Abstract

CUNIN, Elisabeth  and  HOFFMANN, Odile. Belize, a Pluricultural Society without Multicultural Policies?. Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos [online]. 2019, vol.45, pp.182-205. ISSN 2215-4175.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/aeca.v45i0.37665.

The former British colony in Central America, Belize, is usually described by observers as well as administrators and rulers, in terms of cultural diversity and multiplicity of ethnic groups which compose it. However, since recent independence (1981), the Government of Belize has not implemented multicultural policies that would grant differential treatment to individuals because of their ethnicity or racial background, as it is the case in the Americas since the 1980-90. The objective of the article is to understand this gap between the diversity of society and the absence of multicultural policies. It is based on the analysis of two types of public policies: cultural policies and property control policies. The article is built around a double questioning on the modalities for the implementation of a national project: how the Government of Belize has managed the legacy of the ''divide and rule'' colonial policy aimed at segmenting the population? How has it adapted to the ''multicultural turn'' of the years 1980-90 and its logic of recognition of diversity? The analysis tends to show that taking account of otherness by public policy is part of the British colonial tradition while integrating the aspirations born of the long march towards independence, and it also creates specific forms of management of the difference, in the sense of differential redistribution on the basis of collective memberships.

Keywords : Multiculturalism; ethnicity; postcolonial; Belize; public policy.

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