Critical Social

Multiculturalism’s new fault line T A r i q M o d o o d University of Bristol, UK This extended commentary engages in debate about the place of reli-gion within multicultural social structures and the perceived risks and benefits of the incorporation of this within state and social policy. If social policy has indeed been extended from ethnicity to include reli-gion, what are the implications of this? Key issues within the debate include the relationship between secular and religious identities and the kind of secularism that should inform the way in which the state is seek-ing to accommodate religious demands and identities in its engagement with particular communities, particularly ethnic minority communities. The commentary takes as its starting point an article published in 2011 in Critical Social Policy 31(3) by Singh and Cowden on ‘Multiculturalism’s New Fault Lines ’ and a response to this by Tariq Modood. Key words fundamentalism, identity, multiculturalism, religion, secularism In Gurnam Singh and Stephen Cowden’s discussion in this journal of the recently formed fault lines in multiculturalism, besides a preoccupation with Corresponding author