Nira Yuval-Davis

• University of East London

The article discusses relationships between racism and antisemitism. It focuses on three major contestations that have taken place during the post-Second World War era(s) regarding the ways racism, antisemitism and the relationships between them should be analysed. The first examines the different academic disciplinary approaches from which racism...

This article explores the relationships between political projects of belonging and approaches to environmental and climate ecological crises via comparing centre-right and centre-left newspapers in the UK, Israel and Hungary. Our theoretical framework draws on Nira Yuval-Davis's work on the politics of belonging as a way of understanding and frami...

A series of reflections on Covid-19 that looks at: how the pandemic affects processes of bordering and increases the indeterminate grey zones within which so many people are forced to live; the way nurses are presented in the media and the hypocrisy of praising them in a moment of crisis while simultaneously devaluing their work and underpaying the...

In this report, we do not present British social sciences as unified and non-conflictual; nor do we see social sciences in the UK as isolated from professional or political developments in other countries and regions. In addition, the report is multi-disciplinary; it covers research from the fields of psychosocial studies, sociology, social policy,...

This paper examines discourses of ‘sham marriage’ as a technology of everyday bordering in the UK. We argue that everyday bordering needs to be seen as a growing hegemonic political project of belonging experienced in complex ways as differently situated individuals negotiate proliferating internal and external borders. We explore how the process o...

The article argues that everyday bordering has become a major technology of control of both social diversity and discourses on diversity, in a way that threatens the convivial co-existence of pluralist societies, especially in metropolitan cities, as well as reconstructs everyday citizenship. The article begins with an outline of a theoretical and...

In 1989 women of many faiths and none formed a collective in London to work at the interface of feminism and anti-racism, in struggles against both religious fundamentalism and the excesses of neo-liberalism. They told Deniz Kandiyoti the story of Women against Fundamentalism.

In this paper, we argue that traditional borderlands have undergone a rapid transformation in recent decades, as a result of multiscalar de- and rebordering processes. We draw on recent insights from critical border studies to re-examine one of its historical sites of research, Dover in South East England. In doing so, we seek to elucidate what hap...

In the introduction to this special issue, we briefly introduce everyday bordering as the theoretical framing for the papers and explore its relationship to the process of racialization. We introduce our situated intersectional approach to the study of everyday bordering, illustrating the importance of capturing the differentially situated gazes of...

This article analyses the political and media discourses on Roma in Hungary, Finland and the UK, in relation to the local Roma in these countries as well as those who migrated from Central and Eastern Europe countries following the fall of communism. The authors have analysed left of centre and right of centre major newspapers in these three countr...

The term “situated knowledge” was introduced in 1988 by Donna Haraway as an alternative to positivist notions of objectivity and relativism, although it has roots reaching far back in modern western philosophy. It implies that acknowledgment of the situatedness of specific social locations and life practices allows actors to make truth claims that...

Nation and diversity are often casted in oppositional terms. The present joint-intervention explores the limits and possibilities of what we call 'inclusive nation', i.e. a nation which embraces rather than expunging diversity. To reflect on this idea, the Loughborough University Nationalism Network (LUNN) organized a symposium, bringing together b...

In this response which is generally sympathetic and agrees with many of Aili Tripp’s points, I raise a couple of issues which divert or are somewhat different from hers. For example, unlike the way in which Tripp’s essay emphasizes geographical/cultural differences as a comparative framework, I propose that it is the political aim of the particular...

I have found all three responses to my article fascinating and thought-provoking. Of course, these three chapters are much more than mere responses — each in their own way, to a lesser or greater degree, has taken my paper as a point of departure to reflect upon the related ideas of the politics of belonging, intersectionality and transversal polit...

Politics involve exercise of power and different hegemonic political projects of belonging represent different symbolic power orders.1 In recent years, the sociological understanding of power has been enriched by the theoretical contributions of Michel Foucault (1979; 1991a) and Pierre Bourdieu (1984; 1990). Traditionally, power was understood and...

In many ways socialist feminism could be seen as intersectional from its very beginning, in the sense that it always sought to link together different identities and different spheres. In this roundtable discussion, four women discuss what this current within feminism has meant to them, in the belief that it still has much to offer, not least the l...

In this article I introduce and discuss some of the ways situated intersectional analysis can help to describe - and even explain - different kinds of social, economic, political and personal inequalities. Situated intersectionality is a theoretical framework that can encompass different kinds of inequalities, simultaneously (ontologically), but en...

This book maps the development of Women Against Fundamentalism over the past 25 years, through the life stories and political reflections of some of its members, focusing on the ways in which lived contradictions have been reflected in their politics.

Traditional sociological stratification theories privileged class and equated societal boundaries with national boundaries. The challenge for contemporary Sociology is to establish a theoretical framework which would go beyond the limitations of the traditional paradigm. Such a framework would recognize specific spatial and temporal as well as othe...

Narratives of Women Against Fundamentalism activists – some methodological and political ponderings This presentation is based on the autobiographical narratives of women members of Women Against Fundamentalism (WAF) which were recorded by me and then transformed into autobiographical chapters in an edited volume on WAF (2014, Lawrence and Wishart)...

The article examines the ways migrants, especially forced migrants, challenge the naturalised equation between people, territory, and political community. This challenge encompasses the multi-layered nature of their identities, citizenships and belonging. As such, they can present threats to autochthonic constructions of collectivity memberships as...

Neoliberal globalisation and insecurity are combining to make it difficult for national governments to act effectively and accountably, and thus are creating a crisis of confidence in conventional politics. This is what is driving both 'autochthonic political projects of belonging' - defensive formations seeking to protect their local territory - a...

The paper examines the tension between claims for indegeneity and autochthony for both claiming rights fro racialised minorities and defending rights in a racialsed way by hegemonic majorities. It examines the ways these two political project of belonging interpenetrate each other as well as affect and are affected by changes in governability of st...

In this groundbreaking book, Nira Yuval-Davis provides a cutting-edge investigation of the challenging debates around belonging and the politics of belonging. Alongside the hegemonic forms of citizenship and nationalism which have tended to dominate our recent political and social history, the author examines alternative contemporary political proj...

My aim in this chapter is to outline an analytical framework for the study of belonging and the politics of belonging. It is important to differentiate between the two. Belonging is about emotional attachment, about feeling ‘at home’ and, as Michael Ignatieff (2001) points out, about feeling ‘safe’. In the aftermath of 7/7, the 2005 bombings in Lon...

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Yuval-Davis discusses three interconnected questions relating to identity. She first examines whether and in what ways the notion of identity should be theorized, on the one hand, and empirically researched, on the other, focusing on the opposing views of Stuart Hall and Robin Williams. She then examines the contested question of what is identity,...

Die „Politik der Anerkennung“ als Alternative und/oder Ergänzung zur sozialistischen „Politik der Umverteilung“ – um Nancy Frasers (2000) Begriffe zu verwenden – ist in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren immer wichtiger geworden. Grund dafür waren eine Vielzahl historischer, sozialer und politischer Entwicklungen – etwa der Niedergang der älteren soziali...

This article is based on a keynote speech from the conference Gender at the Interface of the Global and the Local—Perspectives from China and the Nordic Countries (The Third Sino-Nordic Women and Gender Studies Conference), which was held in Kunming, China in November 2008. The article starts with a summing up of important issues on the theme of ge...

This article explores various analytical issues involved in conceptualizing the interrelationships of gender, class, race and ethnicity and other social divisions. It compares the debate on these issues that took place in Britain in the 1980s and around the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism. It examines issues such as the relative helpfulness...

The aim of this chapter is to explore processes of identity constructions and transformations in the participatory theatre space and the links between these and social action. After a short description of the research project, the chapter sums up our main approach to the notions of identity and identity construction via a critical examination of pr...

The paper is based on the ESRC research project: \'Identity, Performance and Social Action: Community Theatre Among Refugees\' which is part of the research programme on \'Identities and Social Action.\' After describing the project, the paper examines the methodological specificities and different stages of Playback and Forum Theatre. The latter i...

Citizenship, Territoriality and the Gendered Construction of DifferenceStates, Nations and TerritorialityWomen as Embodiments and Border Guards of ‘the Nation’Urban Space and the Construction of DifferenceMulticulturalism and its DangersThe Domains of the Private and the PublicConclusion

The paper examines the effects of intersecting social divisions on constructions of multi-layered citizenships and the politics of belonging in contemporary Britain. It starts with conceptual clarifications of the notions of citizenship, belonging and intersectionality and then turns to examine contemporary politics of belonging in contemporary Bri...

This article explores various analytical issues involved in conceptualizing the interrelationships of gender, class, race and ethnicity and other social divisions. It compares the debate on these issues that took place in Britain in the 1980s and around the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism. It examines issues such as the relative helpfulness...

Yuval-Davis outlines an analytical framework for the study of belonging and the politics of belonging. Her article is divided into three interconnected parts. The first explores the notion of ‘belonging' and the different analytical levels on which it needs to be studied: social locations; identifications and emotional attachments; and ethical and...

This collection of essays examines the racialized and gendered effects of contemporary politics of belonging, issues which lie at the heart of contemporary political and social lives. It encompasses critical questions of identity and citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, emotional attachments, violent conflicts and local/global relationships. The r...

This article focuses on contemporary gendered politics of migration and belonging in Britain. The article starts with an examination of migration and the construction of boundaries in Europe and, more specifically, the gendered implications of recent immigration policies (labour, family, asylum) and the gendered nature of the notion of "secure bord...

Abstract This article focuses on contemporary,gendered,politics of migration,and belonging,in Britain. The article starts with an examination,of migration and the construction of boundaries in Europe and, more specifically, the gendered implications of recent immigration policies (labour, family, asylum) and the gendered,nature of the notion,of ‘‘s...

The title of the recent White Paper prepared by the immigration team of David Blunkett, the current Home Secretary of the British Labor government, is “Secure Border, Safe Haven” (January 2002). In the introduction to the White Paper, Blunkett explains the logic of the title. He sees “a clear, workable” and especially “robust nationality and asylum...

This chapter investigates the ways in which nationalist discourse is gendered and how this shapes and is affected by sexual divisions of labor in the military. It also argues that only rarely are differential power relations between men and women in the military erased. It reviews the gender dimensions of state intervention and militarism in a char...

Nationalist ideologies and practices have sought to appropriate and reconstruct notions of belonging. Various historians and theoreticians of nationalism have shown how nationalist discourses have come to replace other forms of belonging, whether local, religious or associated with specific lines of loyalties to specific political hierarchies. Unde...

The aim of the article is to further assess and develop feminist standpoint theory by introducing the notion of the `situated imagination' as constituting an important part of this theory as well as that of `situated knowledge'. The article argues that the faculty of the imagination constructs as well as transforms, challenges and supersedes both e...

The article explores various ways collectivity boundaries and territorial borders, as well as the act of crossing them, are experienced and imagined, particularly by women. In doing so, the article draws on autobiographical material collected by email from women in about 25 different countries.

Gender and Catastrophe, Ronit Lentin (ed.), London: Zed Books, 1997, £39.95 (£14.95 paperback), vi+282 pp. (ISBN 1-85649-446-2) - - Volume 34 Issue 3 - NIRA YUVAL-DAVIS

The paper discusses some of the issues emanating out of reading the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report and thesurrounding media reports. In particular, the paper looks at the ways the notion of 'cutural diversity' has been incorporated to the Report's recommendations on racism awareness training. This is linked with the fundamental problem of the incl...

The paper argues that citizenship needs to be understood as a multi-layered construct, in which one's citizenship in collectivities in the different layers - local, ethnic, national, state, cross- or trans-state and supra-state - is affected and often at least partly constructed by the relationships and positionings of each layer in specific histor...

Nira Yuval-Davis provides a brief introduction to the concept of transversal politics. Like many other feminist activists, I have been in search of a name for what so many of us are doing. 1 I found it when I was invited by Italian feminists from Bologna to a meeting they organised between Palestinian and Israeli (both Jewish and Palestinian) women...

Fundamentalism is probably the most important—and dangerous— social movement of our times.1 One of the most difficult political tasks we are facing today is how to fight and resist fundamentalist movements without allowing such a resistance to become a cover for racist attacks on the demonized “Other.”

Until recently theories of racism in Britain have largely been constructed within a black/white and anti-colonial paradigm. However, over the last few years this has changed considerably. Today, new paradigms have emerged which have widened the discussion of racism to include, among others, Jews and Arabs. In France, on the other hand, the black/wh...

The article discusses some of the major issues which need to be examined in a gendered reading of citizenship. However, its basic claim is that a comparative study of citizenship should consider the issue of women's citizenship not only by contrast to that of men, but also in relation to women's affiliation to dominant or subordinate groups, their...

Foreword - John H Stanfield II Introduction - Daiva Stasiulis and Nira Yuval-Davis Beyond Dichotomies - Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class in Settler Societies Post-Colonial Politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand - Wendy Larner and Paul Spoonley Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Australia - Jan Jindy Pettman The Fractious Politics of a Settler Society - Daiva...

This article examines the ways women affect and are affected by national and ethnic processes in relation to women's role as biological reproducers of the nation. In particular, the article examines three hegemonic discourses in relation to national reproduction — the “people as power” discourse, the eugenist discourse, and the Malthusian discourse...

En la presente publicación, la autora analiza el impacto de las relaciones de género en la construcción de nación, nacionalismo, cultura, ciudadanía, fuerzas armadas, entre otros, en donde enfatiza el rol de las mujeres, planteando que son las mujeres y no la burocracia o los intelectuales quienes llevan a cabo la reproducción nacional –biológica,...

Palestine, Israel and the zionist settler project In every settler society project, the country is perceived by the settlers, at least to some extent, as a 'new world – available not only for immigration, but also for establishing a ‘new and better society’ (often called by Christian religious refugees in particular the ‘New Jerusalem’). In the spe...

Women and nationalism In her paper, Nira Yuval-Davis intends to outline some of the main dimensions in which gender relations are crucial in understanding and analyzing the phenomena of nations and of nationalism, and to point out their relevance to central issues in contemporary Europe. She shows how women play important roles in biological and p...

This article critically examines the ideology of empowerment and its links to debates about solidarity and difference among women, especially those from oppressed and minority collectivities. The notions of community, identity, culture and ethnicity are examined together with issues of women's citizenship and coalition politics. The article argues...

This article propose a typology of the ideologies underwriting nationalist projects and seeks to show that ethnic divisions, based on "race" and nation, do not constitute mutually exclusive categories. It distinguishes between nationalisms predicated on biological origin, culture, and religion. It follows with a discussion of nationalism based on t...

This wide-ranging and accessible book examines race in relation to social divisions such as ethnicity, gender and class. It provides a major new approach to studying the boundaries of race, and will be of interest to students of sociology, ethnic studies and gender studies. © 1992 Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis. All rights reserved.

This article focuses on the particular ways the ideology of 'the community' and 'equal opportunities' policies have been used and have affected the anti-racist struggles in Britain in general and in South East London in particular. It explores the issues of representation and access to power, individual and collective, in the 'community' of the 'ra...