Have We Entered a Post-Truth Era in the “Multicultural” Debate? On the Challenges in the Scientific Literature Surrounding Diversity and Multiculturalism. Presented at the ECQI 2019 – 3rd European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Edinburgh, 12 Jan 2019-15 Jan 2019.

Abstract

In the wake of the unexpected political events witnessed over the course of the past two years, many people have ventured that we are now living in a “post-truth” era . This brought scientists together at a conference at MIT in August 2017 , to discuss the following central concern: is it true that facts, rationality and knowledge no longer matter in public discourse – or matter much less than emotions and opinions? This paper seeks to address this question in the multidisciplinary field of diversity-related studies in Western Europe, as the latter have been at the centre of political discourse and public debates for years. After over 30 years of research, the scientific literature remains very divided on these issues, not only in ontological, epistemological, ideological, but also in empirical terms. In the first section of this paper, we illustrate how this far-reaching academic dissensus manifests itself, by overviewing the literature on the “multicultural” debate. We thus identify concrete problems with respect to this academic division. In the second section of this paper, we lay out what we identify as the underlying causes for this persistent status quo. We find that, although the humanities have yielded an extensive literature on the multicultural question, the most certain conclusion to be drawn remains that we are currently not able to provide impartial, accurate, and applicable answers to the questions that have been at the centre of the debate: because in the absence of sufficient empirical evidence, we have been debating extremely difficult, sensitive and increasingly urgent issues, based largely on theorising. The current status quo invites us to consider that the manner in which we have been conducting research may not sufficiently have enabled us to get at the “truth”, and to understand what is at stake. This outcome is further consistent with the epistemological context within the social sciences and humanities, particularly the current frame of strict interpretivism and relativism that are at risk to dismiss the notion of objective truth altogether. Based on the observations presented in this paper, we infer that it is indeed possible that facts do not matter to people anymore, but it is misleading to simply assert that we have entered a “post-truth” era. As long as we fail to provide genuine answers to widespread concerns about multicultural society, it is understandable that people just believe what they prefer to believe, whether we condemn this or not. Providing a solid diagnosis of the problems of multiculturalism is therefore a most urgent and imperative step in this debate. In light of the societal challenges we are facing, our primary goal is to delineate the identified issues and their implications as clearly and straightforwardly as possible. This can contribute to inspire a thorough academic reflection, strengthen and/or reaffirm the inherent motivation of academics to meaningfully contribute to society.status: publishe