Cultural diversity: what’s in the term?
The term ‘cultural diversity’ gained currency in the cultural sector in Britain during the early to mid-1990s. Prior to that, in the arts sector, it had become commonplace to refer to ‘ethnic minority’ and/or ‘multi-cultural’ arts: the terms referencing people from a range of ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds.
In reality, the communities most frequently referred to in policy terms were those who were descended from former colonial subjects and who were marked as visibly different – that is people of African, Caribbean and East and South Asian descent. People from working class backgrounds, people with disabilities, gay men and lesbian women were not generally included under this heading initially.
As used within the cultural sector, it is the latest, current term intended to provide the impetus to:
- Redress past imbalances in funding and other resources;
- Ensure that every section of society has the opportunity to access all parts of the cultural sector – that is arts, museums, archives, libraries, built environment etc – regardless of background
The term cultural diversity has both some of the advantages and some of the problems of its predecessors. Where it does differ considerably is in its emergence as a catch-all term that includes a broad spectrum of social categories, and thus it is much more ambiguous in usage than earlier terms.
Cultural diversity is not used consistently: sometimes it’s used as a euphemism – for example reference is often made to an individual person or a whole community as ‘culturally diverse’ when what is meant is an individual or group that is not white and/or middle class.
Another of the disadvantages in referring to cultural diversity is that its constituent groupings may become homogenised by being viewed as ‘diverse’. This is a particularly acute problem when referring to communities defined by ‘race’, ethnicity and nationality. Firstly, there is a lack of clarity about usage of ‘race’ and ‘ethnic’.
Many people object to the use of ‘race’ on scientific grounds: the majority of scientists agree that it is at best an imprecise word and that it has no biological basis. Ethnicity has an air of imprecision about it – it’s another term that sometimes stands in for ‘others’ – and rarely are ‘white’ people considered to belong to an ethnic group.
Even when we move to common geo-political descriptors such as ‘Asian’, its use is clearly problematic. Who is included here? Chinese? Thai? Japanese? Even when the apparently more precise ‘South Asian’ is used, does that refer to people of Indian descent born and raised in Africa or the USA? The Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims that populate the Indian sub-continent have different faith and cultural traditions and within each religion there is a wide variation in the interpretation of key texts. Some people from India and Pakistan are Christians; some are atheists and so on.
Similarly, the terms ‘people with disabilities’ or ‘disabled people’, do not begin to capture the differences in experience of the range of disabilities that people experience. Indeed, the distinction between ‘people with disabilities’ – putting people first, rather than the disability – and ‘disabled people’ – suggesting that there is something that disables people, and that that something is society – is not always recognised or agreed upon.
How then can we begin to make sense of the term ‘cultural diversity’ which aims to bring together and recognise the interaction between these various aspects of human experience and harness it effectively in the context of a museum’s collections? Predictably, there is no concrete or single answer to this question, but since the late 1980s, numerous reports and books and other publications have been produced and disseminated on the issue, particularly in the arts.
The arts community has been grappling with what might be broadly characterised as an equalities agenda since Naseem Khan’s research, published in 1976 as The Arts Britain Ignores, highlighted the fact that the wealth of artistic activity involving migrant communities was not being funded by the Arts Council and other public agencies.
There have been many initiatives in the cultural sector – action plans, target-setting, staff awareness courses and so on – since the publication of The Arts Britain Ignores almost 30 years ago. It’s difficult to assess due to the lack of rigorous assessment of these initiatives, but progress has been slow. There’s little doubt that the landscape of diversity has changed and continues to change.
For example, a generation of people whose parents were born in the former colonies has grown up and had children of their own who, in varying degrees, think of themselves as belonging in this country. More recently, people from North Africa, Eastern Europe and South America have settled in London and elsewhere in the UK.
The struggle for recognition, awareness, respect and resources that people of African, Caribbean and Asian descent and other ‘ethnic minorities’ have engaged with during that period has also been evident in other communities, particularly people with disabilities, and gay men and lesbians.
The move to refer to ‘cultural diversity’ was seen by some as being a progressive move because the emphasis moved from ethnicity and skin colour to culture. Although culture itself is a contentious term with a range of widely differing connotations, it was perceived as being less derogatory than ‘ethnic minority’ and lacking the stigma that was increasingly attached to ‘multi-cultural’. The diversity element was considered to suggest that it was possible to celebrate difference, rather than fear it, and to have the potential to be more inclusive.
Initially, this inclusiveness was used with reference to a wider range of migrant communities since the terms ‘ethnic minority’ and ‘multi-cultural’ were very much associated with people of African, Caribbean, South Asian and Chinese descent. More recently, there has been an attempt to broaden further the interpretation of cultural diversity to include, for example, people with disabilities, lesbian and gay people, and people who are generally categorised as socially excluded through poverty, under-representation and other forms of disadvantage.
Social exclusion and disadvantage, and racism and discrimination are still embedded in our society, and as long as that is the case, in policy terms the people who are most affected need to be identified. Although we may have reservations about the terminology, in one form or another it will remain.
This essay, in seeking to clarify some key issues for those who have the responsibility for communicating the actual and potential meanings of collections displayed in contemporary London, will use ‘cultural diversity’ in its wider, more inclusive sense. Some people to whom I’ve spoken during the course of researching this essay have made a distinction between ‘diversity’ and ‘cultural diversity’: the former, they argue, refers to ethnicity and foregrounds in particular, issues that relate to the presence of people of African, Asian, and Caribbean descent, whilst the latter may be interpreted more broadly in the inclusive manner outlined above.
The differing interpretations of cultural diversity are very much a recurring motif in respect of the literature on the subject. It is a term used widely – in slightly different ways – in the cultural sector both here and in the USA, the Netherlands, Canada, and Australia.
In the fact sheet ‘Responding to Cultural Diversity: Guidance for Museums and Galleries’, Naseem Khan writes that cultural diversity is an inclusive term and refers to the different interest groups of which society is comprised:
'These interest groups may be region-based, gender-based, generation-based, ability-based and so on. Each can have its own sense of history, its own values and a specific ‘language’ or form of self expression. Put together they are responsible for the rich layering that constitutes society.' (1)
The focus of the fact sheet is stated clearly as being concerned with ethnically-based cultural diversity. Following on from this usage, I would suggest that when referring to cultural diversity, it is made absolutely clear that a conscious decision has been made to focus on a specific aspect where that is the case.
This can be explained in terms of establishing priorities for targeted communities when and where appropriate. Attempts always to address every constituency included in cultural diversity would not be productive in my view, since such an approach is unable to capture the complex interactions and shifts in meaning and status that characterise diversity.
So what is it that we are trying to address under the banner of cultural diversity? Rather than defining diversity in terms of ethnicity, disability or sexuality, we would suggest a slightly different approach. In summary we might say that the people and the communities represented within the category currently called cultural diversity are marked by:
- Marginality – have little or no access to mainstream life and society, and as a consequence, lack interest in it;
- Lack of political and economic power – linked to marginality and invisibility: not seen as being a stakeholder in society, and lacking the power-base to make changes occur;
- The experience of systematic and/or institutionalised discrimination – this can take the form of various kinds of racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, ageism, and so on;
- Invisibility or negative visibility – simply not on the radar, wants and needs are unacknowledged. It is possible to be highly visible in a negative way in the sense that, for example, black boys in hooded sweatshirts may be seen as criminal, or old age pensioners seen as a drain on scarce resources, and yet be ignored on a number of levels.
People who experience one or more of the above may find it difficult to relate to institutions such as museums. They may not experience a moment of recognition on viewing an object or an affirmation of their understanding of their identity because their history and heritage is not accorded the same value as mainstream historical representations.
I am aware that the idea of an all-embracing notion of cultural diversity may feel like an impossible demand on the resource-stretched museum sector. It is possible to refine the definition of cultural diversity so that it is not so expansive, to continue to focus on, for example, ethnicity. But where would that leave those communities not defined by their ethnicity or ‘race’ in terms of policy and strategy development and implementation? Such a strategy would also suggest that people’s identities are unified and linear. Few people wish to be defined by a single aspect of their identity that someone more powerful has defined as ‘other’.
To complicate the situation further, it should also be clear that we cannot assume that everyone who is from a working class background and whose history is inadequately represented in a museum is disadvantaged materially or intellectually, or that all ethnic minorities are without political or economic power. Rather than focus exclusively on whole communities in ways that homogenise and contain difference, a more nuanced targeting is required.
The experience of marginalisation and invisibility outlined above points to individuals and communities that are underserved in ways that are not dependent on a defining demographic characteristic. Thinking in these terms helps to prioritise target groups and also enables us to remember that culture is dynamic and shifting.
See essay pages: