Anne Phillips - Multiculturalism without Culture
Phillips, A. (2007). Multiculturalism without Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691129440
According to the author, this feminist critique of some 21st century understandings of multiculturalism arose out of two preoccupations: one concerned Western anxieties about cultural imperialism that engendered a kind of relativism that made it difficult to represent any belief or practice as oppressive to women, or at odds with gender equality. The other was almost its mirror image: it concerned the perception that, outside of feminist circles, principles of gender equality were deployed to demonise minority cultural groups. The author argues against such hijacking of the gender equality agenda to perpetuate cultural stereotypes. She believes that multiculturalism still has an important role to play in achieving greater social equality. It can fulfil this role if dilemmas of justice and equality in multiethnic societies are addressed by focusing on principles of equality and justice rather than on allegedly fixed cultural identities.
Phillips “Multiculturalism without Culture”