Identity and the Challenges of Diversity

1. Identity and the Challenges of Diversity ippr presentation to NMDC 23rd May 2007

2. 1. Introduction Key Questions • What are the prospects for social justice, democracy and citizenship in a society characterised, as ours increasingly is, by high levels of diversity and individualism? • Background provided by ongoing arguments around multi-culturalism and citizenship. • A growing number of progressive thinkers, policy makers and politicians (not least GB!) are now arguing that we need to build shared identities, at national and local level, that can embrace the different cultures and faiths within our society and sustain the public realm. • But this contested from left and right • We look at this through the lens of identity: • What is happening to identities in the UK? • What are the problems and opportunities in these developments? • Does a democracy like our need a shared identity – a shared culture? • How might culture and heritage play a role?

3. 1. Introduction Methodology • 6 months desk top research into identity theory in sociology, social psychology, political philosophy and political science. • A comprehensive analysis of survey data showing what has happened to identities in the UK over time. • 12 focus groups with residents in four towns in the UK, of different ethnic backgrounds and of different lengths of residence in the UK, to test whether and in what way identity matters to them. • In-depth interviews with local government officers in eight different local authorities in London, the Midlands and the North West, to gauge how they are approaching community cohesion on the ground and whether and in what way identity plays a role.

4. 1. Introduction Outputs • Three events • Identity, Culture and the Challenges of Diversity with Tessa Jowell MP June 2006 • ESRC seminar exploring the latest empirical trends in identity June 2006 • Expert roundtable to explore preliminary findings November 2006 • Two working papers to be published February 2007. • Who Are We? Identities in Britain 2006 Lucy Stone. • The New Identity Politics Rick Muir • Final report to be published July 2007.

5. 1. Introduction Today • Chance to tell you about our findings and arguments • And, explore further their implications for your institutions

6. Progressive Britishness Support for national public goods e.g., the welfare state Support for redistribution Maintaining the Union Support for the EU Improving Britain’s image abroad Local place-based identities Political The ‘respect’ agenda participation and active Community-level citizenship civic activism Community cohesion support for local public goods Support for diversity Tackling discrimination 2. ContextOverlapping identity agendas: how identities might contribute to different public policy goals

7. 2. Context Evidence of challenges to citizenship and community cohesion in the UK. • Growing class profile to social capital and citizenship in the UK • The disturbances in the North West in 2001 and in Birmingham in 2005. • Communities still living ‘parallel lives’ • ‘race and immigration’ now highest concern issue (MORI). • Support for BNP and illiberal forms of Islam has grown • Levels of racial harassment and racist violence remain stubbornly high (Home Office 2003/04).

8. 4. Why identity? • There are a number of different ways of seeking to promote citizenship and greater community in the UK. • There 3 main ways the state can help foster greater community cohesion • Legislation: baseline legal equality • Social policy: distributive justice in outcomes and procedural fairness in process • Cultural change: changes in people’s attitudes towards one another, affected by the beliefs and practices through which they understand themselves and organise their lives. • So what can a shared identity contribute? In particular what can a shared identity do that other things can’t?

9. 4. Why identity? • Three main approaches to achieving cultural change • Contact and exchange • Shared values • Shared identity

10. 4. Why identity? Contact and Exchange • This approach seeks to combat prejudice and promote positive inter-group relations by fostering meaningful contact between citizens of different backgrounds. • ‘contact theory’ finds that under certain facilitating conditions contact can be a powerful force for reducing prejudice. • Importance of longer term structural changes that could encourage greater interaction, such as schools policy to encourage children to mix and urban planning to encourage mixed developments and greater access to well designed public spaces. • But also ‘easier’ interaction-based initiatives supported by local authorities around the country. Very many of these projects use ‘neutral’ activities, especially cultural pursuits (music, drama, visual art) and sport, to bring people together from very different backgrounds • Cultural exchange – an extension of contact?

11. 4. Why identity? Shared values • Agreement around a set of shared values or a common public philosophy, essentially the values on which our common citizenship is based. • This has been taken up actively by the Labour government, which has introduced citizenship classes in schools and citizenship tests and ceremonies for new migrants. • Brown has proposed some sort of written statement of British civic values • Despite this, and though shared values have their limits, do we do enough to support them – especially cosmopolitan values?

12. 4. Why identity? Shared identity • Identity has a distinctive contribution to make to community cohesion because of its capacity to foster affective attachments between potentially quite large numbers of people. • A criticism of the interaction-based initiatives that tend to dominate much local government work on community cohesion is that they have a limited effect beyond their direct participants. Identity by contrast has the potential a wider cultural impact. • A criticism of the shared values approach is that values are simply too thin and abstract to foster the allegiance of citizens. Appreciating that one shares values with others is a rather intellectual exercise. In addition to shared values (which are clearly important) citizens also need a shared sense of belonging to the community in which they live and possess a shared desire to continue living together.

13. 4. Why identity? Identity matters to people, perhaps more so than in the past • Growth in leisure time and consumption opportunities and shift to post-material values • Signs of a hankering for shared identity and shared cultural experiences: world cup fever, popularity of public art aimed at large audiences – Exodus, etc • Ippr focus group work found that insecurity over culture and identity plays a role in fostering anti-immigration sentiment • anti-immigration views were not only generated by material concerns, but also came from a fear of cultural change. • white participants saw identity as an issue of distributive justice, just like housing and other material goods. They were resentful about public support for minority identities. • but insecure about their identity, and confused about how it should be represented.

14. 5. Identity and public policy 7 characteristics of identity formation • People’s identities are always open to change and the ways in which they are represented and understood shifts over time. • People have to want to identify with something – identities cannot be imposed. • We all have multiple identities and different aspects of our identity become more or less significant in different scenarios. • Identities are formed in part through the interaction of power and resistance. • Symbols and narratives play an especially important role in shaping identity. • There are multiple sources of identity, including the family, the body, everyday habit, popular culture, the state and organisational life. • Identity is always brought about through comparisons of similarity and difference.

15. 5. Identity and public policy Liberalism and Multi-Culturalism • Two principles, ‘neutrality’ and ‘recognition’ often in tension. • Neutrality dictates government should remain neutral when it comes to culture • Recognition dictates that cultures should have official recognition and support • But ‘liberal multi-culturalism’ not a contradiction in terms, where • Illiberal practices forbidden • Recognition given in even-handed way • Debate and reflection required within groups • Contact and cultural exchange encouraged between them

16. 5. Identity and public policy Liberalism and National Identity • Liberalism and Nationalism are often in tension • Liberalism dictates that the state should remain neutral, • the ‘principle of nationality’ demands recognition of a common national culture. • But ‘liberal nationalism’ not a contradiction in terms • National values = some version of liberal democratic values • Content of national identity established democratically • National narratives liberal and inclusive • Efforts made to ensure that minorities are supported in integrating and learning national language(s), national history and ways of life, and every one has access to shared heritage – institutions, countryside, public spaces • minority cultures supported as part of ‘national way of life’.

17. 5. Identity and Public Policy National Identity where, are we now? • National Identity in slight decline • Identification with national institutions low, with values, and non-official icons taking their place • ‘Civic’ national identity on the rise • Strong class profile to how we identify • Concern about ‘what we stand for’ widespread • Laissez fair approach giving way to more active one, but not always successful (think Dome) • More talk than action

18. 5. Identity and Public Policy National Identity – ways forward • National service? • National rites of passage? • More defined distinction between citizens and denizens? • Greater recognition of our democratic heritage? • Rehabilitation of the flag – but which? • More civic, civic calendar? • More history teaching in schools • Statement of British values or rights • Promotion of shared enjoyment of nature and public spaces • Culture and sport – access and participation • But developing a shared identity should be a bottom-up democratic process.

19. 5. Identity and public policy Local Identity • Very under theorised or studied. • Yet obvious potential • Strong civic identities in the 19th century due to economic strength of cities, a business class with strong local loyalties, new public buildings and spaces linked to locale and powerful local government leadership. • Decades of economic and political centralisation have, with other factors, undermined the ability of local authorities to fashion a strong civic identity. • And yet local identities retain a surprising resilience.

20. 5. Identity and public policy Local identity - ways forward • New powers for local government • Use of local authorities’ public voice to articulate an inclusive local identity. • Projects/interventions and longer term changes to promote contact and interaction will be a basis for an inclusive civic identity. • Local sport and cultural activities can help foster contact based around shared interests. • Support for local heritage, such as through local museums and work in schools on local history. • Planning function is key: promoting good urban design and preserving places and buildings people value in common.

21. 6. Museums and identity Key contributions • Economic integration • Contact and cultural exchange • Shared values • Honouring and supporting minority identities • Shared civic identities: national, local, super-national

22. 6. Museums and identity Challenges • Museums often remote from places where cultural conflict is most intense • Museums struggling like all organisations to keep up with the do it yourself age. The internet revolution has transformed the media, the music industry, graphics – and politics. But has it transformed museums and empowered their users? • Culture is ever more central in meeting the challenge of ‘how we live together’, but there is a fine art to balancing the claims of contact, recognition and civic identities, not to mention the other things museums are meant to do.