Abstract
This article discusses the critiques of critical multiculturalism of the well-established notion of liberal multiculturalism. Drawing insights from a critical theory, critical multiculturalism attempts to challenge and deconstruct the basic constructs such as culture and knowledge from the perspective of liberal multiculturalism. From this line of inquiry, I proceed to argue that English language education in the Indonesian context still clings to the spirit of liberal multicultural orthodoxy, which is evident from the English pedagogy policy, teaching and research. I then suggest that by adopting a critical perspective of multiculturalism, and hence critical multiculturalism as a framework of thinking, we can help raise teachers‟ awareness to adopt critical teaching and research practices that not only value the multiplicity of students‟ cultures but also resist linguistic and cultural determinism prevalent especially in academic writing practice. To demonstrate the possibility of resistance against the hegemonic forces of linguistic and cultural determinism, I present case studies of multilingual student writers in their search of the politics of identity in academic writing.
Highlights
The notion of multiculturalism has recently been challanged due to its fragile assumptions that tend to connote a sense of anglocentricity, which is defined as “the practice of judging other cultures by the standard of one‟s own” (Phillipson, 1992, p. 47)
The notion needs to be interrogated in light of a critical perspective in the hope that this new vantage point can serve as a model or a framework of thinking in complicating and problematizing issues related to differences in in races, religions, and ethnicities, and in English language education
From the perspectives of critical multiculturalism, the hybrid texts produced by the multilingual students in the above studies have their own legitimacy in that their realizations were made possible through constant negotiations and conflicts of human agents who bring their unique socio-cultural repertoires in the process of knowledge constructions and interrogate the commonly accepted conventions by virtue of their specific political, rhetorical, and ideological contexts
Summary
The notion of multiculturalism has recently been challanged due to its fragile assumptions that tend to connote a sense of anglocentricity, which is defined as “the practice of judging other cultures by the standard of one‟s own” (Phillipson, 1992, p. 47). Its existence is imputed to the process of accumulative negotiation with and reconstruction of the changing social context This emerging view is radically different from the positivistic tradition with holds that knowledge is free of human involvement, universal, absolute, and can be objectively verified in terms of dichotomy correct and incorrect. The distinctive features of liberal multiculturalism and critical multiculturalism can be encapsulated in the following way: The former stresses “common humanity” and “natural equality” in terms of differences in cultures, races, languages, and genders, with the eventual goal being the celebration of assumed differences and inequalities; by contrast, the latter examines and interrogates these differences by situating them in a specific political and ideological context with the aim being social transformation or change. But acknowledges culture as a site full of conflict, struggle, and contestation through which discourse is created
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