Multicultural Citizenship 25 years later
November 18-19, 2021
Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
with
- Will Kymlicka (Queen’s University)
- Anna Triandafyllidou (Ryerson University)
- Michel Wieviorka (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)
- Patrick Savidan (Université Paris Est Créteil)
- Tariq Modood (University of Bristol)
Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
Centre Lourcine, Campus Port Royal, Paris
Building no.1, Room 13
25 years ago, Will Kymlicka published Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford University Press, 1995). In his first book, Liberalism, Community and Culture, Kymlicka had already argued that it was possible to overcome the liberal/communitarian divide by explaining how and why liberals ought to view cultural membership as an important good. In Multicultural Citizenship, he developed this philosophical insight into a political theory justifying granting group-differentiated rights to the members of ethnocultural minority groups, arguing for the recognition of self-government rights for national minorities and fair terms of integration for polyethnic groups resulting from immigration. In addition to developing a framework to understand the different kinds of group-differentiated rights involved in the politics of multiculturalism, Kymlicka sought to better understand the foundations of liberalism, to clarify the relation between individual and collective rights, to explain how minority rights derive from autonomy-based and equality-based considerations, to conceptualize political representation for ethnocultural groups, to delineate the limits of toleration and reimagine the conditions of unity in culturally diverse societies.
Multicultural Citizenship has been widely discussed and translated. Two decades and a half later, after an important migration crisis in Europe and well over a decade of alleged backlash against multiculturalism, this conference aims at discussing the legacy and future of liberal multiculturalism. Speakers will address topics such as, among other things, the link between multiculturalism and nationalism, social cohesion, alternative regimes of governance of diversity, the implementation of multicultural policies in different regions around the world, the compatibility between minority rights and gender equality, the multiculturalist conception of membership and belonging, the relation between secularism and multiculturalism.
This event is a collaboration between University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, KU Leuven, University of Geneva, NCCR-on the move, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, and PIRA-Plateforme Internationale contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme.