Multicultural belonging and national identity in Canada (2006-17)

Overview

This pilot project aims to investigate discourses of multicultural national identity as a way to address the contemporary turn against diversity in liberal-democratic politics. The project aims to generate new knowledge about the relation between diversity and national identity in Canada, facilitating broader insights into building multicultural identities generally. It thus seeks to contribute to vital political debates about the relation between diversity and social unity in Australia and other pluralistic states. Expected outcomes include the assessment of state approaches to fostering citizen-identity and inclusive national narratives, which should provide significant benefits for social cohesion in diverse states.

Outcomes / activities

The major outcome of this project was the following publications:

• Chin, Clayton. “Multiculturalism and Nationalism: Models of Belonging to Diverse Political Community,” in Nations and Nationalism. Online First, August 2020
• Chin, Clayton. “The Concept of Belonging: Critical, Normative and Multicultural,” in Ethnicities, Vol. 19 (5), 2019, pp. 715-739
• General and specific acknowledgement: two strategies for multicultural symbolism [Draft paper in development]