Zygmunt Bauman’s Critique of Multiculturalism: a Polemical Reading

Abstract

In many of his works, Zygmunt Bauman has expressed a critical position regarding the politics of multiculturalism, showing how it can be and has been used to downgrade the problems of inequality and uneven access to education, while sequestering minorities in their inherited cultural situations, which are portrayed by the leaders of such communities as “fortresses under siege”. While agreeing with his critique of unequality, this article shows that the target of his criticism are not the honest efforts to find a modus vivendi for multicultural societies that would preserve cultural identities while opening them up to a common social ground, but essentializing and simplifying political discourses that make use of multicultural vocabulary in order to promote other agendas. The article further develops a model in which to view the interests and legitimate rights of individuals and groups and shows how conclusion arises as a result of manipulating them. Finally, the article compares the cultural attitudes and relations to their particular environment of two groups, immigrant minorities and expats, and comes to the conclusion that expats, normally people who come from economically equal or wealthier backgrounds share many of the problems usually associated with immigrant cultural communities in contemporary societies, thus demonstrating that the discourse of multiculturalism can and should be legitimately and fruitfully separated from the discussion of other social problems.