scholarly journals Multiculturalism on the Back Seat? Culture, Religion, and Justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-146
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Maclure

Alan Patten’s Equal Recognition is a major contribution to the normative literature on minority rights. I nonetheless suggest that liberal culturalism as a normative theory, even in Patten’s sophisticated version, is ill suited to deal with the challenges related to the status of religion in the public sphere that are so prevalent in contemporary democracies. In addition, I submit that Patten did not supply a fully convincing answer to the argument that liberal egalitarianism, well understood, is capacious enough to secure fair terms of social cooperation for members of cultural minorities, making the (allegedly burdensome) language of “cultural rights” and “cultural recognition” superfluous.

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stacey Wellington

<p>The mechanics of Athenian society in many ways empowered citizen women as essential components of their community. This reality, being at odds with Athens’ pervasive patriarchal ideology, was obscured by men anxious to affirm the status quo, but also by women who sought to represent themselves as ‘ideal’ examples of their sex. Using the votive offerings dedicated by women to Athena on the Athenian Acropolis in the Archaic and Classical periods as a basis, this thesis explores such tensions between the implicit value of Athenian women, which prompted them to engage meaningfully with their wider community, and the ideological edict for their invisibility. This discussion is based primarily on two points: firstly, that the naming of a male family member in votive inscriptions denotes female citizen status, thus articulating citizen women’s independent value and prestige within the polis; and secondly that the ubiquity of working women among the dedicators, and value of the offerings themselves, reveals women as controlling financial resources to a more significant extent than other sources would have us believe. In both cases, the actual value and authority of the female dedicators is concealed as the women aimed for a perception of conspicuous invisibility to legitimise their engagement with the public sphere.</p>


Author(s):  
Guobin CHENG

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.新型冠狀病毒疫情所帶來的巨大的、彌散的、不確定的威脅,使社會公共生活中人們熟悉和信賴的闢係與界限變得糢糊。在這種情沉下,人們最需要的就是發現“敵人”,重新為人際闢係和公共生活找到確定性。在精準、高效的科學檢測手段獲得普及之前,人們不得不選擇簡易的標籤化方法進行區 分。疫區標籤是通過清潔與污染的劃分來保護現有的正常生活秩序,但在找到敵人的過程中有可能造成對無辜者的誤傷;口罩標數的使用則首先指向了人群的區分與界限,是想要在混亂之中先找到群體邊界和歸屬感,但有可能會轉變為主動去創造敵人。這些手段的根本目的都是為了實現自我保護,但在這樣的利害關係考量之外,還存在著某種個人對他人和公共生活的普遍義務,只有我們能夠在生存危機的巨大壓力下選擇堅持這一道德義務,才能為戰勝疫情奠定真正的希望。當代的公共生活是一個緊密地彼此闢聯、密切交通、相互滲入和共生性的整體,但這個共同體本身是十分脆弱的,在巨大的安全壓力之下很容易滑向分裂與隔離。新型冠狀病毒疫情既是一次嚴峻的挑戰,又是一次重要的演習,我們需要在其中學到足夠多的經驗,為未來可能出現的更大危機做好準備。The huge, diffuse, and uncertain threat brought about by the Covid-19 epidemic has blurred familiar and trusted relationships and the boundaries of public life. Under such circumstances, what people need most is to uncover the “enemy” and regain certainty in interpersonal relations and the public sphere. Before the popularization of accurate and efficient scientific detection methods, people used simple labeling methods to tell concepts apart. Labeling epidemic areas protects the status quo by demarcating cleanliness from pollution, but in finding the enemy, doing so may cause accidental injury to the innocent. Labeling masks allows distinctions in the crowd so that group boundaries and senses of belonging can be found in chaos. However, such labeling may lead to the creation of enemies. The fundamental goal of these methods is self-protection. Nevertheless, in addition to such considerations, individuals have a wider moral obligation to others and to public life. Only by choosing to adhere to our moral obligations under the enormous pressure of a survival crisis can we find true hope to defeat the epidemic. Contemporary public life is a symbiotic community that is closely related, in close communication, and mutually enmeshed. Such a community is very fragile, and it can easily slip into divisiveness and become isolated under huge security pressures. The Covid-19 epidemic is not only a serious challenge, but also an important exercise. We need to learn enough to prepare for greater crisis that may arise in the future.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 31 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 205032451987228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob S Aday ◽  
Christopher C Davoli ◽  
Emily K Bloesch

While interest in the study of psychedelic drugs has increased over much of the last decade, in this article, we argue that 2018 marked the true turning point for the field. Substantive advances in the scientific, public, and regulatory communities in 2018 significantly elevated the status and long-term outlook of psychedelic science, particularly in the United States. Advances in the scientific community can be attributed to impactful research applications of psychedelics as well as acknowledgement in preeminent journals. In the public sphere, Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind was a commercial hit and spurred thought-provoking, positive media coverage on psychedelics. Unprecedented psychedelic ballot initiatives in the United States were representative of changes in public interest. Finally, regulatory bodies began to acknowledge psychedelic science in earnest in 2018, as evidenced by the designation of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to “breakthrough therapy” status for treatment-resistant depression by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In short, 2018 was a seminal year for psychedelic science.


2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1057-1059
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Newman

Toleration as Recognition, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. viii, 242In Toleration as Recognition Anna Elisabetta Galeotti offers up a sympathetic critique of liberal toleration and suggests a modification to the theory that she believes necessary in order to bring cultural minorities into the public sphere as equal citizens. This carefully argued book marks a timely contribution to the debate over group rights and multiculturalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Dina Afrianty

AbstractIndonesian women were at the forefront of activism during the turbulent period prior to reformasi and were a part of the leadership that demanded democratic change. Two decades after Indonesia embarked on democratic reforms, the country continues to face challenges on socio-religious and political fronts. Both the rise of political Islam and the increased presence of religion and faith in the public sphere are among the key features of Indonesia's consolidating democracy. This development has reinvigorated the discourse on citizenship and rights and also the historical debate over the relationship between religion and the state. Bearing this in mind, this paper looks at the narrative of women's rights and women's status in the public domain and public policy in Indonesia. It is evident, especially in the past decade, that much of the public conversation within the religious framework is increasingly centred on women's traditional social roles. This fact has motivated this study. Several norms and ideas that are relied on are based on cultural and faith-based interpretations - of gender. Therefore, this paper specifically examines examples of the ways in which social, legal, and political trends in this context affect progress with respect to gender equality and gender policy. I argue that these trends are attempts to subject women to conservative religious doctrines and to confine them to traditional gender roles. The article discusses how these developments should be seen in the context of the democratic transition in Indonesia.


2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Asen

Argument teachers and scholars have frequently invoked external justification-impressing one's viewpoint upon another-as the primary social function of argument. Pluralism and fundamental disagreement in contemporary democratic societies raise questions regarding the status of argument, including the functions argument should serve. In this essay, I suggest alternatives of agenda expansion, responsibility attribution, and identity formation as important functions of argument in diverse societies. These alternative functions are especially important under conditions of social inequality, since they allow less powerful individuals and groups to confront more powerful actors in situations where decision making is not open to all.


Author(s):  
Ricard Zapata-Barrero

This chapter explains how the emergent controversy over multiculturalism/interculturalism resides in the logic of the necessary requirements for managing a society that recognises itself as diverse. The great multicultural debates of the late twentieth century, and even the early twenty-first century, followed a cultural rights-based approach to diversity. They were centred on questions such as the rights of cultural recognition in the public sphere and how to reassess equality and cultural rights of non-national citizens with different languages, religions, and cultural practices. This approach characterised multicultural citizenship studies until the emergence of a new paradigm that is taking shape in this second decade of the twenty-first century: intercultural citizenship.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Musthafa Mubashir ◽  
M. Shuaib Mohamed Haneef

Malayalam films since the 1970s have captured the history of Gulf migration from Kerala, which occurs primarily due to the desperate need of its people for jobs and for money. Predominantly, the discourses of migrants in the films are embedded in various things, including dress from the Gulf, the insignia of opulence that depict the status of the migrants in the public sphere. Using thematic analysis of two Malayalam films, Pathemari and Marubhoomiyile Aana, this study argues that the motif of the Gulf is associated with power and control in the cultural discourse of Kerala. Drawing on the semiotic analysis of Barthes, we contend that the replacement of mundu, a traditional attire of Kerala men, by trousers, is one among several mythical markers of modernity, including perfumes and watches brought from the Gulf. The performativity and materiality of dress in these two films produce imageries of the Gulf by which the wearers, mostly male, accumulate social and symbolic capital and assert dominance in the film’s narration.


2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaus Siegfried

AbstractWhen Sultan Qabus issued Decree 101 on November 6, 1996, Oman was the last Arab country to implement a constitutional document. However, the political impact of this document is controversial: Whereas some consider the Basic Law a step towards democratization, others see merely a continuation of traditional policies. In this article I investigate the innovative potential of the Basic Law. Against the background of Omani and regional history and European and Islamic constitutional thought, I review the Decree with regard to authority and legitimation. I suggest that the law is mainly symbolic in character. It exploits tribal and Islamic concepts to create a historically unfounded notion of a homogeneous state. The civil liberties it grants do not extend to the public sphere. I conclude that Oman's Basic Law does nothing more than to freeze the status quo, according to which the Sultan remains the only recognized authority in the state.


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