Early multiculturalism treated culture as classless and apolitical

Evidence

For much of its history, multiculturalism has been plagued by an idealistic, naive preoccupation with culture at the expense of broader material and structural concerns. If only cultural differences could be recognized, so the story went, the prospects of a harmonious multiethnic society could then (more easily) be achieved. This strain of multiculturalism is most evident in the rhetoric of early forms of multicultural education, developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s (see Modood and May, 2001). It is encapsulated, usefully, by Richard Hatcher’s observation that while “culture is the central concept around which [this] multiculturalism is constructed, the concept is given only a taken-for-granted common sense meaning, impoverished both theoretically and in terms of concrete lived experience. It is a concept of culture innocent of class” (Hatcher, 1987:188). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 894

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharpens a working definition of ‘culturalist’ multiculturalism — culture severed from class/material structure — that distinguishes it from later structuralist versions in the vault.
• XREF: Connects to vault critiques of identity politics as displacing materialist analysis, and to the CRT-core argument against mere cultural recognition. — connects to: Multiculturalism’s concept of culture was impoverished and innocent of class — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 894; Early multiculturalism reified culture while ignoring structural inequality — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 894

Broader Connections

• Multiculturalism’s concept of culture was impoverished and innocent of class #corroborates (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 894
• Early multiculturalism reified culture while ignoring structural inequality #expands (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 894