ABSTRACT
As various nations around the world compete to claim the status of post-coloniality, there is the increasing recognition that migratory diasporas have cut across many nation state boundaries and that multicultural societies are an empirical reality in most parts of the world. But, as discussed in the previous chapter, while postcolonialism as a concept has a certain cachet in academic circles, multiculturalism is viewed with some suspicion as tarnished with a history of coming into being as a state apparatus designed to manage variegated demographies. This chapter explores some of the issues associated with the complex dynamics between postcolonialism and multiculturalism 1 in Australia and Canada and shows them to be at odds with generalizations contained in contemporary analyses emanating from the United States. Broadly speaking, this is intimately tied to the different colonial histories of these settler colonies from that of the United States.
