Multiculturalism in ‘troubled’ times: meeting diversity’s challenges with care

Superdiversity now highlights the complexity of diverse societies. Celebrating and encouraging diverse populations, therefore, remains a priority to ensure fair and equitable treatment for all. Multiculturalism, once seen as part of the solution to diversity issues, is now regarded as problematic, although this is by no means new. Asian contexts have rarely been hospitable milieus for liberal multiculturalism. Although diversity and heterogeneity characterize most Asian societies only responses consistent with ‘local values’, are allowable. In the West, many scholars (and politicians) have advocated the abandonment of multiculturalism creating a contested agenda for responding to diversity. In the current context there are no commonly agreed attitudinal or behavioral norms capable of responding. Attention needs to be paid to identifying alternatives that can contribute to the development of positive relationships, irrespective of social and political contexts. This paper seeks to do this by considering the role of care ethics.