ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to examine the multiple meanings of 'multiculturalism' in increasingly complex and translocal societies in the twenty-first century. Here, engagement with the notion of multiculturalism resembles what Karim H. Karim terms the 'dark room of the pluralism pundits pachyderm', an 800-year-old inspired Persian tale. The multiculturalism examined in this book, therefore, encourages the acknowledgment of different levels of meaning in order to uncover authentic discourses-a way to contest and challenge dominant and limiting ideologies within public domains. As noted by Kymlicka, the granting of minority rights emerges as an approach to address political challenges of identity tensions in multicultural states. Hence many have postulated that multiculturalism is now retreating gradually as a sociopolitical concept and as social policy framework for dealing with cultural and religious diversity.
