Session 2: Multiculturalism: Critical Assessment
Session 2: Multiculturalism: Critical Assessments
Chair: Martin Palecek
Why Preserve Traditional Cultures?
Barbara Saunders
Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
No abstract is presently available
Reasonable Accommodation and Common Citizenship
Iain McKenna
Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa, Canada
In Quebec, along with many other parts of the world, people are questioning to what extent minority cultural practices ought to be accommodated by social and political institutions. Most commentators accept that fundamental principles of democratic justice ought not be compromised, however, beyond these side constraints there is significant space for discussion and disagreement. This paper entitled, “Reasonable Accommodation and Common Citizenship”, criticizes the position that minority cultural practices ought to be accommodated by a policy of differentiated citizenship and argues that there is the potential for sufficient accommodation within common legal and constitutional frameworks
The question of how reasonable accommodations ought to be addressed within legal and constitutional frameworks has generated two competing theoretical approaches to multicultural public policy. One approach focuses on accommodating minority cultural practices by providing special status or differentiated citizenship to members of minority groups. A criticism of this approach is that it violates the principle of civic equality. Although this objection is strong, it can be answered by the claim that there are times when liberal values conflict and the compromise of civic equality can be justified by the promotion of a more compelling fundamental value.
The focus of this paper is a stronger criticism of differentiated citizenship that is based on the problem of defining cultural membership. If we are to implement cultural accommodations through differentiated citizenship then we must know who belongs to what group. However, as many identity theorists have convincingly argued, cultural groups are not clearly delineable wholes. If defining cultural membership is as difficult as such theorists suggest (and I suspect it is), then proponents of differentiated citizenship face a whole series of problems beyond those of determining whether a particular cultural practice ought to be accommodated. In response to the problem of defining cultural membership, I argue that we can sidestep the issue of cultural membership altogether by focusing on cultural practices (as opposed to membership) within a common legal and constitutional framework.
Multiculturalism and Group Membership
Annamari Vitikainen
Department of Social and Moral Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland
For the last decade or so, questions of diversity and difference have much dominated political discourses. People living within the same political community are conceived as having different backgrounds and possessing different values and beliefs. To an increasing extent, people are also seen, not only as possessing different values and beliefs, but also as being different, with different cultural, sexual, racial etc. identities.
In my paper, I will draw from three general remarks. (1) In recent debates on multiculturalism, a relative consensus about the political relevance of people’s identities prevails. Identities are taken into consideration when thinking about the ways individuals, groups or political institutions interact with one another – irrespective of the actual policy measures that spur from these considerations. (2) Those identities found to deserve specific consideration are conceived primarily as social or collective identities. (3) The debates about accommodating different identities have revolved much around the questions of how to treat different groups or members of these groups.
My paper builds upon the third remark, and the idea of accommodating difference along the lines of group memberships. I will use two conceptualisations of group membership primarily in terms of recognition, those of Raz & Margalit and K.A. Appiah. I will argue that, whereas both conceptualisations rightly acknowledge the importance of recognition in the constitution of group membership, they may fail to take sufficiently into account the discrepancies in recognition, and the implications these discrepancies have for normative political theory. By developing further analysis of group membership, I will show the uneasy connection between the attempts to accommodate different identities and the means of doing so by distributing cultural policies along the lines of group memberships. I will argue that, due to the specific nature of cultural policies, these policies cannot be distributed along the lines of group memberships, but that some alternative criteria are needed.
Beyond Multiculturalism: Conditions for Deliberative Accommodation of Cultural Diversity
Selen Ayirtman
Political Science Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
Multiculturalism has been developed as a response to the shortcomings of liberalism in accommodating cultural diversity. As a specific form of ‘politics of recognition’, multiculturalism has meant recognising ethnic and cultural differences on policy terms in the name of greater equality and inclusion. Yet, despite this inclusive tendency, under certain circumstances multiculturalism fails to provide a fertile ground for inclusive politics in culturally diverse societies. This paper seeks to highlight two interrelated reasons for this failure. The first is related to the notion of culture upon which multiculturalism is based. When culture is understood as given and pre-politically existent, multicultural policies might lead to a fixation and homogenisation of the identities in question. The second reason is related to the way politics of recognition is understood and implemented. A politics of recognition in the context of multiculturalism is usually confined in the formal sphere and understood as the existence of group-specific rights. It is, though, possible to sketch an alternative, a differentiated account of the politics of recognition from a perspective of deliberative democracy. This account emphasizes the “constructed” nature of culture and the ‘negotiable’ character of identity formation. Accordingly, a deliberative accommodation of cultural diversity requires, above all, the existence of formal rights and opportunities enabling public deliberation. However, equally important in this model is the informal types of recognition implying citizens’ attitudes towards one other in the wider public sphere.
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