2nd Global Conference
Wednesday 3rd September - Saturday 6th September
2008
Mansfield College, Oxford
Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 13: Multiculturalism, Public Service and Reasonable Accommodation
Chair: Breda Gray
Changing Paradigms in the Public Service: Reconceptualising Difference
Shilinka Smith & Shona Hill
Senior Advisor for a New Zealand Govt Department, and
Media Studies and Sociology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
This paper has broad applicability to those trying to convince government agencies to alter the way they address ethnic difference in policy development, and is based on research conducted within the New Zealand public service. The Office of Ethnic Affairs (OEA) has mandate to promote policies that respond to ethnic communities. In New Zealand, the Government defines ethnic communities as those whose self-identified ethnic identity distinguishes them from the majority culture and from both indigenous people (Maori) and people from the Pacific. Therefore those within OEA’s mandate include first generation immigrants and New Zealand-born generations. In March 2007, OEA commissioned interview-based research to investigate how to improve the quality and quantity of policy-related information about ethnic communities so that diverse ethnic groups would be better recognised in policy development. Although the focus of this research was on identifying approaches and frameworks that yield policy-useful information about ethnic communities, there was an unanticipated finding. It was discovered that the majority of government agencies that Cabinet had identified as having most significant impact on the lives of ethnic people were yet to be convinced that there was a link between their work and ethnic community outcomes. Given the existing evidence to the contrary, this paper does not argue the need for more research focused on ethnic communities, rather it suggests two approaches aimed at improving the policy development process so that inclusion and exclusion is not based on ethnic difference:
1.
Reconceptualise difference from being seen as a problem to being seen as a contributor of innovation in policy development.
2.
Alter how and where research information is made available.
Personal Autonomy and Models of Multicultural Accommodation in Family Law
Farrah Ahmed
University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
In some states, Malaysia, India, and Pakistan e.g., individuals are governed, not by general family law, but by the law of the religious or cultural community to which they belong. Since most modern societies are now culturally and religiously diverse, the question of the acceptability of such a system – sometimes referred to as a millet or personal law system – and of other models of accommodation, is of near-universal importance. Canada and the UK e.g. have recently faced calls from religious groups to change laws to accommodate traditional practices currently affected by general family law.
Using contemporary debates on multiculturalism in political philosophy, my paper will evaluate some of these proposed institutional arrangements against the value of personal autonomy. I will argue (a) that personal autonomy requires the freedom to form and engage in diverse and creative familial and sexual relationships and that almost all states, partly because of discrimination caused by state recognition of marriage, fall short of this requirement, (b) that the degree of freedom of conscience and belief that is required in order to live an autonomous life would not obtain in some of these arrangements – especially those in which the state makes decisions on what is culturally or religiously authentic – because of its effect on the heterodox within these communities, (c) that by freezing the religious or cultural community's interpretation of their own practices and beliefs in law, the state privileges the interpretations of certain sections of the community and stands in the way of internal reform and (d) that traditional norms that discriminate against women or other classes of persons affect these persons' self-respect and identification with the larger society in ways that make it unlikely that they will live autonomous lives.
How Solidarity Works in Highly Diversified Societies: How Far Do We Get with National Liberalism?
Patrick Loobuyck
University of Antwerp (Belgium) and Ghent University, Belgium
The so-called liberal nationalists (like Y. Tamir, D. Miller, and W. Kymlicka) emphasize the importance of nationhood and nation-building policies as precondition for the sense of belonging together that is necessary for the application of solidarity, justice and democracy as egalitarian liberals conceive it.
It is virtually self-evident that ties of national community are an important source of trust between individuals who are not personally known to one another and this trust is important for the practice of solidarity and (deliberative) democracy. But there is no consensus on the idea that a shared national identity is a necessary condition for the liberal democratic welfare state. We make a distinction between the strong nationalist thesis and the weak nationalist thesis. The strong thesis holds that a shared national identity is functionally indispensable, because ‘without a common national identity, there is nothing to hold citizens together’ (Miller, 1989: 245). The weak nationalist thesis holds that a shared national culture is particularly well suited as condition for solidarity, but it is not a conditio sine qua non for solidarity, distributive justice and social integration.
Empirical facts show that the strong thesis is implausible. Moreover the scope and aim of nation-building policies is limited and rather modest. Especially in a context of an immigration society, liberal nation-building projects may not overestimate themselves. That makes that we have to be able to think ‘a sense of belonging together’ as precondition for solidarity independent of a shared (national) identity. This precondition can be sought in the idea of citizenship by shared participation. What we need at the most basic level is not a shared national identity, but a shared engagement of the citizens to undertake a common societal project. Governments of diversified societies can try to establish a shared national culture, but even more important is their task to create a sense of belonging together by virtue of co-operation and shared participation.
