From the Publisher
"Governing through Diversity is an important and timely book. It makes a vital contribution to debates around multiculturalism and integration and to fields as varied as education, philanthropy and language policy. 'Diversity' has become a ubiquitous concept across several policy fields, but is rarely rigorously conceptualised. This volume, which includes contributions from some of the most important scholars now working in this field, brings fresh clarity to this murky terrain. Its contribution is in carefully unpacking the normative assumptions hidden in mundane descriptions of diversity, and showing that diversity is not a thing out there to be governed, but, rather, a specific modality through which social differences are understood and then managed. The book's theoretical sophistication is grounded in rich and varied empirical case studies from sites ranging from Ireland to Israel. Crucially, Governing through Diversity presents alternative approaches to thinking with difference to help scholars and policy-makers out of the impasses created by current framings of diversity." - Ben Gidley, University of Oxford, UK
"While the diversity turn has been widely accepted by academics, policymakers and practitioners, the analytical field of diversity has remained somewhat under-theorised. This edited volume gathers varied strands of critical diversity research to inform upon the disparate elements, which make up diversity as a dispositif. The editors and their contributors make significant progress in developing analytical capacity for researching and understanding post-multiculturalism and the diversity turn in today's migration societies." - Jenny Phillimore, University of Birmingham, UK
"Whilst retaining the use of the term 'diversity', this book denaturalises and problematises the ways it is conceptualised, invoked and practised in a range of social settings and societies, as well as paying attention to inequality and intersectionality. This contributes in an important way to understanding diversity as a set of tools, and brings to the fore its ideational and political uses, involving discourses and practices that construct and manage heterogeneity and difference today at both national and global levels." - Floya Anthias, University of East London, UK
"'Diversity' is the new orthodoxy in political and policy discourse. In this new edited collection, Matejskova and Antonsich bring together a range of leading scholars to offer a critical perspective on prevailing norms of 'governing diversity'. The concept of 'diversity' is interrogated as a slippery and unstable concept constituted through practices and institutions of governance. Through a range of case studies from the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Israel, this collection offers a nuanced critique which repoliticises diversity and emphasises intersectionality and inequality." - Claire Dwyer, University College London, UK
