This book is about multiculturalism broadly defined as the recognition respect and
accommodation of cultural differences. Teo proposes a framework of multicultural denizenship
that includes group-specific rights and intercultural dialogue by problematising three issues:
a) the unacknowledged misrecognition of non-citizens within the scholarship of multiculturalism
b) uncritical treatment of citizens and non-citizens as binary categories and c) problematic
parcelling of group-specific rights with citizenship rights. Drawing on the case of Singapore
as an illustrative example where temporary labour migrants are culturally stereotyped
socioeconomically disenfranchised and denied access to rights accorded only to citizens Teo
argues that understandings of multiculturalism need to be expanded and adjusted to include a
fluidity of identities spectrum of rights and shared experiences of marginalisation among
citizens and non-citizens. Civic Multiculturalism in Singapore will be of interest to students
and scholars of multiculturalism critical citizenship studies migration studies political
theory and postcolonial studies.
