Jackson, Matthew William2024-08-142024-08-1420022002https://hdl.handle.net/1828/18292For political theorists Will Kymlicka, CharlesTaylor, and Brian Barry, the question of multiculturalism is posed through an appeal to liberalism as a philosophical doctrine. Although positing variations on what form liberalism should take, they all nonetheless adopt the similar assumption that the question of cultural difference is a question for the liberal democratic state. As an alternative to this rather narrow and limited perspective I argue that a governmentality approach breaks free from the grip of a state-centric ontology and moves us toward an understanding of politics that views liberalism not as a philosophical doctrine or type of society, but as an 'art of government'. Using Foucault's insights into how liberalism arose historically as a problem of government, a governmentality perspective enables us to shift the question of multiculturalism away from the relationship between the state and its citizens, and toward an appreciation of the bio-politics that forms both the limitations to, and possibilities for, thinking about multiculturalism differently. I argue that we need to re-pose the question of multiculturalism in order to deal with contemporary political realities.111 pagesAvailable to the World Wide WebThesis