Nietzschean perspectives on multiculturalism

A culture is “a human community larger than a few families that is associated with ongoing ways of seeing, doing, and thinking about things” (Gutmann 1993: 171). Following the definition adopted by this volume, multiculturalism involves the coexistence of two or more cultures in the same geographical space. When people of different cultures inhabit the same space, a challenge arises: those who claim membership in one, or more, of the relevant cultural communities must learn to navigate, and sometimes to incorporate, ways of seeing, doing, and thinking about things that may be quite different from their original ways. Injustice may arise as a result of failures of this process. Examples of relevant forms of injustice include racism, xenophobia, and religious discrimination. These injustices may be further complicated by intersecting forms of oppression, such as sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism.