ABSTRACT
In political theory, liberal multiculturalism has emerged as the dominant normative lens through which to theorize the diversity of cultures. Specifically, Will Kymlicka’s theory of multicultural citizenship (1995) and Charles Taylor’s theory of recognition (1994) have been pivotal in shaping an understanding of culture. Despite the different traditions of liberalism and distinct visions of diversity of each thinker, they provide some common and salient interpretations of culture. In this chapter, I identify the ways in which liberal multicultural interpretations of culture obscure and undermine analysis of the interactions between modes of injustice. I contend that the liberal multicultural utilization of culture is narrow in scope and definition because it produces bounded, unidimensional, and essentializing understandings of identity. Ultimately, the capacity of the culture concept to address the ways in which injustices operate together is reductive.
