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Rebranding Britain? Ideological dilemmas in political appeals to “British Multiculturalism”

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posted on 2014-07-17, 10:59 authored by Susan Condor
In this chapter I consider some dilemmatic tensions within contemporary attempts to (re)brand Britain a “multicultural society”. I start out by considering two political speeches in which Labour Party ministers associated British Multiculturalism with the general liberal values of social inclusion, tolerance, human rights, progressive change and cosmopolitan moral and political sensibility. Analysis of the text of these speeches reveals tensions within these arguments. First, the rhetorical formulations that the speakers used to justify the political project of British Multiculturalism tacitly presupposed a natural order in which nations are normally populated by a racially and culturally homogenous folk. Second, British Multiculturalism is presented as a form of brand distinctiveness, differentiating the United Kingdom from other polities, and endowing the British state with commercial and military advantage in the international arena. Finally, far from constituting a post- Anglocentric, post-colonial re-formulation of national identity, the specific narratives used to legitimate the construct of British Multiculturalism closely echo the discursive tropes previously used to promote British Imperialism.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary perspectives.

Pages

101 - 134 (33)

Citation

CONDOR, S., 2011. Rebranding Britain? Ideological dilemmas in political appeals to “British Multiculturalism”. IN: Barrett, M., Flood, C. and Eade, J. (eds.) Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 101 - 134.

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing © Martyn Barrett, Chris Flood, John Eade and contributors

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2011

Notes

This is a chapter from the book, Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary perspectives. The publisher's website is at: http://www.cambridgescholars.com/

ISBN

9781443828413

Language

  • en