Comparative Migration Studies (May 2018)

War of words: interculturalism v. multiculturalism

  • Christian Joppke

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0079-1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Abstract This article tackles the relationship between interculturalism and multiculturalism from the points of view of both. Interculturalism owes its existence to a critique of multiculturalism, but of highly distorted visions of it. I distinguish between two versions of interculturalism, a majoritarian (practiced in Québec) and a post-majoritarian (in Europe), which yield diametrically opposed visions of multiculturalism, as either footloose cosmopolitan or parochial-segregationist. Among the problems of interculturalism is the vacuity of the local as its preferred site of intervention, and its rushed embracing of “diversity” that is also a central plank of neoliberal ideology.