Who Sets the Terms of the Debate?: Heterotopic Intellectuals and the Clash of Discourses

In response to Bourdieu and Wacquant, I argue that American hegemony in setting the terms of debate on ethnicity and racism is nothing new, led in the first half of the century by US heterotopic intellectuals, immigrants, outsiders and descendants of slaves. Ironically, in the light of claims made by the authors, in the post-war era the debate is increasingly dominated by ex-imperial British and French postcolonial thinkers. The authors' disquiet is more explicable, however, if viewed against the background of French republican discourses that deny the legitimacy of `difference' in the public sphere. But in the final analysis, terms such as multiculturalism or ethnicity are not legislated from above but respond to grassroots social movements, and in France minority groups are presently claiming a voice and presence in the public sphere.