Cosmopolitanism and integrationism: is British multiculturalism a ‘Zombie category’?

The alleged death of British multiculturalism has been celebrated in some quarters and regretted in others. Invoking Ulrich Beck’s discussion of zombie categories, we argue that while the appeal of ‘multiculturalism’ as a term has clearly declined, the category in Britain that it refers to encompasses not a single charter, but a series of political settlements and public policies that remain in place even though they have been joined (and frequently challenged) by others. Distinguishing between the term and the category is a valuable means of assessing the persistence of multiculturalism as a mode of integration in Britain.