Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Critics might respond that multiculturalism attempts to move beyond the
built-in institutional advantages of particular elites, in Canada the British
and French so-called charter groups, in Australia the descendents of Anglo-
Celtic settlers. But Mitchell (2004) sees latent racism within the structure
of the foundational British institutions in Canada that continues to play out
in public norms and government practices. In addressing 'multicultural
whitewash' (2004: 93), she endorses the view that multiculturalism patron-
izes minority cultures by reducing them to bundles of exoticized differences
set out for contemplation and consumption from an elite (white) stand-
point. Ghassan Hage (1999) has vigorously advanced a similar criticism,
berating Australian multicultural policy as a strategy by a 'white nation' to
preserve its hegemony. By (culturally) 'caging' immigrant groups, observes
Hage, labelling them with a set of ethno-specific traits, elites set them at a
distance, and carry on with the task of governance.
In many respects Hage offers a more rhetorical version of Kay Anderson's
earlier critical race study of Vancouver's Chinatown (Anderson 1991).
Anderson did not only take on the easy target of early Vancouver in display-
ing the power of white, European race categories, enshrined in the practices
of the state, in essentializing and marginalizing Chinatown. She also extended
this interpretation up to 1980, arguing that while multiculturalism has traded
pleasantries for the state's earlier harassments, nonetheless under multicul-
turalism, Chinese-Canadians continue to be perceived generically. The
meticulous preservation of Chinatown, with a detailed palette of state-
managed design controls, has created an outdoor museum, a landscape of
chinoiserie
that presents a repertoire of approved Chinese appearances, with
the state reinforcing the imagined western version of Chinese difference.
This argument that multiculturalism is an instrument of white privilege
gains some traction but suffers from a dated view of multiculturalism as it
currently exists. In Canada, as Kobayashi (1993) argued some time ago, mul-
ticulturalism has moved through three stages, from demographic multicul-
turalism, prior to any state acknowledgement, to a symbolic model, when the
cultural traits of diverse groups were celebrated and funded. Finally with
the present structural model cultural funding has all but disappeared, and
multiculturalism has morphed into an anti-racist and human rights agenda
that oversees equal treatment for ethno-cultural groups in the labour market,
before the police and immigration tribunals, in access to public services, and
in participation and representation in Canadian institutions. The cutting
edge of contemporary policy no longer concerns the aestheticization of
heritage cultures - of which the preservation of Chinatown provides an
impressionable older example - but rather addresses barriers to immigrant
integration (Ley 2010). This multiculturalism receives a high level of endorse-
ment from all Canadians, and slightly more from immigrants who regard it
as recognising their cultural difference and human rights.
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