Comparative Perspectives on Racism

Jessika ter Wal, Maykel Verkuyten

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351766852
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Soziologie

This title was first published in 2000: The book gives a discussion and many empirical examples of the possibilities for comparative research on racism. In the book the questions and problems are discussed and the relative costs and benefits of comparative research are pointed out. The question on what should be considered and solved when doing comparative research is central and the different chapters give specific answers. Moreover, the comparative issue is also raised with respect to the monitoring of racism in different countries and to initiatives for combating racism.

1 Introduction: Racism in a Comparative Perspective

MAYKEL VERKUYTEN & JESSIKA TER WAL

Racism is a pervasive phenomenon that seems to be gathering force in many parts of the world. The problem of racism is not confined to a particular group, culture or nation. Indeed, in most countries racism is a recurrent and significant social fact. Therefore, comparative understanding and documentation of the multiple manifestations and causes of racism is generally considered of great importance. However, whereas issues of racism and identity are met with increasing political interest and concern, academic research seems to be equipped with disparate conceptual and analytical frameworks. Racism is a problem for which almost everyone has a theory, but no one a clear solution. That there are so many theories can be attributed to a variety of reasons, including the multi-faceted nature of racism itself, as well as differences in disciplinary background, scientific paradigm, political agenda, and the specific social, historical and cultural context. Linked to these are differences in conceptualisation. Racism, prejudice, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ethnicism, stereotyping, differentialism, and Islamophobia, the list exemplifies our point. To be sure, these adjacent or partly overlapping concepts do not refer to the same phenomena. They identify and emphasise particular aspects, processes and articulations as crucial to the study of racism and, accordingly, construct different analytical frameworks.

Here, we will not go into the various meanings attributed to the term racism and the alternatives, nor the relationships between these. This does not mean that we think that conceptual clarity is unimportant. In the wake of postmodernism, there is some sympathy for a definitional looseness and a rejection of prior definitions. It is argued that racist phenomena are contradictory and constantly undergoing transformation, and that therefore a fixing of meanings within tight definitions should be avoided (e.g., Rattansi and Westwood, 1994). However, for the very same reasons a clear understanding of specific contents is imperative. An undefined or inflated concept of racism (or prejudice or xenophobia, etc.) stands in the way of insight and invites muddled thinking. Moreover, it leads to misunderstandings and misinterpretations among scholars.

However, in this introduction we will use the term racism as a general and sensitising concept that refers to the negative portrayal and/or treatment of those defined as ‘racial’ or ethnic out-groups. We will leave it to the contributors to this book to define and explain the concepts they use. Our focus is on the question of comparative research.

Comparative Research

The phrase ‘comparative research’ seems to have become the new key for opening doors when raising funds. This is related to the attempts by governments as well as non-governmental and migrant organisations to develop various strategies for combating racism, and such strategies are also initiated at a supra-national level, such as the United Nations and the European Union. Anyone who has ever tried to get money from similar organisations, and increasingly also from national funding agencies, knows that one has more chances when there are four or five countries involved. Aside from obvious political reasons, this preference also seems to rest on more substantial claims; to the effect that comparative research will considerably extend and improve our understanding.

The term ‘comparative’ has importance not only for fund raising strategies, but also has value and meaning in the social sciences. The phrase ‘I am doing comparative research’ certainly sounds good and gives the impression that one is looking for broad trends instead of trivial local variations. No wonder, therefore, that many authors are claiming to do comparative research. However, a close look shows that a wide range of activities is labelled ‘comparative’. Some of these offer only a selection of studies on various societies, providing no more than the raw material for comparison, while others try to present a more systematic analysis. Indeed, collections of single-country studies about cultural and discursive manifestations of racism do not generally elaborate in detail upon factors and indices for comparison (e.g., Ratcliffe, 1994). Moreover, many publications gather contributions only from the larger Western European countries (e.g., Hargreaves and Leaman, 1995; Miles and Thränhardt, 1995). The greater influence of some national research communities on theorising in an international perspective has evident conceptual limitations.

Systematic comparative analysis appears to be most prolific in social psychological approaches. Such approaches measure features and factors to determine the nature and causes of ethnic prejudice in cross-national settings. This volume offers two analyses of this of less studied geographical areas: former Soviet states, and Central and Eastern Europe. In Chapter 8 Hagendoorn and Linssen compare the effects of group goal attributions on the perception of in- and out-group relations in five former Soviet states. While in Chapter 9 Poppe examines the correlation between changes in trait attributions to various ethnic groups, coupling this with shifts in the perception of economic conditions over time.

Comparative studies are to be found in two other areas. One of which produces predominantly policy-oriented studies that chart forms of institutional discrimination (e.g., Bovenkerk, Gras and Ramsoedh, 1995), or evaluate the implementation of anti-discrimination and anti-racist policies (e.g., Wrench, 1996, 1998). The other grew out of political science and concentrates on theorising multiculturalism, migrant integration and citizenship regimes in different societies (e.g., Favell, 1998; Martiniello, 1997; Soysal, 1994). In this volume, contributions by Jacobs, and Koopmans and Statham are closely linked to this tradition. They bring new material to the discussion by focussing on often neglected aspects of political negotiation and mobilisation around ethnic difference and belonging within different national and legislative settings. Although there are exceptions (Castles and Miller, 1993), this direction has evolved quite independently from the literature on racism. The reasons for this may be various, including the greater difficulty of studying racism comparatively, as well as the politically sensitive status of the concept of racism. In Britain, for example, the critique on the ‘race relations’ paradigm has moved social and political scientists towards alternative conceptualisations (Miles, 1993).

Scope and Aim of Comparative Research

Comparative research is no doubt important and can be very productive, if only because it confronts people with their tacit assumptions, ethnocentric biases and limitations in knowledge. However, if you think about it more closely then there is something quite familiar in the claim to be doing comparative research. After all is not all research comparative? Indeed, is research that does not compare feasible? Is systematic comparison not the hallmark of the social sciences or even science in general? Of course, to pose these rhetorical questions is to answer them. Epistemologically all understanding is comparative. So why make such a big deal out of ‘comparative research’. It seems that it is not so much the element of comparison itself, but rather the unit or the scope of the analysis, and the intended aim of the comparison that is important. Both points are not, however, uncontroversial.

Scope

The scope of the comparison is mostly defined in terms of ‘imagined communities’ such as cultural groups and nations. That is, within the comparative literature there is a tendency to take cultural or national group membership as the unit of analysis. It is interesting to note that an analysis of racism is hardly ever labelled as comparative research when it studies different urban areas in a single city or different majority group members within a region. Typically, cross-cultural and cross-national research is considered comparative. The implicit assumption is that cultural and national differences have a profound, or at least specific, effect on the phenomena one is interested in. Differences of nation and culture seem to be considered of a different kind than, for example, differences in gender, age, social class or area of residence within a culture or country. So comparative research seems to be focused on particular factors, and the basic task of such research consists of identifying circumstances, variables or processes which describe what it is about these groups, cultures or nations that affect the racist phenomena one is interested in. Many studies fail to do this and simply ‘compare’ nations or groups assuming that there are relevant differences that are used unrestrained in post-hoc explanations.

Moreover, it has been argued that it is no longer possible to take ‘societies’ as a discrete entity and as a basis for comparison, because they progressively vanish as a result of, for example, global communication (Gabriel, 1998). This then leads to a perspective on general trends and processes, a tracing of similarity rather than difference. More specifically, many scholars have pointed to the risk of reasoning about racism on the basis of observations from within national or cultural units, precisely because these are ‘imagined communities’. The risk of reifying notions of ‘race’ by taking these as the starting points of research has been pointed out repeatedly (Miles, 1989). Moreover, some argue that research which privileges nation or culture as a unit of analysis reproduces essentialist assumptions which the study of racism should, on the contrary, try to challenge (e.g., Lloyd, 1995), for example, by focusing on hybridity (e.g., Caglar, 1997).

As a result, alternative approaches have focused on other entities for comparison. They have for example indicated the means and functions of the intersection of different identity markers of ‘race’, class, gender, nation, and age in boundary drawing processes (e.g., Anthias and Yuval-Davis, 1992; Lutz, Phoenix and Yuval-Davis, 1995). Another type of research focuses on the observation of the locally specific and differentiated with the aim of showing the impact of ‘racism’ in concrete processes of community formation and its relations to the state (Solomos, 1987; Solomos and Back, 1996). Postmodernist scholars have shown interest in the construction of ‘whiteness’ and the processes which render (formerly defined) issues of (in)visibility apparent (Bonnett, 1997; Fine et al., 1997). These studies have provided many valuable insights but most of them have not compared nations or cultural groups.

Aims: Tracing Similarity and Difference

In general, the aim of comparative research is to make a distinction between what is specific and what is general. In other words, its purpose is to identify and account for significant similarities and differences. Every comparative analysis will accept in principle the socioculturally and historically bounded nature of human action. This offers the challenge to do systematic comparisons in order to arrive ultimately at more general processes that transcend particular cultures, groups or societies. For example, in Chapter 8 Hagendoorn and Linssen investigate the general functions of trait and goal attribution for a number of ethnic groups in differing social and political conditions. In Chapter 2 Hirschfeld examines cross-cultural differences as well as developmental differences between children and adults in showing the nature and origins of the psychological representation of notions of ‘race’. In Chapter 3 Wimmer argues, from another perspective, that nationalism is a general condition for the emergence of racism in modern societies and refers to numerous examples from a number of countries and regions to sustain this view.

On the other hand, critics regard the aim of identifying general processes as unrealistic and eschew explicit comparisons. They see cultural forms not as external variables influencing social action and processes but as integral and defining parts of these processes. For them culture is not an exogenous factor influencing existing racism but a force that plays a fundamental, constitutive role in the formation and expression of racism itself. Therefore, it would only be possible to determine the content and meaning of racism from within a particular conceptual scheme. Consequently, the possibility for comparative research is then very limited or even absent. In the final analysis, there would be no common measure or cross-framework that could serve as a bridge between different conceptual schemes. However, the acknowledgement and appreciation of differences in racism requires a background of similarity. In order to understand racist phenomena a common point of reference or implicit unit of comparison is necessary.

Assumptions and Objectives

From what we have just said, it follows that there are two comparative research strategies possible. One which starts from the similarities and general principles underlying the multi-faceted expressions of racist phenomena. While the other focuses instead on identifying and accounting for differences in the manifestation of racism(s).

General Principles: Brothers under the Same Skin/One Racism

The first strategy, mentioned above, is based on the assumption that there are general or cross-national characteristics and causes of racism; the ‘brothers under the same skin’ thesis. Comparative research attuned to this aim is concerned with the basic, or fundamental, processes of social life. It tends to reject implicitly the post-modern conceptions of relativism and contextualisation, promising generalities instead of idiosyncrasies. It implies goals such as testing the generality of existing knowledge and theories, or exploring and explaining variations across societies as to how more general processes are developed and deployed.

(Social) psychology favours a conceptualisation in terms of underlying cognitive and motivational processes, leading to the interpretation that there is one racism or one prejudice. Indeed, traditionally, (social) psychological theories have stressed the (psychic) unity of human beings. It is assumed that racism or prejudice has a singular nature. Racism may differ considerably in appearance and the way it is expressed but the underlying psychological processes are considered to be the same. At least since Allport (1954) the dominant thinking in (social) psychology has been that racism or prejudice is one thing. Various empirical phenomena are seen as different manifestations or variations of the same racism or prejudice. The differences are considered relatively unimportant in comparison to the essence, which is the generalised negative attitude and its underlying psychological similarities.

Allport’s and Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson and Sanford’s (1950) studies were conducted against the background of ‘grand theory’ and influenced by a political agenda opposed to prejudice in the post-war world. The aim was to identify general principles, which would allow for unequivocal answers to breach prejudice and racism to be found. This approach, which sees all racism as forms of the same thing, has been criticised for its homogenising effects. This, so the critics argue, removed the specific meanings of racism. The emphasis on cognitive, psychodynamic, and group processes was and still is found to lead to a neglect of detail and content of prejudice. Such research is more concerned with the testing of general theories than with the particularities of groups, cultures or nations. For example, Quillian (1995) uses data from 12 European nations to test the well-known idea that realistic conflict and group threat leads to an increase in prejudice. He is not interested in the circumstances particular to these countries but uses indices such as the percentage of ethnic minority residents and economic prosperity to rank the countries in terms of perceived threat. Or there is Pettigrew and Meertens (1995), who used Eurobarometer survey data from different countries to show that there is an empirical difference between blatant and subtle racism.

Differences: Birds of Different Feather/Racisms

The second research strategy emphasises differences and adopts a ‘birds of a different feather’ approach. That is, it is obvious that between countries there are many differences that are significant for the study of racism. Comparative research can thus be used to document the specific and unique features of racism in different national or cultural settings, and the specific historical, cultural, political and economic circumstances that give rise to racist phenomena. In the literature there are many claims and arguments about the need to acknowledge important differences between, what are sometimes called, forms of racism indicated by the addition of adjectives such as symbolic, aversive, cultural, modem, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Racism in a Comparative Perspective
• 2 Making Racial Culture: Children and the Mental Life of a Social Concept
• 3 Racism in Nationalised States: A Framework for Comparative Research
• 4 Conceptualising Racism and Islamophobia
• 5 Ideologies, Racism, Discourse: Debates on Immigration and Ethnic Issues
• 6 Giving Foreigners the Vote: Ethnocentrism in Dutch and Belgian Political Debates
• 7 Political Claims-Making against Racism and Discrimination in Britain and Germany
• 8 Group Goal Attributions and Stereotypes in Five Former Soviet States
• 9 Changes in National and Ethnic Stereotypes in Central and Eastern Europe
• 10 Jewish Identity, Discrimination and Anti-Semitism in Three Countries
• 11 A Typology of Racist Violence: Implications for Comparative Research and Intervention
• 12 Monitoring Ethnic Relations in Western and Eastern Europe
• Author Index
• Subject Index