236 CHAPTER 11
However, although the movement on behalf of indigenous peoples shares much in common with anti-colonial nationalism, its political goals are typically more modest. Rather than aspiring to establish sovereign independence, indigenous peoples seek to maintain certain traditional practices while participating on their own terms in wider social, economic and political arrangements. According to James Tully, such a development would involve constitutional remodelling to both protect cultural diversity and expand the rights of indigenous peoples, especially in areas such as hunting and fishing in particular territories, land ownership on the part of the majority community, and the enforcement of traditional family law.
KEY FIGURE
JAMES TULLY (BORN 1946) ACanadian political theorist, Tully has championed a plural form of political society that accommodates the needs and interests of indigenous peoples. He portrayed modern constitutionalism, which stresses sovereignty and uniformity, as a form of imperialism that denies indigenous modes of self-government and land appropriation. In its place, he advocated ‘ancient constitutionalism’, which respects diversity and pluralism, and allows traditional values and practices to be accepted as legitimate. Tully’s key works in this area are Strange Multiplicity (1995) and Public Philosophy in a New Key (2008).
University of Victoria
Controversy nevertheless surrounds the rights of minority cultural groups when it comes to their implications for vulnerable group members, particularly women (Okin, 1999). This happens when minority rights and the politics of recognition serve to preserve and legitimize patriarchal and traditionalist beliefs that systematically disadvantage women, an argument that may equally be applied to those of the LGBTQ community, and is sometimes seen as the ‘minorities within minorities’ problem. Cultural practices such as dress codes, family structures and access to elite positions have thus been seen to establish structural gender biases. Multiculturalism may therefore be little more than a concealed attempt to bolster male power. However, contemporary liberal political philosophers have strived to resolve the ‘paradox of multicultural vulnerability’ by trying to take account of the need to reduce injustice between minority groups and the wider society, while, at the same time, enhancing justice within minority groups (Shachar, 2001). Togetherness in difference Multiculturalism has much in common with nationalism. Both emphasize the capacity of culture to generate social and political cohesion, and both seek to bring political arrangements into line with patterns of cultural differentiation. Nevertheless, whereas nationalists believe that stable and successful societies are ones in which nationality, in the sense of a shared cultural identity, coincides with citizenship, multiculturalists hold that cultural diversity is compatible with, and perhaps provides the best basis for, political cohesion. Multiculturalism is characterized by a steadfast refusal to link diversity to conflict or instability. All forms of multiculturalism are based on the assumption that unity and diversity – or ‘togetherness in difference’ (Young, 1995) – can, and should, be
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