Speakers:
In the 1990s, the mood of the times made it impossible to talk about key social justice concepts like "universality" without being at serious risk of marginalizing one’s own voice. Many conference participants see social inclusion as an opportunity to re-introduce a social justice discourse to the mainstream.
Stephan Klasen argued that we revisit a rights-based approach by broadening this concept to include the notion of fundamental "capabilities." Here social inclusion is understood to be as basic a human right as the right to food, shelter, education and health care. The current focus on poverty, he maintained, is too limiting: social inclusion allows us to focus on what people can actually achieve, be and do, rather than becoming negatively fixated on income.
The social inclusion concept has gained acceptance in Europe. Talks are now underway within the European Union to devise sets of indicators allowing countries to monitor their progress on social inclusion policies.
In contrast, Avrim Lazar highlighted Canada’s regression since the late 1970s in terms of using wealth to improve quality of life. He chronicled ways in which government policy decisions have contributed to growing division between rich and poor.
"Though Canada is now grappling with the kind of deep structure poverty we once associated only with inner-city America," Lazar rejected the notion that tax and transfer programs will buy our way out of it. Rather, he spoke of a crisis in community participation and suggested that we return to a "social commons" to discover true social inclusion.
Marvyn Novick’s emphasis on civic vitality also reinforces the crucial value of a commonality of lived experience, of circumstances that bring us into proximity with people who are different from ourselves in ways that accentuate what we have in common rather than those that tend to drive us apart. Novick rejects a normative integration model of inclusion where rights are claims to be defended, freedom is the liberty to acquire, democracy means running a "fair" race and well-being equals more wealth.
Inclusion under this model comes to look like little more than a patronizing handout we offer to the marginalized in return for their agreeing to refashion themselves after the privileged models offered by those already in the mainstream. It is a matter of a powerful and generous "us" offering to help a weak and needy "them." Against this model he poses one of mutual accommodation, where universal inclusion engenders a common good that benefits us all.
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