26/11/14 - Gimenez's Text

1. Authors' profile: Malgesini and Giménez

Carlos Giménez is a Social Anthropology professor. He is the principal of the University Institute of Investigation of Migrations, Ethnicity and Social Development (IMEDES) and of the programme “Migration and Multiculturalism” in the Autonomous University of Madrid. He is also a teacher in this university.

He combines theory and practise in subjects of interculturality, mediatin and development. From 1992 to 1999 he was consultant in the Madrid Community with the immigration of the social administration and from 1996 to 2000 he was an international adviser of the United Nations' Programme for development (PNUD) of Guatemala (interculturality, public politics and sustainable human's development).

Graciela Malgesini is a Doctor of Economic History and an expert in themes related with Migrations and Development.

She has been teacher of different Universities in Argentina and Spain. She has worked in different projects of investigation. She has co-direct the Specialty “Migration and Development” of one Madrid’s universities’ programme.

Now she is an independent Consultant in different Organizations, like the Spanish Red Cross.

She has published several books and many articles about these two subjects.

2. Cultural pluralism, pluralistic societies: Furnivall, Barth and Smith

Furnivall created the term “pluralistic societies” to characterize the Dutch East Indies society, colonial field where the Dutch colonists, the local Indonesian (clearly dominated) and some intermediate groups who worked in the trade, like the Chinese immigrants.

Furnivall saw the domination, the conflict and the instability as inevitable features of the pluralistic societies. He said that these societies were creations of the occidental expansion whose result was to gather different ethnic groups in the Colonial States and the market.

He thought that the pluralistic societies were going to end when the colonial possession finished, because the ethnic groups were politically forces and there were only economic bond, no social ones.

Batth used the term “pluralistic society” in a text of 1958, to describe the society of Swat (Pakistan), but with a different perspective than Furnivall, more positive or optimistic.

The coexistence between three different ethnic groups in Swat and their persistence like that, showed that the adapting process weren’t inevitable and that a determinate harmony grade was possible. Barth defines the pluralistic society as a society that combines the ethnic contrast and the economic interdependence.

Smith used the term with the Caribbean society, which was very similar to the Furnivall’s society: the European colonists (Spanish, French ...), the slaves’ descendent that were moved from Africa to the Caribe and the Asiatic immigrants, Hindus.

Their description was an analysis of the social reality as it is more than a proposal of what it has to be.

3. Multiculturalism models according to Kymlicka

Kymlicka has distinguished between “two broad models of cultural diversity”: “The first case, the cultural diversity appears from the culture incorporation that before had a self-government and were concentrated geographically in a bigger State. The second case, the cultural diversity appears from the individual immigration and the familiar one”. This two models are denominates “national minorities” and “ethnic groups”.

Kymlicka tried to show that the national minorities try to follow their culture and be a different society while the ethnic groups try to integrate in the majority society and be accpted as a member of it with all the rights.

4. Objections to the muliculturalism, Rex and Domíngez

In relation with the critics refered to the possible social fragmentation, Jonh Rex in 1986, said that the multiculturalism concept assumed “the existence of two independent cultural areas”. This two areas were: The first one “is a political culture shared inside the public territory, based in the equality” and the second one “diverse communitary and private cultures, its one with its own language, religion and customs”. This make visible the difficulties.

Dominguez sees the multiculturalism as a ideology of post-racism. It is a critic to the multicultural speech, talk or slang in United States (multicultural-talk). Even reconizing the diverse positions (“liberal” and “progressive” positions opposite to the “conservative” and “right” positions, talking about multiculturalism), Domínguez says that what is shared is much more that what is discussed publically.

5. Interculturalism according to Perotti

Perotti understands the “intercultural society” as a “political project that, departing form the plural culturalism exists in the society (this pluralism is limited to the yuxtaposition of the culture and it is only translated in a increasement of the ethni-groups culture) is ment to develop a new cultural summary.

6. Chronology: cultural pluralism, multiculturalism and interculturality