The emergence of multiculturalism as prominent term in Western discourse concerning ethnic diversity, conflict and management coincides with increasing awareness in the Western industrial societies, especially over the last two decades, that ethnic groups had not lost their saliency in the lives of large numbers of people. Their earlier perceptions about such a loss of saliency coincides with the 19th century emergence of modern-industrial states, where social theorists such as Durkheim, Weber and Marx, theorised that status based social differentiation was replaced by the social class as the driving force in society. Ethnicity and racial differences were viewed as surviving anachronisms, dating from pre-modern, traditional societies. This analysis was shared by social commentators and policy-makers who operated with an often implicit view that assimilation of minority groups had either occurred, or was in progress. The trend towards global cultural homogenisation, typified by the metaphor of the "global village ", presaged a quickening of this type of development. Even in those industrial nations such as Australia, Canada or the USA which continued to receive large numbers of immigrants, assimilation was viewed as the inevitable process.
By the 1960s, the ethnic rights movement and unrest in a number of the Western industrial countries led to increased questioning of assumptions that ethnic differences were of declining significance. The re-emergence of major ethnic divisions within the former USSR and Eastern Europe has coincided with a major growth of international population movements as a response to economic changes as much as political unrest or demographic pressures (Castles & Miller 1993;Kritz et al 1992; Stahl et al 1993). Together these changes have meant that in the last decade of the 20th century the
