Janelle responds to response to key lecture

I was really surprised and pleased by your posting about my keyword lecture, because I thought the fact that we didn't have any discussion meant I wouldn't get any feedback. So thank you first just for the post.

Second, I really like the challenge of the idea that 'multiculturalism' is an important keyword in our macro-analysis. I have been working with multicultural theory for many years, first in the US as part of trying to put race gender and sexuality into play in theories, in the classroom, in the academy more generally. But it is really in the political realm that it became important--and productive--for a while. Similarly in the UK, 'multiculturalism' became official Labour party policy after Thatcher. The difficulty with the term right now from my point of view is that it is in flux in the public sphere. Right-wing conservatives have mobilized against it as a 'failed' policy in both the US and the UK--in the UK, even rather leftish liberals are saying that the policy of multiculturalism lead to separatism and a silo effect in communities that missed the chance of coalition politics. I think a program-wide discussion on this concept could be really interesting for us because it will be differently useful or problematic in many places. Singapore is another country with a state policy of multiculturalism, but as our Singapore students in the first MAIPR cohort eloquently explained, when a concept becomes ideology it sometimes becomes oppressive or just plain false (I should say we had three Singapore students who would express their ideas about this topic quite differently.) So...I am reluctant to install the term too definitely, but I am really interested in reading and discussing about its complexity. And I loved the diagrams which you made to show what conceptual model you preferred. At Warwick, we will be taking up some readings and discussion on multiculturalism, but from a limited standpoint--what it means in a situated circumstance of postcolonial Britain. Other situated circumstances could be teased out by our students--that's what I meant about why we need you in the course, in the room, thinking together with us.
Janelle