Haunted Nations

The Colonial Dimensions of Multiculturalisms

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by Sneja Gunew

Routledge

Due/Published October 2003, 200 pages, paper

ISBN 041528483X

Postcolonialism has attracted a large amount of interest in cultural theory, but the adjacent area of multiculturalism has not been scrutinized to quite the same extent. In this new book, Sneja Gunew sets out to interrogate the ways in which the transnational discourse of multiculturalism may be related to the politics of race and indignity, grounding her discussion in a variety of national settings and a variety of literary, autobiographical and theoretical texts. Using examples from marginal sites -- the settler societies of Australia and Canada -- to cast light on the globally dominant discourses of the U.S. and the U.K., Gunew analyzes the political ambiguities and the pitfalls involved in a discourse of multiculturalism haunted by the opposing specters of balkanization and assimilation.

Contents

Introduction: Situated Multiculturalisms
1. The Terms of (Multi) Cultural Difference

Part I - Haunted Nations
2. Colonial Hauntings: The Colonial Seeds of Multiculturalism
3. Corporeal Choreographies of Transnational English

Part II - Abjected Bodies
4. A Text with Subtitles: Performing Ethnicity
5. Acoustic Transgressions and Identity Politics: A Translated Performance

Part III - (Un)Civilized Communities
6. Somatic Choreographies: Public Spaces; Private Belongings
7. Can Ghosts Emigrate? Diaspora, Exile and Community

Conclusion: Transcultural Improvisations