NATIONAL IDENTITY & INCLUSION PROJECT Working Paper #1: Methods of Multiculturalism: Language games and national identity change1 Catherine Frost, McMaster University This paper considers the state of multicultural theory, and suggests that it requires an adjustment in methodology to avoid essentialism and advance intergroup fairness. By following an approach outlined by Tariq Modood, which bases the concept of culture in lived practice much like Wittgensteinian “language games,” we can do justice to the fluidity of cultural experience, as well as capture relevant power dynamics that make culture “work” in particular ways. Examining the experience of three minority groups in the Republic of Ireland illustrates how this approach can provide guidance in a multicultural setting. The paper also suggests lessons that can be drawn for Canadian multiculturalism from the Irish experience.
It’s almost banal now to observe on how multiculturalism is in retreat. Some link the development to the increasingly phobic atmosphere of a post 9/11 world and in particular to difficulties in coming to terms with Muslim lifestyles and cultures under a theory designed primarily around ethnic identities (Levey, 2009, 76; Modood, 2007, 11; Kymlicka, 2007, 52). Indeed the so-called retreat seems in many places to be linked to traumatic events that are in part laid at the feet of an overly indulgent multicultural approach. Britain, with a large de facto multicultural population seemed ripe for the kinds of accommodations and cultural reinvigouration multiculturalism was designed to create. Yet the terrorist bombings of the 7/7 attacks prompted an anxious 1 Comments welcome, please do not cite without permission of the author at
[email protected].
populace to re-examine measures that were felt could undermine public security. And if the attacks did not halt British multiculturalism in its tracks, it set it back considerably and forced a kind of rethink that is ongoing (Meer and Modood, 2008). Likewise in the Netherlands, a country once at the forefront of multicultural tolerance, the high profile murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a zealous Muslim, and the equally controversial assassination of anti-immigration campaigner Pym Fortuyn pushed Dutch patience for the demands of multiculturalism beyond the breaking point, and so began a slow but steady redesign of many major accommodations. The withdrawal from multicultural policy lends legitimacy to the idea that the approach, while nice on paper, may be too demanding in practice and puts too much of what we value at the mercy of groups and individuals who can’t be trusted with these accommodations. Much of the retreat or reset process took the form of a renewed focus on citizenship, including the introduction of new standards or tests for naturalization, longer periods before immigrants qualify for citizenship, etc. (Loopmans et al, 2005, 3173). This trend reflects a sense that national unity has been left out of the equation when it comes to multiculturalism. With rare exception (David Miller’s work on nationality being notable in this regard, see Miller, 1995) many accounts of multiculturalism focus on the system of rights and accommodations to be introduced for minorities and diverse populations, rather than on the ways that a coherent and encompassing national identity can emerge and thrive under a multicultural approach. But the sense that the overarching union behind the multicultural project is being over taxed by the very project it is asked to support, provided a powerful push-back that led to weakening support for multiculturalism as public policy. In other words, while multiculturalism emphasized the rights and status of minorities and newcomers, in the wake of traumatic social violence, national identity has returned with a vengeance, in the form of national security demands and enhanced focus on “civic integration” (Joppke, 2004, 243).
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While the retreat from multiculturalism seems to be a phenomenon of the post 9/11 world, the approach came in for serious criticism from the very beginning. The early wave of critiques focused on concerns over essentialism and the tendency for the approach to unwittingly empower paternalism (Okin, 1999), ethnic essentialism (Abizadeh 2002, 2004), and general backwardness (Barry, 2002). Some of these critiques were overstated and had an ad-hominem quality. Brian Barry’s writings on multiculturalism, for instance, were especially, pointed and personal (see his commentary on James Tully’s work for instance [Barry, 2002, 258-71]). While other suggested that multicultural theorists were guilty of false consciousness that obscured latent racism (Abizadeh 2004, 241). Others seemed to celebrate the opportunity to purge minority cultures, on the grounds that in many cases this would be a marked step forward for social progress (Okin, 1999). While they made for a heated debate, the overstated quality of these critiques muted their impact in societies where the need to provide some recognition or accommodation for long-suffering minorities was hard to ignore. Yet if these critics were right, and multiculturalism did lean towards essentialism and over privileging cultures, this presented a serious problem. Because multiculturalism is premised on the idea that no culture should be set up as all-powerful. More recently the complaints against multiculturalism have taken on a new tone. Whereas the early criticism came from theorists who preferred more classically liberal, individualist or universalist approaches, as more and more practical experience with multiculturalism was accumulated, new critics sounded a note of caution over issues of fairness, especially inter-group fairness. The fairness question confronted multiculturalism in several forms. One consisted in the argument that recognition of cultural difference, even when it was an improvement on the status quo ante, complicated efforts at other, broader forms of justice. David Goodhart developed this argument to suggest that social justice aims requiring redistribution and social solidarity are undermined by the fracturing effects of multiculturalism (Goodhart, 2005).
What was needed, he argued, was a return to national unity, shared values, and readiness to sacrifice for the common good regardless of cultural difference. Like Goodhart, Nancy Fraser started from a deep dissatisfaction with the perceived inadequacies of cultural recognition, but took it a step further to suggest that neither cultural recognition nor intergroup redistribution would secure real justice. Fraser argued what was needed was a deeply transformative mode of justice, based on a deconstructive method that problematized identity at all levels (1995). So although Goodhart and Fraser adopt very different positions as multicultural critics, they both argue that multiculturalism fails to deliver real justice. While the recognition vs. redistribution debate can, as Fraser’s work demonstrates, reach high levels of abstraction, there’s a much more immediate and gut-level sense of unfairness about multiculturalism captured in Christian Joppke’s work. He argues that among its many failings one of the worst problems is what he calls the “unilaterality” (Joppke, 2004, 242) of multiculturalism, which asks little if anything of minorities while demanding too much of majorities. He believes the collapse of multicultural policy is due to this one-sidedness, and argues a new focus on national identity is taking over, with explicit expectations for immigrants and minorities who must accommodate themselves to their situation under a system of “civic integration” (Joppke, 2004, 243). While Joppke focuses on inter-group expectations, and criticizes the perceived free-ride for immigrants under a multicultural approach, he shares with Goodhart and Fraser the conclusion that multiculturalism fails because it fails the test of fairness. As with the essentialist charge if a critique based in issues of fairness can be made to stick it’s a serious problem for multiculturalism. Because the rationale for multiculturalism is that it should deepen forms of justice and enhance fairness within a population. In a recent article Australian multiculturalism theorist Geoffrey Brahm Levey reflected on the current state of multiculturalism as theory and practice (2009). While he defended efforts to deal with 1
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cultural difference in sensitive ways, he argued that what is “dead” in multiculturalism was the culturalism part, and what’s still living is the need for awareness of what cultural identity can mean to people. What killed culturalism, he argues, is that it did indeed tend to frame culture as a fixed thing to be preserved or protected, and that this ultimately proved untenable as policy. So at the heart of the viability of multiculturalism as is the question of how we understand and act with regard to culture and cultural identity. Because as Levey explains, while culturalism is dead, cultural issues haven’t gone away. He qualifies the obituary for culturalism, saying: ... it is dead in that demanding accommodation in the name of cultural authenticity or cultural relativism or preserving cultural integrity is unlikely to win favour anymore in democracies, if it ever did. But note it is the reified and homogenized notions of culture that have exceeded their ‘use-by-date’, not culture (Levey, 2009, 90). So if culturalism in this form is dead, it remains to be seen in what form multiculturalism can or will survive. The essentialist critique has hit home, and the fairness critique is not far behind. Even advocates of multiculturalism acknowledge that it can create perverse incentives, whereby well-intentioned accommodations can put women or other vulnerable group members at risk (Shachar, 2001), or drive minorities to construe themselves as ethnically distinct in order to make claims as national minorities (Kymlicka, 2007, 225). The theory must respond to these problems because they go to the heart of its logic. And at the heart of the theory is the concept of culture. CONCEPTS OF CULTURE Theorists are trying to deal with the death of culturalism, and its implications for multiculturalism. For some the response is to assign multiculturalism to the dust heap and focus instead on alternatives like cosmopolitanism, republicanism or some new
forms of universalism based in expanded concepts of human rights or renewed forms of democracy. While each of these may have their advantages, not everyone thinks that the death of culturalism means the death of multiculturalism. In fact Levey stresses in his article that multiculturalism still plays a critical role in avoiding the pitfalls of nationalism masquerading as universalism (Levey, 2009, 83). Even Will Kymlicka, who acknowledges that the bloom is off the multicultural rose, argues that the level of retention of multicultural policy worldwide is still notable, and must mean something (Kymlicka 2007, 53). Two theorists who subscribe to the rejection of culturalism, but who don’t think it requires the rejection of multiculturalism are Anne Phillips (2007) and Tariq Modood (2007). Levey reviews their recent work and sees a common theme between them. Both think the problematic focus on culture can be replaced with a new focus, either on difference (Modood, 2007, 39) or identity (Phillips, 2007, 15). Because we are more comfortable with the way these other aspects of shared life shift and reconfigure, they believe, it should help avoid the kind of rigidities to which the focus on culture could be prone. The difficulty is, of course, that difference and identity aren’t that far removed from ideas of culture, and can just as easily become a source of essentialism. Iris Marion Young’s initial interest was in difference and identity and their related disadvantages (1989). Yet her work quickly led in a direction that concerned many of the anticulturalists critics (Ivison, 2005, 173-4). So the focus on difference and identity is hardly new in multicultural theory, meaning that if these approaches represent a new position, it must emerge from how identity and difference are managed within them. In other words, it must be the methods or methodology of multiculturalism that must be reworked in order to deal with the culturalism problem. Modood’s work provides a good example of how revising the methodologies of multiculturalism can change what we expect from 2
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the approach. Modood starts by pointing out the problems multiculturalism has had in distinguishing between religious difference and cultural difference (2007, 25-27). These problems made it especially difficult to deal with cultures that are deeply religious, or religions that function like a cultural identity, such as with Muslim or Jewish populations. The problem here, he thinks, is that multiculturalism started out with too strict a definition of culture, and wasn’t able to respond to the real variety of cultural experience it encountered in the world. This fixed idea of what qualifies as culture also leads to problems when immigrant populations or minorities develop more complex or hybrid identities that combine elements of minority and majority cultures without firmly aligning with any one (2007, 35). His solution is that multiculturalism should not be regarded as a comprehensive doctrine (2007, 83). In fact he admits to being “agnostic” as to its philosophical foundations (2007, 66) in liberalism or otherwise. Instead he recommends building the practices of multicultural accommodation from the ground up, based on what seem like fair accommodations of the kinds of groups that people actually form and value. In response to the charge that multiculturalism makes a key error by assuming that there are finite things like cultural groups, Modood cites a pragmatic philosophy, one that eschews the pursuit of foundations. He cites the work of linguistic theorist Ludwig Wittgenstein to suggest that we can over-do our fascination with determining the real essence of groups. Wittgenstein believed that when we study the concepts used in language we find no final essence can be identified. The standard philosophic response is to declare the concepts under examination are insufficient and go in search of something even more foundational. But it’s a fool’s errand. Because no such foundational structure can be found, yet language still provides us with a sufficient level of coherence that these imperfect concepts manage to serve well enough in everyday life (Wittgenstein, 2001, §109).
Modood borrows this approach to describe how groups, even though they cannot be fixed or defined in foundational terms, are workable concepts for political life. Modood explains that we can tell what groups are by their “family resemblances” (2007, 96), using a term Wittgenstein adopts to explain the way we can tell how different kinds of activities are “games,” despite lacking a single over-arching quality common to them all (2001, §67). For Wittgenstein understanding something, or knowing what it means, is not a precise exercise. It is part of a process or lived practice that unfolds as we use language, and observe its effects (2001, §23). Wittgenstein’s point is that we don’t learn language by grasping some universal structures of meaning, we learn it by watching what happens when we speak. He calls this process of trial-and-error learning “language games,” (Wittgenstein, 2001, §7) and it’s the closest we ever come to the foundations of knowledge. Even when we think we understand there is always some element of imprecision or fluidity, and any linguistic concept can change because the way we use it, or respond to it, can change. Our most philosophic concepts, our most immediate sensory experiences, or our most precise mathematical terms, are at best merely signposts towards meaning and understanding. Like signposts they can guide us, but they do not fully determine our path (Wittgenstein, 2001, §85). Modood’s point is that this kind of fuzzy conceptual underpinnings, where we know how to work with some terms but cannot give a final and universal account of them, is not evidence of philosophic failure, it is the stuff of everyday life. Because no concept would pass the scrutiny that has been given to culture and identity, yet cultural life goes on. And cultural groups or as he puts it “groupness” (Modood, 2007, 20) need not represent an unmanageable quality, unless we expect a kind of essence from them that they cannot provide. The answer to the ills of culturalism therefore, is that we must change what we are trying to do with concepts like groupness, identity, or difference, rather than abandoning them. Multiculturalism must understand these terms as 3
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rooted in everyday social practice, see them as the product of language games rather than expressing some kind of essence. HOW CULTURE WORKS So what proves critical to the reworking of multiculturalism is the focus on how culture emerges and come to be understood as a lived practice. If how we operationalize culture –including its recognition, issues of membership, and redefinition – is the real backbone to multiculturalism, then examining these practices is the litmus test of multiculturalism in a given situation. Examining them should tell us when a population is following a multicultural path and when it has been diverted towards essentialism or forms of exclusion. In particular the concepts of groupness, and what forms shared identity takes, become key indicators, as does the discourse and framing around these themes, and the practical outcomes that follow. In other words it matters how culture or group identity works. And since the relationship between minority and majority populations is almost the central theme in multiculturalism it especially matters how these inter-group interactions work as well. In order to explore how this approach might be applied, this paper will look at the multicultural and minority experience within a particular country. The Republic of Ireland went through a significant period of economic grown from the 1990s until 2008, when the worldwide downturn hit the overheated Irish economy particularly hard. This so-called “boom” coincided with a period of social change driven by affluence, in-migration from developing countries, the return of expatriate Irish from overseas, and a marked decline in the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The combination led to the development of new ideas of Irishness, and these developments had more or less impact on minority groups. Within the Republic three populations in particular stand out as a focus of study because they represent distinct kinds of groups with
different needs, each posing a range of multicultural challenges, guaranteeing that one size will not fit all when it comes to solutions. Moreover, their experiences in the past ten to twenty years each capture a different dynamic. These minorities include sexual minorities who, because they are a distributed minority without ethnic markers, represent a unique diversity challenge; the Travellers, a classic multicultural minority group with ethnic markers and a history of discrimination and disadvantage; and new immigrants who also represent a major population under multiculturalism, but who lack the kind of coherence, boundaries and solidarity of other groups. What’s interesting about these groups is not just the accommodations or treatment they received based on their groupness, but also how the overarching sense of national identity or Irishness was managed in light of their needs. It turns out that the readiness to rework concepts of Irishness is important to the progress of multicultural accommodations. I will begin the discussion by focusing on a situation where the degree of social accommodation has been marked. Although sexual minorities such as Gays and Lesbians are not a prototypical minority under multiculturalism they certainly qualify for consideration under the heading of diversity or pluralism. Moreover they present a particularly challenging group in a country shaped by traditionalist religion. And as with Modood’s concept of groupness, the very fact that they are not the typical example of a multicultural minority, and not in any sense an ethnic community, presents exactly the kind of challenge to which multiculturalism needs to be able to respond. Finally, the degree of transformation in the status of this group, and the way these changes penetrated the sense of Irishness provides an especially good place to start because it shows how much transformation is possible in the Irish setting. SEXUAL MINORITIES As late as 1993 homosexuality was criminalized in Ireland and Gay and Lesbian lifestyles severely constrained by social stigma. After a 4
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high profile rights movement, the organization of a Gay and Lesbian community network, and mobilization for the recognition of gay rights, Ireland began taking steps to address the marginalization of sexual minorities in the Republic. While many of the initiatives are legal and legislative, there has also been a significant transformation in public opinion. As one national newspaper described it: … the revolution has taken place on a deeply personal level. The most important milestones have been those that made homosexuality visible to us all. These moments of visibility have influenced sea-changes in public opinion, which in turn have influenced political developments (“How homo changed,” 2004). It’s helpful to ask what steps led to these developments, and how concepts of culture and identity functioned throughout the process. The first thing to note about these developments is the importance of the legal course followed. Beginning with decriminalization in 1993 there was steady progress through the introduction of different forms of anti-discrimination rights, and finally the introduction of a civil unions bill that goes for final debate Summer 2009 with 84% popular support (“Increased support for gay marriage” 2008). This measure still falls short of complete equality in marriage, which has 62% popular support (“Same sex marriage,” 2009). The Gay rights debate leaned heavily on claims about equality, arguing that exclusionary concepts of sexuality were forcing some Irish to live like second-class citizens (Norris, 1993). This appeal was also made to EU bodies, where it was largely sympathetically received. This focus on rights served two ends, first it shifted the debate from discussing Gay and Lesbian lifestyles to focus on universal moral themes, and second it framed the debate in a particular way. It held that these groups were not asking for special accommodations based on some quality that set them apart. Instead it asked they not be singled out, but merely have the
opportunity to enjoy the same rights and privileges as other citizens without undue penalty. Although the majority of major developments have taken place in the legal arena, this carefully framed legal and legislative debate was paralleled with a media-savvy campaign to raise awareness and develop sympathy and support (Ryan, 2006). This helped create an environment in which change could be more easily introduced. Not only was a major Gay publication developed and distributed that helped to network Gay and Lesbian individuals in Irish society, community organizers made a point of calling on high profile individuals to champion their cause, including two women who went on to become Irish Presidents, Mary Robinson and Mary McAlesse. Alliances with trade unions, women’s movements, and civil liberties bodies also added momentum and built legitimacy as a rights issue (Robson, 1995, 50-3). The tone of the recent discourse around gay marriage illustrates how much opinion on these issues has moved. The identity discourse around sexual minorities has moved from themes of pathology to themes that stress family status and links to Irish society (“How homo changed,” 2004). In much of the media coverage the focus was way that sexual minorities were already integrated into everyday society, and suggesting that their claims did not disrupt the national identity (O’Toole, 1998). This is an important development since one of the main obstacles to recognition and accommodation was the claim that certain lifestyles undermined the Irish family, a central institution of civic life specifically recognized and protected in the constitution. The debate was not without opponents who stressed such themes (“Gay adoption” 2002) but these voices have been in the minority. Despite the focus on equal rights and recognition, and even given the receptive tone of media and popular opinion, it would be unrealistic to think that these developments took place entirely on their own merits. Ireland was under scrutiny from European rights bodies, as well as international opinion. These external stakeholders 5
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were heavily courted as part of the country’s aspiring global image. With returning expat Irish, a diverse migrant workforce, and new high profile foreign executives suddenly calling Ireland home, outside forces were reshaping the contours of an increasingly cosmopolitan society. To put it another way, the recognition of gay rights was largely coherent with other Irish economic and political aims, as well as played to an emerging new identity as an open and modern society. Equally important, these changes had wellpositioned advocates in media, law, academics and politics, and the movement mobilized behind aims that were low cost for high payoffs in terms of cosmopolitan identity and civil rights performance. In short, a great many forces came together to support these changes, and no one element can be singled out as pivotal. Also notable is the fact that when it comes to multicultural factors, it was not so much the group identity of sexual minorities that underwent transformation, although the level of mobilization and solidarity involved probably does indicate a certain development in that regard. But what did happen, and needed to happen in order to make progress possible on this issue, was a significant transformation in the concept of Irishness or the Irish family, which dropped its exclusively heterosexual focus. Likewise the concept of Irish citizenship needed to include concepts of sexual freedom. Finally, it wouldn’t be a complete discussion of these issues without noting that there are many forms of sexuality that have experienced marginalization under the dominant norms of the Republic. Yet in the Irish case it is Gays and Lesbians whose issues have been most often addressed and accommodated – presumably because of the personalities of particular spokespeople and because their claims can be more easily assimilated to a heterosexual model as being family- or commitment-oriented in a distinct way. So in terms of accommodation for this minority progress has not always been balanced across the board. While there is remarkable progress on
the issues for some, there are others whose issues remain outside the mainstream scope of discussion. It could even be argued, as it has been for other multicultural minorities, that as some concept of the minority identity becomes increasingly mainstream, it can constrain the expression of difference within an identity group. This dynamic, as well as the gap in recognition for other sexual minorities, must be factored into the overall evaluation of progress on these issues. 2 THE TRAVELLERS Sexual minorities in Ireland have had remarkable success in launching a movement that shifted public opinion from condemnation to accommodation in important regards. The nomadic Traveller minority has not fared so well. The Travellers are estimated to number approximately 27,000 and represent a commercial nomadic population that has been moving through Ireland for centuries. Their culture is family-focused and traditionally relied heavily on horses. They generally traveled from town to town, stopping for periods from weeks to months on the side of the road, where they would establish temporary camps. As a group they are identified with a range of social problems, ranging from collective feuding to individualized crime and violence, and it is common for Travellers to be turned away from hotels and pubs in Ireland as undesirables. Their nomadic lifestyle has made integration into a school system organized around a “settled” lifestyle difficult and it’s estimated that only ten percent go on to high school, few complete it, and only a handful ever enter postsecondary education (O’Connell, 2002, 60-1). Their infant mortality is double the national average, and their life expectancy, ten to twelve years less. Irish scholar John O’Connell sums up their situation thus: I am grateful to Nicole Wegner and Jean Michel Montsion for helpful discussions on this point.
2
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Travellers fare poorly on every indicator used to measure social disadvantage: unemployment, poverty, social exclusion, heath status, infant mortality, life expectancy, illiteracy, education and training levels, access to decision making and political representation, gender equality, access to credit, accommodation and living conditions (2002, 49). The Traveller’s situation has been the focus of international attention. In 1991 an EU Parliamentary Committee on Racism and Xenophobia called them “the single most discriminated against ethnic group” in Ireland (O’Connell, 2002, 52). The Committee called for action on their behalf but the country has been reluctant to recognize the Traveller issue as a form of ethnic or cultural discrimination. The submission of an Irish Member of EU Parliament to the EU Committee mentioned above illustrates this thinking: Ireland is a racially homogenous country with no ethnic minority groups. As a consequence there are no racial problems of the kind experienced in countries with such groups… there is however a minority group of travelling people giving rise to some of the problems associated with racism (O’Connell, 2002, 53). This denial of their status as a minority group contrasts sharply with their stigmatized representation in popular media. The demeaning terms of “Tinker,” is openly used in national headlines to collectively designate members of the group. One national paper published an article in 1996 calling for a crackdown on “Tinker Culture” explaining Traveller culture was: ... a life of appetite ungoverned by intellect… It is a life worse than the life of beasts… without the ennobling intellect of man or the steadying instinct of animals. This tinker “culture” is without achievement, discipline, reason or intellectual ambition. It is a morass. And one of the
surprising things about it is that not every individual bred in this swamp turns out bad. Some individuals among the tinkers find the will not to become evil” (O’Connell, 2002, 54) This is not an exceptional view on the Traveller situation, unfortunately. In the same year a local municipal councillor felt comfortable publicly suggesting that the Travellers need to be put out of the country “with shotguns” because “they are not our people” (O’Connell, 2002, 55). This perverse approach, based on denial of their ethnic minority status combined with their collective stigmatization and exclusion from Irish identity (a 2007 national newspaper article includes them among a study of foreigners and non-nationals, for example, [“One person in 10” Irish Independent, 2007]), has left Traveller advocates in a difficult position. Because they must first establish there is a systematic problem, before they can propose measures to address it. That this should even be difficult speak volumes about the situation. For example in 2004, despite being less than 1% of the population, Travellers accounted for 66% of cases filed under Ireland’s anti-discrimination law, and almost half of the complaints (42%) were successful (O’Connell, 2006, 5). In contrast to their success under anti-discrimination law, the country’s anti-incitement to hatred laws have proven ineffective in curbing nationally publicized calls to electronically tag Travellers, hunt them with shotguns, or suggestions that they are less than animals, on the grounds that these comments did not necessarily express hatred (Crowley 2005, 243). In short, there is an uphill battle to establish how a complacent or actively hostile Irish majority contributes to the problems of Traveller life through deep, persistent, and selfvalidating forms of marginalization. Moreover the denial of minority ethnic status is not just a semantic issue, because it means that Travellers are not covered under the country’s otherwise robust national and international anti-racism 7
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requirements. Further complicating the Traveller situation, is that as with other portions of Irish society, there has been an increase in in-migration from other parts of Europe, in particular the Roma gypsies from Romania and Bosnia. This has led to further resistance against those who are identified with the Traveller lifestyle, but it would be a mistake to think that the resistance was primarily due to these new populations. The marginalization of Travellers was long standing practice before these new inmigrations, although their arrival does present new opportunities to rationalize hostility towards an a-typical population. What’s telling in the case of the Travellers is that despite resistance to formal recognition of their claims, there has been steady official recognition of their troubled situation. A series of major task forces or commissions starting in 1963 attempted to come to grips with the policy responsibilities involved. While the progressive reports do mark a shift from a focus on settlement and assimilation to one of recognition and accommodation, public policy when it comes to the Travellers has been characterized more by failure than success. Two major factors work to undermine the recommendations of successive policy efforts. The first is institutional. Responsibility for implementation of many of the key measures for Traveller accommodation is largely left up to the local municipalities. Not only is this a lesser-funded level of government, there is often little buy-in from local councillors, many of whom prefer to address the concerns of permanent residents than to address the needs of a transient population. In effect, assigning implementation for Traveller accommodations to the local level amounts to death by downloading. The local authorities have little incentive or inclination to carry out a demanding, unpopular and sometimes costly policy mandate, and face little or no accountability if they fail to do so. The second factor working against Traveller policy is the broadbased social stigma attached to this population. Perceived as a nuisance population prone to violence and drinking, Traveller
claims are regarded with suspicion. This perception is often tacitly endorsed in law. Irish anti-discrimination laws generally prohibit the refusal of entry to pubs and restaurants on the basis of ethnicity. After Irish publicans chaffed at this requirement and threatened a blanket ban on all Travellers from their premises in 2002, a new implementation order was developed to identify grounds on which publicans could legally refuse entry based on behaviors typically associated with the supposedly trouble-making Traveller population (“Threat to ban,” 2002). In terms of advocacy for Traveller issues, the successive policy failures have had an effect on Traveller identity. Traditionally an insular population known for inter-marriage, its own distinct ingroup language, and sense of history, the Travellers did not generally see themselves as an ethnic group so much as a group defined by lifestyle and family networks (“Travellers challenge ethnic claim,” 1994). But the advocacy discourse has shifted decisively in the direction of ethnic claims, and the Irish Travellers were recognized under British law as an ethnic minority in 2000. This means Travellers in Northern Ireland, many of whom are related to and circulate among the population to the south, have a distinct status from those in the Republic. Will Kymlicka has noted on the way that multicultural accommodations can become an incentive to articulate claims in cultural or ethnic terms (2007, 225). The Travellers seem to be a classic case of this process taking place, including the influence of extra-national bodies such as the UN, the EU and other EU states which can all exert pressure for policy progress, especially once the population defines itself in ethnic or cultural minority terms. Once cast in ethnic terms Travellers have a strong claim on multicultural accommodations. Their situation is marked by a level of disadvantage and discrimination typically associated with racism,
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and they have a far stronger claim to finding themselves as secondclass citizens than almost any group in the Republic.3 As well as appealing to the ethnicity factor, Traveller advocates made use of a right-based discourse to try and raise the level of provision with some limited success. However, unlike the situation with sexual minorities they have never succeed in making the Traveller question part of a national discourse or integrated their status with efforts to formulate a new Irish identity. Indeed a 2002 publicly-funded campaign to raise awareness of Traveller issues was cancelled by the government on the grounds that the campaign focused too much on the Traveller perspective (“Citizen Traveller campaign,” 2002). It’s remarkable the level to which a controversial issue, on which most Irish have strong opinions, has never been subject to the kind of self-examination and identity renegotiation that was both prompted by, and made possible, the mainstreaming of gay identity. Instead the national self-definition as a settled population, with a consumer-driven lifestyle, has simply cast the Travellers as odd or unreasonable, a population to be feared and disciplined. There are as many explanations for the failures of Traveller accommodations as there are for success in the case of sexual minorities. A notable difference between them is that Traveller accommodations are generally higher cost, with low international profile, and no special alignment with the economic or political aims of the country. If, for the purposes of claims-making, the Traveller self-understanding, or even merely Traveller advocacy is changing from focusing on their distinct lifestyle and specific public service needs to focus on ethnic rights, this development is not necessarily inauthentic. The group is redefining itself, based on what works, given a legacy of policy failure as well as a community I am grateful to Joanne Heritz for helpful discussions on the applicability of a racism discourse to the Traveller situation. 3
history that lends itself to an ethnic interpretation. This kind of change seems to express the complex relationships of culture and advocacy that Modood outlines in his account of a renewed multiculturalism. It remains to be seen whether this can work any better at advancing Traveller interests. IMMIGRANTS The third group that this paper will consider in the Irish case is immigrants. Traditionally a country of out-migration, immigration became an issue in Ireland after the 1990s economic boom reversed the normal migration flows and brought new populations, including refugees and non-EU workers into the country. The country had to scramble to put the institutional order in place to service these new flows, and the outcome was often that non-expatriate or nonEU migrants were disadvantaged by policy adjustments aimed at constraining the benefits of social policy available to them (Moran, 2005, 263, 269). The rapid rise in refugee numbers, for example, was seen as a “crisis” to be managed by creating disincentives through their reception and treatment (Fanning, 2002, 101). Refugees were kept in dispersed encampments around the country, and provided a bare minimum of financial support but denied the right to work. Resulting nutrition problems for refugee mothers were severe enough that many were unable to breast-feed their children (Fanning 2006, 91), and with a limited bureaucracy to handle a large new population, the time to process applications can be considerable (“UN concern,” 2009). The refugee situation in Ireland is in theory driven by humanitarian priorities although in reality refugee claims were met with skepticism and resistance (O’Connell and Winston, 2006). Beyond this population, other immigrants are generally viewed through an economic lens (Loyal 2003, 85). As far as policy designers were concerned migrants were either expatriate Irish who were to be welcomed home (Hayward and Howard, 2007), or skilled or unskilled workers who would be in Ireland on a temporary basis, 9
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while economic conditions required (Loyal, 2003, 83). Evidence of this highly conditional approach to new populations is a work permitting system that grants permits to the employers rather than workers, who then cannot leave their assigned employment without losing their right to stay in the state (Allen, 2007, 86). Given the assumption that these populations were either a) already Irish or b) not staying, there was limited recognition of (or desire to embrace) their transformational impact, even in the face of practical realities. But the immigration issue did play on the national psyche in several regards. For one, as a country of out-migration, which regularly lobbied for special considerations and accommodations for its migrants overseas, the Irish found themselves in a difficult position when similar considerations were expected for non-Irish migrants in their own country. Secondly, as a post-colonial nation, the Irish had traditionally taken a strong stance against racism and had maintained close ties with many African and developing nations, as part of missionary and charitable work. For these reasons the presumption was in favour of the country responding positively to the new challenges of diversity and immigration. However this beneficence proved short-lived. Within a few years the mood shifted and the perception of immigrants (foreign-born as opposed to expatriate) shifted to one of threat and unfair demands. The response was to constrain access to citizenship and social benefits, including a Citizenship Referendum in 2004 designed to remove the right to citizenship by birth. The move was prompted by unsubstantiated claims (repeated by a government Minister) that heavily pregnant “baby tourist” Africans were arriving in the country in such numbers that Irish mothers were being turned away from maternity wards (Fanning and Mutwarasibo, 2007, 441, 447). More recently comments from an Irish Member of Parliament fed a “white flight” scare in public education, by blaming minority children not fluent in English or Irish for lowering the standard for other children and calling for their “segregation” from other schoolchildren (“Diversity does not damage,” 2008).
Since public and official attitudes towards immigrants were driven mainly by utilitarian and contingent economic priorities, it’s to be expected that a downturn in the economy would translate into a shift towards the reduction of migrant populations and reductions in efforts towards integration. Since 2008 the requirements for foreign workers to renew Irish work permits have been made more stringent, meaning workers already in the country will find their jobs difficult to retain (“Migrants to find,” 2009). The country has also begun participating in voluntary repatriation processes, which effectively pay a cash bonus and flight costs for non- Irish willing to go back where they came from (“Significant increase,” 2009). And the 2008 budget completely eliminated funding for one of the country’s leading anti-racism and immigration advocacy groups, slashed funding dramatically for others, scaled back new consultative initiatives, and cut the overall budget for integration measures by a quarter (“Budget cutbacks,” 2008). So the dynamic surrounding immigration in Ireland is a complex one. As a country, its background lends itself towards an open orientation and high tolerance for difference, disadvantaged populations, and economic migrants. But the institutional order clearly puts the emphasis on how immigration can serve Irish-born populations, with the needs of new migrants put second. And while there is a sense of the country being at some level welcoming or tolerant towards immigrants, this kind of orientation has a builtin power dynamic, one focused on beneficence rather than equality. Some scholars believe contemporary Ireland functions like a “gift culture” where social standing is driven by formalized exchanges based on temporary periods of excess that are used to create social capital in the form of obligation and gratitude (Keohane and Kuhling, 2004). If so, this suggest that newcomer populations must continue to meet expectations around gratitude towards the giver populations, keeping them in a position of dependence. It also means that certain advocacy measures – around initiatives such as anti-racism, for example, may be perceived as ingratitude towards the host country. This might help explain the government’s 10
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readiness to completely cut funding for advocacy groups in these areas, especially once a period of excess seems to have come to an end. In many ways then, immigration in Ireland is remarkable for the limited impact it has had on the national imaginary. The economic and utilitarian orientation of migration flows kept real change at a distance, and the country remains focused primarily on populations of Irish decent, living a lifestyle based on traditional patterns of social exchange, even if those patterns have taken on a boom-bust quality of consumerism. Groups within Ireland have not had much opportunity to form deep roots as the in- and out-flow of worker populations effectively churns the migrant population from year to year. With a shift towards the reduction of advocacy for migrant populations, and a popular expectation that foreigners will be leaving as the downturn deepens, Ireland is less and less inclined to internalize changes in cultural identity brought about by migration. And internal migrants face a constrained atmosphere that expects them to assimilate to Irish ways of life, minimize their demands on local culture, and show gratitude for the opportunity to be (contingently) Irish. ANALYSIS The purpose of looking at the minority experience in Ireland was to ask what role changing concepts of culture played in these experiences. The aim was to see what we could learn from how culture and cultural difference was managed in these cases. The emphasis was on the lived practice around culture and accommodation because this is the best way to see how culture worked. What became apparent is that while issues of difference and identity drive the formation of claims, the negotiation of understanding between groups, and, in some situations, the renegotiation of self-understandings is critical, but that power dynamics and social and economic resources play a large role in that process.
The first thing to note in reflecting on the experience in the Irish case is that on closer examination none of the groups under consideration are a good fit with the standard multiculturalism template developed around national minorities and immigrant populations. Sexual minorities are neither a societal culture, nor a group seeking integration into mainstream life. They are seeking the expansion of the concepts of mainstream life in ways that end their marginalization and discrimination. Travellers initially resisted identification as ethnically distinct, and only later adopted it as part of an advocacy process. And immigrants in Ireland turn out to be a highly diverse population, sometimes sharing only their status as outsiders and their often constrained and conditional tenure in the country. This alone says a great deal about how concepts of culture must remain fluid to capture what is really happening in a multicultural setting. Any attempt to pre-define what qualifies as a cultural group, or a group with a legitimate claim to accommodations, would leave one or other of these groups off the table. Instead, by adopting Modood’s approach, the concept of multiculturalism might do better to work backward from the groups needing accommodation to formulate ideas on what groupness involves. What is also notable is the dramatic contrast between the social transformation associated with Gay and Lesbian identities and the experience of Travellers or foreign migrants. For a variety of reasons one group was able to position itself for inclusion, while the others experienced significant and persistent failures of accommodation, even in the face of explicit policy commitments to the contrary. What this suggests is that it is possible to shift public opinion in progressive directions, but that accommodation will only take firm hold when change is broad-based rather than driven by legal or policy directives. In the case of Gay and Lesbian groups, the group leaders deserve a great deal of credit for this success, and it was undoubtedly to their advantage that many were members of, or had access to, the opinion-forming class of Irish society. Which 11
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leads to a second point, it’s not just how we understand or define groupness that counts, it matters how the groups operate, and what their resources are, as well as their capacity to mobilize social capital. Where groups are not already advantaged in some way, multiculturalism may need to develop these resources if accommodations are to have a real chance to take hold. Another striking dynamic that emerges from looking at these group experiences is the role of rights and rights claims in mobilizing action, especially in cases of serious need or disadvantage. This is a powerful theme since much of multiculturalism has been developed as a system of group or cultural rights. But if anything, these cases illustrate the impotence of rights talk, and how easily it can fall on deaf ears. It might at first appear that rights claims had a powerful impact in at least one of these cases – the claims that Gays and Lesbians were living as second-class citizens because their lifestyle and life commitments were not recognized. But this has to be contrasted with the equally powerful claims by Travellers who find themselves second-class citizens based on lower life expectancy, lower educational attainment and higher levels of discrimination. Likewise the nutrition problems of refugees, the employment vulnerabilities of foreign workers, and even the citizenship rights of some infants born in the country are all given lesser weight. So even with a population that takes pride in its role as a champion of human rights abroad, the second-class citizen discourse can have surprisingly limited resonance. All three groups can make rights claims on very powerful grounds, but in only one case were these claims responded to. Which seems to indicate that it was not the moral weight of rights, or even concern over rights violations, or at least not these concerns alone, that led to social transformation. Although this is far from an exhaustive examination of the experience with these groups, it is possible to draw some insights regarding what did seem to support social transformation. Or to put it in more Wittgenstinian terms, it’s possible to identify some factors that made cultural or group claims “work” in some cases
more than others. These factors include a) the economic costs of accommodation, b) whether accommodation aligned with existing goals or self-interest of the dominant population, c) ability to access or influence opinion-forming institutions such as higher education and the media, d) internal group organization and mobilization, and finally e) the capacity to advance claims without fear of retribution. These are not cultural factors and there is nothing culturally specific about how any of these elements would be engaged. But there is a cultural factor running through these cases, which plays into degrees of success or failure. It has to do with the degree of flexibility associated with the cultural identities involved in these experiences. Where the national identity proved flexible, inclusion proved possible. Where it reached some kind of limits or resistance, the possibilities for positive change became scarce. Where the minority group is cast in a particular cultural role, such as migrants as economic actors, or Travellers as insular and problematic, the fixity of this cultural framing impedes progress on accommodation. By the same token the internal flexibility around cultural identity can open up possibilities – such as the Traveller’s readiness to use ethnicity to advance some claims. However, this dynamic does suggest that if the new cultural definition becomes too fixed – such as Gay and Lesbian lifestyles as an expression of the modern Irish family, or Travellers as separate ethnicities – there can be a price to pay. So what’s important is the capacity to keep cultural identities fluid, rather than express them in some particular form. It’s the fluidity that is key to their workability. At the same time attention to lived practice makes us alert to relevant dynamics surrounding cultural difference, such as how the expectation that migrants won’t stay leads to an institutional order that legitimates their exclusion from social benefits. So while cultural difference may be at the roots of multicultural concerns, critics are right to argue that a focus on culture as an identifiable thing is not necessarily the solution. That doesn’t mean that culture should be shut out, or set aside, however. Instead we 12
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need to get past static definitions of culture to focus on the impact of a given cultural definition or framing, the level of resources available to groups to communicate their position, and the readiness of various groups to collectively renegotiate their goals and priorities in the name of fairness. That such renegotiation is possible is illustrated by progress on Gay and Lesbian issues in Ireland, that it is not an easy thing to achieve is illustrated by the stalled progress on Traveller and foreign migrant issues. Moreover this examination confirms the folly of thinking we can offer a final account of the experiences of these groups. Focusing on the experiences of Gays and Lesbians leaves out other sexual minorities; highlighting the policy failures and general discrimination towards Travellers obscures the doubly vulnerable position of women or disabled within this population; and migrants to Ireland have many different reasons for being there and diverse needs once they’ve arrived. Each group may take different configurations based on what works in different times and settings, and this is simply how culture and cultural identity works. Making multiculturalism work means being responsive to the fluidity rooted in everyday practice. LESSONS FOR CANADA The Irish case provides an interesting contrast with the Canadian case, especially since Canada is often cited as a classic case of multicultural politics in action. But there are lessons to be drawn from the Irish experience that can be useful in the Canadian context. The main lessons to be drawn are that cultural groups rarely match the template set out in multicultural theory, and that efforts to stabilize cultural identity based on particular practices can be problematic. These lessons are especially relevant coming on the heels of a recent effort to rethink multiculturalism in light of a supposed “accommodation crisis” in Quebec, as part of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission (2008, 39.)
The Bouchard-Taylor report argued that the chief problem with multicultural policy turned out to be an over-heated and illinformed public debate over a few sensational issues (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008, 18), and stressed the importance of developing a spirit of compromise and “concerted adjustment” between groups (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008, 64-5). But it also suggested that this spirit was unlikely to thrive without first addressing an “identityrelated anxiety” among the majority and minority populations in Quebec (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008, 186). That anxiety, the report argued, often focused on the potential loss of cultural practices or shared identity in the face of minority demands and social transformation. Addressing these anxieties required commitments to shared practices such as the use of French (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008, 125), but once these elements are secured other multicultural provisions should be easier to manage. In general the Bouchard-Taylor report recommends viewing culture as highly malleable, and counsels both majorities and minorities to prepare for change (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008, 125). Yet the desire to allay anxieties prompted the Commissioners to offer assurances regarding elements of traditional Quebec identity such as language. The findings from the Irish experience suggest that while well-intentioned, this is the wrong course to follow. Any effort to bracket off elements of a culture – whether minority or majority – and define them as foundational, runs contrary to the concept of culture as a fluid and flexible process. Not only is this constraining for the member of the culture being defined, it also makes it more difficult to reach forms of coexistence with other identities through some kind of negotiation. To put it another way prioritizing some element of a culture may ensure that the culture works up to a point, but it may eventually become vulnerability rather than strength. So while the Bouchard-Taylor report developed many interesting themes, and stressed the role of interaction between cultural groups, the effort to grant some cultural practices special status is 13
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oddly out of step with its emphasis on intercultural compromise. The logic of interculturalism outlined in the report suggests that each new era will present a different set of challenges that will reorder how cultures work. And inevitably each new articulation of a cultural identity will include and exclude in different ways, will even create its own brackets around favoured cultural elements. But multiculturalism should be the process that supports cultural rearticulations, rather than rigidification, even if both elements are part of the overall cultural dynamic. Because what ultimately keeps a culture working is its capacity for change, rather than its capacity to avoid it. CONCLUSION Multiculturalism has been criticized for its approach to culture, on the grounds that in its rush to accommodate minorities, it tends to reify identities and social practices. Not only that, but it creates systemic unfairness either by favouring minorities over majorities, or by undermining more pressing justice issues. At the root of these critiques is a concern with the understanding of culture, and the ways this understanding is operationalized. More recently advocates of multiculturalism have called for a new approach, one that understands culture in more fluid and pragmatic terms. Group or cultural identity, understood as lived practice, is a more dynamic and responsive creature, influenced by the social and political structures around it. Concepts of cultural authenticity or foundational cultural elements have little place under this approach and efforts to identify them will prove as fruitless as seeking foundational certainties have proven in philosophy or linguistics. As Anne Phillips explains: “culture is a stereotype, just like gender or class, a rough generalization that can be a useful way of condensing information, but should never be mistaken for the truth” (2007, 98). But as language illustrates, we can lack a final account of a concept and still work with it perfectly well. So long as we don’t obsess
over its incompleteness, and focus on what works and doesn’t when we use the concept in everyday life, we can create an effective approach, without inviting the problems that critics have identified. As the Irish case shows, minorities often are an odd fit with the standard multicultural categories, which itself is an indicator that the theory is falling behind the real needs of the groups it aims to address. The Irish experience also indicated that remarkable progress is possible where there is fluidity in cultural selfunderstandings. Yet where that fluidity is lacking even the most enlightened policy designs can fall flat. And sometimes accommodation is not just a matter of targeted policies or rights; sometimes it requires a change in how different groups conceptualize each other. Meaning that the groupness associated with cultural difference should never be allowed to become a trap for the people involved (Phillips, 2007, 179). The Irish experience also shows that there is no avoiding the effect that power dynamics and social resources have on the behaviors of cultural groups, and this in itself is not good or bad. The real test of these dynamics is how fair or unfair they are to different populations. This concept of culture as lived practice means that multiculturalism offers no guarantees to any cultural group. No elements of collective life can be bracketed off for special preservation without unsettling the dynamics of cultural change, and limiting the possibilities for renegotiation and coexistence. Where these measures have been recommended they complicate the multicultural environment and raise concerns over fairness and essentialism. What is needed is to equalize the social power of groups so they can determine their own priorities, rather than identify cultural traits and practices for special status. This renewed or revised multicultural mandate – what I will call transformative multiculturalism – understands culture not as an object to be preserved but as a site of negotiation. What then is left of multiculturalism once it becomes an approach stripped of its cultural preservation mandate? It becomes a 14
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philosophy or methodology focused on fair terms of coexistence. In essence, rather than being a way of ensuring the survival of vulnerable cultures, or assuring persecuted groups that they will not face further cultural pressures, the mandate for multiculturalism should be to assure that no one is unfairly disadvantaged by their cultural identity or by cultural difference. Nothing in this latter mandate guarantees cultural continuity, indeed in a world of constantly changing diversity it just about guarantees that multiculturalism will function as an instrument of social transformation, calling on all populations to renegotiate their identities in ways that make possible more productive and egalitarian coexistence. REFERENCES Abizadeh, Arash (2004). “Liberal nationalist versus postnational social integration: on the nation’s ethno-cultural particularity and ‘concreteness’,” Nations and Nationalism 10 (3): 231–250. Abizadeh, Arash (2002). “Does Liberal Democracy Presuppose a Cultural Nation?: Four Arguments,” American Political Science Review 96(3): 495509. Allen, Kieran (2007). “Neo-liberalism and immigration,” in Bryan Fanning (ed.) Immigration and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Barry, Brian (2002). Culture and Equality. Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. Bouchard, Gérard and Charles Taylor (2008). “Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation” Québec, Qué. : Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d'accomodement reliées aux différences culturelles. “Budget cutbacks weaken State's capacity to combat racism” (2008, November 19). Irish Times. Retrieved 15 May 2009 from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/1119/12270264130 11.html. “Citizen Traveller campaign to be wound up” (2002, November 4). RTE News. Retrieved 9 August 2008 from http://www.rte.ie/news/2002/1104/travellers.html. Crowley, Niall (2005) “Travellers and social policy,” in Suzanne Quinn, Patricia Kennedy, Anne Mathews, and Gabriel Kiely (eds) Contemporary Irish Social Policy. Dublin: UCD Press.
“Diversity does not damage learning, claims Lenihan” (2008, October 2). Irish Times Retrieved 15 May 2009 from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1002/122281546041 8.html. Fanning, Bryan (2006). “Immigration, racism and social exclusion,” in Bryan Fanning and Michael Rush (eds) Care and Social Change in the Irish Welfare Economy. Dublin: UCD Press. Fanning, Bryan (2002). Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Fanning, Bryan and Fidele Mutwarasibo (2007). “Nationals/non-nationals: Immigration, citizenship and politics in the Republic of Ireland,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(3): 439-60. Fraser, Nancy (1995). “From redistribution to recognition? Dilemmas of justice in a ‘post-socialist’ age,” New Left Review 212: 68-93. “Gay adoption is a demand too far” (2002 May 26) Irish Independent Retrieved July 28, 2008 from http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/gay-adoptionis-a-demand--too-far-501207.html. Goodhart, David (2005). “Britain’s glue: the case for liberal nationalism” in Giddens, A. and Diamond, P. (eds) The New Egalitarianism. Cambridge: Polity. Hayward, Katy and Kevin Howard (2007). “Cherry-picking the diaspora” in Bryan Fanning (ed) Immigration and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. “How homo changed to welcome home boys” (2003, May 1). Irish Independent Retrieved 28 July 2008 from http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/how-homo-changed-towelcome-home-boys-169874.html. “Increased support for gay marriage – Survey” (2008, March 31). BreakingNews.ie Retrieved 28 July 2008 from http://www.breakingnews.e/print/?jp=mhojojeyauid. Ivison, Duncan (2005). “The Moralism of Multiculturalism,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 22(2): 171-84. Keohane, Kieran and Carmen Kuhling (2004). “The ‘Gift’ Relation and Irish Consumerism” in Michel Peillon and Mary Corcoran (eds) Place and NonPlace: The reconfiguration of Ireland. Dublin: IPA. Lentin, Ronit. (2002). “Anti-racist responses to the racialisation of Irishness: Disavowed multiculturalism and its discontents,” in Ronit Lentin and Robbie McVeigh (eds) Racism and Anti-racism in Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale. Loyal, Steve (2003). “Welcome to the Celtic Tiger: racism, immigration and the state” in Colin Coulter and Steve Coleman (eds) The End of Irish History? Critical reflections on the Celtic Tiger. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
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Frost, Methods of Multiculturalism Meer, Nasar and Modood, Tariq (2008). ‘The Multicultural State We’re in: Muslims “Multiculture” and the “Civic Re-balancing” of British Multiculturalism’, Political Studies [Online early access] DOI: 10.1111/j.14679248.2008.00745.x. Published online: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgibin/fulltext/121383134/PDFSTART (Accessed 20 April 2009). “Migrants to find it more difficult to get permits” (2009, April 16). Irish Times Retrieved 15 May 2009 from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0416/122424480917 9.html. Miller, David (1995). On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moran, Joe (2005). “Refugees and Social Policy” in Suzanne Quinn, Patricia Kennedy, Anne Matthews, and Gabriel Kiely (eds) Contemporary Irish Social Policy. Dublin: UCD Press. Norris, David (1993, June 25). “Decriminalising homosexual acts an historic event,” The Irish Times, pg. 12. O’Connell, John (2002) “Travellers in Ireland: An examination of discrimination and racism,” in Ronit Lentin and Robbie McVeigh (eds) Racism and Antiracism in Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale. O’Connell, Michael and Nessa Winston (2006). “Changing Attitudes towards Minorities in Ireland” in John Garry, Niamh Hardiman and Diane Payne (eds) Irish Social and Political Attitudes. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. O’Connell, Rory (2006) “The Right to Participation of Minorities and Irish Travellers,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 6(3): 2-29. Okin, Susan Moller (1999). “Is multiculturalism bad for women?” In Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard and Martha C. Nussbausm (eds) Is multiculturalism bad for women? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. “One person in 10 is now a foreign national” (2007, July 27). Irish Independent Retrieved 5 August 2008 from http://www.independent.ie/nationalnews/one-person-in-10-here-is-now-a-foreign-national-1046336.html. O’Toole, Fintan (1998, March 20) “Hail to the patron saint of gays, refugees and slaves,” Irish Times pg. 14. Phillips, Anne (2007). Multiculturalism without Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Robson, Chris (1995). “Anatomy of a Campaign” in Íde O’Carroll and Eoin Collins (eds) Lesbian and Gay Visions of Ireland. London: Cassell. Ryan, Paul (2006). “Coming out of the dark: a decade of gay mobilization in Ireland, 1970-80,” in Linda Connolly and Niamh Hourigan (eds.) Social Movements in Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. “Same sex marriage gets poll support” (2009, February 27). Irish Times Retrieved 5 March 2009 from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0227/122424189298 6.html.
Shachar, Ayelet (2001). Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women’s Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. “Significant increase in immigrants applying for voluntary repatriation” (2009, December 2), Irish Times Retrieved 15 May 2009 from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1202/122816932499 5.html. “Threat to ban Travellers from pubs lifted” (2002, August 14). Irish Times, pg. 5. “Travellers challenge ethnic claim” (1994, February 21). Irish Times pg. 2. “UN concern over delay in refugee family cases” (2009, April 24). Irish Times Retrieved 15 May 2009 from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0424/122424529634 9_pf.html. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001) Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed. G.E.M. Anscombe, trans. Oxford: Blackwell. Young, Iris Marion (1989). “Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship,” Ethics 99: 250-74.
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