How Can Liberals Counter Nativism?

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter draws on insights as to how and why nativism has returned, as well as other research on the narratives that motivate liberally oriented people to take action in the world, to offer the basis of alternative narratives that can counter nativism. The aim is to recognize the human need to belong without conceding that belonging must be framed in nativist ways. Instead, the chapter offers a liberal politics of belonging that places diversity, equality, and progressiveness at its core. A narrative to counter nativism would have to be attentive to the ideas of the past and present that dominate in the context into which it is being pitched. Such a narrative would offer equal dignity to all regardless of background, partly through reflection on how to recognize the sense of cultural longing that all people experience and partly on the basis of the cultural landscape that has revealed itself through the widespread acceptance of nativism.