Marta Brunelli
Anne Goulding
In everyday language,
multiculturalism is probably linked first and foremost to the influx of
immigrants from developing world countries into
In order to
better locate and to weigh up the significance of the topic under discussion,
we should clarify in a preliminary way some basic concept, all the more so
because they have been developed in disciplinary fields far from LIS[1]
(see appendix for more extensive explanations of terms used).
Diversity = quality or condition
of who or what is diverse. In the sociological and psychological fields,
diversity can be considered in a positive light as a point of reference since
it strengthens the identity of an individual or a group as different from
others. The positive meanings of diversity are the founding principle of
identity.
Identity = from a
psychological viewpoint, identity consists of a set of features of an individual
(physical, psychological, social, moral, cultural features) remaining constant
during changes, ages and experiences of life.
Ethnic Identity = even
though the concept of ethnicity is still ambiguous in ethnology, anthropology
and sociology, ethnic identity can be identified in the collective awareness by
a group of its common heritage i.e. history, origin and, if possible, the link
to a territory (even though this can be missing).
Cultural Identity = represented by the cultural heritage that distinguishes or joins
human groups (behaviours, values, customs, language, etc.). Since each
individual can belong to several groups, his/her cultural identity can consist
of several different cultural belongings (including an ethnic one).
Minority = the concept of minority is linked
with both the concepts of majority and of identity. The definition of minority,
according to public international law (even though not binding and not
officially accepted yet), means a group of citizens, numerically inferior to
the rest of the population, with different ethnic, religious or linguistic
characteristics who wish to preserve their own culture.
National minorities and Ethnic minorities = as described above,
in the law field the minority is a comprehensive concept, a scale containing
mixed typologies and whose extremes are represented by autochthonous minorities
and “new” minorities i.e. immigrants. The sociological literature calls the
secondary ones, Ethnic Minorities whilst the primary ones, National
(or Linguistic) Minorities, i.e.: ”indigenous or long-established
groups with a long-standing and distinct ethnic, linguistic or cultural
identity, distinct from that of the majority”[2].
Culture = the Universal
Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001) reaffirms that culture is “regarded
as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional
features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to
art and literature, lifestyle, ways of living together, value systems,
traditions, and belief.”[3] The traditional concept
of culture (based on territory, proximity, homogeneity) is nowadays inadequate
because of globalization that emphasizes the interaction between cultures. So,
the use of prefixes (multi, inter, trans, etc.)
creates new meanings.
Multiethnic society = diverse ethnic groups that happen to live
together in the same territory in a given historic moment, for example, in the
multiethnic state of ex-Yugoslavia created in 1918, and still in the countries
resulting from its fragmentation; but also in each modern society as a
consequence of migrations. A multiethnic society is always a multicultural
society.
Multicultural society = several different cultural groups
live together. Since the cultural diversity depends not exclusively on
ethnicity, the multicultural society is not necessarily multiethnic. Both in
multiethnic and multicultural societies, life together is based on the respect
and recognition of the inalienable rights of each others, but actually it can
produce a simple, non-belligerent coexistence of different groups that do not
communicate with each other (static
concept).
Interculturalism = an analysis category which is not
descriptive but related to planning, i.e. it implies the attitude, the will or
the process of engaging cultures in communication. In an intercultural society
diversities interact, accepting one another with reciprocal learning and mutual
exchange (dynamic concept).
Transculturalism = a word with different meanings.
Transcultural is everything that - apart from individual and cultural
diversities - is psychologically universal in the human race, such as ideas,
feelings, emotions and creativity. But transcultural can also refer to all
those new cultural knowledges and models resulting from the contact, transformation
and evolution of cultures, showing the transitory nature of culture in the
globalization dimension.
Cross-cultural = the kind of approach where diverse cultures
are analyzed, in a "longitudinal" way, with regard to the same
problem (or event, or issue) in order to detect convergence or divergence of
representations, behaviours, beliefs, etc.
The library has roles
to play in relation to several of the definitions above. Historically, it has
focused on the multicultural dimension by providing literature and newspapers
for different cultural and ethnic groups, and on integration by providing, for
example, community information services in different languages. We also have
some examples of intercultural activities, for example exhibitions, festivals
celebrating the cultures of specific groups in the community, projects where
different groups present their background to each other, visits of authors from
different cultural backgrounds, cross cultural reading groups etc. The library
space could also be a vehicle for intercultural activity by providing the
environment within which individuals from different cultural backgrounds can
meet, encounter one another and communicate although this is quite a passive
form of intercultural promotion.
If we accept that the library has a role to
play in the promotion of multicultural and intercultural activities, then those
entering the profession must have the understanding, awareness and skills to
facilitate them. The rest of this chapter will explore the origins of multiculturalism
and how libraries have responded, the challenges they face and how we feel the
LIS curriculum should evolve to adapt to the multicultural and intercultural
society.
Multiculturalism
is not a new phenomenon. In fact, one can say that public librarianship is a
child of multiculturalism. When the idea of modern public librarianship was
born in the
The issue
in this phase of multiculturalism, however, was not one of tolerating and
stimulating pluralism. The goal of public libraries was to be instrumental in
integrating immigrants – be it immigrants from different nations and cultures
or “immigrants” from rural cultures into the economy and culture of the
industrial society – into the dominating culture. Public libraries were linked
to the rational project of enlightenment. Enlightenment, in turn, is based on
the conviction that in the fields of culture, literature and knowledge, one can
distinguish between products of high value, which the library should promote,
and products of mediocre or low value, which the library should not promote.
In the
decades after 1945, public librarianship in most European countries developed
within a context that, viewed through the lenses of today’s rapid change, can
be described as mono-cultural and as relatively stable. Although Western and
In the
sixties and seventies, however, some changes began to develop that signalled
and anticipated the coming of the multicultural society as we know it today.
Among these were:
After the
independence of the colonies, the collapse of communism, the awakening of
nationalisms and ethnicities, the growing attention to minorities, the new
globalized and more and more connected society and the increasing immigration
from non-Western cultures, the process of multiculturalism accelerated
immensely and took on a new depth and direction. With mass immigration, a new
and more fundamental dimension was added to the problematic issue of the
library’s traditional role of promoting one cultural and scientific canon. This
new dimension is not, first and foremost, related to a liberal ideology
according to which people should be allowed to pursue their own interest and
values. Democratic values and considerations based on tolerance are just as
important. Gradually, those representing the culture of the majority started to
question the former policy of promoting their own cultural values at the
expense of minority cultures. Is it not more in harmony with the values of
democracy and tolerance to offer linguistic and cultural minorities as many
opportunities as possible and the appropriate conditions to cultivate and celebrate
their original culture? To the extent one answers yes to such a question, the
role of the public library changes fundamentally from that which it played in
the multicultural melting pot in which public librarianship was born.
The
European Project, aiming at mobility and harmonization whilst preserving
diversity, also poses multicultural and intercultural challenges,
But at the
same time as accepting and promoting multiculturalism represents a leap forward
as far as democracy and tolerance is concerned, it also highlights a democratic
problem. Democracy, understood as a society based on broad public participation
and as a society where one reaches collective decisions based on public
deliberations, presupposes a degree of cultural community. How can one promote that critical degree of cultural
community at the same time as one promotes and stimulates diversity and
multiculturalism?
That is the
challenge of today’s society and, thus, for today’s libraries. For
LIS-education, the multicultural challenge takes on several forms:
To date,
these challenges are poorly reflected in LIS-curricula. The authors of this
chapter have made a small survey in the regions where they work, i.e. the UK, the
Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and Italy, but
also Spain, France and Central European countries (Bulgaria, Croatia). The
specific courses in multicultural work that have been developed so far, are all optional. And although many schools maintain
that they try to integrate the multicultural dimension in their ordinary
courses within core subjects in LIS, they also admit that we still have a long
way to go. So far, in the UK, the Nordic Countries and in Italy[4], a specific curriculum for multicultural
librarian facing all educational needs linked to particular professional issues
(from general to technical, from multicultural communication to cataloguing,
from indexing to reference and collection development, to multicultural events
management) does not yet exist. There is no reason to believe that the
situation is radically different in other European countries. In this field,
LIS can learn from other social sciences such as pedagogy, where an approach to
intercultural and migration pedagogy has been developed.
In order to
meet these challenges, the librarian needs competences on the following three
levels. They need to be able to:
Each of
these will now be explored in detail.
Since the
topics above mentioned are essentially new in the LIS field, in order to try to
define the competences of the librarian in the multicultural context it could
be helpful to analyse all the possible needs of the stakeholders as defined by Brophy-Craven-Fisher (1998), considered
from a multicultural point of view. The possible stakeholders involved, i.e.
all individuals/groups interested in LIS learning and responsible for testing
curricula and assessing their capacity of meeting several professional
requests, include:
1)
Society
as a whole;
2)
Governments,
local councils and other agencies developing policies and strategies for
immigration and integration;
3)
Academic institutions involved in
delivering effective learning;
4)
Employers
(public bodies, organizations, etc.) that need qualified staff skilled in
multicultural issues, with attention to the mission
of each kind of institutions involved and the services provided).
5)
Representatives
of different cultural, linguistic and ethnic groups.
Librarians
need to develop strategy and plan services with sensitivity to the
multicultural context. This involves a range of competences and understandings,
that we could classify – according to the stakeholders above mentioned – as
follows:
-
Understanding
of multicultural and intercultural concepts in order to comprehend how
cultural, social, linguistic barriers can affect the minorities’ use or non-use
of the library;
-
Community
profiling or analysis: to apply social research methods to collecting
information and data about the library’s community with regard to cultural
issues (mapping of the territory and social context: heterogeneity, social
changes, presence of visible or invisible minorities, migration trends, etc.);
-
Needs-based
service: to be proactive towards different patrons and ready to provide
services and programs that they really need through analyzing information
(collected through community analysis, customers’ satisfaction survey, etc.)
and using that as guidance for making decisions, planning new services or
redefining existing services;
-
Consultation: marketing, outreach work and consultation are
advocated as ways in which libraries can find out more about the needs of the
community and specific groups within it, involve them in service planning and
development, explain and publicize the services offered and enhance their
democratic legitimacy. Libraries have been criticized in the past for
consulting only those who use their services, through user surveys, for
example. This can reinforce the status
quo as users tend to ask for more of what is already provided which clearly
does not meet the needs of non-users.
Librarians need to be able to make contact with, and connect with, those
hard to reach groups who do not use libraries, with the aim of helping staff
engage more closely with the needs of specific groups within the community and
increase their confidence of services.
-
Knowledge
of government (European, national and local) policies and priorities, laws and
institutional resources to plan interventions and programs
-
Communicating
policies to stakeholders including advocacy, i.e. providing evidence to
stakeholders and increasing their understanding of how libraries can help them
meet their policy objectives with regard to immigration and integration.
-
Vision/mission
in diverse kinds of institutions (e.g. public and/or school libraries,
documentation centres, often connected to public relations offices, welfare
services, etc.) of preserving and promoting cultures, avoiding
under-representation of national, linguistic, ethnic minorities, promoting
intercultural dialogue, etc.
-
Developing
library service policies/strategies according to cultural services
(exhibitions, conferences, lectures etc.), educational services (access to
appropriate resources including literacy services), informational services
(community information, health information, migrants rights, etc.)
-
Co-operation
with other libraries and other agencies, or cultural and immigrants
associations, etc., in order to build networked multicultural services
Understanding barriers to use. Librarians need to be aware of the many
barriers to using libraries which may prevent some cultural or ethnic groups
from taking full advantage of the resources they have to offer. Libraries
for All (Department for Culture,
Media and Sport, 1999),
highlighted the library’s role in establishing and sustaining the flow of
information within excluded groups and communities and in providing access to
ICT for personal and community development. Concerns were also raised, though,
about those who do not use libraries and a range of obstacles was listed which
prevented their socially inclusive use including institutional barriers such as
restrictive opening hours, unnecessary rules and regulations and inappropriate
staff attitudes and behaviour; personal and social barriers such as lack of
basic skills, linguistic obstacles, lack of confidence and poverty; perceptions
and awareness causing difficulties for people who do not think libraries are
relevant to their needs or who do not know about the facilities and services
and how to use them; and environmental barriers including poor transport links,
isolation and difficult physical access. Roach and Morrison (1998) suggested
that ethnic minority communities often experience disadvantage and
discrimination in access to public services such as libraries because of their
nature, size, traditions and modes of operation and, like many other public
services, the library is “representative of the dominant social institutions
which have traditionally excluded and oppressed ethnic minority groups”. This
kind of institutionalised racism can only be addressed by changing the culture
of the organization but, at the moment, many Black and minority ethnic groups
feel they have no stake in the library service. The experience of these kinds
of personal and social barriers can lead to the formation of a general
perception that libraries are “not for the likes of us”. Those without a
tradition of using library services may feel intimidated by the environment and
the experience of the public library. Roach and Morrison (1998) found that the
library was not culturally relevant for many minority ethnic groups, for
example, and also suggested that ethnic and youth cultures can shape
perceptions about the relevance and value of the library. By understanding the kinds of barriers to use
which exist and their nature, librarians can hopefully start to address them
through policies and strategies aimed at making library services more socially
and culturally inclusive.
Methods and techniques for
intercultural communication.
Librarians working in a multicultural context need to develop an ability to analyse, identify and be sensible to cultural differences.
That goes for all kinds of library work. Ragnar Nordlie analysed user/librarian
communication in reference interviews in a public library context. (Nordlie, 2000). A central concept in his dissertation is
“user revealment”. User revealment is a process. People usually do not bursti
out with their specific problemsituation, thus their information needs, in the
opening stages of a communication situation. That is too personal. You reveal
your problem-situation and thus your information need gradually. One of the
tasks of the librarian performing a reference interview is to promote this
gradual process so that the information needs of the user in question can be
met. But user revealment is probably
dependent upon the user’s cultural background. A female Moslem immigrant from
To develop
such abilities takes theoretical study, e.g. in anthropology and communication,
as well as practical exercises. The competencies developed will be useful in
all kinds of reference work: It will enable librarians working within
classification and indexing to be open for cultural biases in the
classification and indexing systems used; it is a precondition for
communicating efficiently within fields ranging from the promotion of reading
via reference work (in a public library as well as an academic library context)
to measures aiming at promoting information literacy.
Intercultural
pedagogy can supply methods and
competences too, especially concerning multicultural children’s literature and
the educational communication in a multicultural context, that implies competences
useful just whenever a real educational relationship takes place in the library
e.g.: a one-to one relationship in bibliographic orientation or in a reference
session as well; or one-to-many relationship in library instruction, user
education, etc.
A course in
multicultural understanding and communication should, therefore, be compulsory
in all educational programs.
The library and social inclusion. One perspective that might be useful in
multicultural library work aiming at preventing social inclusion and
empowerment might is legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). It is a concept
originally developed within the field of knowledge management (Wenger, 1998),
but also used by social workers in empowerment work. LPP is based on the
relatively intuitive fact that a person who is new in the group, a community or
a work-place cannot be expected to participate fully from day one. A person
starting as an apprentice in a hairdresser salon will start with the peripheral
activity of sweeping the floor. Such peripheral activities are necessary to
integrate the person in question fully into the professional community.
Communities of practice which are central in knowledge management should also
open up for LPP. The same logic can be applied to an immigrant into a local
community or persons in danger of being marginalised. He or she cannot be
expected to participate fully from day one. Integrating channels opening up for
LPP are needed. The public library is probably as close as one can come to an
institution ideally designed for such a role. It is an institution firmly
anchored in the local community. Using the library means, thus, a degree of
paricipation, in the community. It is an arena opening up for different degrees
and levels of participation, from sitting in the newspaper corner watching to
more intense participation in groups and activities organised by the library,
e.g. literary groups or Internet groups, i.e. for LPP. Cooperating with
different organisations and institutions in the community the library might
also be a channel to these activities, e.g. from the library to the youth club,
the local art club, local schools, local political organization, the local
choir etc. If the library is to fulfil such a role, the staff
has to be educated in relevant methods and strategies. Teaching LIS-students
empowerment work and methods and strategies in such work such as LPP should
also be a part of LIS educational programmes in multicultural communication.
Sensitivity for the cultural and
epistemological presuppositions of LIS. Libraries work with knowledge. They structure
and organize knowledge via classification schemes and indexing systems. Such
systems are not culturally neutral or epistemologically self evident. They
represent social constructions of reality based upon, usually, Western cultural
and epistemological presuppositions. In today’s multicultural world it is vital
that librarians develop a consciousness and sensitivity towards this, also in
order to be able to develop and critical attitude to and transcend present
practices. Epistemology and cultural studies, either as an integral part of
knowledge organization or as compulsory, independent courses, are vital in
developing such a critical and sensitive attitude.
Interacting in socially heterogeneous
groups. In a multicultural context, the
librarian should possess the competence of
interacting in socially heterogeneous groups, as defined by the OECD 2003 study Key Competences for a
Successful Life and a Well-Functioning Society.[5]
This competence is made by three sub-competences: 1) to relate well
to others; 2) co-operate, work in teams; 3) to manage and
resolve conflicts. Having good
interpersonal relationships with people from diverse social and cultural
background is crucial in pluralistic and multicultural societies and the
library’s territory, patrons, collections and staff should reflect this
dimension too. So librarians are need improve this
competency in order to manage personal relationships both with their colleagues
and their customers. In the first case, they should be able to cooperate with
professionals coming from diverse ethnic and cultural groups (minorities) or
from different cultural contexts and LIS traditions (the consequence of
European mobility, perhaps); in the second case, they should be able to work
with the library’s own global local patrons, to facilitate intercultural
dialogue between groups and to prevent cultural conflicts.
Collection development and access to
resources. The importance of ensuring that the
library’s collections are relevant for all those in the community who wish to
use them seems clear and many libraries have a long history of developing
collections which carry materials in a range of community languages and others
in the language of the host nation which reflect the history, traditions and
cultures of different community groups.
When deciding which languages to cover and what kinds of resources to
include (including fiction and non-fiction books, magazines, newspapers, films
on video or DVD, music CDs, Internet resources etc.) librarians must take the
needs of the community into account first and foremost by using a range of the
techniques discussed above. It is especially important to keep management
information, such as community profiles, up to date to ensure that the needs of
newcomers as well as long established communities are catered for. The
identification and selection of stock for different ethnic or cultural groups
can be difficult and time consuming.
Library suppliers are generally good at supplying mainstream material
but librarians working with excluded groups often have to find other ways of
meeting their specific needs. There are
specialist suppliers in some countries, for example CILLA (The Co-operative of
Indic Language Library Authorities) in the
Intercultural projects and
programmes. Many libraries have implemented
projects and activities specifically aimed at intercultural and anti-racial
education for children, young people and adults. Intercultural projects, events
and promotions are expressly organized to enhance the culture of minorities,
e.g. with thematic exhibitions and festivals (music, poetry, etc.) or
celebration of traditions (Chinese or Tamil New Year, Diwali festival, the
sacred month of Ramadan etc.). The mutual understanding and breakdown of
stereotypes can be achieved through conferences and meetings about
multicultural topics and cross-cultural analysis (e.g. the representation of
women in different ages and societies). But also the promotion of the knowledge
of the politics, history and culture of the receiving country is important to
understand their impact on both autochthonous and minorities (linguistic or
different ethnic groups) people. Effective intercultural projects can only be
managed by actively involving all communities through their representatives and
organizations. This demands relational and communication
skills to build intercultural networks around the territory of the library.
Between
intercultural activities we can also count activities included in the general
name of reader development, such as
Children’s services,
Children’s services. After building a collection of
books and material reflecting several cultural identities (the structure), it is important to implement
an intercultural programme involving aims, processes and activities (the function) necessary to guide children to
use those materials. So with each material[8]
there is a corresponding related educational aim and intercultural activity to
be held, in cooperation with schools, teachers and intercultural educators, as
follows:
-
both
immigrant and local children can be helped to know diverse cultures by
developing curiosity or stimulating the imagination with work with popular
material about foreign cultures and/or fairy tales, legends, stories, novels
from other countries;
-
the
reception process can be facilitated by improving the linguistic skills of
immigrants, linguistic minorities and local children, with work on
original/native language books, dual language books, multilingual material and
other aids (grammars, dictionaries, conversation manuals);
-
for
second-generation immigrant children, learning the native language can lead to
the discovery of their ethnic identity, as reading immigration stories as well:
comparing immigration with emigration stories can help local children to
comprehend their own origins and at the same time to identify with foreign
children’s situation and vice versa.
The above
mentioned activities can be held just involving the same immigrants in their
first person as cultural mediators, e.g. parents and especially mothers can
play an active role in reading of fairy-tales and storytelling, in multilingual
readings and in managing multicultural events for children.
At the end
of the reading, a final activity can be managed to strengthen the message of
the book and reinforce the work of the group, such as a public lecture on the
topic, the screening of a film adaptation of the novel, or an author’s visit.
Author visits. Authors’ visits usually affect positively
readers’ curiosity and their motivation to read and to write, so this
initiative can play an important role in a multicultural context too. Selecting
authors, topics and books (foreigners’ and migration literature) can promote
reflection about the globalization of cultures and people, whilst fostering
family literacy or introducing the topic of diversity in family’s discussions
at home if the audience is made of children and parents. Again, planning
writing activities of smaller groups that meet the author can encourage
learners to explore their personal writing processes, stimulating fluency and
comprehension especially in minority people, often troubled by linguistic gaps.
Skills in
projecting, management of cultural events, institutional relations and
cooperation with schools, educational agencies and migrant associations are,
once more, required in the multicultural librarian.
Community information services. Community information services adapted to the
needs and situation of different cultural, linguistic and ethnic groups are
important elements in multicultural library services. It is important from the
perspective of integration and social inclusion, from the perspective of
developing civic skills and social and political participation and from the
perspective of people’s ability to claim their social, economic and legal
rights. Courses aiming at developing skills needed for such services should
focus upon:
As for
analysing and identifying needs and barriers the research and literature on
information seeking in context represent a rich source for developing a
curriculum. We probably have less systematic knowledge about the effects of
measures aiming at overcoming barriers[9].
Here the LIS community faces challenges as for generating and summarizing
research.-based knowledge that can be integrated into courses.
Such
courses should be optional.
Information literacy.
·
Cultural
and social literacy, i.e. the capability to read and understand the cultural
norms and values of the new country and community that the national population
take for granted..
·
Political
and institutional literacy, i.e. a basic knowledge of the political and
institutional set up of the new country which is a precondition for reading and
understanding newspapers, understanding news programmes on television, and for
social participation and which also is taken for granted by those with a
history in the receiving country.
·
Developing
linguistic skills by providing adapted and easy to read material in the
receiving country’s language and by organising groups where on can use literary
texts and the point of departure for conversations and oral training.
·
Providing
courses in the use of ICT, from the most basic level to more advanced
information seeking on the Internet.
Developing
and delivering such services also presupposes the ability to place yourself in the position of the other in order to see and
reflect upon that which we take for granted, i.e. cultural sensitivity as well
as an ability to perform cultural analyses. Identifying barriers to information
literacy, i.e. user studies will also be an important competency as well as the
ability to communicate on an equal footing with immigrants representing a wide
spectrum as far as literacy is concerned, from the illiterate to those with
university education.
Courses
focusing upon information literacy in a multicultural context should ideally be
an option in all educational programmes.
“Multicultural librarianship”
courses/modules could be provided within LIS programmes both at first and
second level of university programme, with differences in aims and objectives.
As a
professional learned and skilled with above mentioned skills, academic and
professional competences, methods and approaches, the multicultural librarian
should be able to make the whole library become an environment where everybody
feels welcome and included despite differing values, beliefs, histories or
cultures. The library in the
multicultural society in fact can become a place where new social and cultural
bonds between individuals can be built, replacing those bonds becoming weakened
by a fragmented society, and allowing everybody to take advantage of the
resulting social capital, social cohesion and social networks.
Robert
Putnam, speaking to the OECD Education Ministers in 2004, stressed how social cohesion is becoming the most important
resource in society. Nowadays, the loosening of bonding social capital
represented by ties within ethnic or social groups (such as family and friends,
civic associations or political parties, religious groups and so on), in
addition to the increase in social and ethnic diversity resulting from
migration, means that new social capital should be developed: the so-called bridging
social capital. These ties work across social diversities and groups, and
are the most difficult to build but, in this meaning, education is pointed out
as “the single most important and effective policy lever” (Putnam, 2004: 5) to
increase social capital and social cohesion. In this fragmented and
“liquid society”, as defined by Zygmunt Bauman, libraries, together with other Cultural Heritage Institutions such as
museums, archives etc., play the same effective action in Community Building, through, as discussed above, promoting
common values, developing new ideals of membership through participation in
activities (exhibitions, readings, films, discussions or lectures), practising
freedom of expression for each different voice, experiencing solidarity culture
through providing knowledge and learning to everybody. In other words, a
community that – respecting and being aware of ethnic and cultural diversity –
is based on new bridges and connections between people of different cultures or
ages, genders and so on.
In conclusion, to educate a librarian aware of the multicultural issues
means to educate a professional aware of the all the above mentioned social
issues, and aware of working to build a new community. S/he
should be aware that the public library has the goal of preserving knowledge
which defines both the predominant culture and all other cultures (minority
cultures too). Facilitating the participation in intercultural activities, the
library stresses that it is a cultural heritage(s) institution (McCook, 2002) and a physical public space (Goulding, 2004) where
each culture is respected and preserved, all cultures are democratically in
touch, live and learn together, all diversities are recognized and thrive, in
order to build a new community based on cultural, intercultural and social
networks. A professional aware of his cultural, educational
and social mission.
Diversity = diversity is
conceivable as the recognition and self-recognition of a human being and group
as different from the others, in psychological and sociological meaning. There
are basically “unintentional”
diversities, such as inherited diversity, i.e. biological and genetic,
historical and cultural (language, religion), or the diversity linked with
social roles and status filled in different life cycles (age, disease,
parentality, handicap, work, etc.); and ”voluntary” diversities, determined by
voluntary options that the person can choose, inside or against the context,
i.e. the life environment and the frame of meanings, where s/he lives. So ”diversity” is linked with the concept of “identity” as
its founding principle (see after).
Identity =
identity is a polysemic conception, with a different meaning in various
contexts, from philosophical to pedagogical etc. In a psychological view,
identity means the awareness by each individual of him or herself as unique,
and in relationship with other individuals (that are recognized as diverse, or
that recognize him/her as unique). It consists of a set of features (physical,
psychological, social, moral, cultural) keeping steady during changes, ages and
experiences of life.
Ethnic Identity = In an
anthropological view, the individual’s identity becomes ”ethnic” since it links
individuals to groups with similar cultural characteristics (language,
religion, etc.), even though the same anthropologists are aware that it is an
instrumental conception useful to their descriptive needs and still ambiguous.
Ethnic identity is deeply-rooted in the collective awareness by a group of its
common heritage (history, origin and, if possible, the link to a territory -
even though this can be missing); in a more political view, it gains meaning in
the conflict with other distinct groups and in the claiming of rights and a
favourable hierarchic position.
Cultural Identity = connected with the
sociological-anthropological concept of culture as a global evolutionary
heritage both of an individual and of social groups s/he belongs to. This
heritage is based on the above-mentioned cultural features distinguishing or
joining human groups (behaviours, values, customs, language).
Cultural identity is a wider concept of Ethnic identity, since it can consist
of several different cultural memberships and belongings (including ethnic
identity), in continuous and dynamic development consequent of dialectics
between individual/group, aknowledgment/differentiation, repect of
traditions/freedom of choice.
Minority = the most accurate definition of “minority”
comes from public international law in consequence of the first attempt of
Francesco Capotorti (1979), but it is not binding so it has not been accepted
in any official document yet:
“A group
numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a State, in a non
dominant position, whose members - being nationals of the State - possess
ethnic, religious or linguistic characteristics differing from those of the
rest of the population and show, if only implicitly, a sense of solidarity,
directed towards preserving their culture, traditions, religion or language.” [10]
The
final text of the 1995 “Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities”
in fact, because of the disagreement of the participating States, contains no
definition. After Capotorti, we find it in the “Proposal for a European
Convention for the Protection of Minorities” adopted by the European Commission
for Democracy through Law (“Venice Commission”)[11]
of the Council of Europe on 8 February 1991;[12]
and then in the Art. 1 of Recommendation 1201 of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of
"... the
expression "national minority" refers to a group of persons in a
State who: a) reside in the territory of that State and are citizens thereof,
b) maintain long-standing, firm and lasting ties with that state, c) display
distinctive ethnic, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics, d) are
sufficiently representative, although smaller in number than the rest of the
population of the State or of a region of that State, and e) are motivated by a
concern to preserve together that which constitutes their common identity,
including their culture, their traditions, their religion or their
language."
National minorities
and Ethnic minorities = in the sociologic literature we find a distinction
between National (or Linguistic) Minority and Ethnic
Minority, differently from the law field, where the minority is a more
comprehensive concept, a scale containing mixed typologies and whose extremes
are represented by autochthonous minorities and “new” minorities i.e.
immigrants.
So National/Linguistic Minority is a
gathering of people sharing common cultural features such as language or
religion (for example, people concentrated in a territory, and later absorbed
inside a wider state, e.g. the Basque nation in
On the other hand the Ethnic community
is based on the awareness coming from common origins, history and traditions of
a group different from the others, as happens in the case of immigrant
communities. So the
Culture = according to
Cultural Anthropology we can define Culture as everything regarding man and his
products such as knowledge and language, codes and rules, values and
representations, customs and behaviour, belief, myths and religious practices.
As reaffirmed in the Unesco Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001),
culture is defined as:
”the set of
distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society
or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature,
lifestyle, ways of living together, value systems, traditions, and belief.”[14]
This concept – traditionally based on
territory, proximity, homogeneity – is nowadays inadequate because of
globalization and connected phenomena (migrations, mobility, circulation of
goods, people, knowledge, ideas, etc.) that emphasize exchange and interaction
between cultures. From here, the use of several prefixes (multi-, inter-,
trans-, etc.) in conjunction with the word culture creates new meanings and
conceptions.
Multiethnic society = descriptive category.
Diverse ethnic
groups happen to live together in the same territory in a given historic
moment, for example in the multiethnic state of ex-Yugoslavia created in 1918
and, still, in the countries resulting from its fragmentation; but also in each
modern society as a consequence of migration. A multiethnic society is always a
multicultural society since each ethnic group is characterized – by definition
– by its own culture, with linguistic, religious and cultural features
(Croatians, Serbians, Muslims in ex-Yugoslavia)
different from the other groups.
Multicultural
society =
descriptive category of the living together of several different cultural
groups. Since the cultural diversity depends not exclusively on ethnicity,
consequently the multicultural society is not necessarily multiethnic.
Both in multiethnic and multicultural society, life together is based on
respect and recognition of inalienable rights of each other (common individual
rights and independent of origins), but actually it can produce a simple
situation of non-belligerent coexistence of different groups (static concept). Its degeneration can
even lead to the isolation of, and incommunicability
between, cultures.
Interculturalism = an analysis category which is not
descriptive but planning related, in the
political and pedagogical fields, that implies the attitude, the will or
the process of engaging cultures in communication (so that in the field of communication
and education we talk about intercultural relationships and intercultural
pedagogy). In an intercultural society, cultural diversities interact without
losing their own identity, i.e. accepting and
understanding one another and coming to learn one from another, with reciprocal
learning and mutual exchange (dynamic
concept).
Transculturalism = a word with different meanings in
various fields and authors. In psychology, the moment of cultural transition is
the understanding that everything is psychologically common or universal in the
human race, such as ideas and feelings, emotions and creativity, and this
creates a “bridge”, apart from the several individual and cultural diversities.
But transcultural are all those knowledge and border-line areas that highlight
transversal links between cultures and bring about the creation of new cultural
models, the result of the contact, transformation and evolution of the old
cultural identities. The conception of culture and cultural identity shows its
transitory nature in the globalization dimension.
Cross-cultural = kind of approach used in several
disciplines (psychology, psychiatry, medicine but also communication, marketing
and management), a prospective of analysis of the same aspect or event or
problem, that is analyzed and compared in diverse cultures in a
"longitudinal" way in order to detect convergence or divergence,
similarity and specificity of representations, behaviours, beliefs, etc. in
diverse cultural contexts.
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[1] Other concepts in Dizionario della diversità (2004) and its English version: Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity & Culture (2003).
[2] IFLA (2002).
[3] Unesco (2001); see the first definition in: Mondiacult (1982).
[4] Baldacchini, L. (2004) “Lo staff
multietnico e la preparazione universitaria”, in: “Lo staff multietnico in
biblioteca.” (2004).
[5] After the OECD 1997 international programme
[6] IFLA (2002)
[7] There is a number of useful guidelines to collection development for multicultural library services including, IFLA (2002) and Libraries and Archives Canada (2005).
[8] List of material drawn up according to the classification of Vinicio Ongini (1999).
[9] Forsetlund (2004) tested out the effects of library interventions to overcome barriers confronted by community doctors in using research based information in their daily work. She used a systematic randomised research design. The effects of the interventions on the information use of this highly resourceful group were negligible.
[12] “… the term 'minority' shall mean a group which is smaller in number than the rest of the population of a State, whose members, who are nationals of that state, have ethnical, religious or linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population, and are guided by the will to safeguard their culture, traditions, religion or language.” (Art. 2.1).
[13] Adopted
in 1993: text of a proposal for an additional protocol to the Convention for
the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concerning persons
belonging to national minorities, in: Recommendation
1201 on an additional protocol on the rights of national minorities to the
European Convention on Human Rights,
[14] Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. (2001). The first definition is in Mondiacult. (1982).