35 / 2012
Marina Lukšič-Hacin, Kristina Toplak
Ethnic Economy and Cultural Heritage in the Context of Multiculturalism
ABSTRACT
The basic dilemma of the paper is the effectiveness of the policy of multiculturalism in connection with another social science concept – ethnic economy – and their impact on the creation and preservation of various forms of cultural heritage among migrants in the context of the
(nation-)state. Is ethnic economy associated with processes of the (re)production of cultural heritage? What is the relationship of policies of multiculturalism with these processes of (re)production? Is the success and effectiveness of policies of multiculturalism with respect to the creation and preservation of the cultural heritage connected with the ethnic economy? The authors first define the basic categories: multiculturalism, ethnic economy and cultural heritage, and then observe them comparatively in various socio-political contexts. The paper also focuses on the differences between the (neo)liberal and the (neo)corporate state.
KEY WORDS: migration, ethnic economy, multiculturalism, cultural heritage
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SUMMARY
ETHNIC ECONOMY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE CONTEXT OF MULTICULTURALISM
Marina LUKŠIČ HACIN, Kristina TOPLAK
The basic dilemma of the paper is the effectiveness of the policy of multiculturalism in connection with another social science concept – ethnic economy – and their impact on the creation and preservation of various forms of cultural heritage among migrants in the context of the (nation-)state. Is ethnic economy associated with processes of the (re)production of cultural heritage? What is the relationship of policies of multiculturalism with these processes of (re)production? Is the success and effectiveness of policies of multiculturalism with respect to the creation and preservation of cultural heritage connected with the ethnic economy?
The authors first define the basic categories: multiculturalism, ethnic economy and cultural heritage, and then observe them comparatively in various socio-political contexts, while the paper also focuses on the differences between the (neo)liberal and the (neo)corporate state. They find that there are opportunities for institutionalised management of a heterogeneous cultural heritage which takes account of the contributions of migrants as individuals, groups and communities in the immigrant environment, depending on the principles of operation of the receiving society, or more precisely the state as its political organisation, which is also significantly impacted by the principles of operation of the economy within the state frameworks. For this discussion the main difference in the functioning of the state in the economic field is associated with tax policy, the definition of the public sector and the distribution of funds to it. Why and how is the state budget allocated? How, according to what criteria and to whom are funds distributed? What are these criteria and who determines them? Is participation in the distribution of funds available to all who contribute them, and how high is the level of participation?
At the end they find that the ethnic economy is crucial to the (re)production of cultural heritage in the USA, in conditions of a (neo)liberal state, while multiculturalism merely further consolidates it and results in the (non-)inclusion of minority traditions in the symbolic space of the majority, which up to the nineteen sixties was conceived of as homogeneous following the assumptions of the inherent superiority of the WASP model. In Europe, however, the ethnic economy has been redefined, alienated from the liberal market and stuck among strategies of state-controlled integration policy. Therefore the principles of multiculturalism (or today interculturalism) in the conditions in which we find them in EU Member States are a necessary precondition and the sole guarantor of the (re)production of migrant, minority and also regional and local heritage, which should incorporate them into heterogeneous conditions for creating a collective memory and the construction of (a heterogeneous, diverse) reality.