The Conundrum of Being a Minority: Choosing a Collective Identity in the Era of Neoliberal Globalism

This paper argues that by portraying minority concerns primarily as cultural concerns and by discussing minority existence independently of capitalism, neoliberalism, feminism, environmentalism, globalization, and the distinction between the Right and the Left, the dominant discourse on ethno-cultural minorities, namely multiculturalism, may lead to the reduction of minority communities to cultural entities in the collective consciousness of the dominant majority. Such reductionism endangers minority existence by identifying the question of minorities with the question of culture to the point that minorities voicing their non-cultural political concerns increasingly appear unintelligible, presumptuous, or even destructive to wider society. Against this background, the paper discusses why and how ethno-cultural minorities may find their collective identity in different, not necessarily ethno-cultural, political formations in the age of neoliberal globalism, such as anti-neoliberal, anti-globalist, cosmopolitan, environmentalist, anti-capitalist, feminist, radical democratic, republican, and anti-imperialist. This discussion is based on Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s understanding of hegemony and social antagonism.