Reconciling cultural diversity with a democratic community

Mestizajeas opposed to the usual suspects

Bibliographic Data

ID4524893
AuthorsJohn Francis Burke (0000-0001-6280-6112, University of St. Thomas - Texas, corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume3
Issue1
Pages119-140
Publication date1999-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621029908420703
OpenAlexW2113977762
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited20

A fascinating development within the liberal‐communitarian debate is how to deal with cultural diversity in increasingly heterogeneous democracies. Particularly noteworthy are Will Kymlicka's recasting of liberalism to deal with cultural minorities, especially the indigenous peoples of Canada and Charles Taylor's and Michael Walzer's articulation of a ‘deep diversity’ with regard to the federal relationship of Quebec to Canada as a whole. Both approaches, though, insufficiently address how combinations of cultures have been underway in the Americas for the past 500 years. Instead, I contend that mestizaje, the combination of cultures which has ensued in Mexico and the United States Southwest, articulates a ‘unity in diversity’ in which cultures transform each other without culminating in assimilation. To bolster my exegesis of mestizaje from the works of the Virgil Elizondo and Gloria Anzaldua, I accent how Jeremy Waldron's cosmopolitanism, Iris Marion Young's relational group theory, and Homi Bhabha's hybridity similarly illustrate how proposals such as Kymlicka's or Taylor/Walzer's insufficiently incorporate how integral heterogeneity is to cultural identity. In view of how ‘the border’ between the United States and Mexico exemplifies the growing intersection of diverse cultures from the developed and developing world, mestizaje offers that the intersection of multiple cultures in collaborative—not hegemonic—relations is intrinsic to realizing democratic citizenship

Citizenship · Cosmopolitanism · Cultural diversity · Democracy · Hegemony · Hybridity · Indigenous · Liberalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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