The Possibilities of Tolerance: Intercultural Dialogue in a Multicultural Europe

Abstract

Abstract. Tolerance is everywhere. The Council of Europe endeavours to build it, schools are required to teach it, and neighbours are asked to extend it. It features in citizenship ceremonies, city-marketing campaigns, and religious texts and is attached to a variety of different objects, people, and behaviours. Yet despite its ubiquitous circulation as a moral good, critiques of tolerance as a way of relating have called for its rejection in favour of alternative projects such as respect and equality. In this paper I contextualise recent critiques and ask what possibilities remain for a politics of tolerance in multicultural Europe. In so doing, I argue that critiques are insufficiently attuned to the different contexts in which tolerance becomes productive and offer a starting point for further empirical research on its embodied practice. Using an example of dialogue, I argue that tolerance can be intrinsic to the development of alternative relations when positioned as part of an ongoing struggle to multiply ways of thinking and acting. I finish by reflecting on the relationship between tolerance, agonism, and dialogue, to outline a more pragmatic politics of difference, arguing that it is not enough to call for alternative projects without attending to the difficult and incremental learning that such projects demand.

Human rights literacies and students' paradoxical understandings of tolerance and respect

“…What triggered the reassessment of the captured data of the project was firstly that concepts related to human rights that acknowledge respect and/or tolerance (Survey2013; Survey2015; FGD2013) made way for intolerance, mistrust and anger (Carter 2013, 197;Nussbaum 2012, 100). Secondly, it became clear that these concepts were linked to the different layers of reasons related to students' histories (Wilson 2014;Roux and Becker 2016). The reasons to support the eradication of social injustices, listening to economically deprived and socially excluded students, linking actions to the philosophies of decolonization, could undoubtedly develop into actions of inconsistency which started to differ from what one is supposed to do (Nussbaum 2012).…”

“…The first six important concepts students associated with human rights were the following: Students related to human rights as (i) freedom (ii) equity (iii) respect (iv) protection (v) social justice and (vi) dignity. Taking the histories of South African students into consideration, 72 students should have been more aware of discrimination, disrespect and intolerance behaviours and experiences imbedded in racism and sexism (Wilson 2014;Roux and Becker 2016). It was interesting to note that respect as concept was not prioritised in relation to concepts such as freedom.…”

“…Toleration could maintain a state of power imbalances, between those who tolerate and those who are being tolerated. In many instances tolerance is denounced as an obstacle for understanding diversity without contextualising the historical roots of the societies in question (Wilson 2014). The histories of nations, societies, ethnic majorities or minorities, colour the outcome of the nature in which tolerance or tolerant behaviour will feature.…”

“…To fight for equal rights does not mean to become more tolerant. Vogt (1997), Bain-Selbo (2003) and Wilson (2014) argue that tolerance as action and virtue is important to resist and fight discrimination and to counter prejudices. Nieto (2000), on the other hand, critiques the notion that tolerance is the only approach or foundation to understand diversity.…”

Cultural geography 1

“…Much more is going on in each account, most notably Rose and Woodward both theorise life (bodily and affective life) as that which is primary to government, but for now we can see them as sharing a concern with what Nealon (2008) calls the intensities of power. In both, the concern is with the presencing or absencing of effects of powerthat is the intensification of power in particular sites, scenes or bodies or the saturation of power across multiple fields of experience (see also Wilson (2014) on attempts to govern difference through inculcating tolerance and the 'eruptive moments' when tolerance fails and other ways of relating intensify). Other work has begun to push the now familiar claim that power today invests and sorts 'life itself' to unpack exactly how power relations saturate backgrounds of thought and action (e.g.…”