MULTICULTURALISM: IDENTITY & DIFFERENCE

Multiculturalism: 'race', identity & difference

Multiculturalism: 'race', identity & difference

Introduction

Multiculturalism is a current and significant term that deals with cultural identity and diversity; it can be defined as a distinctive positive attitude toward cultural diversity. Thus, the fundamental root of its conception rests on the idea of difference. Multiculturalism, then, is understood as the study and support for peaceful coexistence of diverse cultures in a society. Thus, it is an issue of ethics. The emphasis or the first principle of multiculturalism has to deal with the definition of culture (Goodhart, 2008, p3). How culture is defined shapes human perception. The interaction and communication of diverse cultures should be thought in relation to reception, recognition, and acknowledgment of one culture by the other or one individual by others.

Multiculturalism also found its place as a movement against racism and any type of social, political, and cultural division of a society based on racial segregation, that defended individual as well as group rights and demanded equality for all, in politics and law, regardless of race. Many prominent figures theorizing multiculturalism even considered race as an illusionary social construct that was used as a political instrument of domination, conceiving cultural difference and ethnic diversity as a sign of inferiority (Gregg, 2006, p38).

The most common definition of multiculturalism refers to ethnicity. It can be ideally described as the will and desire of diverse and multiple ethnic cultures to live together without exploitation and subordination of others. Since its origin, however, multiculturalism has evolved and expanded in its definition because its first principle, culture, has been more broadly perceived. The general description of culture and how people identity themselves with a given culture has dramatically transformed the meaning of the term. Multiculturalism no longer only discusses ethnicity, race, and the rights of minorities. The multicultural argument extends over the horizons of sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, creed, culturally distinct traditions and practices, political ideologies, pop-culture communities, and their combinations (Gregg, 2006, p38). The philosophical, theoretical, legal, and political perspectives concerning multiculturalism merge and become one whole attitude.

In Britain, multiculturalism emerged as a response to the social and cultural changes connected with post-1945 immigration especially from former colonies in the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean. In the early years, there was an expectation of individual assimilation, but this rapidly collapsed owing to growing racial tensions and mounting evidence of economic and social marginalization of immigrants. The integration model developed from the late 1960s was based on antidiscrimination legislation and micromanagement of intergroup relations by social bureaucracies, police, and local authorities.

Integration thus meant recognizing the existence of distinct groups, defined primarily on the basis of race. Since 1965, a series of Race Relations Acts has been passed outlawing discrimination in public places, in employment, and in housing. A Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was set up to enforce antidiscrimination laws and promote good community relations. Starting in the education sector in the 1970s, explicitly multicultural approaches based on recognition of group cultures and religious ...