Multiculturalism- The Myth (original) (raw)
Related papers
Rethinking Multiculturalism After its “Retreat”
American Behavioral Scientist, 2015
At the beginning of the 21st century, many countries until the 1990s implemented multicultural policies that have backtracked. This article examines how multiculturalism as an idea and normative framework of immigrant integration evolved in Canada, the country that initiated it. Juxtaposing two recent time periods, the 1990s and the early 2000s, I conduct an analysis of dominant media and government discourses, which are interpreted against the backdrop of relevant policy changes. The theoretical framework underlines the relevance of socioethnic leveraging, which takes places as one group is constructed as socially, culturally, or morally more (or less) deviant from the dominant norm than the other. The outcome of leveraging can be fairly integrative. It can also reinforce minority marginalization. The analysis documents the importance of Québécois nationalism for the construction of Canadian multicultural identity in the 1990s and its relative absence during the reinvigoration of an Anglo-Saxon Canadian national core in the following decade. The article concludes that, from a comparative perspective, multiculturalism in Canada remains strong. However, its meaning has changed from being "about us" to being "about them." Hence, although it was originally meant to be a national identity for all Canadians, it now risks becoming a minority affair. The fact that even in Canada multiculturalism has lost much of its original meaning should serve as a wake-up all. It suggests, among others, that the relationship between the national majority and minority groups need rethinking.
Multiculturalism from Above and Below: Analysing a Political Discourse
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2012
Meer and Modood have written an admirably lucid exposition of the politicalÁ philosophical case in defence of multiculturalism. Their critical evaluation of interculturalism, a latecomer to the Anglo-American scholarly discourse on relations among cultures in modern states, is convincing: interculturalism is not really a political theory but refers to a mode of communication across ethnic or religious divisions. A further theory not mentioned by the authors, but also invoked as an alternative to the supposed multicultural tendency to essentialise or over-privilege cultural boundaries and cultural closure, is cosmopolitanism. Hollinger, for example, has argued that cosmopolitanism is neither universalist nor multiculturalist, but espouses a 'soft' multiculturalism that is responsive to diversity, particularity, history, the realities of power and the need for politically viable solidarities (2002: 228). Such situated or grounded cosmopolitanism nevertheless recognises, Hollinger argues, that cultures and groups change and evolve; they are not fixed and immutable forever (2002: 228). My own critical evaluation of Meer and Modood's exposition starts from the theoretical position that multiculturalism must be grasped as a discourse in which scholars participate along with cultural actors, politicians and the media. Multiculturalism is, in other words, always positioned, invoked in defence of rights (cultural, human) or in defence of communal solidarity, including that of the nationstate. It is a discourse characterised by constant seepage across academia, the media, politicians and ethnic-cum-religious public actors on whether multiculturalism is 'good' or 'bad', whether it has created 'bridges' (more solidarity) or 'failed' (and is thus divisive). Multiculturalism is in this sense often a performative utterance, played out in front of an audience hostile to immigrants, Islam or the West, or alternatively, 'liberal' or 'cosmopolitan', enjoying and embracing diversity. If we accept my argument that multiculturalism is a discourse as well as a political theory, we need to examine its affinities and differences from religious discourse.
Multicultural conversations: The nature and future of culture, identity and nationalism
Ethnicities, 2024
Despite well-known criticism of multiculturalism in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia, India and elsewhere since 9/11, such policies have proliferated (Banting and Kymlicka, 2013; Mathieu, 2018) and the Canadian and Australian policies of multiculturalism have since celebrated their 50th birthdays. Political theories of multiculturalism have proliferated in this period too (Lenard, 2022; Modood, 2007/2013; Patten, 2014; Parekh, 2006, 2019; Phillips, 2007; Tyler, 2011). Schools of multiculturalist thought have been identified (Levey, 2019; Uberoi and Modood, 2019), as have contextual methods in the political theory and normative sociology of multiculturalism (Modood, 2020; Modood and Thompson, 2018). New historical inquiries into the origins of the political thought of multiculturalism have begun (Tyler, 2017; Uberoi, 2021) and the ideas of multiculturalists have been altered to defend majority rights (Koopmans and Orgad, 2022). Current and former politicians continue to debate its merits (Braverman, 2023; Denham, 2023). Policies of multiculturalism and multiculturalist ideas have thus proved more resilient than many had thought. In the following conversation chaired by James Connelly, which took place on 20 June 2023, Bhikhu Parekh, Tariq Modood, Colin Tyler and Varun Uberoi discuss the history, varied natures, and future of the contested multiculturalist ideas of “culture,” “identity” and “nationalism”.
Rethinking Liberal Multiculturalism: Foundations, Practices and Methodologies
Ethnicities
The article introduces a special issue on “Rethinking Liberal Multiculturalism: Foundations, Practices and Methodologies.” The contributions presented in this special issue were discussed during the conference « Multicultural Citizenship 25 Years Later », held in Paris in November 2021. Their aim is to take stock of the legacy of Kymlicka’s contribution and to highlight new developments in theories of liberal multiculturalism and minority rights. The contributions do not purport to challenge the legitimacy of theories of multiculturalism and minority rights, they rather aim at deepening our understanding of the foundations of liberal multiculturalism and of its practical implementation, sensitive to social scientific dynamics of diverse societies. Without abandoning the general idea that cultural minorities should be granted special minority rights, the essays presented raise new questions about three dimensions central to liberal multiculturalism: its normative foundations, its practical categories of minorities or groups, and its fact-sensitive methodology. Taken together they shed light on the renewed variety of theories of liberal multiculturalism highlighting their complexity and internal disagreements. To introduce these articles, the article first draws a brief historical overview of the debates on multiculturalism since the 1990s (section 1). It then highlights the distinctive aspects of Kymlicka’s contribution (section 2) and identifies recent research trends (section 3). Doing so, it explains how the articles gathered here both expand on those distinctive aspects and explore those new research avenues. The section 4 summarizes the contributions.
Political Studies Review, 2009
Debates about multiculturalism, minority rights, and identity dominated Anglo-American political theory during the majority of the 1990s, and continue to raise important questions concerning the nature of citizenship, community, and the responsibilities of liberal states. They were popular, too, among policy makers, politicians, and journalists: many academics and practitioners were, for a time, united in their support for multiculturalism. Just as the philosophical literature at that time became more ‘multiculturalist’, so many European states increasingly adopted multiculturalist policies as a way of including historically marginalised groups into mainstream liberal culture or, in some cases, as a way of protecting minority groups from unfair pressures from the majority culture. However, as time has gone on, the multiculturalist turn in liberal political theory, and among many European governments, has waned. In the wake of terrorist atrocities around the world, growing concerns about the erosion of civic and national identity, and fears that cultural recognition can permit illiberal practices, many academics and practitioners have sought to distance themselves from the idea that it is a role of the state to afford special treatment to cultural minorities, and have sought once again to emphasise those common bonds which unite citizens of liberal democratic states, rather than those cultural identities which may serve to divide them. This article evaluates some of the recent philosophical literature on multiculturalism against the changing political landscape in Britain and Europe and suggests that the multiculturalist position remains weakened by a number of crucial ambiguities.
Rethinking Multiculturalism After its " Retreat " : Lessons From Canada
At the beginning of the 21st century, many countries until the 1990s implemented multicultural policies that have backtracked. This article examines how multiculturalism as an idea and normative framework of immigrant integration evolved in Canada, the country that initiated it. Juxtaposing two recent time periods, the 1990s and the early 2000s, I conduct an analysis of dominant media and government discourses, which are interpreted against the backdrop of relevant policy changes. The theoretical framework underlines the relevance of socioethnic leveraging, which takes places as one group is constructed as socially, culturally, or morally more (or less) deviant from the dominant norm than the other. The outcome of leveraging can be fairly integrative. It can also reinforce minority marginalization. The analysis documents the importance of Québécois nationalism for the construction of Canadian multicultural identity in the 1990s and its relative absence during the reinvigoration of an Anglo-Saxon Canadian national core in the following decade. The article concludes that, from a comparative perspective, multiculturalism in Canada remains strong. However, its meaning has changed from being " about us " to being " about them. " Hence, although it was originally meant to be a national identity for all Canadians, it now risks becoming a minority affair. The fact that even in Canada multiculturalism has lost much of its original meaning should serve as a wake-up all. It suggests, among others, that the relationship between the national majority and minority groups need rethinking.
Addressing the Current Crisis in Canadian Multiculturalism
2015
The paper seeks to examine the case of multiculturalism in the context of Canada. It aims to introduce the various political and philosophical debates which have enveloped the notion, and then build an argument to suggest the ways in which the ideal of a multicultural nation-state is a “problem”, citing two examples from diasporic literature. Since it is fashionable to tag theoretical concepts with an expiry, a suggestion towards what comes after multiculturalism is made where “post-multiculturalism” is discussed in the light of cosmopolitanism and interculturalism as the two possible alternatives. VOL.5 / NO.1/SPRING 2015 361 | P a g e Key-words: multiculturalism, nation-state, cosmopolitanism, interculturalism, diaspora, Canada. ______________________________________________________________________________ The UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001) states, “Culture should be regarded as a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of socie...
The Palgrave Handbook of Gender, Sexuality, and Canadian Politics, 2020
This chapter introduces the topics and policies of immigration, multiculturalism, and citizenship with an eye towards Canada’s foundation and evolution as a settler-colony. It utilises an intersectional approach attuned to settler-colonialism, heteropatriarchy, race/ethnicity. Attention is paid to recent debates that underscore how these policy fields are shaped by the international environment. This includes themes relating to anti-terrorism, Islamophobia, and the refugee crisis. The chapter argues that these areas of public policy in Canada are distinct in that they interface domestic and global forces, but like other elements of Canadian public policy carry gendered implications.
The Politics of Multiculturalism
In spite of its engagement with application, and in spite of its concern for social justice, sociolinguistics, according to some, has had negligible impact beyond academic circles. (Bargiela-Chaippini, 2004) The theoretical agnosticism of sociolinguistics and the relatively unengaged attitude of current sociolinguistics towards social theory (Coupland,2001), no doubt, contributed to this impasse. The present paper, as a tribute to the responsible teachings of Rama Kant Agnihotri, redresses this allegation to some extent by situating language rights movements and minority rights in general within the broader spectrum of a liberal, plural democracy framework. In the aftermath of recent events that urged political scientists to promptly designate a pre- and a post- period of these events, the spirit of liberal democracy has been under threat in the form of exclusionary gestures towards integrating multicultural policies concerning immigration and ethnicity in general. The notion of an undifferentiated citizenry in the public sphere has been compromised by western societies and governments. This is further compounded by the philosophical retreat from such policies as amounting to a denial of individual freedom and equality. This, in short, is the politics of multiculturalism; however, it is also becoming clearer that there cannot be a political car of multiculturalism without its philosophical engine. Throughout the following discussion, it becomes evident though, that the thread that runs through or the oil that runs the car -- the politics and philosophy of multiculturalism is the liberalist dilemma of coping with the opposing demands of liberty and equality.