ABSTRACT
Multiculturalism evolved in liberal democracies as a policy response to a new politics of recognition arising from increasing migration, and racial, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity within nation states. State-led multiculturalism is the most conspicuous example of multiculturalism as an epistemology. State-led multiculturalism accepts the social reality and value of ethno-cultural diversity in contemporary societies but engages with multiculturalism through the lens of state-led policies, laws, structures and practices developed by political leaders. Conservative public commentators, for example, have charged state-led multiculturalism with causing divisions in society and potential clashes between cultures. As scholars have shown, conviviality and the experience of everyday multiculturalism is evident in schools, early childhood centres, streets, in the lives of young immigrants, the ecology of friendship across different ethnic groups and the convivial labour of blue-collar workers. The approach to multiculturalism emerged from the Civil Rights movement in the US, and it is embedded in and committed to the political ideals, principles of liberal democracy.
