Drawing on my research on assisted reproductive technologies in India and the US over the past fifteen years, this chapter explores the relationship between race and reproduction, calling attention to the ways in which histories of race, notions of identity, and ideas of human difference influence reproductive practices in the context of science and reproductive medicine. I emphasize how racialization processes in the context of assisted reproduction serve to bolster understandings of race that reinforce biogenetic underpinnings and exacerbate social hierarchies. Reproductive technologies are thus deeply influenced by broader systems of racial formation and capitalism, which construct different futures for racialized minorities and have long been central to xenophobia and racial discrimination in the United States and around the globe.

In this chapter I argue that Cuba and Puerto Rico embraced racial projects based on the myth of a “racial democracy” that idealized the harmonious integration of whites, Blacks, and Mulattoes to combat colonialism and promote nationalism under Spanish and US hegemony. However, I propose that the ideology of white supremacy, rooted in colonial slavery, continues to prevail in contemporary Cuba and Puerto Rico – despite the numerous contrasts between the two countries. This renders the assertion of Blackness problematic and precarious in both places. Effacing Blackness as an integral part of national identity has been a recurrent theme in the colonial and postcolonial histories of Cuba and Puerto Rico, together with the privileging of whiteness.

The avowed aim of this chapter is to provide suggestions for a critical approach when evaluating (and producing) social theory related to ethnicity, racism, and nationalism. The chapter explores the histories of the careers and thought of early ethnologists (including Fernando Ortiz, Arthur Ramos, Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, and Jean Price-Mars) of the African diaspora in the Americas to call for critical reflexivity to understand theoretical production and the consumption thereof. This includes a call to the chapter’s readers to engage in critical reflexivity as they evaluate the theoretical production of others as well as their own position-taking. Critical reflexivity entails an understanding of the dialectics of historicity.

This chapter focuses on the complex relationship between culture and migration in the context of Ireland. It describes culture as a set of productions that serve to connect migrant experiences in Ireland to those outside Ireland. Cultural landscapes offer an insight into the relationship between migration, place and identity that is both material and symbolic. They provide tangible evidence of the influence of migrants on specific places, while also showing the ways in which migrants construct identities that are local and transnational. As a cultural practice, sport can help to construct a shared identity at a range of scales, but it can also be exclusionary. The Gaelic Athletic Association provides a means to investigate the ways in which sport as a cultural production links place and identity with both internal and international migration. Migration results in new forms of musical expression and new fictional representations of place and identity.

Looks at the difficult balancing act required by the needs of freedom of information versus law enforcement. Richard Dowling, an RTE investigative journalist with considerable experience of using FOI legislation nationally and internationally, notes that unlike other states with FOI legislation, the Irish state has traditionally excluded the police force from FOI. This is set to change now that the Government has included An Garda S í och á na in the revised FOI legislation. In consequence, this chapter examines and questions that extension in order to assess how effective it is likely to be in practice. It notes that many parts of the organisation are excluded from the new FOI provisions and examines why this is the case, and how the Irish Act compares to other similar jurisdictions where the police are subject to FOI. Irish exemptions are compared with the FOI regimes in other jurisdictions, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to the release of Irish material, which – ironically – may sometimes be obtained ‘second-hand’ from agencies in other states that are subject to FOI. An examination of this, and recent reports regarding gardaí and crime, reveals that the current FOI legislation, while welcome, remains limited in its capacity to deal with the Irish state’s approach to policing and accountability.

The Belfast Agreement of 1998 was grounded in explicit declarations of commitment to reconciliation and the first Northern Ireland Programme for Government made pledges to address community divisions and cultural diversity as a priority. However, the political priority of re-establishing devolved government to Northern Ireland resulted not only in the explicit renegotiation of some of the inter-community safeguards within the Agreement but in the neglect of the inter-community elements of policy. Since 2007, the devolved executive has reached a standstill on education, failed to agree an acceptable policy on community relation, shelved commitments to a Single Equality Bill and a Bill of Rights, and, divided on flags, emblems and on dealing with the past, failed to agree policy on parades and cultural rights, and is on the brink of abolishing the housing executive while agreeing to a single-identity carve up. The largest parties in Northern Ireland have moved rapidly away from reconciliation and produced a government of parallel sectarian interest shared out between authoritarian single identity parties. This chapter explores the ideology and practice of abandoning inter-community reconciliation and considers the proposed alternative approaches to pluralism and their potential consequences.

The introduction outlines the rationale for the volume – to consider normative issues of tolerance and acceptance in their concrete social and political contexts – in this case in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It first provides the underlying conceptual framework of tolerance, respect and recognition. It then explains the importance of considering together the issues of tolerance in Northern Ireland and the Republic, and outlines the varying contexts and kinds of religious and cultural diversity in which the issues addressed in the book arise. It then provides an introduction to the material in the chapters that follow.

This chapter places our understanding of freedom of information in an international context, by examining the evolution of governmental attitudes towards the relationship between public access to information and the democratic system. By looking at international trends in FOI, the chapter situates Ireland’s experience with FOI more clearly and highlights the significant difference between narrow bureaucratic and primarily administrative approaches to the implementation of FOI, and more ambitious and broader attempts to use FOI as a cornerstone of democratic practice. The chapter illustrates quite clearly evidence for both approaches to FOI in Ireland and outlines the key issue areas where this tension is most evident. After a review of the data available to examine public attitudes towards and uses of FOI in Ireland, the chapter goes on to discuss the broader democratic system in which freedom of information interacts with parliamentary questions, administrative record-keeping, official secrets and other ways in which information is made available (or denied) to people living in Ireland, and the extent to which the overall availability of information promotes (or constricts) democracy in Ireland.

This chapter examines the tensions experienced by African political candidates in Ireland between a commitment to politics in a formal or professional sense and a commitment to looser, more community-bound notions of politics. While drawing on empirical research in the Irish context, its principal aim is to tease out broader insights and stimulate more nuanced reflection on the experience of entry into politics for African candidates in Ireland. The first part of the chapter considers a number of perspectives on professions and professionalism, which contrast in various ways with how African candidates understand politics. The second part examines the ‘communities of practice’ approach, which offers another route into studying professions and is particularly useful in highlighting the interrelationship between learning and professional identity formation. The final part of the chapter examines a recent political internship scheme in Ireland called “Opening Power to Diversity”, which matches volunteer migrants with political ministers, in light of the preceding discussion. Though commendable, it is suggested that such initiatives will achieve little if they are limited to the cultivation of normative majority perspectives on politics.