Changing Multiculturalism Introduction: what is multiculturalism?

Changing MulticulturalismIntroduction: what is multiculturalism? J.L. Kincleloe & S.R. Steinberg

文化是什麼？ • 小組討論 • What • How • Who • When • Where • Why

文化 • 一個社會團體親身經歷，並對既有(given)之處境與特定生活方式賦予意義。 • 不同團體的人爲了對世界賦予意義，所採取的一組生活實踐、意識形態與價值觀。 • 個人有能力呈現其文化，與他們在社會秩序中可以發揮多少權力有關。 • 文化與階級、性別和年齡所形成的社會結構關係密切。 • 文化是一種生產方式。不同團體的人，經由不平的權力關係，定義與實現其生命期待。 • 文化是一個抗爭場域，特定知識與經驗的生產、合法化與流通與否，都是這個抗爭場域的主要衝突點。

主流宰制文化、附屬文化與次文化 • 主流宰制文化：一再確認特定階級的人所擁有的價值觀與利益，此階級正是掌握控制社會之物質與象徵財產的一群人。 • 附屬文化：附屬於此主流宰制文化的一群人。 • 次文化：以獨特符號與行為表現，以在主流文化之外，形成其身分認同。次文化的性格通常是比較妥協，而不是真正抗爭反對。因為主要存在於休閒領域，容易受到意識形態與商業的收編。

文化形式 • 表達文化的符號與社會實踐。例如體現於音樂、衣服、食物、宗教與教育的那些東西。

多元文化總是與種族、族群、社經階級、性別、語言、文化、性傾向以及失能有關。多元文化總是與種族、族群、社經階級、性別、語言、文化、性傾向以及失能有關。 • 這個詞可以指涉一個目標、概念、一種態度、一種策略或是一種價值。

緣起：西方社會（美英加拿大澳洲紐西蘭）大量移民以及種族與性別的自覺運動。這些運動提出問題：the way they define themselves and other social institutions. No longer can the West speak with unexamined confidence about its cultural nature, its values and its mission. • The formulation of competing definitions of the social world that correspond to particular social, political and economic interests. • Power relations扮演重要的角色。 • Social justice and community-building

一、保守多元文化論（單一文化主義）Conservative multiculturalism/monoculturalism • Everyone would be better off if they could be exposed to the glories of Western Civilization. • 對於殖民傳統以及白種男性優勢文化的再擁抱 • 殖民主義者的思考：教化觀點、進步主義 • 將貧民與非白裔子女視為匱乏(deprived) • surface in proclamations about family values and what constitutes excellence • 未真正說出來的是…

同化：the effort to assimilate everyone to a white, middle-class standard • deprivation model • consensus model: promote the concept of a common culture • 忽略了who determines who falls inside and outside the boundaries of the common culture? Who delineates the correct interpretation of the history of western civilization? Who dictates what is included in the educational curriculum. • TV shows, movies, video games, popular music

二、自由主義的多元文化論Liberal Multiculturalism • concern with “sameness” by way of the cliché: we are dedicated to working toward a world where there is only one race—the human race. • Woman 等同於男性的方式 • common humanity足以克服差異；差異是被克服的對象

Such liberal ideological dynamics are grounded on an allegedly neutral and universal process of consciousness construction that is unaffected by racial, class and gender differences. These dynamic of difference are erased by the ideological appeal of consensus and similarity. • 以Cosby Show為例(Cf. Rosanne) • to normalize Eurocentric culture as the tacit norm everyone references. Still assimilates to white male standards.

忽略了擁有權力的擁有者往往在塑造個人意識與認同時掌握較多資源。忽略了擁有權力的擁有者往往在塑造個人意識與認同時掌握較多資源。 • 去政治化/去脈絡化與European Enlightenment and the Age of Reason的關係 • Reason and reason alone will lead to a just society • Subjective lived experience, the perspectives we gain from one particular position in the web of reality or from the values we develop through experience are too contingent, too tainted by feeling. • Liberal analysts’ inability to identify the underside of its relationship to modernist hyper-rationality.

三、多元論的多元文化Pluralist Multiculturalism • mainstream of multiculturalism • focus on difference • forms still operates at times as forms of regulation, both tend to socio-cultural decontextualization of questions of race and gender, and both fail to problematize whiteness and the Eurocentric norm.

發展起源: 1960s, identity politics: 民主牽涉的不只是公民的權利，還包括對少數與邊緣群體之歷史與文化的關懷 • Diversity becomes intrinsically valuable and is pursued for its own sake to the point that difference is exoticized and fetishzed. • “multicultural literacy” • building one’s heritage and cultural differences • Slipping into the fallacy of socio-political decontex., pouralists often imply in such lessons that anyone can “make it” by working hard. • Confusion of psychological affirmation (pride in one’s heritage) with political empowerment

Help to generate the impression of upward mobility for women and non-whites • As in liberal multiculturalism, all groups are ideologically alike, except that in pluralist multiculturalism non-whites have a few unique and exotic customs and habits developed in their separate-but-equal experience. • Form of cultural tourism that fails to address the harsh realities of race, class, and gender subjugation

As they honor cultural difference outside of a historical, power-literate context, they trivialize the lived realities of exotic others and relegate them to a netherland of political isolation. • In many ways pluralist m. castrates difference, transforming it into a safe diversity. • Whiteness as the unchallenged norm • Non-white as lesser, deviant and pathological—but concurrently more interesting, more exotic, more natural and more commodifiable.

四、左派本質主義的多元文化論Left-essentialist multiculturalism • the belief that a set of unchanging properties (essences) delineates the construction of a particular category • 本質論或建構論 • fail to appreciate the historical situatedness of cultural differences • 以認同為例，種族與性別認同不一定是最重要的

left-essentialist often connect difference to a historical past of cultural authenticity where the essence of a particular identity was developed—an essence that transcends the forces of history, social context and power. • Authoritarian—romanticized golden era, nationalist pride and a positionality of purity that denies complications of competing axes of identity and power such as language, sexual preference, religion, gender, race and class

Moral superiority • 二元論：差勁的主流文化以及好的邊緣文化 • only authentically oppressed people can possess moral agency • 傾向於將某種形式的壓迫視為根本，其他次要

Concern more with self-assertion than with the effort to build strategic democratic alliances for social justice • Danger of falling lapse into a fragmented essentialist group-centredness • Identity alone, especially an essentialized notion of identity, may be insufficient as the grounding for democratic and justice-related movements.

Critical multiculturalism的批判 • since identity formation is socially constructed, it is constantly shifting in relation to unstable discursive and ideological formations. • 例如：a racially grounded identity is a recent phenomenon • mestizaje混雜、雜種

Critical multiculturalists seek to inoculate themselves against such authoritarianism by opening to question what exactly constitutes a group or an aggregation. At the same time they attempt to maintain a space where a race, class or gender group can discuss multiple articulations of members’ identities in relations to a decentered conception of the group itself. In this way romanticized essence is undermined and the authoritarianism that accompanies it is demobilized.

五、批判的多元文化論Critical multiculturalism • Critical theory is especially concerned with how domination takes place, the way human relations are shaped in the workplace, the schools and everyday life. Critical theorists want to promote an individual’s consciousness of himself or herself as a social being. • An individual who has gained such a consciousness understands how and why his or her political opinions, socio-economic class, role, religious beliefs, gender role and racial self-image are shaped by dominant perspectives.

Critical theory thus promotes self-reflection that results in changes of perspective. • Men and women come to know themselves by bringing to consciousness the process by which their viewpoints were formed • Critical pedagogy: the term used to describe what emerges when critical theory encounters education

Critical multiculturalism is dedicated to the notion of egalitarianism and the elimination of human suffering. • What is the relationship between social inequality and the suffering that accompanies it and the schooling process?

Changing Multiculturalism Introduction: what is multiculturalism?