An introduction to multiculturalism and cultural diversity

1. What is Multiculturalism?
Malory Nye
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2. 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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3. 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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4. What is multiculturalism?
particular way of thinking and talking about
difference
 recognising differences
 observing differences
 tolerating differences
 actively engaging differences
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5. What is multiculturalism?
Some basic components
 difference
 minorities
 equality
 social justice
 rights (individual and group)
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6. Multiculturalism
Key distinctions to make:
 Multiculturalism as a social issue
 Ideology of multiculturalism
 Academic study of multicultural societies
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7. 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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8. 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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9. 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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10. 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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11. Some academic reflections on the
concept of multiculturalism
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12. 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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13. 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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14. 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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15. What is multiculturalism?
Stuart Hall
multicultural
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
multiculturalism
the 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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16. Gerd Baumann, Multicultural Riddle
religion
ethnicity
nationalism
‘culture’ in the middle?
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17. 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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18. 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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19. Develop this further…
religion
ethnicity
nationalism
gender
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20. 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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21. 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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22. Challenges of Multiculturalism
A 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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23. 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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24. 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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25. Challenges of multiculturalism
Common ground – where should it be?
 language
 identity
 dress code
 values
 residence
 education
 citizenship
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26. 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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27. 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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28. 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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29. 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.
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