Recognition as acknowledgement: symbolic politics in multicultural democracies

ABSTRACT

Political symbolism is both integral to the social unity of democratic states and a source of deep controversy. Many of these debates concern the problem of symbolic inclusion: the extent to which democratic states should actively transform political identity to be more inclusive of their constituent groups. This article argues that the two dominant philosophical approaches to defending multiculturalism, liberal cultural rights theory and recognition theory, conceptualize recognition in ways that neglect the symbolic inclusion of immigrant groups. This is because members of minorities may formally enjoy individual rights and state accommodations of their cultures and yet still be politically marginalized. To address this, we develop a specifically multicultural concept of recognition as a form of acknowledgement. Such acknowledgement addresses the political belonging and democratic standing of immigrant communities, and takes general (e.g. valuing diversity) and specific (addressing particular communities) forms. The analysis suggests new lines of cross-national research.

KEYWORDS:

• Recognition
• acknowledgement
• multiculturalism
• political theory
• belonging
• political inclusion

Acknowledgements

This paper was presented at the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto. We would like to thank the participants and staff and students of the Department of Political Science for their receptiveness and comments. We would particularly like to thank Joe Carens, who commented on the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We follow Tariq Modood (2013) and Bhikhu Parekh (2000), among others, in using the term “multiculturalism” to refer to a kind of politics that arises in response to first, second, and subsequent generations of immigrants rather than addressing the broad sphere of identity politics to which the term is sometimes applied. Many accounts observe that “multiculturalism” can be both descriptive and normative: referring to the fact of cultural diversity and to the policy response to it.

2 Bhikhu Parekh’s application of this approach in debates on India is a particularly good example (Parekh 2015, chap. 2).

3 See, for example, Thompson 2006; Markell 2003; Honneth 1995; and Taylor 1992.

4 Patten notes that recognition has a symbolic dimension only in passing. Indeed, he seems to view it as reflective of a failure of legal recognition (Patten 2014, 242).

5 It is for this reason that post-immigration difference poses a distinctive challenge from other types of minority identity. Our argument is not that acknowledgement has no bearing on the forms of recognition appropriate to other groups but that the factors relating to post-immigration communities (e.g. negative difference, cultural difference, symbolic exclusion and political community) require addressing directly and in their own terms.

6 Markell goes on to argue that the object of acknowledgment is the self and its ontological limits. His extended argument does not therefore speak to our concern with the political relations between groups and with the state.