Multicultural society and the convergence of identities —
Chapter 5
— Q: what is culture?
⁃ A historically inherited (not biologically) system meaning and significance in
terms of which a group of people understand and structure their individual and
collective live.
⁃ Culture is our manual for understanding and interacting with he people and the
world around us
⁃ It shapes every aspect of our human experience
⁃ Culture is not innate or inborn
⁃ Culture is not “instinct”
⁃ A central marker in constructing our identities
⁃ But culture in not fixed in stone or accepted by everyone, even those living in a
particular place or time
⁃ So culture also provides the arena where our ideas about how to behave
⁃ even what we ought tp say and think - are debated, challenged and enforced.
Cultural diversity
⁃ The presence of several ethnic, religious, cultural groups
⁃ These groups have their own distinct values, beliefs practice
⁃ Many were (Are) denied self- expression in the name of notion-building
Sources of Cultural diversity:
⁃ Globalization exposes societies to different current of thought (?)
- societies were diverse before globalization
⁃ Colonization
⁃ Immigration
- workers: A bifurcated process
- Refugees
- Persecuted groups
- people carry with them their cultures and their identities.
Push and Pull factors to migrate
Push Factors Pull Factors
Famine, drought or crop failure More fertile land and better climate
Poor medical care Good health care and hospitals
Natural disasters Lower risk from natural hazards
Poverty Opportunities for greater wealth
Unemployment Job opportunities
Fear: High levels of crime Less levels of crime
Few opportunities More life opportunities
Political fear More political freedom
Immigration
⁃ Four common mistakes
1. Since immigration is only one source of cultural diversity, we should not think
nostalgically that society was culturally homogeneous before immigration began and
could be made so again by ending it
- Immigrants are not the only source of diversity
2. Since immigrants belong to different religious, ethnic, and other groups, we
should neither racialize them as if they were all non- white, nor homogenize them and
ignore their different expectations, cultural resources, and ways of relating to the wider
society.
3. The diversity introduced by immigrants is not neccerazliy deeper or more
extensive than that already obtaining in Mose receiving societies
- “Locals” have their own diverse views about everything - they are not as
homogenous themselves
⁃ Often
4. Contemporary immigration differs from those of earlier times
⁃ Earlier immigrants were mostly refugees
⁃ They were keen to assimilate
⁃ Contemporary immigrants come from the former colonies
⁃ Today receiving societies are much accommodating to the newcomers that in
the past
Assimilation
— Q: what is assimilation?
⁃ An influential body of opinion, far more widespread than is generally assumed
⁃ A society connote be cohesive and stable unless its immigrants assimilate into
the prevailing culture and become like the rest.
— Q: Do you agree? Yes/ No / why?
⁃ Human being feel at least with those of their own kind and find it extremely
difficult, even impossible, to identify with those that hey recognize as strangers
— Q: what os the choice immigrants need to make according to the assimilation
approach?
immigrants need to make a choice
1. If they wanted to be accepted as full and equal citizens, they should assimilate
into the national culture, exchange their inherited identity for one derived from their
new country and undergo kind..
2. If they hold in ti their culture, retain close ties with country of origin, and remain
different, they should not complain if the rest of society refuses identify with them and
treats them as being unequal.
— The assimilation approach:
⁃ When people live together they tend to develop common habits, interests,
tastes and and values, and grow to each other.
⁃ The assimilationist ask for a greater degree of unity
Q: do you think that hums want to live and identify with “their own kind”?
⁃ Parekh disputes this assumption:
- Evidence:
- Inter-ethnic and inter-religious friendships
- People living in multi-ethnic neighborhoods
- Inter- ethnic marriages
⁃ No two human begins are ever fully or sustainably alike
- Spouses
- Parents and children
⁃ Many immigrants in their desire to be accepted, they become hard core
assimilations themselves
- Latino republicans in the US
- They always feel they need to prove that they have assimilated
⁃ Parekh argues that since in all societies people disagree on many issues, these
societies lack moral consensus
— Q: is this a fair assumption to support his argument against assimilation?
⁃ Based on this assumption, he claims that immigrants only have to accept a few
basic/ minimum values and social norms of their new country
— Q: what do you think about assimilation?
— Q: who benefits from assimilation?
— Q: should societies try to assimilate the new comers?
Major determinants of assimilation:
1. Human capital
2. Family structure
3. Reception context
Integration
— Q: do you agree the author’s claim that the assimilationist demand is unjust and
unrealistic?
— Q: how are assimilationist and integrationist models different?
⁃ Immigrants should be encouraged to become an integral part of society, and
should have the same rights, opportunities and obligations as the rest.
⁃ But then he claims that integration model is not as innocent as it seems
— Q: what does he mean?
⁃ Integrationists insist immigrants should commit themselves to their new society
⁃ Respect its institutions and values
⁃ Show it basic loyalty
Integrationists see integration as a one-way process
⁃ The onus to integrate is placed on the immigrants, and so is the blame for their
failure to do so
⁃ A Muslim girl might be unwilling to swim in shorts, or undergo an internal
medical examination by a male doctor
⁃ Unless the wider society accommodates such demands it makes it difficult for
these people to integrate
⁃ Immigrants might move out of the communal ghetto and buy a house in a white
middle-class suburb
But if the residents of that area move out,
⁃ Immigrants might adopt the ways of life and thought of the wider society,
⁃ Pluralist integration
⁃ Immigrants should integrate at all levels of society Political, social, economic,
cultural
⁃ Be active citizens
— Q: is it a legitimate requirement?
— Q: is it possible?
— Q: what if they integrate partially?
⁃ At an economic level: a successful Turkish restaurant owner in Germany
⁃ But not politically: does not perform any civic obligations
⁃ For integrations this is a sign of separateness
— Q: is it?
Integration
⁃ Pluralist integration
- Immigrant should integrate at all levels
— Q: what if they integrate partially?
⁃ At an economic level
⁃ Thin Integration: immigrants have a right of retain parts of their identity.
— Q: does this give a free pass to the immigrants regarding their obligations to their
news societies?
— Q: can the society stay conceive?
⁃ For integrationist, integration defines the quality of one’s membership to nation
⁃ Parekh argues that integration is vulnerable to subtle forms of racism
- Why do immigrants want to hold themselves back?
- Why they cannot be like the rest?
⁃ Characteristics that makes some groups of immigrants more “difficult” than
others
- Color of skin
- Religion
- Country of origin
- Class
A moral contact
⁃ Parekh proses that we should not ask how immigrants can be assimilated or
integrated
⁃ A common system of rights and obligation
⁃ Some degree of assimilation is necessary
— Come belonging in a two way process
⁃ Immigrants cannot being to as society unless it is prepared to welcome them
⁃ It cannot make them its own unless they wash to belong to it
