This paper examines the "cultural thesis," a normative account of why culturally diverse polities should recognize and accommodate minority and indigenous claims for cultural protection, and addresses the "anti-essentialist" critique of the cultural thesis. The anti-essentialist critique holds that key arguments for the cultural thesis, such as those advanced by Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, support problematic, essentialist concepts of culture. This paper argues that the anti-essentialist critique overlooks key parts of the cultural thesis but does, nevertheless, illuminate the need for an approach to practical claims to culture. Two approaches are presented-the "unbounded approach" and the "shifting boundaries approach"-both of which are developed in contemporary political theory writings. The paper argues that the shifting boundaries approach, which asks us to consider the role that a claimed cultural practice or activity plays in enhancing community integrity, provides a better framework for understanding the claims advanced by minorities and indigenous peoples. Both the drawbacks of the unbounded approach and the advantages of the shifting boundaries approach are discussed in relation to the Aboriginal rights case R v. Van der Peet.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/2408 |
| Date | 31 March 2010 |
| Creators | Nykolaishen, Sarah |
| Contributors | Eisenberg, Avigail I. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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