Multiculturalism, Religion, Secularism and Nationalism: Special Issue based on the plenaries from conference marking the 20th anniversary of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, November, 2019.

For twenty years, researchers at the University of Bristol’s Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship have led both academic and public debates about Muslims, racisms, multiculturalism, different forms of minority identity, and the place of religion in public life. In November 2019, in order to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Centre’s work, a conference entitled Multiculturalism, Nationalism, Secularism and Religion took place at the University of Bristol.

This special issue of Ethnicities gathers together the papers given by the plenary speakers. Individually, each article, by leading figures in their field, insightfully analyses the directions that debates about religious and cultural diversity are currently taking, and they make intriguing proposals about the new directions that these debates should take in the future. This includes the relationship between majority and minority cultural rights, the politics and politicisation of cultural practices, the role of religion and religious identity in achieving important social goals, the development of the study of nationalism through a series of distinct phases, and the evolution of political policies towards minorities from forms of inclusion to forms of securitisation.