Justice and Ethnicity
| Date | 01 November 1996 |
| Published date | 01 November 1996 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1996.tb02702.x |
REVIEW
ARTICLE
Justice and Ethnicity
Perry
Kellet”
Will Kymlicka,
Multicultural Citizenship:
A
Liberal Theory
of
Minority
Rights,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, 280pp, hb E19.99.
It is now one of the well-known ironies of the
1990’s
that global economic and
social integration has intensified rather than soothed cultural and ethnic
sensitivities. Ethnicity has re-emerged from the shadows to become one of the
central issues of the decade. These are interesting times for ethnic rights
specialists and many have found themselves in demand, both in academia and
beyond. Among these, Will Kymlicka has recently confirmed his reputation
as
a
leading thinker on issues of justice and ethnicity with the publication of his book,
Multicultural Citizenship,
a
work which should
be
well received on both sides of
the Atlantic.
For
many European policy makers, it offers a comforting blend of
familiar concepts and limited innovation. They are sure to recognise and
welcome Kymlicka’s global vision of objectified, irreducible national cultures.
More specifically, they will find a liberal democratic theory of minority rights
which is entirely consistent with European national laws and policies, including
those of Britain,’ which favour the interests of long-established, traditional
minorities over those of immigrants.2 And whilst Kymlicka would undoubtedly
find many minority policies in Europe objectionable, his theoretical work
is
nontheless open to exploitation in the charged politics of the European ethnic
rights debate.
Ethnicity
is
in any event hard ground on which to produce coherent theory.
For
if
any theory of justice and ethnicity is to gain general acceptance, it must at the very
least
be
grounded in a plausible account of ethnicity
as
an element of personal and
group identity. Yet the difficulties involved in even beginning to think about
ethnicity in
a
coherent manner are well known. As one group of anthropologists
has said, ethnicity
is
‘a term that invites endless and fruitless definitional argument
among those professional intellectuals who think they know,
or
ought to know,
what it
mean^.'^
But even if social scientists
do
not agree on
a
precise definition,
there is at least
a
shared understanding that ethnicity concerns the idea of
*Lecturer in Law, King’s College, London.
Many thanks to Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, Conor Gearty and Maleiha Malik for their helpful comments on
an
earlier
draft.
1
See, for example, the establishment of comprehensive, publicly funded Welsh language television
services: Broadcasting Act 1990 (c42), ch
VI.
2
These distinctions have also played an important role in recent work within the Council of Europe on
the new Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. See ‘Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe: Draft Protocol on Minority Rights to the ECHR’ (Klebes,
‘Introduction’) (1993) 14 Human Rights LJ 140; ‘The Council of Europe’s Framework Convention
for the Protection of National Minorities’ (Klebes, ‘Introduction’)
(1995)
16 Human Rights LJ 92.
3
Tonkin, McDonald and Chapman (eds), ‘Introduction
-
History and Social Anthropology’ in
History
and
Efhniciry
(London and New York Routledge, 1989) p
1,
at 11.
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1996
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differential ~u1tut-e.~ That is to say that groups of people tend to think and act in
ways which are broadly similar and that these patterns of behaviour are reproduced
from generation to generation. What
is
also well accepted is that these
intergenerational traditions change as they are reproduced. People are thus
embedded to some degree in the cultural traditions in which they were immersed
during their upbringing, but are also able
to
adapt those traditions selectively to
new
circumstance^.^
However, it is not simply this precarious mixture of reproduction and adaptation
which makes it
so
difficult to capture the idea of ethnicity. Culture is, of course, not
confined to particular practices or customs, such as
a
preference for certain foods
or
manners of dress. Cultural differences pervade almost every aspect of life, from
the most profound beliefs and deep-rooted of habits to the most trivial of fancies.
But this is equally true of many other kinds of difference, notably including gender,
age, sexuality and class, which then have
a
profound effect on the ways in which
we experience and perceive ethnicity.6 Moreover, these other aspects of personal
and group identity are frequently the focus for sharp differences of interest, and
figure prominently in the processes through which a group defines and represents
its ~ulture.~ The homogeneity and distinctiveness of ethnic groups may therefore
be more
a
matter of perception than substance.
Certainly, in many circumstances, people who are thought to be members of a
particular ethnic group
do
in fact perceive themselves to
be
members, despite these
other differences. This commonplace awareness of ethnic identity does not,
however, confirm the existence of any substantive cultural essences which might
constitute the vital bonds of ethnicity. Ethnic awareness
is
too contextual and
unstable to be accurately portrayed by this sort of essentialism. Ethnic identity
is
formed through the effort to place oneself in the world and, while commonalities of
language, history and culture are by definition the focus of this effort, particular
representations of group identity are always changing.8 We therefore
need
to
distinguish the purified voice in which ethnicity
so
often speaks
from
the varied
and contingent nuances of ethnic reality.
Kymlicka’s work in the cultural rights field first came to notice in
1989
with the
publication of his revised doctoral thesis,
Liberalism, Community and Culture,
which contains many of his basic conclusions concerning ethnicity and ju~tice.~
Since then, he has elaborated these arguments and challenged those
of
his critics in
a series of articles which recently culminated in his book,
Multicultural
Citizenship.”
In this book, Kymlicka has refined his initial conclusions and has
sought to explain in more comprehensive terms how a liberal theory of ethnic
minority rights can reconcile these rights with the principles of individual freedom,
equality and social justice (p6). Kymlicka’s work therefore embraces one of the
central issues of contemporary liberal democratic politics. When and to what
extent should a liberal society go beyond its traditional disinterested tolerance of
4
5
6
7
8
9
Friedman,
Cultural Identity and Global Process
(London: Sage, 1994)
p72.
Roosens,
Creating Ethnicity: The Process
of
Ethnogenesis
(London: Sage, 1989).
Hall and Neitz,
Culture: Sociological Perspectives
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993)
p
136.
Hall and Neitz,
ibid
ch
7.
Hall and Neitz,
ibid
p
14;
see also Smith,
The Ethnic Origins
of
Nations
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).
Kymlicka,
Liberalism, Community
and
Culture
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
10
These include ‘Liberalism and the Politicization
of
Ethnicity’
(1991)
4
Canadian
J
Law and
Jurisprudence 239; ‘The Rights of Minority Cultures’
(1992)
20
Political Theory
140;
and
‘Misunderstanding Nationalism’ (Winter 1995)
Dissent
130. His other
books
include
Contemporary
Political Philosophy:
An
Introduction
(Oxford: Oxford University
Press,
1990) and Kymlicka
(d),
The
Rights
of
Minority Cultures
(Oxford Oxford University
Press,
1995).
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