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Street-level Cosmopolitanism: Neighbourhood Shopping Streets in Multi-ethnic Montréal

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Everyday Multiculturalism

Abstract

This chapter looks at everyday multiculturalism as it is experienced in multi-ethnic neighbourhood shopping streets in Montréal (Quebec, Canada).1 As one of Canada’s three major metropolises, Montréal is a historic and continuing destination for immigrants from an increasingly diverse range of countries. It is also implicated in complex debates over the French-speaking province of Quebec’s status as a distinct and potentially sovereign society, which gives its relationship to ethno-cultural diversity a very particular tone (Germain and Radice 2006). While Quebec’s own brand of Canadian multiculturalism has been provoking lively argument in institutions such as school boards and government services (Bouchard and Taylor 2008), apparently inconsequential multi-ethnic public spaces — such as neighbourhood shopping streets — attract little controversy. If anything, they are celebrated for their contribution to the city’s conviviality, in newspaper features, alternative urban heritage tours and the like. Going beyond such images, this chapter explores how diverse everyday users of local commercial streets (shopkeepers, customers, residents, passers-by) engage in situ with ethnocultural difference, as represented by the other users they encounter and the ethnically marked places and products that make up the landscape of these streets.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

    Martha Radice (Lecturer)

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  1. Martha Radice
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University, Australia

    Amanda Wise (Senior Research Fellow) (Senior Research Fellow)

  2. Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, Australia

    Selvaraj Velayutham (Lecturer in Sociology) (Lecturer in Sociology)

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© 2009 Martha Radice

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Radice, M. (2009). Street-level Cosmopolitanism: Neighbourhood Shopping Streets in Multi-ethnic Montréal. In: Wise, A., Velayutham, S. (eds) Everyday Multiculturalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230244474_8

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