A Postcolonial Critique of Neoliberal Multiculturalism
Insights from Little Bee and The Buddha of Suburbia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22225058 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sercan Hamza Baglama (0000-0002-3361-6616, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Issue | 29 |
| Pages | 104-125 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2651-3145 • E-ISSN: 2687-5241 |
| Publisher | kulturarastirmalari (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.46250/kulturder.1929928 |
| OpenAlex | W7164007664 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 29 |
This article formulates a critical theoretical framework for interrogating neoliberal multiculturalism through a postcolonial lens, advancing three interconnected critiques: (1) the objectification of the Other, (2) the globalisation of the local within Eurocentric epistemologies, and (3) the operation of postmodern racism through conditional inclusivity. It argues that neoliberal multiculturalism, rather than dismantling systemic inequities, operates along these axes to commodify cultural difference, aestheticise alterity, and neutralise historical antagonisms under the guise of liberal inclusion. Drawing on postcolonial, critical race, and decolonial theory, the article examines how multiculturalism’s symbolic gestures of inclusion obscure its embeddedness in neoliberal regimes of governance. These critiques are then applied to selected episodes from Chris Cleave’s Little Bee (2008) and Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) in order to trace how specific literary representations provide fertile ground for articulating neoliberal multiculturalism’s aesthetic management of cultural difference and to reveal the complexities of how these logics are negotiated in literary production
Culturalism · Embeddedness · Gautama Buddha · Multiculturalism · Objectification · Postmodernism · Racism · White supremacy · Comparative and World Literature · Interdisciplinary Cultural and Social Studies · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
Cultural Racism
Contemporary Refugee Literature
Represent and Destroy
The Postcolonial Exotic
Neoliberal Multiculturalism?
Identity and Nation in Shamsie’s Kartography and Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia
Postcolonialism
Multiculturalism
From difference to exclusion
Neoliberal multiculturalism and productive inclusion
Multiculturalism, or, the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism
Whither Europe
Neoliberal multiculturalism in Dallas
The Rani of Sirmur
Hospitality, Volume II
Neoliberal Multiculturalism
Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Changing Colonial Racial Hierarchies in International Development
Is it cultural racism? Discursive exclusion and oppression of migrants in the Netherlands
Beyond Acculturation
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |