Objective
Tolerance has been increasingly invoked as the inspiring ideal of a number of social policies in European democracies. Appeals to tolerance have animated especially the political debates on those policies addressed to accommodate minorities’ requests. Among such requests those for the allocation of public spaces have recently acquired pride of place in the political agendas of many European and extra-European countries (e.g. the allocation of space for Roma sites; Muslims’ requests to build places of worship and housing policies for migrants). Despite such a generalized political and societal relevance of the notion of tolerance, some problems may occur when policies inspired by it are implemented. In particular, the implementation of tolerance-inspired spatial policies may result in the marginalisation of differences and thus risk undermining social cohesion. What conception of tolerance may be invoked to limit such a risk? To answer this question, we shall test the hypothesis that grounding tolerance on equal respect for persons may contribute to the development of spatial policies capable of resolving the tensions between tolerance and social cohesion in culturally diverse societies. In particular, the project pursues 4 objectives:1.to develop a conceptual taxonomy to clarify the liaisons between tolerance, respect and spatial issues;2.to study the ways in which appeals to tolerance have informed the development of spatial policies;3.to investigate the influence of cultural diversities on the interpretations of tolerance in different national contexts;4.to extrapolate from the above studies an overall view of the connections between tolerance and equal respect. Our findings will be of interests to national and international Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), policy makers at a European, national, regional and municipal level and international academics engaged in the study of urban integration in different social, religious, cultural, and political contexts.
Fields of science
- humanitiesphilosophy, ethics and religionreligionsislam
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyplanetary sciencesplanetary geology
- social sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systemsdemocracy
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil society
- social sciencessociologydemographyhuman migrations
Call for proposal
FP7-SSH-2009-A
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Funding Scheme
CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research projectCoordinator
27100 Pavia
Italy
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Participants (13)
1165 Kobenhavn
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301 00 Pilsen
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35065 Rennes Cedex
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Participation ended
100871 Beijing
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NP18 3YG Newport
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13100 Vercelli
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620002 Yekaterinburg
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1700 Nicosia
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1000 Ljubljana
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1051 Budapest
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01127 Vilnius
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69978 Tel Aviv
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64289 Darmstadt
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