop a radically different model for Canada—the ‘anti-nation’—defined by regionalism, federalism and direct democracy. His reading of Canada's cultural history supporting this position was therefore part of a strategy to repurpose nationalist rhetoric towards anti-state ends.     

Ethnic politics: The twin spectres of conflict and confrontation

The views of authors (Smolicz 1981; Knopfelmacher 1982) who believe that the conditions may well be rife in Australia for the emergence of dangerously alienated ethnic minorities, unless preventative measures are taken, are examined and found to be unsubstantiated. Other authors (Kringas 1984; Lewins 1984), who are hopeful rather than fearful concerning the emergence of conflict and tension, are also examined and their reasons for advocating a new style of confronta‐tionist politics are severely criticized. The issue of whether or not ethnic groups pose a threat to the established pattern of pressure‐group politics is addressed. Finally, some reflections are offered concerning the meaning of ‘politicization’ and the circumstances under which the politicization of ethnic groups would be warranted.     

Selling the Empire?: Marketing and the Demise of the British World,c.1920–1960

ABSTRACT

This article uses a study of the politics of marketing and advertising to consider the role that British World collaboration played in consumer politics in the UK and the Dominions between the 1920s and 1950s. We will assess how politicians and businesspeople in the Dominions responded to the Empire Marketing Board’s efforts to encourage the habit of ‘Buying British’ in the inter-war years, as well as exploring the activities of the leading American marketing agency, J. Walter Thompson. The article concludes with a discussion of how the politics of patriotic trade was recast in the 1950s. While this was a cause which had taken on different forms in Australia, Canada and South Africa during the 1930s, in each country its advocates shared a wider concern with imperial development. And yet, changes in the advertising and marketing industries, and the growth of market research, cut across efforts to promote the consumer habit of buying imperially. By the early 1960s patriotic trade campaigns in the ‘old’ Dominions were nationally focused and shorn of their earlier ‘Britannic’ identity.     

‘The Birthplace of Australian Multiculturalism?’ Retrospective Commemoration,Participatory Memoralisation and Official Heritage

In Australia, the authorised heritage discourse contributes to shaping the stereotypically Australian. It actively engages in creating a contemporary national story which glosses over the more shameful or distasteful episodes and themes in Australian colonial and post‐colonial history which is presented as being by‐and‐large progressive and benign. While the process of forging national history has become more complex and increasingly fraught, given globalisation and the emergence of new histories, nation and nationalism remain culturally persistent. The turn to multiculturalism from the 1970s as the principal way of defining Australianness and the nation lead some conservatives in politics and the heritage industry to appropriate the new social history, using it to present diversity as an indicator of a fair and open society. In this process, both history—an evolving academic discipline—and the past—lived experience which has meanings and uses in the present—were transformed into heritage.     

The Turnbull government’s ‘Post-multiculturalism’ multicultural policy

ABSTRACT

The Turnbull government presented Australia’s fifth national multicultural policy statement in March 2017. This article analyses the policy statement and argues that it represents the most significant change to Australian multicultural policy in four decades. Among other things, it abandons the language of government responsiveness to cultural diversity that previously defined Australian multiculturalism. The 2017 policy amounts to a new form of post-multiculturalism—different from earlier conservative, neoliberal and centre-left versions—in that it seeks to ‘mainstream’ multicultural policy on the grounds that Australian multiculturalism has succeeded in its intended task. While a mainstreaming strategy of this sort is, I argue, theoretically consistent with Australia’s liberal nationalist approach to cultural diversity, the institutional and attitudinal conditions that it presupposes are yet to be fully realised in Australia. More multicultural work needs to be done before this kind of post-multiculturalist approach is practicable.     

RENEWING URBAN RENEWAL IN LANDSKRONA,SWEDEN: PURSUING DISPLACEMENT THROUGH HOUSING POLICIES

The city of Landskrona in the South of Sweden has never fully recovered from a phase of heavy deindustrialization during the 1970s and 1980s. After years of socially inspired plans and projects, the local authorities have now decided to shift gear and tackle problems of criminality, unemployment and social exclusion through a renovation and eviction plan of the inner city. The basic thought behind the plan is to radically alter the social fabric of the inner city through major alterations of the housing market. The Crossroads Centre/East plan proposes that the municipal authorities, together with five real estate companies, form a new company to renovate houses, convert rental apartments to condominiums, demolish and rebuild. One hundred million Swedish kronor are invested in the company – 95 million will come from municipal funds. The proposal in the City Council, led by the Liberal Party, was supported by 49 out of 51 Councillors, including the Social Democrats and the extreme right‐wing Sweden Democrats. The aim is not hidden: welfare recipients should be actively steered away from the city centre and make place for a (imaginary) wealthy middle class. The overall objective of the company is ‘to improve both the physical and socio‐economic status in Landskrona's central and eastern parts’. To understand this urban renewal proposal, we would like to present Landskrona as an example of a watershed in Swedish housing politics that forces us to consider: (1) the nature of gentrification processes in Scandinavia – from gentle to brutal; (2) the shift in viewing affordable housing as a problem, rather than a solution; and (3) the possible introduction of “renoviction” in Sweden.     

Assertions and aspirations: agency among accompanied asylum-seeking children in Sweden

Research on asylum-seeking children tends to disregard those in parental care. In particular, little is known about children’s own perspectives. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Sweden, this article explores the ways in which accompanied children experience and seek to overcome challenges posed by asylum reception. The focus is on children’s ambition and ability to form their everyday life, given their ambiguous position of tentative emplacement. Theoretical inspiration is sought in Ortner’s ‘agency of personal projects’ and de Certeau’s concept of ‘tactics’, analysed through the prism of liminality. The study found that while some tactics aimed at avoiding situations and settings that made children uncomfortable, others involved influencing their situation through pursuing ‘personal projects’. Many children’s strivings were directed at creating ‘a normal life’ and a place for themselves in Swedish society. The findings challenge the idea that accompanied children are more protected from difficulties and responsibilities than those seeking asylum alone.     

John Howard and the ‘Anglospherist’ reshaping of Australia

The conceptual category of the Anglosphere never found explicit currency in John Howard's narrative when he was prime minister. While in office, he ostentatiously avoided ‘putting Australia into a particular sphere – Anglo or otherwise’. This article suggests instead that his endeavour to reshape Australia drew on an Anglospherist perspective. The reshaping of Australia he undertook when he won office rested on two pillars of Anglospherism: the rejection of multiculturalism and the alignment to countries with ‘shared values’ in Australia's external relations. The article traces how these two Anglospherist precepts found actual implementation in Howard's re-framing of ‘Australian multiculturalism’ and re-conceptualisation of ‘Australia's engagement with Asia’.

约翰·霍华德担任总理期间,英语圈的说法在他的叙述里并不通行。在他的官方官样文章里,他明确地避免把澳大利亚放进特定的圈子——英语圈也好,别的圈也好。霍华德在职的时候重塑澳大利亚的努力,其实是基于英语圈的视角。他赢得竞选时要重塑澳大利亚的事业,有两个英语圈的支柱：拒绝多元文化;对外关系中优先“持共同价值观”的国家。本文研究了霍华德如何将这两个英语圈思路落实到对“澳大利亚多元文化”的重新塑造、对“澳大利亚与亚洲关系”的重新思考中的。     

Bonding,bridging and ethnic minorities in the Netherlands: changing discourses in a changing nation

ABSTRACT. The discourse on the integration of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands has undergone profound changes over the past few decades. This article analyses how discourses in politics and academia have revolved around changing emphases upon the social capital processes of ‘bonding’ of individuals within groups and ‘bridging’ of individuals to the wider society. Four episodes of discourse and policy may be distinguished: denial of being a country of immigration until the 1970s; the Minorities Policy in the 1980s; the Integration Policy of the 1990s; and the rise of a more assimilationist discourse after the turn of the millennium. The country thus began in the post‐war period with a pluralist perspective toward integration rooted in the traditional religious and ideological ‘pillarisation’ of society, shifting first to a multicultural perspective, then to an integrationist and, finally, in the new millennium, to an assimilationist perspective.