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Anthropology

Diversity

Sociology

Note: Multiculturalism

Definitions:

A society that is comprised of and dependent upon many distinct, diverse, sometimes conflictual and contradictory cultural forms and traditions.

Cultural heterogeneity is a social fact. Probably was always true. What is new is Multiculturalism as an ideology, a moral order and ethos - belief system - that supports an increasingly globally interdependent cultus.  This new ideology has features:

There are legitmate social entities that  are groups of persons, not just individuals. These groups have rights.
People claim membership in a 'culture' as they had previously in a family, religion, nation - one's culture is a basis for personal identity.
Groups aspiring to the status of "culture" (deaf, gay, serbian, pashtun, kurd, native american) claim equity with national cultures.

MC as political strategy

Advocates fight for parity for all cultural groups - civil rights struggle becomes model for feminist liberation, gay liberation, AIM.

There is a discussion of Cultural Rights (use and ownership of 900 yr old bones, ancestral homelands, fishing/whaling  rights, intellectual property rights of herbal medicines,ownership of "cultural" treasures such as the Rosetta Stone, Venus deMilo).

• Acc to Kottak - technological change is prime mover of social and cultural transformation - modern tech requires MC as supportive ideology.
• Acc to Marx - "The ruling ideas of any society as the ideas of the ruling class" - MC as a new ruling idea supports interests of new ruling classes.
• Acc to Functionalist Theory - MC is an organizing ideology that affirms and expresses a way of living in a non-traditional highly interdependent global society.
  

Producing Culture

Rather than a expression and a map as well as a description of a lived experience, culture is now something that can be produced for the consumption of others - an exportable commodity.

??? How is it possible to avoid conflict or ennui in the face of competing cultural structures for meaning, faith, history, obligation, belonging, and claim???