- Title
- Global multiculturalism: some comparative observations about social inclusion and Islamophobia
- Creator
- Imre, Rob
- Relation
- National Social Cohesion Conference: Challenging Islamophobia: Towards Social Justice & Inclusion. Challenging Islamophobia: Towards Social Justice & Inclusion: Presentations (Sydney 19-21 July, 2009)
- Relation
- http://www.affinity.org.au/index.php/events/86-challenging-islamophobia-report.html
- Publisher
- Affinity Intercultural Foundation
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2009
- Description
- In this paper I should like to address the issue of Islamophobia, and the normative problem of social inclusion, through an examination of approaches to multiculturalism from a variety of nation-states around the world. I should like to discuss the phenomenon of Islamophobia as it appears in the United States, Canada, Australia, France, the UK and Germany, in order to demonstrate the following: that ‘multiculturalism’ as both a policy and practice can be radically different in all of these developed countries; that manifestations of social inclusion and approaches to the inclusion of various groups can have a diverse range of forms; and that ‘Islamophobia’ can be countered through a reinforcement of (particular kinds of) multiculturalism as they appear in certain contexts. We in Australia have much to learn from the mistakes as well as the successes of social inclusion approaches in these, and other, nation-states. A beginning might be to challenge the notion that multiculturalism is an hegemonic idea, as well as challenging the notion that multiculturalism has ‘failed’ as a project of social inclusion of diverse groups and individuals. Rather than claiming a ‘crisis’, in this paper I claim that in most cases multiculturalism has not gone far enough in terms of ensuring that diverse individuals and groups have an equality of life-chances, and a recognition of diverse ways of life. Further, multiculturalism of all kinds can point to clear and demonstrable successes in terms of fostering cooperation among a wide variety of self-identifying religious and/or ethnic and/or national groups.
- Subject
- social inclusion; multiculturalism; Islamophobia
- Identifier
- uon:9021
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/919901
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