Der Band geht zurück auf eine Konferenz von 1994 am Goethe-Institut Vancouver zur vergleichenden Untersuchung der Konzepte von Multikulturalismus in Deutschland und Kanada; die Beiträge sind gegenüber den Vorträgen jedoch stark erweiterte und überarbeitete Versionen. Ausgehend vom Faktum der "multiculturality" (17) untersuchen die Autoren "concepts of, and problems with, multiculturalism. A first step is to map the multicultural landscape, that is dimensions of multiculturalism in the respective countries. From there, more general problems can be approached, namely the problems of inclusion and exclusion, the problem of the particular and of the universal." (16) Inhalt: I. Canada: Philip L. Bryden: Multiculturalism and Canadian Immigration and Refugee Policy (33-63); Ian Angus: The Originality of the Multicultural Context (65-99); Jean Morriset: The Native Path and its Trance-Cultural Connections (101-131); Marianne Boelscher Ignace / Ronald E. Ignace: The Old Wolf in Sheep's Clothing? Canadian Aboriginal Peoples and Multiculturalism (133-155); Michael Mundhenk / Jerald Zaslove: Voices of Silence – Peoples of Invisibility: Joy Kogawa's Obasan and the Loss of World History (157-190). II. Germany: Heribert Adam: German and Canadian Nationalism and Multiculturalism: A Comparison of Xenophobia, Racism and Integration (193-210); Dieter Haselbach: Multicultural Reality and the Problem of German Identity (211-228). III. Outlook: Michael Th. Greven: Citizenship and Scarcity in Multicultural Societies (231-249); Lothar Bredella: Human Rights and Understanding Foreign Cultures between Relativism and Universalism (251-277); Gertrud Nunner-Winkler: Normal Elements of Ethnocentrism (279-308); R. B. J. Walker: Multiculturalism and Leaking Boundaries (309-324).