ABSTRACT

In this paper, I examine the shifting meanings of ‘culture’ in newspaper articles on multiculturalism in Canada and on racial democracy in Brazil from the 1950s to the 2010s. In the 1950s and 1960s, discourse on racial democracy in Brazil and multiculturalism in Canada relied on an idea of ‘culture’ akin to the notion of ‘civilization,’ i.e., an explicit recognition of the existence and particularity of the dominant language and religion and its location in dominant institutions, but often supported by an ethnocentric perspective. Since the 1980s, discourse on racial democracy and multiculturalism in the two newspapers increasingly discussed the topic of racism, but the idea of ‘culture’ has become associated with embodied characteristics of people of color, while the practices imposed by dominant institutions have become invisible or understood as universal. While race scholars suggest that we abandon the language of ‘culture’ to lay bare the reality of racism and social inequality, I argue that anti-racist agendas should also make visible the ongoing existence of culturally assimilationist practices and institutions and their colonial roots.

摘要

在这篇论文中，我研究了从 1950 年代到 2010 年代关于加拿大多元文化主义和巴西种族民主的报纸文章中“文化”的变化含义。在 1950 年代和 1960 年代，关于巴西种族民主和加拿大多元文化主义的论述依赖于类似于“文明”概念的“文化”概念，即明确承认占主导地位的语言和宗教的存在和特殊性，以及它在主导机构中的位置，但通常得到种族中心主义观点的支持。自 80 年代以来，两份报纸关​​于种族民主和多元文化的论述越来越多地讨论种族主义话题，但“文化”的概念已与有色人种的具体特征联系在一起，而主导机构强加的做法已变得不可见或被理解为普遍的。虽然种族学者建议我们放弃“文化”的语言来揭露种族主义和社会不平等的现实，但我认为反种族主义议程也应该使文化同化主义实践和制度的持续存在及其殖民根源可见。