The theory of multiculturalism is criticised for reproducing unhelpful links between the state and nation, territory and civic loyalty, and citizenship and national belonging (Appadurai 1996; Bauböck and Rundell 1998; Sassen 2002; Vertovec 1999). Taking a critical approach, this paper questions understandings of the majority/minority, citizen/non-citizen and practices of rights-claiming within the theory of multiculturalism. Unpacking these categories disturbs the association between citizenship, national identity and group-specific rights, illuminating the need for a finely-graded concept of citizenship. This critique further problematises the treatment of recognition as an act of citizenship, where it excludes and/or undermines other claims made. A final contention arises when visible claims (or potential for) are privileged within scholarship as instances of group agency. As a consequence, the significance of looking at the absence of claims is negated, reproducing the silence imposed upon pockets of unrepresented groups and individuals who fall beyond or between the conventional citizen/non-citizen categories.
The case of Singapore illustrates these theoretical claims. The city-state’s experience of multiculturalism is related to its postcolonial past, diverse population and racialised policy framework. By analysing three cases, I investigate how the racialised identities of ‘Chineseness’, ‘Malayness’ and ‘Indianness’ are troubling for nation-centric theorisations of multiculturalism. The misrecognition of Chinese newcomers within a demographic ‘majority’ cannot be fully explained through a framework of citizenship that emphasises the plight of ‘minorities’ and rectification through minority rights. Misrepresentations of Malay-Muslim identities suggest that practices of recognition through citizenship and rights-claiming may be complicit in exacerbating the unequal treatment of groups. Unwarranted discrimination against Indian citizens and non-citizens of various kinds also falls beyond the remit of multiculturalism, which focuses on citizenship rights as a solution to group-specific needs.