Biculturalism

Societal Biculturalism

At the state or macrolevel, biculturalism suggests that two cultures merit formal recognition. According to Carol Ware, the term first appeared in The Cultural Approach to History and subsequently in journal articles of the 1950s that discussed struggles between Canadian Francophones and Anglophones. After a national or ethnic conflict in which neither faction completely conquers or overpowers the other, a process ensues to accommodate the two opposing ways of existence. One way this is accomplished is through [Page 66]language policy. Such policies create official domains for language use or diglossia. In colonized countries like India, with dozens of local languages, the end of British colonial control presented the opportunity for language planning and the creation of an official (de jure) language policy. This excerpt from the Constitution of India (November 26, 1949) is an example:

In the absence of an official policy, groups of language speakers often create a de facto language policy to demarcate the accepted domains for a particular language. While the possibility exists to use either of one's available languages in a given domain, there is an implicit understanding shared by members of the bicultural society that one language is more appropriate than the other. Such domains include religious activity, education, family interactions, government correspondence, and banking transactions.

Societal biculturalism can also be seen through religious practices. At times, the beliefs of a recently arriving group may violate the norms and traditions of those who lived there before. The case of American Indians is an illustrative example. Federal laws and policies of the United States frequently violated the beliefs and religious practices of the various native groups. Such policies prohibited access to sacred native religious sites or sanctioned the possession of animal-derived sacred objects. Outsiders were able to desecrate sacred native burial sites with impunity. In 1978, the U.S. Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) to provide some protection for the religious practices that were an integral part of American Indian culture. The act reads in

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