Under the skin.. of multiculturalism. Critical Debates in the film Problems of definition Promise and reality Colonial legacy Post war migrants Integration.

Under the skin..

of multiculturalism

Critical Debates in the film

• Problems of definition• Promise and reality• Colonial legacy• Post war migrants• Integration & Assimilation• Fear of Multiculturalism?• Identity Politics• Media Representations • The City • Limits to Diversity?

Objectives

• 1. To review the findings from our research

• 2. To suggest ways of opening up the debate to students through visual means

• 3. To obtain some feedback on these ideas and develop more interactive teaching materials

Definitions…

• Problematic – many conflate the fact of diversity (ie over 8% in UK) with diverse and conflicting values

• David Dabydeen - city is constituted rather like the separated cells in a beehive – each one with its unique sensations, codes and values,

• yet how often do many of us venture into the other cells and really get to know, to absorb, these?

“…a set of principles, policies, and practices for accommodating diversity as a legitimate and integral component of society.”

(Fleras in Charlton and Baker, 1994, p. 26)

Discourses of Multiculturalism

• Recipe for segregation (Trevor Philips)

• Tokenistic at best (Chas Critcher)

• Means of containing black communities through separate ethnic fiefdoms (Arun Kundnani)

• ‘a critical dialogue with other cultures.’ (Bhiku Parekh)

• Non-existent (Malcolm Cumberbatch)

Sleepwalking?

"I think we are: we are sleepwalking our way to segregation. We are becoming strangers to each other, and we are leaving communities to be marooned outside the mainstream."

• Trevor Phillips today at the  Manchester Council for Community Relations. • 22 September 2005

Tokenism?

Diluting or disregarding good old British values

- whatever they are...

Shakespeare and soccer, the 'Dunkirk spirit'?

• A panacea? - opens the way to combat insularity and ethnocentrism

Ethnic Absolutism?

The end of multiculturalism?• Reasons for this backlash against the

informal 'drift' of multiculturalism:• motivated by a western fear of Islam

and a sudden concern that boundaries have not been properly drawn. The superficial ‘cool’ of multicultural, (chicken tikka masala) Britannia was expedient – now seen as mistakenAs assertion of political and economic rights for minority groups become louderSense of identities becoming submerged and blurred – global processes

• Rhetoric of diversity which sustained the CRE has withered away as the state requires consensus against threat to elite nations’ dominance

• Demonstrated through mass resistance to US & UK invasion of Iraq

• Doubts about the ‘war on terror’

• Loss of hegemony – containment of expedient multiculturalism not working

• Need to re-assert British values

Shifting Media Representations

Shifting Media Representations

Identity Politics?

• 5. The notion of 'identity politics' stemming from a postmodern shift in society is often sited as the cause of this focus on difference – do you accept that some sort of postmodern phase took place and that this created a different fragmented view of identity?

• Calls for ‘community cohesion’ and the ‘integration agenda’ (CRE)

• Assimilation and integration are not far removed

• Focus on local level is important – but withers away at point of delivery

• Difficulty of policy which always seems to be looking from the outside – in

• And…harder to admit - academics have also preserved this insulation from reality

Fear of multiculturalism?

• “We must end the ruinous doctrine of multiculturalism and reassert British identity and British values — and insist that although Muslims are a valued minority, they must abide by majority rules.”

• Melanie Phillips (Daily Mail, November 7, 2005) following the demonstrations in France

The real failure of multiculturalism is its failure to understand what is valuable about cultural diversity.

There is nothing good in itself about diversity. It is important because it allows us to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and lifestyles, make judgements upon them, and decide which are better and which worse.

• Kenan malik.com • Essays: the real value of diversity• This essay first appeared in Connections (winter 2002). A shorter version appeared on spiked-

online.

• “Cultural diversity only makes sense within a framework of common values and beliefs that enable us to treat all people equally.”

• “…and to create such a framework requires us to be a bit more intolerant and to show a bit less respect.”

(Kenan Malik)

Limits to Diversity?

'lifestyle diversity and high immigration… can erode feelings of mutual obligation, reducing willingness to pay tax [and contribute to welfare provisions]'.

Goodhart, David ‘Too diverse’ Prospect, February 2004

Limits?

• “the real problem is not a surfeit of strangers in our midst but the abandonment over the past two decades of ideologically based politics for a politics of identity.

Limits?

...The result has been the fragmentation of society as different groups assert their particular identities - and the creation of a well of resentment within white working class communities who feel left out.”

Malik, K (2004) Too Diverse: A Response toDavid Goodhart

Charting shifts in idea of Multiculturalism visually

Using other visual codes

Models

“Multiculturalism basically means that no culture is perfect or represents the best life and that it can therefore benefit from a critical dialogue with other cultures.”

(Parekh, B, in BBC News Monday, 5 April, 2004)

Bibliography• CRE, Speech transcript: CRE Chair Trevor Phillips today at the Manchester Council for

Community Relations. • Critcher, Chas Interview from film Under the Skin• Dabydeen, D 104 in McLeod 2000, 228• Fleras in Charlton and Baker, 1994, p. 26)• Furedi, F (2005) Culture of Fear , Continuum • Goodhart, David ‘Too diverse’ Prospect, February 2004• Hall, S (2000) The Multicultural Question, Political Economy Research Centre, Lecture,

transcript available on - http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/perc/lectures/Hall.html)• Kundnani, A (2002) The Death of Multiculturalism, 1 April 2002 online –• http://www.irr.org.uk/2002/april/ak000001.html• Kundnani, A • Kenan malik.com • Essays: the real value of diversity• This essay first appeared in Connections (winter 2002). A shorter version appeared on spiked-

online. • Malik, K (2004) Too Diverse: A Response to• David Goodhart• Parekh, B, in BBC News Monday, 5 April, 2004) • Spencer, S (2006) Race and Ethnicity: Culture, Identity and Representation, Routledge• Spencer, S & Todd, M (2006) Reflecting on Practice: teaching race and ethnicity in Further and

Higher Education , C-SAP Monograph, University of Birmingham