About the Book
An in-depth analysis that demonstrates how and why there has been a resurgence of nativist logic.It was once thought that liberalism and globalization would consign nativist logics to the fringes of societies and eventually to history. But if it ever left, nativism has well and truly returned, spreading across nations, across the political spectrum, and from the fringes back into the mainstream. In The Return of the
Native, Jan Willem Duyvendak, Josip Kesic, and Timothy Stacey explore how nativist logics have infiltrated liberal settings and discourses, primarily in the Netherlands as well as other countries with strong liberal traditions
like the US and France. They deconstruct and explain the underlying logic of nativist narratives and show how these narratives are emerging in the discourses of secularism (a religious nativism that problematizes Islam and Muslims), racism (a racial nativism that problematizes black anti-racism), populism (a populist nativism that problematizes elites), and left-wing politics (a left nativism that sees religious, racial, and populist nativists themselves as a threat to national culture). By
moving systematically through these key iterations of nativism, the authors show how liberal ideas themselves are becoming tools for claiming that some people do not belong to the nation. A unique
analysis of the most fundamental political transformation of our days, this book illuminates the resurgence of the figure of the "native," who claims the country at the expense of those perceived as foreign.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Nativism: What is Returning, Where, and Why? (with Timothy Stacey)
Chapter 2. Mythical Multiculturalism
Chapter 3. Nativist Memory of National History
Chapter 4. Religious Nativism
Chapter 5. Racial Nativism
Chapter 6. Populist Nativism
Chapter 7. Liberal Left Nativism (with Timothy Stacey)
Chapter 8. Where and Why Liberalism and Nativism have become Entwined (with Timothy Stacey)
Chapter 9. How Can Liberals Counter Nativism? (with Timothy Stacey)
Post-Script: How the Book was Forged
References
Index
About the Author :
Jan Willem Duyvendak is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Previously, he was Director of the Verwey-Jonker Research Institute for Social Issues (1999-2003) and Professor of Community Development at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. His latest books include The Politics of Home: Nostalgia and Belonging in Western Europe and the United States (2011), Crafting Citizenship: Negotiating Tensions
in Modern Society (2012, co-authored with Menno Hurenkamp and Evelien Tonkens), European States and Their Muslim Citizens: The Impact of Institutions on Perceptions and Boundaries (2014, co-edited with John Bowen, Christophe
Bertossi, Mona Lena Krook), New York and Amsterdam: Immigration and the New Urban Landscape (2014, co-edited with Nancy Foner, Jan Rath and Rogier van Reekum), Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest (2015, co-edited with James M. Jasper), and The Culturalization of Citizenship: Belonging and Polarization in a Globalizing World (2016, co-edited with Peter Geschiere and Evelien Tonkens). In 2013-2014, Duyvendak was Distinguished Fellow at the Advanced
Research Collaborative at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In Spring 2016 he was Research Fellow at the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies. From July 2017 -July 2019 he was Executive Committee Chair at
Council for European Studies. Since January 1st 2018 he is rector of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (NIAS-KNAW).
Josip Kesic is a researcher and lecturer in sociology and social work at the Inholland University of Applied Sciences, where he focuses on the practical application of "Social Reflexivity" in educational and professional settings, i.e. the awareness of oneself as relationally and contextually connected to others. He studied sociology and South-Slavic literature at the University of Amsterdam. After extensively teaching social theory at the sociology department, the subsequent
teaching topics at the department of European Studies were nationalism studies, European literature, and philosophy of humanities. He also has published regularly for broad audiences on themes related to identity
politics and cultural stereotyping.
Timothy Stacey is a Researcher in the Urban Futures Studio at the Utrecht University and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria.
Review :
How are we to understand and respond to the expansion of nativism across the globe? In their brilliant appraisal of 'a nativist logic' in the Netherlands, France, and the US, the authors conclude with wise
The Return of the Native is a well-informed, ambitious, and surprising comparative study of nativism and how it shapes boundaries toward racial and religious minorities and women, by mobilizing shared values of enlightenment and tolerance, inherited from liberalism. The authors do a splendid job at presenting a complex thesis clearly and convincingly. This book will certainly have a significant impact on scholarly exchanges around these topics for time to come." -Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University, and author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class and Immigration
In this path-breaking work, the authors argue for the growing importance of nativism, or the opposition to an internal minority because of its foreignness. Nativism rests on a naturalized link between a category of people and a particular place that supports claims to prerogatives and rights-and exclusion of the non-native. Beginning with the Dutch case, the authors examine how nativism interacts with racism, nationalism, populism, and, in today's European context, Islamophobia. They draw on decades of collaborative work to explore the several iterations of nativism across countries, and attune us to the dangers of its left-liberal forms, which trumpet the superiority of one's own national values. They also set out ways to promote an alternative vision, that of a liberal politics of belonging. A clear analysis of ideas and forces that trouble the politics of today." -John R. Bowen, Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor, Washington University, and author of Can Islam Be French?
The book is valuable addition to the field for its eloquent conceptualization of nativism, thereby systematically differentiating it from other similar outlooks such as populism or racism. Following an articulate unpacking of the concept, the book duly recognizes the fundamental human need to belong, which does not have to be ascribed along reactionary lines. The authors provide stimulating accounts to substantiate the frames presented, the interplay between the "national rebirth" thesis and the Black Lives Matter movement promoting a decolonizing re-reading of history in the Netherlands being a case in point. In short, the book offers a convincing depiction of the power of nativism in political discourse, demonstrating the mechanisms through which nativist logic has become mainstream even in liberal democracies.
The book draws on cutting-edge social scientific work; its principal audience will be researchers, professors, and graduate students, but it is accessible to advanced undergraduates as well.
