| Abstrakt: |
Multicultural theorisations have presumed principles adopted from liberalism, and multiculturalists have explicated their theorisations within liberal democratic contexts. This article problematises both these conflations by focusing on an avowedly non-liberal polity, Singapore. Rather than focussing on developing and identifying normative justifications for multiculturalism, it advocates a practice-based approach which examines multiculturalism as an ethos of accepting cultural difference and actions that uphold such an ethos. This approach allows this paper to do three things: First, it demonstrates that Singapore's approach to engaging with its internal ethnic diversity is indeed a form of multiculturalism. Second, it highlights the pragmatic basis for the country's adoption of multiculturalism to manage diversity. Third, by identifying commonalities in multicultural practice in liberal and non-liberal settings, this article calls for a more critical examination of the slippage between theory and practice that is often overlooked by scholars on multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
