Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiesthe forms of diversity associated with autochthonous minorities from those associatedwith immigrant communities, and the strong directive role of the nationalgovernment in Austrian cultural policy development; the complex counter-currentsof competing claims to cultural rights and recognition that are associatedwith Canada’s First Nations, the varied cultural communities produced throughsuccessive periods of immigration, and the separatist aspects of Quebec nationalism– in these ways, and others, the interfaces between cultural policies and culturaldiversity are deeply shaped by specific national cultural, political and administrativetraditions.It is in view of considerations of this kind that this study has aimed to be fully alertto the specific differences and peculiarities of the national cultural and policy formationsof each of the participating countries. This has meant respecting, ratherthan merely paying lip-service to, the protocols of transversal methodologies withtheir requirement that research be regarded as a process of unfinished dialoguebetween different perspectives or standpoints which does not aim at some finalresolution of the points of difference between them. 1 It has also meant recognisingthat, however much current debates about cultural diversity may reflect more generalprocesses – the increased velocity of international cultural flows, for example,or new patterns of international labour mobility – and however much these mayseem to require more co-ordinated forms of international or regional response,there can be no by-passing the consequences of the ways in which these processesconnect with nationally specific histories, structures of government, cultural traditions,and systems of cultural administration.This is not to suggest that there can be no transfer of lessons or experience fromone context to another. What it does suggest, though, is that “transversal learning”is likely to be more productive the more it is alert to the specific circumstances ofdifferent national, and local, contexts. Otherwise, the “best practice” derived fromone context may prove to be “worst practice” if simply translated to another contextwithout due regard for its distinctive aspects.Focusing diversityIt is for similar reasons that we should be wary of grouping together all forms ofcultural diversity if this is at the expense of recognising significant differencesbetween them: between the histories from which they emerge, the kinds of challengethey pose, and the policy responses they require if the ways in which governmentsengage with them are to be inventive and culturally appropriate. It istrue, of course, that the vocabulary of “cultural diversity” has a broader currencythan the specific focus that has been adopted in this study which is limited to thoseforms of diversity associated with the patterns of migration that have characterisedthe post-war period, and in situ forms of cultural difference that have resistedassimilation within dominant national cultures over extended periods. In its__________1. See Yuval-Davis, 1999.24