Which term refers to a group of people with similar culture and a geographical territory?

Abstract

Multiculturalism is the subject of multiple geographical interpretations. It is first identified as a way of describing the very condition of diversity evident through various spatial formations. In particular, multiculturalism refers to the existence of difference and uneven power relations among populations in terms of racial, ethnic, religious, geographical distinctions and other cultural markers that deviate from dominant, often racialized, “norms.” Based upon an acknowledgment of diversity, multiculturalism also refers to formal recognition and incorporation of those defined by such differences through policies and discourses that acknowledge the rights and needs of minoritized groups within the public realm, but which also control the terms of such integration. While the picture is complex and uneven based upon distinctive histories, many nation-states, particularly in the Global North have recently witnessed a discursive and policy shift from multiculturalism to forms of cultural assimilation. This shift has called into question the limits of multicultural acceptance in the context of neoliberal globalization and postcolonialism; the manner in which certain kinds of diversity should be, or can be, managed; how this management may relate to antiracism and social justice; and the relationship between individual and group-based rights. With this in mind, geographers have also more recently begun to think about multiculturalism as a phenomena beyond formal efforts to define and incorporate difference, drawing attention to the manner in which the boundaries of intersectional identities are encountered, reinforced, but also renegotiated through everyday life.

Abstract

Multiculturalism refers to (1) the state of a society or the world in which there exists numerous distinct ethnic and cultural groups seen to be politically relevant; and (2) a program or policy promoting such a society. Political philosophers aspire to deal with the challenges posed by multiculturalism fairly – but there is deep disagreement about what constitutes fair treatment. Multiculturalism might entail the granting of rights (individual or collective) on the grounds of the value cultures have for individuals, or even society as a whole. A multicultural state then might be one in which different forms of recognition are granted to cultural groups to secure the valuable goods cultural membership provides equally and avoid unfairly privileging dominant groups. On the other hand, it can be argued that precisely because of deep social and cultural diversity, the state should remain neutral between groups and ensure that basic liberal rights are fairly and consistently applied across cultural differences. Granting recognition to groups risks undermining the security and welfare of individuals by ‘politicizing’ forms of cultural identification best kept out of public decision making about the distribution of goods and resources. These views reflect not only conflicting intuitions about the relation between culture and individual welfare, but also deep disagreements about the nature of equality and freedom.

3 Cross-cultural Perspectives

Multicultural studies of partner selection reveal interesting patterns of commonalties and diversities within and across cultures, which can be substantially attributed to changes in macro contexts as a result of industrialization and modernization.

Traditional and modern or collectivist and individualist cultures represent different clusters of qualities preferred in a prospective mate. Traits such as chastity, and domestic characteristics including desire for home and children, and being a good housekeeper are valued in traditional-collectivist cultures such as in China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Iran, the Palestinian Arab community, South Africa, and Colombia. The modern-individualist cultures (e.g., the USA, Canada, most of Western Europe) consider such characteristics as irrelevant in the partner selection criteria or place a comparatively low value on the same. Relatively uniform gender differences across cultures are observed specifically in men's emphasis on physical appearance and value for traditional characteristics such as domestic skills, and women's emphasis on resource potential. Sexual dimorphism is evident most in the collectivist Asian and African cultures (Buss et al. 1990).

In the Western world, partner selection is essentially based on one's individual criteria, largely independent of familial and societal rules. Also evident is the growing utilization of innovative formal searching services. As one focuses on non-Western societies, specifically some selected Asian and African ones, the scenario reflects an interesting melange of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ (including Western) patterns in the process of partner selection.

The South Asian countries of China and Japan (Jew 1994, Wang 1994) demonstrate the continuance of certain traditional patterns of partner selection, such as arranged marriages, alongside the changes being introduced by Western influences. Individuals who marry are beginning to have more decision-making power. Nevertheless, parental opinion and approval are generally sought, if only as a mark of duty, obligation, and respect for them.

The ongoing transformation across the non-Western societies in particular, reveals the dynamic interface between culture and the self-reflective intentional individual who is engaged in the complex process of cultural reconstruction (see Action Theory: Psychological). Traditional normative rule systems provide a common frame for individuals' experiences of partner selection. In response to the larger context of rapid economic and social influences, individuals are engaging in a process of reinterpretation and reconstruction of the existing rule systems. In this context, societies that are predominantly characterized by collectivist perspectives are beginning to incorporate elements of the individualist perspective, in indigenized forms. The contemporary scenario illustrates a ‘transitional phase’ with varying blends of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ or ‘collectivist’ and ‘individualist’ perspectives and practices of partner selection represented cross-culturally.

Anthropological Approaches to Multiculturalism

Anthropologists working in complex societies have increasingly been compelled to deal with questions pertaining to cultural rights and the politicization of diversity. Research on phenomena such as ethnic resource competition and civil war, cultural property rights, and general processes of exclusion and inclusion in complex societies, although pertaining to cultural diversity, are not considered here, since they are not directly relevant for multiculturalism narrowly defined as a kind of identity politics and/or ideology of governance aiming to achieve equity between culturally different groups without annihilating all cultural differences. This section, therefore, considers the main areas of concern to anthropologists working on multiculturalist issues.

Majority Attitudes and Intergroup Threat

In contrast to prevailing multiculturalism in historical immigration countries like Canada, representations of national culture and identity in European societies are more ethnically rooted and bounded, and hence less open to ethnic diversity (Verkuyten and Martinovic, 2012). In many European countries, issues of migration and ethnic diversity are highly contested in public debates and in the political arena; and inclusive integration policies are challenged by the rising tide of anti-immigrant parties and popular sentiments (Phalet and Kosic, 2006). From an intergroup-relations approach to prejudice, people will develop negative attitudes toward those out-groups that are seen to threaten important in-group values or entitlements (Stephan and Stephan, 2000). Thus, when threat representations are induced by media images associating immigrants with crime or violence, or when threat is chronically salient, for instance, in the aftermath of terrorist attacks or in times of economic crisis or political turmoil, intergroup attitudes become more negative (Meeussen et al., 2012). Across Europe, many majority members see immigrant minorities as a threat to ‘our’ economic interests and cultural values (ESS, 2002). Such perceptions of threat reliably predict hostile attitudes toward minority members as well as restrictive acculturation expectations (Brown and Zagefka, 2011). Accordingly, most majority members demand that immigrants adopt the dominant culture and way of life; and they disapprove the desire of many immigrants to maintain their ethnic cultures and identities (ESS, 2002).

Particularly, public opinion surveys reveal a general trend toward more hostile majority attitudes toward Muslim values and ways of life (Voas and Fleischmann, 2012). Moreover, majority members tend to perceive Islamic and European values, and ways of life as mutually exclusive or incompatible (Chryssochoou and Lyons, 2011; Verkuyten and Martinovic, 2012). This is evident, for instance, from majority perceptions of Muslim family and political values as violating egalitarian gender role values and democratic rights and liberties in European societies. More generally, restrictive acculturation expectations among majority members are premised on an acculturation model that defines minority and majority cultures and identities as conflicting commitments (Van Acker and Vanbeselaere, 2012). For instance, Belgian majority members perceived the preference of Turkish immigrants to maintain their minority culture as incompatible with embracing the Belgian culture (Chryssochoou and Lyons, 2011). Perceived incompatibility suggests that Berry's ‘integration’ model of acculturation (Berry, 2001), which combines dual orientations toward majority and minority cultures and identities, may not always travel well to European migration contexts.

Identity Politics in a Context of Multiculturalism

Although the line between radical separation and multiculturalism is often not clear or straight, identity politics set within a pluralist, or multicultural, context seek recognition of human rights rather than separation. Although they are usually much less likely to occur in violent situations, this does not mean that they are any less fervently sought, or that the acts of oppression against which they seek redress are any less oppressive. They include, for example, most of the American Civil Rights Movement, including the movement for slavery compensation, the movements of Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians for redress for human rights abuses during the 1940s, organizations against Islamophobia, organizations of urban Indigenous peoples, and struggles for the rights of Latino/Latina migrant workers. In almost every case they occur against a historic background of colonialism that involved the migration of people to places where they could not exercise territorial claims. Most racialized minorities in advanced industrial countries, for example, first arrived (and continue to arrive) in those countries as enslaved, indentured, or very cheap labor. It is ironic that their presence has created the conditions of pluralism that have led many states to adopt policies of multiculturalism. Moreover, nonterritorial claims of (dis)placed cultural minorities are often set against the territorial claims of nationalist or Indigenous communities, especially in the white settler societies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The challenge of reconciling the liberal notion of individual multicultural rights with group rights in such settings is one that has yet to be met by policymakers, political philosophers, or social movement groups themselves.

As state policy, the idea of multiculturalism first emerged in Canada in the 1960s and became official government policy in that country in 1971. Australia followed suit in 1973, and several European states, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, subsequently adopted similar state policies. The concept is a liberal democratic one of encouraging individual identity as a member of a particular ethnocultural group, and in advancing public institutions to foster equality. Many policymakers have advocated multiculturalism as a means of overcoming the practice of assimilation, particularly of recently arrived immigrant groups, but without thereby hindering the ability of such groups to achieve full and equitable social participation. Critics of multiculturalism have been less sanguine over the power of multiculturalism to achieve social cohesion, but for very different reasons.

Critics have generally taken one of two polarized positions. The illiberal, monoculturalist position holds that nations should maintain a dominant cultural identity to which Others should adapt or assimilate. For them, identity politics around multiculturalism are disparaged as addressing the needs of “special interests,” rather than those of the dominant society. Such critics also fear that regimes of ascriptive primordialism on the part of ethnocultural groups will entrench difference and encourage fundamentalism, extremism, and antimodernism. They maintain that only assimilation to a dominant culture will overcome primordialism. This position is currently gaining strength in a number of advanced industrial countries of Europe and North America.

The contrary view opposes multiculturalism on the grounds that it is by definition separatist and as such prevents marginalized groups from accessing full equality rights enjoyed by members of the dominant group. These critics fear that group identities will be “Balkanized” in relation to the dominant group. They are skeptical of the willingness or ability of the state to address any but the most general of claims to equal recognition, but they also caution against the coercive power of the group to enforce a singular identity at the expense of other facets of subject positioning such as gender, gender identity, or class.

Both positions, however, rely on an essentialized understanding of ethnocultural identity as Other, and often depict culture as static, immobile, and necessarily conservative. Ethnocultural groups themselves have also resorted to essentialized concepts of identity—indeed, whence the term “identity politics”—in their struggles to attain social justice through recognition. Many writers have pointed out the paradox of identity politics: that making claims based on historical injustice reinscribes the state of difference that was the original basis of injustice, thus preparing the ground for further oppression. Using the liberal democratic concept of multiculturalism as a basis for equality, therefore, runs the risk of reproducing this fundamental tension between identity and difference in irreconcilable ways.

Nowhere is this tension more pronounced than in contemporary debates over the expression of Muslim identity now occurring in various ways throughout traditionally non-Islamic world. In some advanced capitalist countries such as France and the Netherlands, secular multiculturalism has provided the ironic and somewhat disingenuous rationale for curtailing certain public Islamic expressions, such as female dress. In other places, such as Canada and Australia, while there has been no official pulling back of the concept of multiculturalism, Muslim identity is under increasing public attack, and discourses of ascriptive premordialism are increasingly dominant. In the province of Quebec, for example, where territorial identity claims to cultural separatism are often at loggerheads with claims for multicultural recognition on the part of racialized and religious minorities, a public commission on religious accommodation tried to tread between these two—for most people, unacceptable—positions. The result of many years of debate has been to ban the wearing of religious accoutrements (e.g., a hijab) in certain public places and jobs. Public discourse around accommodation overwhelmingly asserts a dominant, normative view of Quebecois culture, with debate occurring over how far the dominant group is willing to go to accommodate difference.

Nonetheless, ethnocultural mobilization has often used the concept of multiculturalism to transcend, rather than reinforce, notions of cultural separation, and such movements can involve considerable negotiation of the terms of cultural identification within groups. Most diasporic groups, within which there inevitably operate a range of political views, are themselves sites of lively debate over what their collective identity consists of, over the meaning of cultural change that is often accelerated by the very experience of diasporic movement, and over the means by which human rights, including the rights of women, can be achieved in a wide variety of national contexts.

In many Western countries, the minority groups asserting their own identity have pushed for human rights that affect all citizens. In some cases, coalitions of minority group movements that may at other times seemed odd partners have advocated for social change and, in so doing, have established a basis for reimagining multicultural societies in which ethnocultural identities are not silos of isolation, but expressions of vibrant social interaction.

One example of recent trends is the increasing incidence of transnationalism. Whereas transnationalism as a set of practices that retain links between one or more diasporic generations and a country of origin is by no means a new phenomenon, it is widely believed that in the context of globalization, including global communication and transportation, globalized consumption practices, and related increases in international migration, ongoing interactions between migrants and their places of origin have become stronger since the latter part of the 20th Century. There is now a burgeoning literature on the topic that includes a variety of transnational forms among temporary labor migrants, permanent settlers, and subsequent generations. These connections are culturally, demographically, economically, and politically complex. But what they show in part is that the complexities of negotiating individual and family lives across transnational fields are strongly connected to those of negotiating conditions of citizenship. Contemporary transnationals, many of whom are also very cosmopolitan, have the capacity to participate in social movements that address issues of human rights and social identity and, further, the conception of human rights and social identity is subject to considerable change within the fluid social dynamics of transnationalism, transcending static or primordial notions of citizenship rights.

The increasing practice of holding dual or multiple citizenships also affects the ways in which social identities are transformed and emphasizes the extent to which questions of citizenship have become globalized. For example, when violence erupted in Lebanon in 2006, many dual nationals from countries such as Canada and Australia that recognize multiple citizenships were assisted by their governments to evacuate. The evacuations sparked fierce debates in a number of countries about the value of dual citizenship, the rights of citizens, loyalty to more than one national identity, and the obligations of states to serve the needs of their citizens outside national borders. These debates bring out many geographical issues, not only about the changing relationship between cultural/political identities and territory, but also about the ways in which changing ways of being citizens can transcend older notions of multiculturalism. Many dual nationals feel that their allegiance to both countries is strengthened by an expanded concept of place of residence, and that their experiences contribute to a rich cultural diversity in both places, especially when children born with rights to more than one citizenship exercise those rights through their own international activities. Dual citizenship, and attendant transnational activities, thus works to counteract cultural primordialism.

Such citizens are increasingly involved in social movements that transcend national borders. Transnational social movements (TSMs) have been a major feature of globalization, and transnational identity politics are no exception. Diasporic cultural groups, more than ever, connected by electronic communication as well as the ability to move with greater ease between international destinations, address issues of citizenship at a number of scales, linking national and international citizenship issues. Such social movements organized around identity politics range from movements to bring peace to areas torn by violent conflict, to democratic movements to shift autocratic state apparatuses or to protect minority groups subject to state oppression, to smaller-scale projects that include international adoption programs or participatory development projects.

Critics will point out that transnational identity politics also include groups mobilized to effect violence, especially since 11 September 2001. It is important to recognize that the power to affect all kinds of social outcomes transcends borders. The geography of social movements is such that the political outcomes are contingent, and very much rooted in the historical conditions that produce in some cases violence and in others positive social change. The suppression of minority groups is also ongoing and involves the mobilization of state apparatuses capable of delivering widespread violence. Furthermore, while armed violence is only one form of suppressing social movements, the violence of normative ideologies, in the form of racialized and colonial ideas and practices, is a major aspect of the politics of difference. We need to understand, therefore, not only the variety of ways in which social movements work in plural societies, but also the variety of ways in which states address their concerns.

Multiculturalism Is Not Dead

This unpacking of what I mean by ‘multiculturalism’ is also helpful in understanding those who say that multiculturalism has failed (Weldon, 1989; see Presseurop (2010) for Angela Merkel's speech on the failure of multikulti) or that multiculturalism is dead (Cameron, 2011). They may mean to endorse assimilation, individualistic integration, or cosmopolitanism. At the same time they are acknowledging and possibly reinforcing the sociological reality of group difference because their lament is that some groups (especially Muslims) are clearly visible as distinct groups when they should not be; they attribute this fact to a separatist tendency in the groups, encouraged by allegedly multiculturalist policies. The accusatory discourse that ‘some groups are not integrating’ may actually be reinforcing group identities and therefore contributing to the social conditions that gives multiculturalism a sociological pertinence. Moreover, it is not just at the level of sociology that antimulticulturalists may find themselves using multiculturalist ideas; even while deploying an antimulticulturalist discourse politicians may enact multiculturalist policies. Politicians may, for example, continue with group consultations, representation, and accommodation. The latter have actually increased. The British government has found it necessary to increase the scale and level of consultations with Muslims in Britain since 9/11, and, dissatisfied with existing organizations, has sought to increase the number of organized interlocutors and the channels of communication. Avowedly antimulticulturalist countries and governments have worked to increase corporatism in practice, for example with Nicholas Sarkozy's creation of the Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman in 2003 to represent all Muslims to the French government in matters of worship and ritual. Similarly, Islamkonferenz was established in Germany in 2005 as an exploratory body, but has an extensive political agenda. These bodies are partly top-down efforts to control Muslims or to channel them into certain formations and away from others. Nevertheless, such institutional processes cannot be understood within the conceptual framework of assimilation, individualist-integration, or cosmopolitanism. These top-down bodies are normatively less than the best of multiculturalism but they clearly are deploying a multiculturalist mode of integration and their presence offers the possibility of movement toward a more egalitarian multiculturalism.

The analytical framework offered helps us also to understand those who say they welcome diversity but seem to be in agreement with critics of political multiculturalism. Critics point to the public assertion of strong group identities to achieve certain policies and/or to demand differential treatment. Some respond to this criticism by noting that multiculturalism is working in their neighborhoods. Such proponents say that neighborhoods are multiethnic and people do not just live peaceably side by side, but mix freely and value mixing. Yet such views do not imply support for strong group identities and related policies; on the contrary, their success may be seen to be dependent on the absence of the latter. (Hence the irony that antimulticulturalists like President Sarkozy are trying to create corporate representations for Muslims in France; while prodiversity authors call for the cessation of government meetings with Muslim community leaders (Sen, 2006; Malik, 2011).) Hence, while this is a reasonable response in its own terms it does not counter the above criticism of multiculturalism and in fact may share it. It is the group-based multiculturalism that has become unpopular and is what critics have in mind so that criticism is left standing. The weakness of the rebuttal though is obscured by the fact that advocates of neighborhood ‘multiculturalism’ are in practice referring to what I call ‘cosmopolitanism’. Another way of putting this is to say that cosmopolitans may be as critical of an ethno-religious communitarianism as antimulticulturalists.

Can integration of all postimmigration formations, however, be achieved without group-based multiculturalism (Modood, 1998, 2007)? Moreover, a group-based multiculturalism, where group membership is voluntary, may be part of the future in an unintended way as it is highly compatible with the Prime Minister Cameron's vision of a ‘Big Society’ in which civil society associations based on locality and faith, including interfaith groups, take over some responsibilities currently undertaken by state agencies. A flagship policy of the Big Society agenda is the state funding to create new community-based nonstate schools called ‘free schools’. Over a quarter of these are led by religious groups; those that started in September 2011 included two Jewish, a Hindu, and a Sikh school (Vasagar, 2012). Of the 102 schools approved for funding in July 2012, three were Jewish, one was Hindu, four were Sikh, and four were Muslim (BHA, 2012). It is difficult to see how the new Big Society is a break with what is rejected as ‘state multiculturalism’ (Cameron, 2011). The same trend is found in France, where three Muslim schools have joined the many thousands (mainly Catholic) of state-supported religious schools (Akan, 2009: pp. 246–247), and in Germany, where there are no state funded religious schools but where Islam is increasingly incorporated in instruction (The Local, 2011; see also DIK, 2009).

The analysis offered here of related macro-symbolic ideas and policy paradigms, each of which consists of a model of society and normative political ideas, includes a sense of unity or fraternity. Modes of integration are not just about sociology or politics but include ideas, however inchoate, of ourselves as a social unity (as displayed at the bottom of Table 1). For assimilationists, this consists of a strong, homogeneous national identity. Individualist-integration emphasizes the liberal and democratic character of the national polity. Cosmopolitanism is uneasy with the national, an identity that demands allegiance from all citizens, while creating boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the world. With multiculturalism comes a positive vision of the whole remade so as to include the previously excluded or marginalized on the basis of equality and sense of belonging. It is at this level that we may fully speak of multicultural integration or multicultural citizenship (Taylor, 1994; Parekh, 2000; Modood, 2007). This third level of multiculturalism, incorporating the sociological fact of diversity, groupness, and exclusion, but going beyond individual rights and political accommodation, is perhaps the level that has been least emphasized. Or at least that is how it seems to many whose understanding of multiculturalism, sometimes polemical but sometimes sincere, is that multiculturalism is about encouraging minority difference without a counterbalancing emphasis on cross-cutting commonalities and a vision of a greater good. This has led many commentators and politicians to talk of multiculturalism as divisive and productive of segregation.

Theorists of multiculturalism (Taylor, 1994; Parekh, 2000), related policy documents (CMEB, 2000), and national enactments (citation), are universally regarded as pioneers and exemplars of state multiculturalism and all appealed to and built on an idea of national citizenship. From a multiculturalist point of view, though not from that of its critics, the recent emphasis on cohesion and citizenship, what has been called ‘the civic turn’ (Mouritsen, 2008), is a necessary rebalancing of the political multiculturalism of the 1990s. This form of multiculturalism largely took the form of accommodation of groups while being ambivalent about national identity (Meer and Modood, 2009). (In the 1990s cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism in Britain began to be linked to a national identity and its modernization, to, for example, ‘Cool Britannia’ and ‘rebranding Britain’ (Leonard, 1997) but others welcomed globalization as an era of the ‘postnational’ (Hall, 1992b; Soysal, 1994).) This does not invalidate the analysis that integration without institutional accommodation is unlikely to be successful. Indeed, for multiculturalists, a renewed national identity has to be distinctly plural and hospitable to the minority identities. It involves ‘rethinking the national story’ with the minorities as important characters; not obscuring difference but weaving it into a common identity that all can see themselves in and giving all a sense of belonging to each other (CMEB, 2000: pp. 54–56; Modood, 2007: pp. 145–154).

Multiculturalism, Religious Change, and New Forms of Citizenship

Since the late 1980s, the politics of multiculturalism have significantly changed concepts of national identity and belonging in Central America. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, groups that were ethnically, linguistically, racially, and/or culturally distinct from national majority were often stigmatized and subjected to official policies of discrimination. Indigenous people were targets of assimilation programs, exploitation, and violence and were sometimes seen as impediments to modernization and ‘civilization.’ By the end of the twentieth century, people around the world had come to embrace ethnocultural difference as a mark of democratic openness and tolerance. This change created new political spaces for cultural groups to make demands against the state. The era of ‘multiculturalism’ was exemplified by Rigoberta Menchú's 1992 Nobel Peace Prize and the United Nations' declaration of the years 1995–2004 as the first International Decade of the World's Indigenous People.

In Guatemala, the Pan-Mayan movement arose in the aftermath of genocidal war. The movement embraced Mayan languages, styles of dress, and religion, which had been suppressed or stigmatized for much of the county's history (Warren, 1998). Mayan activists gained influence in politics, calling for affirmative action programs and targeted development aid, forging strong alliances with international NGOs (Fischer and Benson, 2006). While the Maya are still subject to racial discrimination, indigenous activism has led to more inclusive notions of citizenship. At the same time, the government has used colorful, exotic images of Mayan ‘authenticity’ to brand itself to foreign tourists, using the recent shift toward cultural tolerance as a marketing tool. The new forms of cultural capital that have emerged within the tourist economy have generated complex questions about what it means to be Maya in multicultural Guatemala, and shifting notions of ethnic identity have become a topic of great interest for anthropologists.

Multiculturalism in Honduras has followed a somewhat different course. The Garifuna people, descendents of residents of the island of St. Vincent who were deported to Central America in the late eighteenth century, have developed a new ethnic consciousness over the past two decades (Anderson, 2009). The Garifuna, formerly called the Black Caribs, define themselves as both ‘black’ and ‘indigenous,’ and take part in political movements associated with indigenous rights and the Black diaspora in the Americas. The Garifuna have aligned themselves with other Honduran indigenous political organizations to make demands for land rights, often in opposition to tourist developments near their homes on the Caribbean coast. Like the Maya in Guatemala, the Garifuna have been used as a symbol of Honduras' cultural diversity in the county's attempt to attract foreign tourists. More broadly, the Garifuna have become part of the Honduran national imaginary as it recasts itself from a predominately mestizo society to a multiethnic nation.

Along with ethnicity, the relationship between religion and national identity has also undergone important shifts since the 1980s. Roman Catholicism was by far the dominant religion in Central America from the colonial period until the second half of the twentieth century, when evangelical Protestantism began an explosive period of growth. The rise of evangelical religion in the region began in Guatemala, where more than 60% of the population now identifies as protestant (O'Neill, 2010: p. 11). A similar pattern has taken shape in Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, which are all home to significant evangelical populations that have grown rapidly in the past few decades. Evangelical movements in Central America tend to embrace independence from top-down religious bureaucracies and have a flexible stance toward doctrine. As O'Neill argues, they have a certain affinity with neoliberal democracy, in that they celebrate the power of the individual to transform social life through moral behavior, eschewing more collective visions of social change. The evangelical turn is especially striking when viewed alongside the declining popularity of liberation theology, a form of Catholicism that was influenced by Marxist visions of social justice, which was quite influential in the peasant movements 1960s and 1970s. Whereas liberation theology and related forms of social Catholicism embraced collective political action, the new evangelical movements emphasize the power of the moral individual to bring about a better world. The popularity of evangelical religion has begun to feed back on the Catholic Church itself, where the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) movement has provided an alternative to the traditional Catholicism that involves spiritual healing, ecstatic prayer, and a direct relationship between the worshipper and divinity.

The politics of gender and sexuality are another dimension of social life that has undergone significant change since the 1990s. Women have taken on high-level political positions throughout Central America, with Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama all electing female heads of state since 1990. In countries where manufacturing and the service-sector work have replaced agriculture, women have gained economic independence, often becoming the primary wage earners in households. The rising economic status of women has challenged cultural notions of masculinity, leading some men to “participate in alternate economies to earn the money and respect that is denied them within the current legal economy” (Pine, 2008: p. 33). Across the region, birth rates have fallen as women find work outside of the home and the demand for agricultural labor declines. Another notable change in gender politics has been the rise of LGBT identity around the region. As Florence Babb (2003) and Cymene Howe (2008) describe in Nicaragua, demands for sexual rights emerged within the broader discourse of multicultural tolerance in the 1990s. While LGBT groups continue to be targets of discrimination (particularly in Belize, where same sex sexual activity remains illegal) public awareness of sexual rights has certainly improved.

While the anthropology of Central America has widened its focus since the end of the 1980s, there are still some areas of social life that remain understudied. The contemporary livelihoods of indigenous groups like the Lenca, Pech, Jicaque, and Guaymí are not well known outside of their home countries. Few anthropologists have produced substantial ethnographies of elites or professionals, particularly in Costa Rica and Panama, the most prosperous countries in the region. In general, studies of the middle classes are far less common than studies of the poor, and there are relatively few studies of Central American education, media, and expressive culture. In general, scholarship on the region has focused on the broad themes of political economy, postconflict justice, ethnicity, religion, and the environment. There is good reason for this: In the United States and Europe, much of the academic interest in the region developed in response to the violence of the 1980s, and has been closely tied to activist movements. As the 1980s fade from view, new social changes have taken root throughout Central America, and we can look forward to new directions in social scientific studies of the region that will incorporate voices and viewpoints from an increasingly global community of scholars.

Cultural Discrimination

One significant strand of antiracist politics seeks to advance a project of racial recognition or multiculturalism, emphasizing the distinctiveness of racial minority communities in terms of culture. This strand seeks legal reform prohibiting discrimination against the cultural practices of racial minority groups as well discrimination on the basis of race qua status (Gotanda, 1995; Peller, 1995; Kymlicka, 2001; Carbado and Gulati, 2013).

This approach can be understood as a logical extension of the antisubordination approach to antiracist legal reform: discrimination against cultural practices effectively harms members of racial minority groups and can be seen as a component of systematic racial subordination.

One necessary consequence of racial multiculturalism is that it requires a definition or widely shared understanding of the content of racial identity or a racial culture. Such understandings or definitions are often controversial, both in society at large and within the given racial group itself. Moreover, the idea that racial identity or culture exists in a static or stable form is itself controversial. Some scholars would reject the very idea of a static or widely shared understanding of racial identity or culture as mistakenly essentialist (see Section The Ontological Status of Racial Categories).

Value Pluralism

Some theorists argue that, especially in an era of global-cultural interpenetration and multiculturalism, commitment to value pluralism is an essential component of democracy. Some think that democracy is at least severely stressed by multiculturalism (Glazer, 1983), while others see multiculturalism and democracy as compatible or even mutually reinforcing (Kymlicka, 1995). This debate joins a broader one about the desirability and the feasibility of value pluralism. Value pluralists champion toleration with respect to people's differing values. This orientation pertains for the most part to specifically liberal theory and practice, but it bears on democratic theory insofar as it prescribes against state paternalism and against the concomitant idea that a democratic state should itself promote a particular value-infused worldview.

Theorists in the tradition of civic republicanism not only challenge the notion that commitment to value pluralism is an essential part of democracy but see it as a threat to what they consider a properly conceived democracy. They hold instead that it is a primary obligation of a democratic state to imbue its citizens with the values of civic virtue (Beiner, 1992). Others, including some who place themselves within the liberal tradition, also hold that a democratic society ought to embody visions with values specific to them.

Mill announced the principle embraced by nearly all liberals since that “the only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way” (2002[1859]: p. 14). His rider is that restrictions are justified when some exercising this ability interfere with others doing likewise. (He also thought that the principle did not apply to ‘backward states of society,’: p. 12). Much liberal theory has subsequently occupied itself with the ‘paradoxes’ that arise from such value pluralism, as when deciding whether or how to be tolerant of intolerant values or how to deal with preferences about what the preferences of others should be (examples of contrasting approaches, in a vast literature, are Galston (1991) and Larmore (1987)). Democratic theorists confront similar problems. If a democracy does not legally enforce some moral visions or guiding moral norms and pursue compatible educational policies, then it could find itself sanctioning activities motivated by antidemocratic visions and norms and even in the end being undone by them.

John Rawls (1921–2003) attempts to solve this problem by distinguishing between ‘political’ values, such as support for civil liberties, and the ‘comprehensive’ values embodied in general worldviews, arguing that the first merit democratic state enforcement, while full toleration should reign in respect of the latter (1996). It is questionable whether this approach can deal with the problem posed to democracy and democratic theory by theocracy. This problem is to ascertain whether or how democracy, where ultimate authority at least over political matters rests in secular hands, can be reconciled with the theocratic principle that ultimate authority on all matters is divine. Debates on this question are currently most extensive among scholars of Islam over whether or how an Islamic state can be democratic. So, against the view of Samuel Huntington (1996) and others, Khaled Abu El Fadl argues that there is room for democratic values and politics within Islam (2002). (A survey of positions on this topic is in Hashemi (2009).)