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Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Multiculturalism in crisis: A
postmodern perspective on
Canada
a b
Janet McLellan & Anthony H. Richmond
a
Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for
Refugee Studies , York University , 322 York Lanes,
4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario, Canada ,
M3J 1P3
b
Senior Scholar and Emeritus Professor,
Department of Sociology (Arts) , York University ,
Vari Hall, 4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario,
Canada , M3J 1P3
Published online: 13 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Janet McLellan & Anthony H. Richmond (1994) Multiculturalism
in crisis: A postmodern perspective on Canada, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 17:4,
662-683, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.1994.9993845

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 Multiculturalism in crisis: a
postmodern perspective on
Canada
Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond

Abstract
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Using a modified postmodern perspective, Canada's policy of multicultural-

ism and the emphasis upon 'unity within diversity' are related to the theme
of globalization and the development of 'a new world order'. It is argued
that Canada is not unique in its efforts to come to terms with the contradic-
tions and conflicts generated by postindustrialism and the realignment of
superpowers. Questions of identity, collective self-determination and the
problematic relation between universalism and particularism, in relation to
sovereignty, legitimacy, human rights and participation are explored.

In October 1992 Canada held a national referendum on a new consti-

tutional package that would have given all provinces greater powers.
Under the Charlottetown agreement, the proposed Constitution recog-
nized Quebec as a 'distinct society which includes a French-speaking
majority, a unique culture and a civil law tradition'. It also explicitly
recognized the 'inherent right of self-government' by the aboriginal
populations. The preamble stated that 'Canadians are committed to
racial and ethnic equality in a society that includes citizens from many
lands who have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the building
of a strong Canada that reflects its cultural and racial diversity'. To be
adopted, the new Constitution required a majority to vote yes in all
provinces. In fact, only the provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward
Island and New Brunswick voted overwhelmingly in favour. Ontario
voters were almost exactly 50/50 in favour and against. Elsewhere, the
new Constitution was rejected by a clear majority.
The motives for rejection appear to have been extremely mixed and
even contradictory. In Quebec committed separatists voted against the
proposals because they did not go far enough in the direction of
sovereignty. Others in Quebec considered that a 'better deal' could
still be won within Confederation. One aspect of the proposed consti-
tutional package of reforms that caused widespread concern among

Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 17 Number 4 October 1994

© Routledge 1994 0141-9870/94/1704-662
 Multiculturalism in crisis 663
first- and second-generation immigrant minorities was the apparent
entrenchment of a 'hierarchy of rights' attached to particular ascriptive
statuses. Depending on the interpretation the courts give to particular
clauses, it is arguable that, at present, some 'are more equal than
others'. There is a 'pecking order' of rights implicit in the Meech
Lake and Charlottetown accords (Kallen 1989, pp. 179-87). Under
the Charlottetown agreement, official languages (English and French)
continued to receive special protection as did the land rights of aborigi-
nal peoples. Although the details of their claims were left for later
determination, status Indians, Inuit and Metis were given express
assurances and expedited procedures for the settlement of land claims.
Nevertheless, because of what appeared to be the undue haste with
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which the government tried to force through the changes, many abor-
iginal communities rejected the proposals. Rights pertaining to gender
and sexual orientation appeared to have less protection from the
amended Charter. Those who voted no included some women who
feared that the new Constitution could undermine hard-won gains
under the existing Charter of Rights. Other ethnocultural and linguistic
minorities retained their present place in section 15 (the equality rights
clause of the Charter), but, as with the status of women, they were
not in the same category as official languages and aboriginal rights.
The future status of aboriginal women in some traditionally patriarchal
communities was unclear. In the west, opposition came from those
who had fought hard for a new Senate that would be 'equal, elected
and effective' and who were disappointed with the compromise
arrangements.
There was a widespread feeling that the proposals were a form of
'elite accommodation'. Despite efforts to involve the public in the
debate surrounding the Constitution, the Charlottetown agreement was
seen as remote from the practical realities of everyday life. The mood
(in the midst of a prolonged recession) was one of disillusionment with
the political establishment.1 Such a reaction is predictable in the light
of trends that may be summarized under the term 'postmodernism'.
As Jameson (1991, p. 17) points out, a proliferation of social codes
relating to ethnicity, gender, race, religion and class have led to a
rejection of dominant bourgeois ideologies. As a result, 'advanced
capitalist countries today are now a field of stylistic and discursive
heterogeneity without a norm'.

Postmodernism
The terms 'traditional', 'modern', 'late modern' and 'postmodern' refer
to stages in the development of technology and organization. 'Tra-
ditionality', 'modernity' and 'postmodernity' are the institutional
embodiment of these phases that may coexist and overlap within a
 664 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
global system. 'Modernism' and 'postmodernism' refer to culture (as
expressed in art, architecture, literature, etc.); specifically, they denote
cultural movements that are a reaction against previous discourses,
narratives and symbolic representations. (The terms are sometimes
abbreviated when used adjectivally, or they are alternatively expressed
as 'modernistic' or 'postmodernistic'.)
'Postmodernism' has been used since the 1940s to refer to a variety
of phenomena, its meaning appropriated and redefined for different
purposes or causes. It has been applied to such diverse phenomena as
architectural design, painting, fictional writing, and the general cultural
trend towards the collapse of hierarchies and a pervasive fear of
nuclear destruction. Some writers link the cultural aspects of postmod-
ernism directly to postindustrial changes in the economy and tech-
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nology, while others deny such a connection (Ross 1988; Rose 1991).
Seidman and Wagner (1992) consider that any attempt to advance
general theory is deconstructed to reveal the social standpoint and
interests of its authors. They are particularly critical of attempts to
reduce social theory to economic determinism, or class conflict,
because this 'marginalises social and political dynamics that revolve
around gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality or age' (Seidman and Wagner
1992, p. 7). Postmodernism provides a philosophical frame or para-
digm within which the enterprise of modernity can be critically exam-
ined, primarily using the techniques of 'deconstruction' developed by
hermeneutics and social linguistics. When this critique is simul-
taneously applied to the postmodern experience itself there is a mirror
effect, which accounts for some of the inherent ambiguities and contra-
dictions in the literature.
From a socio-anthropological point of view, postmodernism can be
seen as a multifocal symbol that in its most generalized use challenges
the assumption of universality inherent in the legitimating discourses
of modernity, that is, the processes of secularization, rationalization,
social stratification, urbanization and industrialization. Although there
is no clear consensus about its meaning, postmodernism is 'a significant
revision, if not an original episteme of twentieth-century western
society' (Hassan 1985, p. 119). Hassan identifies various aspects of
postmodernity. They include indeterminacy, fragmentation, decanoniz-
ation, the fictionalization of identity, irony, hybridization and carnival-
ization. The latter refers to the process by which ethnic and other
cultural characteristics are celebrated in highly ritualistic and often
commercialized, rather than spontaneous, forms.
Against the view that the current era constitutes a distinct break
from modernity, or that postmodernity represents the 'end of epistem-
ology' and the 'fragmentization of experience', Giddens (1990; 1991)
argues that contemporary trends are a form of 'radicalized' or 'high
modernity'. The latter interprets centrifugal tendencies as linked with
 Multiculturalism in crisis 665
globalization. Instead of a fragmentation of self, he considers that the
processes of reflexive self-identity formation are made possible by the
late modern age. The formation of identity is linked to questions of
ontological security and trust (1991 p. 35-69).
While accepting an essential continuity between modernity and late
modernity, the present authors regard postmodernism as a paradigm
shift. It involves a restructuring of belief based on what Wellerby
(1985, p. 230) has presented as its three component features: a) the
institutional saturation of life, b) the cybernetization and medialization
of cultural communication, and c) the emergence as political forces of
a number of groups that have traditionally been excluded from the
political forum.
Postmodernism can also be understood as a form of resistance
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against the idea of a cultural homogenization through the global trans-

formation of industrial capitalism and mass-market consumerism.
Indeed, the globalizing process, with its variety of components and
myriad reactions to it, generates the need for the new levels of concep-
tualization found in postmodernism. From a theoretical perspective,
we must go beyond the idea of the homogeneous and integrated nation-
state, shifting from Gemeinschaft to the formally organized Gesell-
schaft. The boundaries of a 'society' no longer correspond with a state's
political borders. The implications of social relations and identities
created, sustained and continually modified across transnational bound-
aries through massive global movements must be incorporated into
social theory. Richmond (1969, p. 278; 1988, p. 2) introduced the
term Verbindungsnetzschaft to describe the cross-cutting ties that are
maintained by individuals on various levels in postmodern society.
These relationships are sustained by both interpersonal networks and
mass communications. They do not replace territorially-based com-
munities or bureaucratically organized formal organizations, but are
superimposed on them. In a network-based linkage of the personal
with the impersonal, the self-identified and reflexive postmodern indi-
vidual is in continual dialogue with formal organizations and with
ethno-religious communities whose boundaries are not necessarily
defined by geography.

Globalization
Theories of postmodernism and globalization address issues of ethnic
diversity within and between states. In the multicultural context of a
country such as Canada, ethnic or religious groups may appear as
relatively isolated minorities, but when expanded into the global frame-
work, their relationships must be understood as part of an international
network. The wider range of options for individual reference points
creates a potential for conflict. There are tensions between membership
 666 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
in a nation-state and participation in an international community linked
by common language, ethnicity or religion. There may be conflict
between membership in the diaspora and commitments to the home-
land. This applies particularly when ethnic identity, or religious belief
and practice, take on a political aspect. Further contradictions can
occur when immigrant communities stimulate in home countries the
formation of new social, political or ideological values, or the adoption
of incompatible technologies and social practices that conflict with
traditional ways.
Modern technological society, according to O'Neill (1988a), requires
conduct to be governed by universal norms of rationality, affective
neutrality, bureaucratization and meritocratic achievement. The subor-
dination of kinship or ethnicity, understood as the particular, 'repre-
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sents the conflict between technology and ethnicity as a problem of

social control requiring the imposition of homogeneity over difference'
(O'Neill 1988a, p. 17). Whereas 'modernization' and the rationality of
'progress' represent the political and philosophical traditions of West-
ern liberal thought as universal propositions applicable to the entire
world, postmodernism questions the claim to universality. It focuses
instead on the particular ways in which democracy and consumer
capitalism are lived and negotiated. The postmodern significance of
multinational capitalism arises from its global technologies, modes of
information transfer and systems of labour categorization.
In the postindustrial, postmodern world system, there are contradic-
tory forces pulling in opposite directions. The internal logic of an
advanced capitalist system requires the free movement of capital,
goods, services, information and labour across borders. Although some
barriers have been removed, there are still major obstacles. The last
vestiges of protectionism are used to defend the vested interests of
farmers and manufacturers against the proponents of free trade. Cul-
tural industries also seek protection. Even more resistant to change
are the gatekeepers protecting borders against illegal immigrants and
unwanted asylum applicants. Although there is greater mobility within
Europe and within the NAFTA region, there is no intention of aban-
doning national interests altogether or opening immigration doors com-
pletely.
The question of how various local insertions into the global system
are represented and reproduced must be addressed. How are they to
be legitimated? In what respect do they differ from the past? Lyotard
(1984) refers to the 'grand narratives of legitimation', an example of
which would be the epistemological perspectives of the Enlightenment
that grounded both liberal humanism and orthodox Marxism. Metanar-
ratives profess to be privileged discourse that legitimate all other prac-
tices of inquiry, situating, characterizing and evaluating them within
the entire course of human history. As Fraser and Nicholson (1988)
 Multiculturalism in crisis 667
have pointed out, certain types of inquiry, within the right pragmatics
and the right practices, are guaranteed privilege. For Lyotard, post-
modern society is characterized by a disbelief in the availability or
applicability of a privileged metadiscourse or ultimate narrative of
universal 'truth'. Instead, legitimation becomes plural, local and
inherent within a specific context.
Postmodernism's insistence on cultural realities as fractured and
multiple undermines the existence of social life as a contained and
integrated totality, a unified system of meaning (Handler 1986;
Coombe 1991). This goes beyond the question of legitimation. In
postmodernism, knowledge is not only the instrument of power over
others, it is also empowering for minorities. As Lyotard (1984, p. xxv)
states, 'it refines our sensibilities, awakens them to differences, and
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strengthens our capacities to bear the incommensurable'. However,

this is a somewhat Utopian view and is hard to reconcile with the
reality of struggle and opposition.
Ross (1988) examined the 'politics of difference', wherein the voices
of colour, gender, ethnicity or religion are represented as being differ-
entiated from that of white, male intellectuals and/or workers whose
universal ideals are grounded in what Mouffe (1988) identifies as mech-
anisms of exclusion. Ross's call for 'universal abandon' is a challenge
to reconstruct these new differentiated interests and identities so that
the particular, the multiple and the heterogeneous are acknowledged
and legitimized. Although such heterogeneity of elements may repre-
sent the society of the future, the present reality is one in which,
rather than tolerate diversity, minorities and majorities alike hark back
to a mythical past when everyone (in one's own community) shared
the same language and values. There are attempts to re-embrace tra-
ditional narrative forms. Within the creation of social identity in small,
local contexts, there is frequently an attempt to return to former
metanarratives, generated as nostalgia for the values and experience
of a more traditional community or ideology.
Such a yearning for the security of Gemeinschaft provides a crucial
element of unification and grounding in a world that is rapidly changing
and increasingly becoming differentiated. Groups and individuals are
reacting against their experience of postmodernism and are actively
mobilizing resistance against it. This can be shown in the development
and revitalization of fundamentalist and absolutist religions and in the
attempt to reconstruct former national identities. The various separatist
movements throughout the world can be interpreted as a rejection of
dominant metanarratives such as communism, imperialism or federal-
ism. Such ideologies are being replaced by others, such as 'self-determi-
nation' or 'ethnic cleansing'. The latter then becomes a new basis for
legitimation. The example of the former Yugoslavia (particularly in
 668 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
the battles between Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia) is a horrifying
example of this process taken to extremes.
Lyotard argues that identity must be embedded within small, local
narratives. How 'local' and 'small' are defined, however, are not
addressed. For many small local communities - for example, the Tibet-
ans in Canada - the collective structure of their meaning and identity
is sustained through transnational, global networks (McLellan 1987).
In the case of exiles and refugees, their involvement with a culture
away from their homeland is an unwelcome structural constraint. As
Hannerz (1990, p. 242) states, 'life in another country is home plus
safety, or home plus freedom, but often is just not home at all',
meaning that the local context of the refugee consists in being sur-
rounded, but not included, by the foreign culture.
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Baykan (1990) demonstrates in her analysis of modern Muslim

women that local narratives or identities can be consumed by metanar-
ratives operating through a local context. This is illustrated in local
democratic rights that are taken for granted by men but which for
women are in constant struggle with Islamic fundamentalism. Nagata's
work (1987; 1988) illustrates that there is continual dialogue between
small, local narratives and totalizing metanarratives. Although local
situations of particular religious or ethnic identities may appear as
isomorphic, they are frequently embedded within an international con-
text of political and ideological movements. Migration, contact with
new social and political environments, confrontation with co-religion-
ists of different ethnic and national backgrounds all generate local
responses. They create new perceptions of identity, relationships and
meanings. However, these cannot be separated from the global frame-
work. Williams's (1988) work on South Asians highlights situations
where local identities are based on membership in international com-
munities of faith, while becoming increasingly indigenized within the
North American context.
Expatriate ethnic or religious communities contribute to religious
revivalism within the homeland, providing the basis for an incipient
politicization of regional ethnic nationalism or an expanded, inter-
national religious identification. The point to be emphasized is that
local narratives, rather than being regarded as separate or unique
expressions of identity, must be understood as being contained within
and inextricable from the global metanarratives in which they are
embedded. It is misleading to bifurcate the local narrative from larger
ones that are linked to the globalization process.
This does not negate the importance of a postmodern analysis but
emphasizes the need to seek deeper understanding of the factors shap-
ing individual identity. A postmodern perspective needs to stress both
the inadequacy of an abstract universalism and the myth of a unitary
subject embedded within a geographically defined community identified
 Multiculturalism in crisis 669
by cultural or ideological boundaries. The idea of an integrated person-
ality within a bounded or self-contained community is replaced by an
interplay of synchronic and diachronic perspectives that continually
construct and reconstruct identity. The subjective individual is under-
stood as having multiple and contradictory dimensions, inhabiting a
diversity of communities, constructed by a variety of discourses
(Mouffe 1988). Fraser and Nicholson (1988, pp. 88-89) describe this
as

a weave of crisscrossing threads of discursive practices, no single

one of which runs continuously throughout the whole. Individuals
are the nodes or 'posts' where such practices intersect and, so, they
participate in many simultaneously. It follows that social identities
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are complex and heterogeneous. They cannot be mapped onto one

another or onto the social totality.

This leads to what Robertson (1990) identifies as one of the main

aspects of the world today. Individuals (within national societies parti-
cipating in the system of international relations) are increasingly subject
to competing ethnic, national, cultural and religious reference points.
It is precisely these convergent, and often divergent, linkages that
identify postmodernism and which must be addressed. Postmodern
analysis is an incorporation of the problems of modernity to include
a multidimensional perspective on the emerging global system. As
Robertson and Lechner (1985, p. 108) state:

Many of the particular themes of modernity - fragmentation of

life worlds, structural differentiation, cognitive and moral relativity,
widening of experiential scope, ephemerality - have been exacer-
bated in the process of globalization, while the threat of species
death had been significantly added to them.

Smith (1990), who is critical of the idea of an underlying global

culture, argues that what is being created is a construction of disparate
components containing 'invented traditions' tied to no place or period,
but sustained and delivered through global telecommunications systems
based on a global market economy. Head (1991) views this as the
continued attempt to model all countries after the Western industrial
model, not recognizing or ignoring the peculiar geographic and histori-
cal circumstances and the differential levels of economic, political and
social development. O'Neill (1988a, p. 24) agrees with this position
when he states that the diversity or plurality of cultures 'is available
to us only as the result of the marginalization and fragmentation of
local cultures in the face of the globalization and homogenization of
late capitalist corporate culture'.
 670 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
However, there is also resistance to this pressure. As Coombe (1991)
points out, although the existence of Coca-Cola, Exxon, Barbie dolls
and Big Macs all over the world may indicate global commoditization,
or a superficial homogenization of culture, the cultural values or mean-
ings associated with these things are different and subject to local
interpretations. This is what Bourdieu (1984) refers to as the local
cultural nuances in the creation of cultural capital. For Arnason (1990),
it is through this plurality of meanings that specific interpretations of
the global situation become the basis for strategies of accommodation
to or withdrawal from the global context.

Ethnicity within a postmodern/global perspective

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On the international level, questions of legitimate power, the legality

of declarations of independence and rights of secession remain contro-
versial. Initially, European and other countries were reluctant to recog-
nize the breakaway republics of Slovenia and Croatia in Yugoslavia,
viewing them instead as 'unauthentic' independence movements.
Nevertheless, they were eventually compelled to accept the fait accom-
pli of sovereignty. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro
were later expelled from the United Nations. The delegitimated uni-
verse of Lyotard's postmodernity may support diversity as its constitut-
ive condition, but there remains the need to distinguish between 'sub-
versive' innovations and 'recognized' legitimate forms (Connor 1989).
The question remains: where does the authority of local narratives
come from and what are the grounds for its legitimation?
In the political sphere, sovereignty is incrementally lost to supra-
national bodies. Numerous treaties and conventions commit states to
compliance with regional and global regulations in many jurisdictions
that were previously the sole responsibility of separate countries. These
regulations include such disparate matters as the legal constituents of
sausages, the components of automobiles, permitted levels of air and
water pollution, electronic standards for telecommunications and the
transmission of information, the status of women and the rights of
aboriginal peoples, all of which can be appealed to quasi-judicial bodies
beyond the courts of the countries concerned. (Canada's latest Immi-
gration Act will permit the government to enter into agreements with
other countries designed to 'harmonize' immigration and refugee poli-
cies with those of Europe, the United States and other countries.)
Sovereignty is further surrendered by treaty to military organizations
in regional defence pacts.
Despite these trends towards regionalism and globalization, there
are countervailing pressures towards the dissemination of power to
smaller units. Ethnic nationalists and local authorities seek greater
control over their own immediate territories and interests. Govern-
 Multiculturalism in crisis 671
ments no longer have a monopoly over weapons and the ability to
make war. Supreme coercive power is available to anyone with access
to weapons-grade plutonium or to who ever can take control of the
enormous stockpiles of atomic weapons that remain, despite attempts
by the USA and Russia to de-escalate the arms race. So-called 'conven-
tional weapons' proliferate in the global arms-bazaar and are available
to dissident minorities and terrorists as long as they have the money
to pay for them or can persuade the dealers to give them credit. The
result is a proliferation of devastating civil wars that reduce once viable
states and communities to near anarchy. The examples of Somalia, Sri
Lanka, Peru, Tajikstan, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Rwanda come to
mind. Irony is one of the key characteristics of the postmodern perspec-
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tive. It is ironic that the end of the Cold War and the removal of the
Berlin Wall have generated greater insecurity in central Europe and
elsewhere. Canada is not immune from the consequences of this 'new
world order'.

Canada: unity in diversity?

The debate over multiculturalism within a country such as Canada can
be used as a micro example of the tension between global cultural
homogenization and cultural heterogenization. It reflects the postmod-
ern dialectic of universal/particular, or meta/local discourse. The Cana-
dian example of multiculturalism, with its motto of 'unity in diversity',
can be seen as an attempt to structure a collective identity, or national
consciousness, through mediation between a multiplicity of diverse
ethnic and religious identities and a singular, universalistic, federal
orientation. Angus (1988, p. xi) argues that the heterogeneity of immi-
grant cultures in Canada has replaced a national source of dominant
values. The official Canadian policy of multiculturalism claims to pro-
vide protection to all cultural groups regardless of origin, and equal
opportunity to all. Its stated purpose is to 'break down discriminatory
attitudes and cultural jealousies . . . [and] form the basis of a society
which is based on fair play for all' (Canada House of Commons
Debates 1971, p. 8545). The relations between ethnic groups within
Canada reflect the structuring of relationships between states within
the global system. As Boyne (1990, p. 59) states:

Questions of the internal coherence or division within a group, and

issues of distinction between different groups have always been cen-
tral both to the ways in which individuals and groups have under-
stood themselves and to the varieties of rhetorical manoeuvres avail-
able to those who seek to persuade others of the importance to the
group of one course of action than another.
 672 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
Featherstone (1990, p. 12) notes that the 'West is both a particular
in itself and also constitutes the universal point of reference in relation
to which others recognize themselves as particularities'. Similarly, in
the Canadian case, national identity is positioned against that of the
'founding peoples'. Initially understood as the French and the English,
the concept has been redefined to include the Native Indian or aborigi-
nal population, while the criteria for membership in that category
remain uncertain. (Does it include the M6tis, off-reserve populations
and those who have lost status through marriage or enfranchisement?)
From the postmodern perspective, the construction or presentation
of identity remains problematic, especially when concerned with the
legitimation and context of authority, or when questions of authenticity
and credibility are incorporated within a national or an ethnic group's
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struggle for recognition in a multicultural nation-state (Handler 1986).

As Anthony Smith (1990, p. 73) notes concerning the idea of integra-
tion through diversity, 'symbolic attachments to particular ethnic com-
munities are valued, and their needs and rights are politically recog-
nized, so long as they are ultimately subordinated to the over-arching
political community and its complex of myths, memories and symbols'.
The result is symbolic rather than institutionalized minority rights. For
example, although Canadian Muslims and Mormons may profess belief
in polygamy, they may not practise it because to do so would 'make
the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the
land' (Hammond 1982, p. 218). Schlesinger (1992) deplores the 'disun-
iting of America' while recognizing the reality of its multicultural
character. He argues that the United States (and by implication Canada
also) must 'combine due appreciation of the splendid diversity of the
nation with due emphasis on the great unifying ideas of individual
freedom, political democracy and human rights' (1992, p. 138). Yet it
is precisely this Western tradition, from the Enlightenment, that is
challenged by the growing emphasis on the collective rights of minori-
ties and the droit de difference, emanating, in many cases, from non-
Western traditions.
In Canada, however, what originally began with a rhetoric of sym-
bolic rather than institutional manifestations of ethnic distinctiveness
has become a struggle over allegiance to particularized ethnic or politi-
cally nationalist communities. It challenges the organizing principles
of Canadian society as grounded in the British North America Act,
and the repatriated Constitution of 1981. This is evident in the rejection
of the Meech Lake Accord and in the subsequent constitutional
debates leading up to the referendum. Recognition of Quebec as a
'distinct society', entrenchment of the aboriginal 'inherent right to
self-government' together with the trend towards decentralization of
government and greater provincial powers, are all examples of the
decentring, fragmenting reaction against modernism. The postmodern
 Multiculturalism in crisis 673
tendency can also be seen in the attempts by a Canadian Muslim
group to establish its own arbitration boards, to allow self-government
according to Islamic law on such issues as marriage and divorce. Other
examples include controversy over separate school systems for religious
and racial minorities and the constitutional debate over special rep-
resentation for women in the Senate.
Ethnic inequality and competition for scarce resources lead directly
to a struggle for greater status and recognition. Breton (1987) argues
that ethnic groups and ethnic identification in Canada cannot be under-
stood without attention to the structure or type of their intergroup
relationships. As he (1987, p. 45-6) states, 'variations in types of inter-
group relationships have relevance for the degree and patterns of
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inequality among communities as well as for the extent and mode of

incorporation of the communities (or community) in the society and
its institutions'.
For Baker (1977, p. I l l ) , ethnic groups constitute power confron-
tations in which groups mobilize their resources to contest for control
of resources and the institutions through which are allocated or reallo-
cated the resources, power and privilege of that society. Under the
rhetoric of multiculturalism, ethnic groups are involved in a constant
competition for status and power, 'ever watchful of the institutional
gestures vis-a-vis other groups and react accordingly' (Breton 1987,
p. 59) as seen, for example, in the efforts of various ethno-religious
groups to redirect educational tax dollars for their own separate
schools, or the 'we too' response by certain ethnic groups to the
Japanese-Canadian compensation settlement. Having acknowledged
that there was a serious breach of human rights when Japanese-Canadi-
ans were forcibly evacuated from the West Coast during World War
II, the Canadian government now faces similar claims for compensation
for past grievances from Italians and others who were interned during
the war, and from Chinese-Canadians who were required to pay 'head
taxes' in order to enter Canada at the turn of the century.
Rather than creating a harmonious whole or promoting ethnic equal-
ity, multiculturalism may engender emotional struggles between
groups, each attempting to acquire a larger share of social resources.
Furthermore, in the multicultural competition for status and recog-
nition, great emphasis is placed on the preservation of differences,
creating difficulties in defining standards of ethnic equality because the
aims and aspirations of different groups are not the same. Catering to
group interests may be seen as contrary to liberal democratic values
that emphasize individual rather than collective rights, and universal-
ism rather than particularism. In addition to the difficulty of establish-
ing a 'Canadian' outlook vis-a-vis a particularized 'ethnic' view, there
is no consensus, either among academics or government bureaucrats,
concerning the basis for identifying 'ethnic' communities. The criteria
 674 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
of differentiation, representation, leadership, organization, numbers,
sociocultural characteristics, etc., are unclear (Breton 1991). Statistics
Canada has difficulty measuring ethnicity based on ancestry, as more
respondents define themselves as 'Canadian', or in terms of multiple
ethnicities (Krotki and Odynak 1990; Pryor 1992). Terms such as
'black' or 'visible minority' present even more serious operational
problems (Samuel 1988).
In Canada, identity has been expressed through linguistic, religious
and 'racial' (that is, visible) indicators representing a particular cultural
tradition. Official acknowledgement of a national or ethnic collectivity
depends upon the 'possession' of an authentic culture, understood as
an independent existent entity rooted in a definable sociohistorical
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tradition. Dances, crafts, religious ceremonies or holidays, foods,

clothing, language and so on, become spectacles to symbolize identity,
objects to be scrutinized, identified, revitalized and consumed in a
process that Handler (1988, p. 16) calls 'cultural objectification'. Cul-
tural objectification, as a self-conscious representation of authenticity,
distinguishes the ethnic and/or religious group, providing the 'content'
for group identification and analysis as a component of the diversity
that is conceptualized as multiculturalism. This phenomenon is then
'carnivalized' in such events as 'Caravan', 'Caribana' and various
'national' folk-festival days.
It is from this perspective that Onufrijchuk (1988) critiques multi-
culturalism as 'a grand strategic manoeuvre to absorb ethnicity, in its
plurality and distinctiveness, into a synthetic edifice, ethnicity, which
sterilizes, expurgates, and truncates the project. . . . Multiculturalism
is, potentially, the burial of ethnicity rather than its acceptance, cele-
bration, and invigoration' (Onufrijchuk 1988, p. 32). The Quebecois
openly oppose the concept of multiculturalism, which is seen as a
challenge to the intimate link they see between language, culture and
nation. Multiculturalism is a threat to the language and culture of the
'pure laine', the 'de souche' descended from the earliest French settlers
whose roots are deep. Multiculturalism threatens to relegate their
culture to a folkloric level rather than to founding charter status (Bou-
raoui 1979, p. 10). This raises the question of human rights and prop-
erty rights. Is priority to be given to some groups over others?

Individual and collective rights

A key issue underlying the debates leading to the Charlottetown
Accord concerned the relation between individual and collective rights.
The liberal tradition, grounded in the European Enlightenment and
the writings of Hobbes and Locke, emphasizes natural rights, including
those relating to property, in an individualistic manner. However,
some legal scholars and advocates on behalf of aboriginal peoples
 Multiculturalism in crisis 675
questioned the relevance of the 'rights paradigm' to those of a different
cultural tradition, particularly where communal sharing of land was
customary. Some scholars argue that the Canadian Charter of Human
Rights 'has recognised certain collective rights, such as Aboriginal
rights and language rights, and that this has taken legal conceptions
of rights in Canada far beyond the "individualistic" basis of rights
which find their origin in property notions' (Turpel 1990, p. 17). Others
question this interpretation.
It is ironic that the principles first expounded by British barons to
combat the tyranny of kings, which were later adopted by the French
bourgeoisie to defend their property rights against the encroachments
of the aristocracy, should now be adopted by people seeking to regain
control of lands taken away from them by external invaders and col-
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onial settlers. Indigenous ethnic minorities and aboriginal peoples are

asserting their right to self-government, or pursuing their land claims
in the courts (and sometimes by resort to arms) as they invoke the
values derived from Magna Carta, the French Revolution and the
American Constitution. The irony lies in the fact that all of us are
aboriginal peoples of Planet Earth whose people, resources and
environment we must respect, preserve and protect!
Pursuing the constitutional debate from Meech Lake to referendum,
Native peoples have adopted Quebec's strategy. They now employ the
same rhetorical phrases such as 'distinct society', 'sovereignty associ-
ation', 'majority population' and 'territorial integrity' to justify their
call for special status with separate legal and government structures.
In their attempts to attain a cultural equality with francophones with
regard to language rights, other ethnic groups, such as the Ukrainians
in western Canada, also articulate a claim to 'founding group' status
on the basis of a long history of settlement in Canada and an identifi-
able territory (Lupul 1988). The descendants of others who settled in
Canada before 1867 might also feel entitled to special treatment.
Defining ethnicity in terms of 'collective rights' or 'group sovereignty'
has added to the ongoing controversy concerning multiculturalism from
a postmodernist perspective. Although the postmodernist position
lends support to those who question traditional power structures and
status hierarchies, it also criticizes and deconstructs the discourses
upon which ethnic and religious identities have been based. Particularly
dubious is the ideal of 'institutional completeness' and what Marcus
(1989) calls the 'fiction of the whole'. Burnet (1984, p. 25) articulates
this position when she comments on the myth of common bonds among
members of minorities:

Ethnic groups vary in many respects, among them numbers; region

of concentration; time of arrival; occupational income and edu-
cational distribution; physical characteristics; relations with their
 676 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
homeland; degree of ethnic awareness, and capacity for collective
action. Moreover, there are among them memories of old wars and
antagonisms. Indeed, even the members of a single ethnic group are
usually highly differentiated, especially if some have lived in Canada
for a long time. As for the French-Canadians, they seem unaware
of many of the ethnic distinctions that exist among those that they
lump together as English-Canadians, and of any comparison between
their claims and those of other ethnic groups.

As Coombe (1991, p. 192) argues, identity in a multicultural context

is not an inherited 'given' but mediated through multiple cultural
intersections incorporating gender, race, class, ethnicity and religion,
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a social heterogeneity in which world views or cultural heritages are

'actively constructed from competing and conflicting constructions of
tradition'. Selected cultural patterns provide 'symbolic expressions' of
ethnic identity, and the constraints of identity are subject to personal
selection, interpretation and enactment, and hence can be understood
as situational and instrumental. Ethnicity is only one of the many
components that individuals use to create identity.
Cultural practices and ethnic identity are in a continual state of
transformation, a dialectic embedded within the political process, glo-
balized economics of consumerism and production, media represen-
tation and control, information and communications technology. Rich-
mond (1984) noted the connection between advanced
telecommunication systems and the re-emergence of submerged ethnic
communities and nationalism. As Verbindungsnetzschaft assumes
greater importance, ethnic links are maintained with others of similar
language and cultural background throughout the world. Ethnic
nationalism merges with regional interest groups to seek greater control
over economic and political resources. The new 'modes of information'
enable an intense interaction and communication across national
boundaries facilitating a new wave of irredentist and nationalist feeling.
Anthony Smith (1991, p. 156) concurs with this view, suggesting that
a resurgence of minority or peripheral nationalisms provoke a renewal
of majority nationalism. 'The overall result may be to strengthen those
very "state-nations" that had been thought to be obsolete and to give
them a new, more powerful lease of life.' He cites Serbs, Czechs,
Poles and Russians as examples, but others could be found in America,
Africa and Asia as well.
Within the international framework, ethnicity is expressed as a con-
tinuous circulation of ideas and resources, human, material and sym-
bolic. Religious belief and practice are significant parts of this trans-
national ideational transformation, supporting global ethno-religious
networks and reducing the sense of distance between migrant com-
munities and their 'homeland'. Through the globalized 'recycling pro-
 Multiculturalism in crisis 611
cess', revival movements, indigenization strategies, syncretism, funda-
mentalist mobilization or conversion can become significant stimuli for
alternate forms of ethnic or nationalist expression among immigrants.
These, in turn, may juxtapose and reinforce, but ultimately serve to
differentiate further, the traditional patterns of credibility, within and
across ethnic or religious identities.
It is evident that once familiar concepts such as 'acculturation',
'assimilation' and 'integration' no longer make sense in a rapidly chang-
ing world of satellite communications and global culture (Richmond
1991, p. 1). This is in line with the postmodernist perspective in which
cultural and ethnic realities are seen, not as ethnographic wholes but
as fractured and multiple, with social life 'understood in terms of the
local and conflictual relations of its production' (Coombe 1991, p. 195).
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The issue of cultural construction and the idea of the 'invented tra-
dition' (Hobsbawn 1983) or the 'collective memory' (Halbwachs 1980)
make it difficult to distinguish the spurious from the genuine. They
also place the local discourse of ethnicity within the dominant discourse
of multiculturalism. Burnet (1976, p. 55) argued that if multicultural-
ism as state policy enables 'various peoples to transfer foreign cultures
and language as living wholes into a new place and time', it is doomed.
As reports from the Spicer Commission (Spicer 1991) indicated, many
people perceive government policies of official bilingualism and multi-
culturalism as divisive, threatening the emergence of a single sense of
'Canadian' identity.
Multiculturalism in Canada must be understood in the context of an
ongoing interaction between forces promoting centralism and those
endeavouring to assert local autonomy. This was quite evident in the
debates preceding the constitutional referendum. The same processes
are at work at the global level, where efforts to overthrow authoritarian
regimes have led to internal power struggles, civil war, ethnic conflict
and economic collapse. In the long run, and more positively, this is
less of an effort to do away with master narratives altogether, but one
that opens them up and makes them more sensitive to the diverse
context in which they must be expressed (Marcus 1989, p. 19). As
Bright and Geyer (1987, p. 69) state:

This struggle for autonomy - the assertion of local and particular

claims over global and general ones - does not involve opting out
of the world or resorting to autarky. It is rather an effort to establish
the terms for self-determining and self-controlled participation in the
process of global integration and the struggle for planetary order.

For Marcus (1989), the manifestation of local struggle with the world
system, seen in terms of resistance and accommodation, adequately
summarizes the complex determinations of identity and cultural mean-
 678 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
ings. A new macronarrative is needed, one that is 'open to diversity,
uncertainty, processes of disorder, and the play of local, pluralistic
contexts' (Marcus 1989, p. 20). Robertson (1990) views the globaliz-
ation process in similar terms. Rather than a single, dominant global
ideology (universalism), which would contravene possible requirements
of a viable global order, pluralism (particularism) must be the constitut-
ive feature and legitimated as such. As Robertson and Lechner (1985,
p. Ill) state:

Full-blown pluralism would have to pivot upon the global generaliz-

ation of the value of cultural diversity with particular relevance to
the idea that such diversity is in and of itself good both for the
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system and for units within the system. . . . A multidimension (non-

idealist) view of globalization implies that a viable world order does
require the actual generalization of the legitimacy of diversity and
of contending presuppositions.

In Seligman's (1990, p. 130) view, this postmodernist attempt at

universalizing the particular will transcend and reconstruct a mode of
representation through a new dialectic of public and private, and will
change the boundaries of definition so that 'rights are no longer framed
in terms of citizen or civil rights, but of human rights'. The idea of a
highly pluralistic global scene, in which both political and cultural
power is dispersed, can be seen as part of what Mouffe (1988) has
called the project of 'radical democracy'. Applicable to all spheres of
social relations, radical democracy

aims to create another kind of articulation between elements of the

liberal democratic tradition, no longer viewing rights in an individu-
alist framework but as "democratic rights". This will create a new
hegemony which will be the outcome of the articulation of the
greatest possible number of democratic struggles . . . institutionaliz-
ing them into ever more social relations, so that a multiplicity of
subject-positions can be formed through a democratic matrix. . . .
Such a hegemony will never be complete . . . a project of radical
and plural democracy, on the contrary, requires the existence of
multiplicity, of plurality, and of conflict, and sees in them the raison
d'etre of politics (Mouffe 1988, p. 41).

This is reminiscent of Habermas's notion of an ideal, harmonious

communication situation in which communicative action occurs through
a universal norm of consensus, equally available to all participants
without external constraints (institutional frameworks or structures) or
internal distortion (Bernstein 1985, pp. 19-23). For Hassan (1985) as
well, this ambiguity of identity set in a pastiche of everyday life set-
 Multiculturalism in crisis 679
tings, is liberating, restoring to individuals and groups the multiplicity
of creation and enhancing the tolerance for differences of every kind.
Yet he also warns against the tendency to idealize these postmodern
visions when he states (1985 p. 127) that 'such ambiguity must also
imply some nexus of assent, some active context of value and power
- in short, some Authority, the very authority which both limits and
enables our shifting freedoms'.
It has been argued (McLellan 1989) that from an anthropological
perspective, multiculturalism can best be understood as a charter myth,
an artificial creation that has restructured historical as well as existing
social relations. Its existence arose from the combination of politicians,
bureaucrats and influential interest groups, aiming to create a foun-
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dation for mutual respect among the different elements of Canadian

society. Furthermore, as myth, multiculturalism is multifocal - it is not
clearly defined and therefore can be interpreted in a variety of ways.
The ideology of multiculturalism, as expressed in the preamble to the
Multiculturalism Act of 1989, sets out certain ideals that provide a
scenario for the future. It details a programme of change for a better
society. The programmes supported by the federal government, par-
ticularly those that endeavour to combat racism and assist recently
arrived immigrants, are coping mechanisms designed to assist Canadi-
ans in dealing with the conflicts that are endemic in a postmodern
society.
Linguistic, national and ethno-religious conflicts in Canada today are
a microcosm of the difficulties involved in resolving these problems at
the global level. Multicultural Canada is a model of the macroprocess
of globalization. This process involves an interpretation of the world
as a 'single place', providing the nexus for 'global culture'. New ways
of thinking about global diversity and plurality are needed. Merely
recognizing the tendency towards fragmentation is not enough. As
Giddens puts it, in a radicalized high modern society, humanity must
'harness the juggernaut'. We must 'minimise the dangers and maximise
the opportunities' that radical or postmodernity offers us (Giddens
1990, p. 151).
For Smith (1990), the universal stumbling-block to global culture is
the continued presence of premodern ties and sentiments, including
the traditions, myths and boundaries that are the foundations upon
which many nation-states were built. People continue to perpetuate
and recreate these myths in nostalgic forms. Particularistic definitions
of individual and collective identity take priority over universal ones
that emphasize common humanity. As1 Robertson (1990, p. 22) argues,
this problem of globality must be addressed through the development
of regulative norms concerning the relationships between states and
within communities. Otherwise, the potential remains for major ideo-
logical cleavages arising from the systemic contradictions between hom-
 680 Janet McLellan and Anthony H. Richmond
ogeneity and universalism on the one hand, and the values of hetero-
geneity and particularism on the other. In extreme circumstances,
Canada could follow the example of Yugoslavia and disintegrate into
warring factions as region confronts region, French fights English, First
Nations claim their original territory and other ethnic groups act out
historic conflicts, seeking revenge for past and present atrocities.
Alternatively, if Hannerz (1990, p. 245), is correct in his view that
the real significance of transnational cultures within contemporary
states is their mediating possibilities, then a radically redefined form
of Canadian multiculturalism may still provide the best example to
guide the 'new world order'. As Hannerz suggests, expatriate ethnic
communities may become bridgeheads for entry into other cultural
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meanings, providing personal experience of the benefits of diversity.

Canada is not alone in trying to come to terms with the new global
reality. Multiculturalism is a fact in most advanced industrial societies
in Europe, North America and Australasia. The potential for enduring
conflict is real. A new vision must be one that celebrates our common
humanity and seeks to reconcile differences.

Acknowledgement
This is the revised version of a paper presented at the meeting of the
British Association of Canadian Studies, held at the University of
Cambridge, 26-28 March 1993.

Note
1. The mood was perpetuated and reinforced in the election of 1993 when the
incumbent federal Conservative Party was reduced from 157 to only two seats in the
House of Commons. The separatist Bloc Quebecois and the western based right-wing
Reform Party vied with each other for the status of official opposition, winning more
than fifty seats each, after recounts. The Liberal Party, which formed the new govern-
ment, won 177 seats and the socialist NDP only nine.

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JANET McLELLAN is a postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for

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ADDRESS: Centre for Refugee Studies, 322 York Lanes, York Uni-
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ANTHONY H. RICHMOND is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and
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