TY - UNPB
T1 - Multiculturalism and the Irreducibility of Race
AU - Kaushal, Asha
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - In this paper, I suggest that the RDS decision and its deficits are very much a product of their time. By this I mean not only that the theory and vernacular of race and racism have evolved since 1994, but also that the decades immediately preceding and following RDS marked the height of multiculturalism in Canada and many other Global North countries. First described by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1971, codified in the Multiculturalism Act in 1988, then constitutionalized as an interpretative principle in 1982, multiculturalism has a distinctly legal character in Canada. Throughout the last decades of the 20th century and into the next, multiculturalism and its cognates – culture, rights, autonomy – were among the primary subjects of political philosophy and theory, legal theory, and the social sciences generally. Race and religion were sidelined in favor of cultural rights and recognition as culture became the primary discourse of difference in most Global North states. Following 9/11, as anti-Muslim sentiment soared through these same states, their leaders either swept multiculturalism under the carpet or declared its failure.
AB - In this paper, I suggest that the RDS decision and its deficits are very much a product of their time. By this I mean not only that the theory and vernacular of race and racism have evolved since 1994, but also that the decades immediately preceding and following RDS marked the height of multiculturalism in Canada and many other Global North countries. First described by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1971, codified in the Multiculturalism Act in 1988, then constitutionalized as an interpretative principle in 1982, multiculturalism has a distinctly legal character in Canada. Throughout the last decades of the 20th century and into the next, multiculturalism and its cognates – culture, rights, autonomy – were among the primary subjects of political philosophy and theory, legal theory, and the social sciences generally. Race and religion were sidelined in favor of cultural rights and recognition as culture became the primary discourse of difference in most Global North states. Following 9/11, as anti-Muslim sentiment soared through these same states, their leaders either swept multiculturalism under the carpet or declared its failure.
U2 - 10.2139/ssrn.4997417
DO - 10.2139/ssrn.4997417
M3 - Preprint
BT - Multiculturalism and the Irreducibility of Race
ER -