Overview
As international migration has grown, many societies have become multicultural in fact. Multiculturalism is one answer to the question of how to handle that diversity: it holds that minority cultures should be respected and their differences publicly recognised. The descriptive fact of a multicultural society is usually distinguished from multiculturalism as a normative position or policy.
Models of immigrant integration
- Differential exclusion: migrants are accepted as workers but denied citizenship and permanent settlement.
- Assimilation (the melting pot): migrants are expected to give up their original culture and absorb the language and values of the majority, so that cultures "melt" into one.
- Multiculturalism (the salad bowl or mosaic): each culture keeps its own flavour within the same bowl, and cultural differences are recognised.
Main theories
- Charles Taylor – the politics of recognition: in Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition" (1992) Taylor argued that identity is shaped by recognition from others, so non-recognition or misrecognition of minority cultures is a real harm and a form of oppression. A politics of equal dignity that treats everyone identically is not enough; a politics of difference is also needed.
- Will Kymlicka – multicultural citizenship: in Multicultural Citizenship (1995) Kymlicka justified minority rights from a liberal standpoint. He distinguished self-government rights for national minorities such as indigenous peoples from polyethnic rights that support the cultural practices of immigrant groups, while rejecting internal restrictions on the freedom of group members.
- Bhikhu Parekh – dialogical multiculturalism: in Rethinking Multiculturalism (2000) Parekh argued that no single culture, liberalism included, can serve as a neutral yardstick, so shared norms must emerge from open intercultural dialogue.
Multiculturalism can be read as extending citizenship theory to cultural rights, and it overlaps with postmodernism's doubts about universal standards and with postcolonial critiques of Western-centred views.
Policy examples
- Canada: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced multiculturalism as official policy on 8 October 1971, and it was enshrined in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988. It is often cited as the first national multiculturalism policy.
- Australia: after dismantling the White Australia policy in the 1970s, Australia adopted multiculturalism as national policy.
- South Korea: as marriage migration increased, the Multicultural Families Support Act (Act No. 8937) was enacted on 21 March 2008 and took effect on 22 September 2008, providing Korean-language classes, family counselling and support for children through family support centres. Critics note that it centres on marriage-migrant families, leaves out migrant workers and refugees, and leans toward assimilation by stressing adaptation to Korean culture.
Critiques and debates
In the 2010s a backlash grew in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in October 2010 that the multicultural approach had "utterly failed", and British Prime Minister David Cameron argued in a February 2011 speech in Munich that "state multiculturalism" had encouraged segregation. Critics claim that multiculturalism produces separate, parallel communities and weakens social cohesion and social capital. Vertovec and Wessendorf (2010), however, found that the backlash was often more rhetorical than real and that actual policies continued to manage diversity. Interculturalism, which stresses exchange between cultures together with a shared civic identity, is now discussed as an alternative.
References
- Taylor, C. (1992). Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition". Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Parekh, B. (2000). Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
- Vertovec, S., & Wessendorf, S. (Eds.). (2010). The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices. London: Routledge.
- 「다문화가족지원법」 (법률 제8937호, 2008. 3. 21. 제정, 2008. 9. 22. 시행).