What is Multiculturalism?

Malory Nye

1/ malorynye.com

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The Challenges of Multiculturalism

What is multiculturalism? How is it important? Where are we going with it? The ‘death of multiculturalism’? A recipe for disaster?

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Basic issues of multiculturalism not a ‘thing’ but a process

unavoidable contextual not about celebrating diversity – facing

challenges not laissez faire state management of differences respect for differences and common ground majority and minority (or migrant) issue

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What is multiculturalism?

particular way of thinking and talking about difference

recognising differences observing differences tolerating differences actively engaging differences

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What is multiculturalism?

Some basic components

difference minorities equality social justice rights (individual and group)

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Multiculturalism

Key distinctions to make:

Multiculturalism as a social issue

Ideology of multiculturalism

Academic study of multicultural societies

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Multiculturalism

Social issue

A descriptor: about numbers (how many/what proportion make a

multicultural society?) situation where differences are perceived social and state responses to difference

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Multiculturalism

Ideology

An issue for contest (e.g. anti-multiculturalism)

Often perceived as a left wing, anti-nationalist ideology

Often aimed at social stability, equality, social harmony / co-existence

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Multiculturalism

Academic study of multicultural societies

Does not need to be an ideology

Although some writers (eg Werbner) argue that academic study is often ideologically motivated

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What is multiculturalism?

Multiculturalism about changes

questioning idea of culture and nation (and religion)

need to look at changes to minority (ethnic, religious, cultural) groups

but also the wider ‘majority’ and ‘minorities’, about what makes ‘us’ (whoever that is) ‘us’

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Some academic reflections on the concept of multiculturalism

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What is multiculturalism? Yunus Samad

‘...multiculturalism has different implications and meanings depending on its social, political and disciplinary location.

‘Multiculturalism can be conservative or radical, and social policy based upon it can have different implications and outcomes depending on the context in which cultural difference is negotiated.’

Yunus Samad, ‘The Plural Guises of Multiculturalism’, in The Politics of Multiculturalism, 1997, p.240

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What is multiculturalism?Pnina Werbner

‘multiculturalism is ultimately not a matter of theory, even critical theory, but of real politics; there are as many multiculturalisms as there are political arenas for collective action. ... Multiculturalism is always a specific negotiated order and no amount of abstract philosophical or legal reasoning can prescribe a single “just” model.’

Pnina Werbner, ‘Afterword’, in The Politics of Multiculturalism 1997, p.263

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Nation, culture, and multiculturalism

C.W. Watson:

‘…multiculturalism is debated in the context of what is alleged to be a national culture which defines the special character of the nation. The limits to which multiculturalism can be tolerated are perceived to lie at the boundaries of what constitutes the core of that national culture…’

(Multiculturalism, Open University Press, 2001, p.44)

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What is multiculturalism?

Stuart Hallmulticultural

Describes the social characteristics and problems of governance posed by any society in which different cultural communities live together and attempt to build a common life while retaining some of their ‘original’ identity

multiculturalismthe strategies and policies adopted to govern and manage the problems of diversity and multiplicity which multi-cultural societies throw up

Stuart Hall, ‘Conclusion: the Multi-cultural question’, in Un/Settled Multiculturalism, ed. B. Hesse (Zed Books, 2000)

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Gerd Baumann, Multicultural Riddle

religion

ethnicitynationalism

‘culture’ in the middle?

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Gerd Baumann

nation: home—land—blood; to belong is to be

something rooted in a place

ethnicity: also bound up with notions of ‘blood’ and

belonging, but at a closer social level

religion: represented as static and

transcendent, whereas more like a sextant

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Gerd Baumann

Baumann points out that all of these are seen as based on fixed

ultimate criteria but all in fact fluid, changeable, and

contingent elements of IDENTITY which create the

ways in which people view and live in their social/ cultural worlds

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Develop this further…

religion

ethnicitynationalism

gender

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What multicultural studies is about: Differences

(looking at, perceiving, and recognising differences)

Relations of difference (how do different groups interact? what sorts of relations of

power are there between groups?)

Ways in which differences (and identities) are perceived what does it mean to talk of ‘minorities’, ‘cultures’, ‘religious

groups’, ‘nations’, etc.?

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Challenges of Multiculturalism

all multicultural contexts are

specific temporary and liable to change have tensions built into them not always peaceful ‘disruptions’ sometimes unavoidable imply change need to be carefully managed

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Challenges of MulticulturalismA successful and functioning multicultural society

is not one solely premised on concepts of diversity.

However, discourses of difference and discourses of respect for difference are prominent in a multicultural society.

Often seen as the ‘problem of multiculturalism’ or its ‘death’

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Challenges of Multiculturalism Need for a common ground and common

space common nationality and citizenship. concepts of integration – needs a concept of

how differences can work on a plural and common level

not only about diversity e.g. ‘One Scotland Many Cultures’

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Challenges of Multiculturalism Multiculturalism is not only about celebrating

difference, but also celebrating unity.

the twin elements of a successful multicultural context. That is both of the following:

mutual respect for and acceptance of difference, and

common ground and shared values, as citizens and residents

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Challenges of multiculturalismCommon ground – where should it be?

language identity dress code values residence education citizenship

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Summary

It is important to recognise that multiculturalism is not a new phenomenon, even though the terminology is new.

The pace and experience of multiculturalism in the twenty-first century is intense and leaves very few societies and countries unaffected.

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Summary

Multiculturalism is not only about difference, and is misunderstood when it is pursued as a policy for separating and ghettoising particular communities.

Multiculturalism is a process, and such processes are always contextual to particular places and cultural experiences. For example, the experiences of multiculturalism in Britain are unique to that country, and are different from multiculturalism in other countries, such as Canada, Australia, Malaysia or the UAE.

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Summary

At the heart of multiculturalism is the urgent need for the management of diversity at all levels, and education plays a very significant role within such management.

Therefore multiculturalism is both concerned with the mutual acceptance of, and mutual respect for, difference and the requirement for common ground.

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Summary

Multiculturalism not only requires a toleration of others

It also necessitates finding ways of mutual cooperation and cultural engagement

Between communities and individuals at all levels of society.