Nira Yuval-Davis
Nira Yuval-Davis is the Director of the Research Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB: http://www.uel.ac.uk/cmrb/
Conference abstract
“Fundamentalism, racism and contemporary intersectional political projects of belonging”
In this presentation I am going to discuss the roles religious fundamentalisms and autochthonic racisms play in contemporary political projects of belonging. Cultural stereotypes, myths of origins and constructions of ‘the truth’ play major roles in the discourses dominating contesting political projects of belonging and constructions of ‘proper’ gender relations and sexuality are central to these. I shall analyze the rise of religious fundamentalisms and autochthonic racisms in different parts of the world and in different religions and cultures, as part of the double crisis of governability and governmentality which followed the end of the (first?) cold war and the rise of global neo-liberalism. I shall relate these to the ‘global war on terrorism’ and the rise of ‘everyday bordering’ as a growing technology of managing diversity and discourses on diversity which is undermining convivial multicultural social relations and emphasize the importance of differential situated intersectional gazes when analyzing these phenomena