Identities and social diversity

debates on nation and multiculturality

Abstract

The paper examines contemporary theories that focus on the theme of social diversity in relation to the national issue. In general, the central questioning of these theories turns against assumptions of homogeneity that marked the socio-political arrangements of modernity, which tend to generate inequalities and oppressions to certain social groups. To analyze the implications of such criticism, the article makes a comparison between concepts and directions of two theoretical lineages: communitarianism and multiculturalism. Although these theories successfully assume the challenge of pointing, since the last quarter of the twentieth century, to the particularities of sociocultural groups and to inequalities generated by traditional national arrangements, they tend to incur in some problems if they do not focus on the constituent character of public debates.