Nativism and the Obsolescence of Grand Narrative: Comprehending the Quandary of Anti-Immigration Groups in the Neoliberal Era

摘要

Fundamental to the neoliberal era has been the systemic obsolescence of grand narratives of group and national exceptionality. This paper contends that the demise of grand narratives has proved particularly detrimental to anti-immigration groups in the developed Western economies. The obsolescence of metanarratives has made it difficult for anti-immigration organisations to enlist the virtue of national exceptionalism due to their increasing inability to effectively rationalise—in cultural terms—the exclusion of the foreign ‘other’. Consequently, what is slowly emerging from the core of anti-immigration proponents on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean is an unprecedented mass rationale for peremptory privilege through immigration policy that is largely free of traditional conceptions of otherness (race, merit, industriousness, etc.).View full textDownload full textKeywordsAnti-Immigration, Neoliberalism, Narrative, PostmodernismRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2011.559029