Minority rights secure a cultural structure enabling individual choice within it

Evidence

In a similar vein, Kymlicka asserts that minority rights “help to ensure that the members of minority cultures have access to a secure cultural structure from which to make choices for themselves, and thereby promote liberal equality” (1989:192; my emphasis). On this view, minorities continue to exercise their individual (citizenship) rights within their particular cultural (and linguistic) milieux and, of course, contextually, in relation to other cultural groups within a given nation-state. The crucial element, however, is that members of the minority are themselves able to retain a significant degree of control over the process - something which until now has largely been the preserve of majority group members. The key issue thus becomes one of cultural autonomy rather than one of retrenchment, isolationism, or stasis. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 930

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes Kymlicka’s ‘cultural autonomy’ from retrenchment or isolationism as the actual goal of minority rights.
• XREF: Connects to the tension between individual liberal rights and group-differentiated protections, echoing debates in political theory liberalism versus communitarianism.