The Dictionary of Human Geography

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1996 and publishes a journal devoted toUrban

Morphology. There has been a particular interest

in thepolitical economyof urban morpho-

genesis (Whitehand, 1987), and more recently

in the cultural and symbolic dimensions of

urban morphology (Lilley, 2004a,b). dg

Suggested reading

Lilley (2004a); Whitehand (2001).

mortality The incidence of death, or rate of

dying, in a population. Along withfertility,

this controls natural increase which, together

with migration, completes the balancing

equation that is used indemographyto assess

population growth, decline andage compos-

ition. Exploring national and regional vari-

ations in crude death rates, infant mortality

rates, infanticide andlife expectancy has

increased understandings of epidemiological

transitions (Omran, 1983),uneven develop-

mentand gender discrimination (Rafiq, 1991)

(see health geography; medical geog-

raphy). ajb

Suggested reading

Weeks (1999, ch. 4).

multiculturalism Anideology and state

policy that seeks to establish a model ofgov-

ernanceto permit the coexistence of cultur-

ally diverse populations. Its distinctive feature

is a respect for culturaldifferenceand, in

contrast to assimilation, support for the

maintenance of old-world cultures. While not

new, cultural diversity assumes its accentuated

current profile from the large movements of

documented and undocumented workers

from the global South to the depletedlabour

marketsof the global North (seemigration;

north__south).

Multiculturalism is not an inevitable policy

response to cultural diversity; in western

europe, while the UK invoked some commit-

ment to multiculturalism, France’s republican

model rejected reference to pre-existing immi-

grant cultures in favour of assimilation to a

putatively egalitarian national citizen, while

the German tradition ofius sanguinis, or ethnic

exclusivity (seeethnicity), envisaged tempor-

ary guest-workers rather than permanent im-

migrants. The UK, the Netherlands and the

Scandinavian states would most readily have

described themselves as multicultural nations,

though there has been some back-pedalling of

late. More complete multicultural commit-

ment occurs in Australia and especially Can-

ada, the only country with a Multiculturalism

Act and which includes multiculturalrights

within its constitution.

In an important respect, all states are multi-

cultural inasmuch as they include culturally

distinct minorities. But the existence ofdemo-

graphic multiculturalismis no basis for assum-

ing that institutional and legal recognition of

diversity will occur. A necessary development

is, at minimum, a tolerance of ethnic differ-

ence, and more positively a respect and wel-

coming of cultural diversity that may lead to

heritage multiculturalism, where the state

celebrates diversity with grants to permit the

expression and survival of folk cultures,

including literature, dance and religion. In

the USA, the principal manifestation of multi-

culturalism has been the often controversial

use of Spanish as a heritagelanguageof

instruction in schools in some districts with

concentrations of Latino immigrants. But

heritage multiculturalism offers no protection

ofcitizenship rights, and a more mature

development is arights-based multiculturalism

that offers legal protection against group-

based discrimination, where minorities can

claim rights in such fields as anti-racism,

social service delivery, employment equity,

policingandimmigrationpolicy.

Despite its liberal objectives, multicultural-

ism has attracted considerable criticism. The

political right fears the escalation of aniden-

tity politics that fragments the national

project (Huntington, 2004: see alsonation-

state; nationalism). The political left, in

contrast, challenges the existence of a veil of

cultural equality that conceals structures of

economic inequality, and suspects that multi-

culturalism has been co-opted as a vehicle to

promote neo-liberal trade and investment

(Mitchell, 2004b; see neo-liberalism). To

this, Ghassan Hage (1998) has charged that

multiculturalism in Australia has become a

tool of an older white elite to divide new im-

migrants, thereby maintaining traditional pol-

itical privileges. But following September

2001 and subsequent terroristattacks in

Europe and Asia, such intellectual challenges

have been superseded by a populist and media

barrage that has falsely blamed multicultural-

ism for nurturing hostile criminal and terrorist

cells within the matrix of tolerated cultural

difference. In the present decade, multicul-

turalism is a policy forced on the defensive

(Joppke, 2004). dl

Suggested readings

Mitchell (2004b); Parekh (2000).

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MULTICULTURALISM