This publication sets out to examine the apparent acceptance of diversity as a fact and value, by offering a countervailing assessment of diversity; seeing it less as a unifying social imaginary and more as a cost-free form of politics attuned to the needs of late capitalist, consumer societies. The introduction distinguishes between 'diversity polities' - emerging from a range of critiques of social power - and the "politics of diversity", a depoliticized celebration of difference that replicates the problems of multiculturalism without the benefits of the overt ideological engagement that multiculturalism has provoked. The studies gathered in this publication are embedded in 10 different national contexts. They track dimensions of diversity in education, social services, jurisprudence, parliamentary proceedings and employment initiatives, and assess their significances for the social actors who must negotiate these frameworks in their daily experience.--Publisher's description.