Multi Cultural Futures

1 INTRODUCTION – MULTI CULTURAL FUTURES The fact is that multiculturalism ain’t what it used to be (UK Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, The Guardian, 28 th May, 2004: p26). __________________________________ This thesis is concerned with the analysis of possible futures for multiculturalism, a discussion which is well suited to human geographical analysis. The place of ‘cultures’ in human geography has become more important following the onset of ‘the cultural turn’, manifesting itself in renewed interest in the study of cultural geographies (Jackson, [1989] 1994; Duncan and Ley, 1993; Mitchell, 2000; Shurmer- Smith, 2002). Geographers have become increasingly interested in questions over the ‘places of culture’ in society. The successes (or failures) of policies of multiculturalism are natural contexts in which to focus an investigation of the processes at work in cultural geographies. Yet studies of multiculturalism/s by cultural geographers are few and far between (notable exceptions include K. Anderson, 2000; Kobayashi, 1993, 1999; Bonnett, 1993; Thompson et al. , 1998; Mahtani, 2002). Policies of multiculturalism endeavour to ‘make places’ through an understanding of, rather than a denial of, the differences within and between groups of people wedded to particular contexts. In order to better understand the representation of difference through multicultural policy and the realities of difference that these policies hope to capture an empirically grounded cultural geographical analysis is needed. This thesis has several discrete aims. Firstly, this thesis aims to decentre hegemonic discourses of national identity that serve to limit the potential of multiculturalism. Secondly, and in a related manner, this thesis seeks to bring theories of multiculturalism into engagement with the empirical, through a study of the second generation from an Iranian background in three cities, in order to show how the nation limits multiculturalism. Thirdly, the thesis seeks to bring national discourses of identity into engagement with other forms of identity, such as religious identity, class, gender and subcultural identities, in order to ‘see the nation’ as an integral part of complex discourses of identity. Finally, through this analysis this thesis seeks to produce new ways of thinking about multiculturalism to embody future directions for 12 multicultural theory and praxis, and link this into new considerations of culture within human geography. In attempting to achieve these aims, the analysis will seek to advance contemporary academic knowledge on several fronts. Firstly, in terms of its overall structure, this thesis brings theories of multiculturalism into engagement with empirical realities. In most cases, multiculturalism is studied in the rarefied halls of theoretical analysis in the disciplines of political science and cultural studies (see Chapters 2 and 3), where the varied subtle theoretical positions of multiculturalism are critiqued. However, one thing that is sadly lacking from these debates is an empirical grounding: multiculturalism is seen as a policy about individual recognition and difference, and yet the individual voices and the differences they embody are largely absent. The engagement of theoretical and empirical multiculturalism at the core of this thesis is overdue, and should be seen as a necessary progression towards a more comprehensive understanding of attempts to include diversity in society. Further new empirical research in this thesis includes the empirical study of the ‘Iranian’ communities of Sydney, London, and Vancouver. Whilst studies of Iranians have been conducted in Los Angeles and Stockholm (see Chapter 3) there is a dearth of material concerning the lives of Iranians in the cities which form the focus of this analysis. 1 Following from this, the empirical focus on second generation ‘Iranians’ in this thesis is a break from traditional research on the second generation in that it problematises the developmentalist assumptions inherent in most research on the second generation (see Chapter 2). Instead, this thesis seeks to highlight how the interstitial position of these children of migrants ‘between nations’, is merely a reflection of the complex identities of all individuals made more visible through the dominance of national discourses of belonging. Finally, whilst other theorists have sought to understand the limitations and possibilities inherent in multiculturalism (e.g. Stuart Hall, 2000), this research is distinctive in that it focuses on ‘the nation’ and national discourses of identity as central to the question of finding a productive multicultural future. All of these new and innovative features make this research a valuable addition to academic discussions on multiculturalism, the accommodation and understanding of diversity, and the place of the nation in contemporary society. 1 Exceptions include Mirfakhraie (1999) in his unpublished Masters thesis on Iranians in Canada, and an article by Sanadjian (2000) set amongst football spectators outside an Iranian store in London. 13 1.1 Cultures, Culturalisms, and Multiculturalisms The question of the place of migrants within immigration reception cities in ‘the West’ is as relevant as ever following recent events in the United States, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It is a crucial time for multicultural policy, with the ‘War on Terror’ threatening the integrity of Western societies, drawing lines in the sand between members of the same national community, as those of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’ are increasingly seen and treated as a security threat. The ‘threat of Islam’, like so many migrant threats before it, is a rallying point for the fear of the Other which threatens to undo the benefits achieved through multiculturalism. Under these conditions, multicultural policies have been increasingly criticised for failing to achieve the promised harmony between ‘migrants’ and the national core cultures in Australia, Canada and Britain. These ‘core cultures’ at the centre of popular debates over the merits of multiculturalism are representations of national cultures that work to explain the ‘cultural essence’ (Baumann, 1999: 23-4) that signifies belonging. The importance of the national core or centre as the goal of multicultural change highlights the relevance of context in what could otherwise be seen as a universal project of acceptance and recognition. Beneath multicultural policies lies the potential to recognise the difference of and between all peoples in a society. This equality through difference is sometimes expressed as unity in diversity . Multiculturalism as an ideal seeks to unite people through their common differences, ensuring that as all people are imbued with an individuality that defines and limits them, this very indivisible individualism becomes a point of common existence on which turns the fundamentals of liberal equality and inclusion. However, an emphasis on national values as the ‘correct’ way to be in the nation limits the ideological intention of multiculturalism, setting the context of the nation as the defining feature. In this research I have sought to examine these national multiculturalisms as incomplete expressions of the unity in diversity relation, interrupted by the imperative of national belonging, set above other possible modes of difference and similarity, and therefore dominating questions of inclusion and exclusion. 14 In these discussions the national cultures at the core take on the appearance of Carl Sauer’s ‘superorganic’ cultures (Duncan, 1980) where cultures are reified as essentialised and homogenous things (Cloke et al. , 2001: 182-3). A key aspect of the cultural turn in geography was the problematising of superorganicism in geographic analysis of cultures by such scholars as James S. Duncan (1980) and Peter Jackson ([1989]1994). However, these ‘culturalisms’ remain and continue to express their constitutive power over relations between individuals and within and between groups and ‘communities’. As Cloke et al. note, We are used to hearing talk of British culture, Islamic culture, gay culture, youth culture, black culture, or urban culture. Many people are fascinated by their ‘own’ and/or ‘other cultures’, see themselves as moving ‘between cultures’ and/or as having a ‘mixed culture’ (2001: 183). Despite the best efforts to resist these culturalisms (Gilroy, 1987, 1992; hooks, 1994; Jackson, 1994; Jackson and Penrose, 1993; Penrose, 1993), they remain useful for understanding, and central to communicating, discussions about people in society. Recognising the essential character of ‘cultures’ is a good place to start in a discussion of the possible futures for multiculturalism. The potential to understand diversity at the level of the individual that underpins multicultural policies is prone to this ideological slippage, producing a policy that instead serves to reproduce differences ‘between cultures’, most typically between ‘migrants’ and the more legitimate ‘national culture’. Whilst at one level these ‘people-grouping’ terms may be meaningless, it is the way they are “defined, deployed and contested in real-world situations [that] have profound effects” (Cloke et al. , 2001: 184). In this research, the importance of national culturalisms in multiculturalism is investigated through a multi-site empirical analysis of the lives of the children of Iranian migrants. Iran has become an archetype for the threat of terror, cast as a member of the ‘Axis of Evil’ and as

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