Civic inclusion for permanent minorities: thinking through the politics of “ghetto” and “separatism” laws

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, prominent theorists of citizenship envisaged cosmopolitan openings, the re-making of national identity, and progressive multicultural change. The paper explores perspectives on civic inclusion in Kymlicka's Multicultural Odysseys, Soysal's Limits of Citizenship, and Benhabib's Another Cosmopolitanism. It explores this work in light of two recent political episodes, the formulation of an “anti-separatism” law in France and “anti-ghetto” policies in Denmark. The paper contrast tendencies that theorists of inclusive citizenship envisage with the denial of associational rights in France and the assertion of racial logics in Denmark. It illustrates blinds spots in prominent accounts of civic inclusion, in particular the reliance on a prescriptive account of minority and post-migrant agency, a disembodied logic of human rights, and limited regard for status differentials on the inside of citizenship.