Theme 5: Multiculturalism

1
Theme 5 Multiculturalism

• Modern citizenship
• Conservative multiculturalism(related to the
  cultural universalism)
• Liberal multiculturalism culture of differences
• The problem of recognition
• Multiculturalism of recognition
• Critical aspects included in multiculturalism of
  recognition
• Multicultural subjects and multiculturalism
• Dimensions of cultural understanding

2
Modern citizenship an agreement

• Modern citizenship is defined politically under
  the rule of state power
• as an association of individuals
• To be a citizen is to transcend ones ethnic,
  religious and other particularities and to enjoy
  equal status with other citizens
• The status of s citizen is not based, in
  principle, on the membership of castes, clans,
  tribes (or other ethnic groups) or estates
• The status is based on the social contract
  between the ruler and the those having political
  rights for citizenship

3
The state of citizenship social and cultural
dimensions

• The state of citizenship is defined as
  politically constituted by individuals as
  principally equals
• Citizenship is culturally composed of different
  elements of social particularities (social group
  classifications)
• Strategies for tolerating different culturally
  appreciated and socially categorised values of
  identity groups are demanded inside the
  boundaries of modern communities
• Cultures contain tendencies both towards global
  diversity and towards global uniformity

4
Conservative multiculturalism(related to
cultural universalism)

• Cultures are seen basically different
• Basic differences are grounded by and included in
  ethnic (racial) origins of national cultures
• Borderlines between different cultures are fixed
  and stable
• Different cultures are differently valued and
  valuations are inherited in traditions
• Those representing highly valued cultures define
  how the fixed demarcations are formed
• Only valuable cultural qualifications are
  included in the accumulation of cultural capital

5
Inclusion - exclusion

• Cultural fields of action are defined according
  to the competent management of symbolic
  qualifications
• Inclusive criteria are used to the acceptation of
  the membership
• Inclusive processes are means for integration ?
  acculturation ? assimilation
• Exclusive criteria are used to define
  representatives of different (other) cultures and
  the components which do not fit in with the
  membership categories
• Marginalisation is a discriminative strategy
  between cultural inclusion and exclusion at the
  cultural field of action
• Actors in the cultural field are positioned
  according to evaluative principles
• Relations between actors (subjects) are defined
  by terms of power and dependency

6
Liberal multiculturalism culture of differences

• The basic idea cultures are many and each of
  them has its distinctive character as based on
  the relative (anti-essential) conception of
  cultural identity
• The need for different cultural domains like
  identity-groupings and sub-cultures is increasing
• Specified fields of action (habitats, identity
  positions )are distinctive to every
  characteristic group
• Culturally identified groups are multiplying
• e.g. gender-aspect
• Class-based feminism - connected to marxism
• Feminism as an ideology against patriarchy
• Ethnically reasoned feminism white and black
  feminism
• Post-feminism queer identities, hybrid
  identities etc.

7
Cultural boundaries

• Continuous redistribution of cultural resources
  according with the self-articulated needs of
  specific interest groups
• Continuous boundary-formation between old and new
  groupings
• The problem of ghettoism minorities are defined
  as placed into margins of cultural fields
• Gated communities (see e.g. Morley Belongings
  a place, space and identity in the mediated
  world, EJCS no.4, vol.4 2001)
• Diaspora-identities

8
Cultural recognition

• Specific problem included in the presumption of
  equal respect for each cultural diversity
• At the point at which liberal discourse attempts
  to normalize cultural difference, to turn the
  presumption of equal culture into the recognition
  of equal cultural worth, it does not recognize
  the disjunctive, borderline temporalities of
  partial, minority cultures (see Bhabha
  Cultures in-between)
• Charles Taylor The politics of recognition means
  the respect for other cultures than ones own
• The problem of tolerance admitting a place for
  cultures of others how to accept an equal
  placement for the others
• without marginalising the positions of minorities
• without seeing the others from above

9
Multiculturalism of recognition

• Multiculturalism as a political process
  continuous renegotiating of social space of
  action
• Social groups are enabled (formed and reformed)
  at arenas of contestation of the cultural value
  of identities
• Borderlines of identities are movable and
  changing according to both the interests of
  acting subjects and their power positions
• Cultural articulations (expressions,
  performances, products) are used to transform the
  power balance at the social field of activities

10
Principles of cultural democracy

• The democratic principle of best articulation of
  interests ? communicative competency of the
  participants (Habermas)
• Deliberative democracy
• Importance of initiatives for discussing meanings
  of representations to have a voice for
  articulating interests
• Rights of minorities for opinion expression ?
  participation to decision making from the ground
  of majority commitments

11
Critical aspect included in multiculturalism of
recognition

• Multiculturalism of recognition contains demands
  for continuous critics to identities as fixed
  formations
• Transformations are incorporated in values
  represented by culturally movable identity groups
  
• Cultural identities are reformulated in political
  contestations and negotiations
• when boundaries of identities are defined anew in
  displacements of identities
• who belong to us (as member-citizens)? who
  represent opposite interests as outsiders?
• when the power balance is shifted in the field of
  political actions
• certain (new) cultural minorities are allowed to
  argue their interests for having citizen rights

12
Multicultural as adjective

• Multicultural (adjective) refers to individual
  properties like attitudes, tastes and capacities
• Multicultural/cosmopolitan lifestyles are
  products of cultural diversity
• Multicultural expressions, performances or
  products (theatre, musical pieces, food etc.)
• Multicultural entrepreneurships and companies

13
Multiculturalism as noun

• Multiculturalism (substantive) refers to
  philosophical (ideological) orientation towards
  the world
• Multiculturalism as a cultural mosaic implicates
  the coexistence of different cultural variants,
  (shifting) boundaries between the parts and the
  importance of seeing the whole picture
• Multiculturalism as hybrid cultural formation
  implicates the fusion of different cultural
  variants
• Multiculturalism considers (and contains more and
  more) social and political dimensions of cultural
  diversity

14
Dimensions of cultural understanding -a
methodological summary

• Culture as based on universal truth cultural
  ontology
• Culture as based on objective facts
  objectivism, cultural realism
• Culture as based on relative standpoints
  (positions) of cultural subjects (individuals,
  groups) cultural relativism
• Culture as based on subjective considerations
  (taste, pleasure) cultural subjectivism