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Dates and Times

30 August 2022
11:00 - 13:00

Location

Address: Zoom

Organiser

Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance

Speakers

Peter Balint and Patti Tamara Lenard

Enquiry

BOOK LAUNCH: DEBATING MULTICULTURALISM: SHOULD THERE BE MINORITY RIGHTS?

Book Description:

Around the world, we see failing attempts at migrant integration, persistent religious intolerance and racial and ethnic discrimination, resurgent national minorities, emboldened majorities, permanent minorities, continuing social isolation, and increasing extremism, including in the form of white nationalism. But is multiculturalism the solution to these problems or does it just make them worse? In this for-and-against book, two prominent scholars of multiculturalism put forward different answers to this important question. While Patti Tamara Lenard argues for minority rights as both the consequence of a right to culture and a way to redress the effects of nation-building, Peter Balint rejects minority rights altogether, instead arguing for a re-imagined liberal neutrality.

Author Bios:

Dr Peter Balint is a Senior Lecturer in International & Political Studies at UNSW Canberra. His research is primarily focussed on the principles for diversity, including respect, toleration, neutrality, and social cohesion. His books include Debating Multiculturalism: Should There be Minority Rights? with PT Lenard (Oxford University Press, 2022), and Respecting Toleration: Traditional Liberalism and Contemporary Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2017), which was awarded an APSA CRISP Prize in 2018. His current projects include an ARC project on ‘Democratic Resilience and the Public Sphere’. He has held Visiting Fellowships at The University of Manchester (MANCEPT), The University of Ottawa, The Morell Centre for Toleration (University of York), and CAPPE (Australian National University). In 2010-11 he was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship at The Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main on the project 'Justitia Amplificata. Rethinking Justice - Applied and Global'. He is a founding member of the Global Justice Network, and a regular editor of their journal, Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric. 

Patti Tamara Lenard is Professor of Ethics in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.  She is the author of Trust, Democracy and Multicultural Challenges (Penn State, 2012), How should democracies fight terrorism? (Polity Press, 2020), Debating Multiculturalism (with Peter Balint, Oxford University Press, 2022), and Ordinary Citizens, Extraordinary Actions, a case-study of St. Joseph’s Parish’s refugee outreach committee (with With Stéfanie Morris, Karina Juma, and Meredith Teretta, University of Ottawa Press, 2022).  She is active in the fields of political theory of migration, counter-terrorism, and democratic theory more generally.  In Ottawa, she runs a community organization called Rainbow Haven, which sponsors, settles and advocates for LGBTQ refugees: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowhavenottawa/.

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