Managing Super-Diversity on Television: The Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Flemish Non-Fiction Programmes

This study examines and evaluates the representation of ethnocultural diversity in non-fiction TV programmes broadcasted by the Flemish (Belgian Dutch-speaking) public service broadcaster VRT in the 2016–2017 TV season. A qualitative content analysis of a sample comprising 36 clips and episodes of 14 non-fiction programmes was supplemented by four focus group interviews with a total of 12 participants belonging to different ethnocultural minorities. The findings suggest that despite several measures undertaken by the VRT, the representation of ethnocultural minorities is still unbalanced and biased in at least three ways: first, in presenting minorities as homogeneous groups rather than highlighting intragroup differences; second, in ‘typecasting’ people with a migration background thematically, i.e., for items on topics and issues related to their ethnocultural identity; and, third, in portraying and approaching minorities from a dominant group perspective. The article ends with the recommendation for public service media to further improve ethnocultural diversity in the workforce and to encourage their journalists and TV producers to reconsider their ‘professional pragmatics’ in order to increase their ethnocultural sensitivity and better manage the representation of super-diversity in their programmes.

Poverty Alleviation and Peace Building in Multiethnic Societies: The Need for Multiculturalist Governance in the Philipines

This paper is about the twin challenges of poverty alleviation and peace building in multiethnic countries. It argues that alleviating poverty and achieving peace require the transformation of their politics and governance in multiethnic societies to become multiculturalist. This means making their governance responsive to the challenges and requirements of cultural diversity. Moreover, focusing on the Philippine situation, the paper stresses the urgency of evolving a cultural diversity-friendly political formula for the government to achieve the twin goals of peace and development, particularly in relation to its ethnocultural minorities like the Bangsa Moro of Southern Philippines. Part II of this paper discusses the inextricable link between peace and development, while Part III elucidates some of the political, socio-economic, cultural and security determinants of ethnic conflict. Part IV presents some features of governance warranted by the ethnocultural diversity of multiethnic societies, while Part V analyzes the Philippine situation using the multiculturalist governance framework. Part VI provides some concluding statements.

Impact of Parents' Motivation for Ethnocultural Continuity and Acculturation Strategies on Acculturation of Children in Russian Families in Latvia

The paper presents outcomes of an empirical research on the relationship between motivation for ethno¬cultural continuity and acculturation strategies in ethnocultural minorities (with Russians in Latvia as an example). Since acculturation is a process that affects several generations, we adopted a research plan that involved representatives of two generations of a family (parents and children). 112 Russian families partici¬pated in the research (parents: N=112, age 35—59, Me=42; children: N=112, age 16—24, Me=17). A question-naire we used included J. Berry's acculturation strategies, scales of satisfaction with life and oneself, and the Motivation for Ethnocultural Continuity scale by C. Ward. The employed structural modeling revealed that acculturation strategies of the children correlate significantly with those of their parents as well as with their own motivation for ethnicultural continuity. The adolescents' choice of integration strategy is positively relat¬ed to their satisfaction with themselves; however, in the cases of marginalization and assimilation this relation is negative.

Categorizing Groups, Categorizing States: Theorizing Minority Rights in a World of Deep Diversity

Since 1989 we have witnessed a proliferation of efforts to develop international norms of the rights of ethnocultural minorities, such as the UN's 1992 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, the Council of Europe's 1995 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and the Organization of American States' 1997 draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This activity at the level of international law is reflected in a comparable explosion of interest in minority rights among normative political theorists.In this context, Michael Walzer's work occupies an important but somewhat anomalous role. On the one hand, he was arguably the first political theorist, at least in the postwar era, to take seriously the issue of minority rights. Nonetheless, Walzer's work has had surprisingly little enduring impact on multiculturalism debates in either academic political theory or international law.One explanation for this puzzle is that Walzer's substantive discussion of minority rights seems to sit uneasily with his more foundational theory of justice, laid out in Spheres of Justice. I want to suggest a distinct (but complementary) explanation for why Walzer's work has not permeated the debate, focusing less on metaethical worries about his account of common meanings, and more on the practicalities of how he categorizes ethnic diversity. Walzer's state-differentiated but minority-undifferentiated approach simply does not connect to the governing premises of the larger academic and public debate, which treat minorities as differentiated and states as undifferentiated. I believe it is Walzer's idiosyncratic approach to categorization—more than his controversial theory of justice-as-common-meanings—which explains his relatively marginal role in the multiculturalism debate.