GLOBALISATION AND MULTICULTURALISM

Rather than describe this period we live in, in relation to the preceding period as a post­ modem age or other, Tully ( 1 995 : 1 1 ) suggests that it should be described in its own tenus as an age of cultural diversity. The tenu 'globalisation' defines the processes through which cultural diversity has been brought together, operating on a global scale, which cut across national boundaries, integrating and connecting communities and organisations in new space-time combinations, making the world in reality and in experience more interconnected (Larrain, 1 994: 1 5 1 ). These patterns of human interaction, interconnectedness and awareness are reconstituting the world as a single social space (Mc Grew, 1 992: 65) in which territorial boundaries are becoming increasingly insignificant. Harvey ( 1 989 in ibid: 67) believes that this is having a disorienting and disruptive impact on cultural and social life, as well as upon political-economic practices and the balance of class-power. Hall ( 1 992) suggests that it is also having an unsettling impact on national identities with contradictory outcomes: a tendency toward a 'global post-modem' culture and simultaneously the resurgence of nationalism, ethnicity and

fundamentalism. The modem self is being 'de-centred', and some social identities are being 'dislocated' (Hall, 1 992).

There is also a tension between the 'global' and the 'local' (Hall et al., 1 992 : 6). In a global or world society, humanity is organised horizontally (not in a vertical hierarchy) into multiple, overlapping and permeable communities or systems of social interaction, and the existing world order is being transformed conspicuously through its direct challenge to the primacy of the nation-state in its present form. (McGrew, 1 992: 78). With the recomposition of the labouring class in western societies, social divisions such as those associated with gender, race and ethnicity have assumed greater salience, producing a greater complexity of social life, and a plurality of social groupings and communities of identification. Consequently, some social scientists claim that political and social values, cultural identities, and even the very sense of self are in considerable flux and disarray, and the general picture of social existence in the late modem world has been rendered more fluid by globalisation (Hall et aI. , 1 992: 8).

Through the twentieth century, western modernity has acquired a global reach with enormous human cost since it has been 'fuelled by a tremendous arrogance and violence' (Modelski quoted in McGrew, 1 992: 65). Consequently, the processes of globalisation, just as much in the past as nowadays, are simultaneously processes of domination and power in which cultural patterns prevalent in leading societies become paradigmatic, a desideratum which others must strive for and around which some forms of homogenisation occur (Hall et al., 1 992).

Cultural homogenisation is implicit in globalisation (Hall, 1 99 1 ). The overarching framework of this global culture is an American conception of the world that has resulted in the world-wide predominance of neo-liberalism, which is adopted in most western countries in different forms. During Britain's reign in the globalisation of that time, it contributed to the formation of other cultural identities - of many peripheral nations, and its own identity was formed in and shaped by this process. That identity, says Hall ( 1 99 1 : 20), was strongly centred, highly exclusive and excIusivist. Everything else was placed as the

'other' , be it the colonised other or the less powerful other (Larrain, 1 994: 1 55). However, the present globalisation (according to Hall, 1 99 1 : 33) has awoken a desire in ethnic groups to reaffirm their difference and to keep their heritage cultures and languages alive as signs of a new form of internationalism. Instead of eroding identity and culture, globalisation appears to be bolstering and reaffirming cultures and cultural identities amongst many ethnic groups. This trend is visible amongst some of the ethnic minority immigrants of New Zealand.

Due to globalisation and a massive swell in international migration in the last century, there are very few homogeneous societies in the western world today, and nation states are increasingly changing from being predominantly mono-cultural to multicultural societies. Most countries have become culturally pluralistic and contain many minority groups with distinct ethnic identities, which are clearly distinguishable from the majority-defining cultural group. As a result, the host cultures have, over a short period of time, come into contact with large numbers of a diverse range of peoples from European and Asian countries, as well as some from the African continent. This wave of change has taken a little longer to reach the shores of Aotearoa/New Zealand which, only a short while ago, was still in its post colonial era (although some would argue that we still are, and others - even more radically - would suggest that we are still fully colonial). Aotearoa/New Zealand is now fast catching up with this international trend, which is expected to continue to increase over time (Ward et al. , 200 1 ; Tully, 1 995), and socially its population has changed drastically from being bicultural to multicultural in the last decade. However, politically Aotearoa/New Zealand is considered to be bicultural and not multicultural. Such dramatic changes in population create problems and issues, and literature concerning these will be discussed in chapter three.

Cultural pluralism, in essence, allows immigrants to retain their linguistic and cultural activities, but requires them to adopt the public values of the country of settlement. However, despite official policies based on this principle of integration, in practice immigrants are expected to assimilate to the dominant ethos of the host country, at least at the overt, behavioural level. (Ward et al. , 200 1 ; Tully, 1 995). Aotearoa/New Zealand has

an immigration policy inspired by the cultural pluralism ideology, but not political pluralism.

Before embarking on a description of the problem of concern in this thesis and a discussion of the cultural status of AotearoalNew Zealand, it is necessary to take a look at the history of relations between the Occident and the Orient in order to be able to visualise the present situation clearly.

2.3 A BRIEF HISTORY OF EUROPEAN RELATIONS WITH NON-EUROPEAN