Metropolis Presents
Shared Citizenship: Immutable Core or Dynamic Nucleus?
October 14, 2003
9:00-12:00
National Library
395, Wellington Street, Ottawa

Sponsors: Canadian Studies Program, Canadian Heritage
Integration Branch, Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Multiculturalism Program, Canadian Heritage

Description:

Widespread immigration leads to demographic change and, in most cases, increasing diversity. With these changes comes the need for governments and citizens to most effectively integrate large and diverse newcomer populations. Discussions on demographic and concomitant social change have been highly emotional and have illustrated many opposing views. Some governments have sought to maximize the benefits of immigration for "host" societies alone, while others have sought optimal outcomes for newcomers and "host" societies. And although most governments would like to manage migration flows, a number have looked at closing the doors to immigration altogether.

Two major approaches have tended to frame the debate. The first approach revolves around the belief that a strong immutable core - often defined as national identity - is essential for the successful integration of newcomers. Indeed, this approach maintains that integration is only possible when newcomers and those in the "host" society understand and adhere to the component parts of the core. Those that cannot meet this requirement will not be granted citizenship status or accorded the requisite opportunities for societal participation. The other approach revolves around the belief that the core can, and indeed must, evolve by including citizens and newcomers in ongoing discussion on the construction of the national identity. This, proponents suggest, ensures support for shared responsibilities, values and goals.

In the first approach, an exclusive national identity, or immutable core, is strongly articulated through shared values, a shared language, shared ethnicity and culture, or, in the most extreme form, racial or religious homogeneity. Newcomers must accept and conform to this core and its articulations to be granted citizenship (e.g. demonstrate language skills or knowledge of the "host" society's history and political structure). Proponents of this approach fear that a country with a weak sense of national identity is prone to fractures and fault-lines, as evidenced, for example, in neighbourhood concentrations or "ghettos." They may also believe that immigration-fuelled diversity challenges a stable national identity and may threaten the core values of the "host" society.

In the latter approach, the composition of a national identity is viewed as an on-going process that engages newcomers and fosters a sense of shared citizenship, which is based on mutual responsibility and shared values, and acts as the dynamic nucleus that holds a diverse citizenry together. Proponents of this approach maintain that the social compact is renewed and reinforced when national identity is allowed to evolve through discussions between newcomers and "host" societies that allow them to redefine and re-articulate the values and responsibilities that comprise their shared citizenship.

On this panel opinion leaders from academe and the media will explore the tension between the two approaches, drawing on the Australian, Canadian, Danish, European Union, German, Quebec and Turkish experiences. In particular, they will explore whether an inclusive or an exclusive national identity has contributed to the integration of newcomers in each of the case-study societies. In this context integration will refer to the full participation of all citizens in the social, cultural, political and economic facets of society.

Chair: Howard Duncan, Metropolis Project

Introductory Remarks:
Alfred MacLeod, Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Presenters:
Ghassan Hage, University of Sydney (AUSTRALIA)
Feyzi Baban, Trent University (CANADA)
Danielle Juteau, Université de Montréal (CANADA)
Bashy Quraishy, Journalist (DENMARK) - Presentation

Biographies

Feyzi Baban has recently completed an article on "Community, Citizenship and Identity in post-1980 Turkey" which will appear in a volume on Citizenship and National Identity. He is currently working on a manuscript discussing the implications of Jurgen Habermas' philosophy on democracy and national identity.

Ghassan Hage was born in 1957 in Beirut (Baabda), Lebanon. He has worked at the University of Technology Sydney and at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean. He has been a Postdoctoral scholar (1991) and a visiting professor (1995) at Pierre Bourdieu's Centre de Sociologie Européenne. He has been a guest lecturer at several international universities in the US, Canada,UK, Japan, Taiwan, Lebanon and France. Recent publications include Arab-Australians Today: Citizenship and Belonging (2001), The Future of Multiculturalism (1999) and White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (1998).

Danielle Juteau is Professor of sociology at the Université de Montréal. She is co-founder of the Center for Ethnic Studies at that university and held the chair in Ethnic Relations (1991-2003). She has recently been awarded a research fellowship from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. She has written on the dynamics of ethnic boundaries, ethnicities and nationalisms, citizenship and changing forms of pluralisms, and sex-gender relations. Current research focuses on the on-going transformation of pluralism in Quebec and the differential theorisation of ethnic relations in six ³national² sociologies. Recent publications include L¹ethnicité et ses frontières (1999) and The Social Construction of Diversity: Recasting the Master Narrative of Industrialized Nations (2003).

Bashy Quraishy, a Danish journalist born in India and raised in Pakistan, is a founding member of the Commission of Ethnic Equality set up by the Danish Parliament. He is the President of the European Network Against Racism - Brussels (ENAR), has his own television show, and is the author of six books on ethnic minorities in the EU. His most recent book is entitled, Danish Identity - Seen Through Brown Eyes. His research focuses on Denmark, Scandinavia and Pan-European issues.