The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Communication 9781108555067, 9781108429696, 2019039296, 2019039297, 9781108453103

Table of contents :
Front Matter
Contents
Figures
Tables
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 - What Is Culture
2 - What Is Intercultural Communication
3 - Rethinking Intercultural Competence
4 - Interculturality or Transculturality
5 - Critical Intercultural Communication and the Digital Environment
6 - From Shared Values to Cultural Dimensions
7 - Towards Integrative Intercultural Communication
8 - The Power of Literature in Intercultural Communication
9 - Psychoanalytic Approaches to Memory and Intercultural Communication
10 - Sociological Approaches to Intercultural Communication
11 - Introducing Intercultural Ethics
12 - Decolonizing Gender and Intercultural Communication in Transnational Contexts
13 - Migration in the Digital Social Mediasphere
14 - Linguistic Politeness
15 - Contemporary Literature and Intercultural Understanding
16 - Enhancing Intercultural Skills through Storytelling
17 - Cinema as Intercultural Communication
18 - Intercultural Memory and Violence in Jewish Literature
19 - Intercultural Communication in Social Work Practice
20 - Intercultural Education in Study Abroad Contexts
21 - Intercultural Communication in the Courtroom
22 - Intercultural Communication in the Context of the Hypermobility of the School Population in and out of Europe
23 - Culture and Management
24 - Language and Othering in Contemporary Europe
25 - Black British Writing
26 - Cultural Encounters in Contemporary Latin American Cinema
27 - Religion and Intercultural Communication
28 - Irish–English Cultural Encounters in the Diaspora
29 - Intercultural Dimensions in Academic Mobility
30 - Defining, Developing and Assessing Intercultural Competence
31 - Effects of Social Media Use on Cultural Adaptation
32 - A Constructivist Approach to Assessing Intercultural Communication Competence
Index

Citation preview

The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Communication A highly interdisciplinary overview of the wide spectrum of current international research and professional practice in intercultural communication, this is a key reference book for students, lecturers and professionals alike. Key examples of contrastive, interactive, imagological and interlingual approaches are discussed, as well as the impact of cultural, economic and socio-political power hierarchies in cultural encounters, essential for contemporary research in critical intercultural communication and postcolonial studies. The Handbook also explores the spectrum of professional applications of that research, from intercultural teaching and training to the management of culturally mixed groups, facilitating use by professionals in related fields. Theories are introduced systematically using ordinary language explanations and examples, providing an engaging approach to readers new to the field. Students and researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, from cultural studies to linguistics, will appreciate this clear yet in-depth approach to an ever-evolving contemporary field.

guido rings is currently professor of postcolonial studies and co-director of the anglia ruskin research centre for intercultueal and multilingual studies. key titles published include the other in contemporary migrant cinema (2016) and la conquista desbaratada (2010). sebastian rasinger is currently deputy head of the school of humanities and social sciences at anglia ruskin university, cambridge. his research focuses on bilingualism, migration and ethnic and cultural identities. he is the author of quantitative research in linguistics, 2nd edition (2013).

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cambridge handbooks in language and linguistics Genuinely broad in scope, each handbook in this series provides a complete state-of-the-field overview of a major sub-discipline within language study and research. Grouped into broad thematic areas, the chapters in each volume encompass the most important issues and topics within each subject, offering a coherent picture of the latest theories and findings. Together, the volumes will build into an integrated overview of the discipline in its entirety.

Published Titles The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, edited by Paul de Lacy The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Code-switching, edited by Barbara E. Bullock and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio The Cambridge Handbook of Child Language, Second Edition, edited by Edith L. Bavin and Letitia Naigles The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, edited by Peter K. Austin and Julia Sallabank The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics, edited by Rajend Mesthrie The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by Keith Allan and Kasia M. Jaszczolt The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy, edited by Bernard Spolsky The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, edited by Julia Herschensohn and Martha Young-Scholten The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics, edited by Cedric Boeckx and Kleanthes K. Grohmann The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax, edited by Marcel den Dikken The Cambridge Handbook of Communication Disorders, edited by Louise Cummings The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics, edited by Peter Stockwell and Sara Whiteley The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology, edited by N.J. Enfield, Paul Kockelman and Jack Sidnell The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics, edited by Douglas Biber and Randi Reppen The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Processing, edited by John W. Schwieter The Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research, edited by Sylviane Granger, Gaëtanelle Gilquin and Fanny Meunier The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Multicompetence, edited by Li Wei and Vivian Cook The Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics, edited by Merja Kytö and Päivi Pahta The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics, edited by Maria Aloni and Paul Dekker The Cambridge Handbook of Morphology, edited by Andrew Hippisley and Greg Stump The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax, edited by Adam Ledgeway and Ian Roberts The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology, edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics, edited by Raymond Hickey The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, edited by Barbara Dancygier The Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics, edited by Yoko Hasegawa The Cambridge Handbook of Spanish Linguistics, edited by Kimberly L. Geeslin

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The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingualism, edited by Annick De Houwer and Lourdes Ortega The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics, edited by H. Ekkehard Wolff The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, edited by Geoff Thompson, Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine and David Schönthal The Cambridge Handbook of Language Learning, edited by John W. Schwieter and Alessandro Benati The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes, edited by Daniel Schreier, Marianne Hundt and Edgar W. Schneider

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The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Communication Edited by Guido Rings Anglia Ruskin University

Sebastian Rasinger Anglia Ruskin University

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University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108429696 DOI: 10.1017/9781108555067 © Cambridge University Press 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rings, Guido, 1964– editor. | Rasinger, Sebastian (Sebastian), 1977– editor. Title: The Cambridge handbook of intercultural communication / edited by Guido Rings, Sebastian Rasinger. Description: Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Series: Cambridge handbooks in language and linguistics | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019039296 (print) | LCCN 2019039297 (ebook) | ISBN 9781108429696 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108453103 (paperback) | ISBN 9781108555067 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Intercultural communication–Handbooks, manuals, etc. Classification: LCC HM1211 .C365 2020 (print) | LCC HM1211 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/2–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039296 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039297 ISBN 978-1-108-42969-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction

page ix x xi xiv Guido Rings and Sebastian Rasinger

Part I Introducing Intercultural Communication 1 What Is Culture? Werner Delanoy 2 What Is Intercultural Communication? Jan D. ten Thije 3 Rethinking Intercultural Competence Jürgen Bolten 4 Interculturality or Transculturality? Heinz Antor Part II Theoretical Approaches 5 Critical Intercultural Communication and the Digital Environment Thomas K. Nakayama 6 From Shared Values to Cultural Dimensions: A Comparative Review Elizabeth A. Tuleja and Michael Schachner 7 Towards Integrative Intercultural Communication Liisa Salo-Lee 8 The Power of Literature in Intercultural Communication Birgit Neumann 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Memory and Intercultural Communication Jolanta A. Drzewiecka 10 Sociological Approaches to Intercultural Communication: Exploring the ‘Silent Zones’ Uttaran Dutta and Judith N. Martin 11 Introducing Intercultural Ethics Richard Evanoff

1

17 35 56 68

85 96 120 136 155

170 187

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Contents

Part III Methods 12 Decolonizing Gender and Intercultural Communication in Transnational Contexts Lara Lengel, Ahmet Atay and Yannick Kluch 13 Migration in the Digital Social Mediasphere Peter Stockinger 14 Linguistic Politeness Claus Ehrhardt 15 Contemporary Literature and Intercultural Understanding Gesine Lenore Schiewer 16 Enhancing Intercultural Skills through Storytelling Stephan Wolting 17 Cinema as Intercultural Communication Joanne Leal 18 Intercultural Memory and Violence in Jewish Literature Verena Dolle 19 Intercultural Communication in Social Work Practice Antonio López Peláez and Emilio José Gómez Ciriano 20 Intercultural Education in Study Abroad Contexts Jane Jackson 21 Intercultural Communication in the Courtroom: The Doctrine of Public Policy Bertil Cottier Part IV Application 22 Intercultural Communication in the Context of the Hypermobility of the School Population in and out of Europe Emmanuelle le Pichon-Vorstman 23 Culture and Management Marie-Thérèse Claes 24 Language and Othering in Contemporary Europe Anne Ife 25 Black British Writing: Benjamin Zephaniah’s Didactic Poetics Deirdre Osborne 26 Cultural Encounters in Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Intersections of Transnationality Sarah Barrow 27 Religion and Intercultural Communication Margaret Littler 28 Irish–English Cultural Encounters in the Diaspora Bronwen Walter 29 Intercultural Dimensions in Academic Mobility: South Korea and Spain F. Manuel Montalbán, Francisco M. Llorente and Evelina Zurita Part V Assessment 30 Defining, Developing and Assessing Intercultural Competence Darla K. Deardorff 31 Effects of Social Media Use on Cultural Adaptation Ming Li and Stephen M. Croucher 32 A Constructivist Approach to Assessing Intercultural Communication Competence Milton J. Bennett Index

205 227 243 261 276 286 302 319 335 350

367 383 396 412 432 446 460

475

493 504 521 536

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Figures

Mutual relations between five approaches to intercultural communication and the notion of intercultural mediation 3.1 Intercultural competence as transfer competence 6.1 Hofstede’s levels of mental programming 6.2 Inglehart–Welzel map of the world based on data collected 2010–14 6.3 Minkov map of the world 13.1 General grid for the description of audiovisual (filmic) data 13.2 Family of ten topoï framing the cultural visions of the migration complex 14.1 Cooperative principle 2.1

page 36 61 103 109 113 229 231 256

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Tables

3.1 6.1

Integrated model of action competence Major cross-cultural dimension research, commonalities and differences

page 59 99

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Contributors

Heinz Antor, Professor of English Literatures and Cultures, University of Cologne Ahmet Atay, Associate Professor of Communication, Chair of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The College of Wooster Sarah Barrow, Professor in Film and Media, University of East Anglia Milton J. Bennett, Director, Intercultural Development Research Institute Jürgen Bolten, Professor of Intercultural Business Communication, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena Marie-Thérèse Claes, Professor of Cross-Cultural Management, University of Louvain Bertil Cottier, Professor, Università della Svizzera italiana Stephen M. Croucher, Professor, Massey University Darla K. Deardorff, Executive Director of the Association of International Education Administrators, Adjunct Research Scholar, Duke University Werner Delanoy, Associate Professor, Department of English and American Studies, University of Klagenfurt Verena Dolle, Chair, Romance Literatures and Cultures, Justus-LiebigUniversity Giessen Jolanta A. Drzewiecka, Associate Professor, Università della Svizzera italiana Uttaran Dutta, Assistant Professor of Intercultural Communication, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University Claus Ehrhardt, Associate Professor, University of Urbino Richard Evanoff, Professor, School of International Politics, Economics, and Communication, Aoyama Gakuin University Emilio José Gómez Ciriano, Accredited Professor, Faculty of Social Work, University of Castilla – La Mancha Anne Ife, Associate Lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University

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List of Contributors

Jane Jackson, Professor, English Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong Yannick Kluch, Assistant Professor of Sports Communication and Media, Rowan University Joanne Leal, Professor of German Studies, Birkbeck, University of London Lara Martin Lengel, Professor, Department of Communication, Bowling Green State University Emmanuelle le Pichon-Vorstman, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto Ming Li, Senior Lecturer, Massey University Margaret Littler, Professor of Contemporary German Culture, University of Manchester Francisco M. Llorente, Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Málaga Antonio López Peláez, Professor of Social Work and Social Services, Department of Social Work, Faculty of Law, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia F. Manuel Montalbán, Associate Professor in Social Anthropology, University of Málaga Judith N. Martin, Professor Emerita of Intercultural Communication, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University Thomas K. Nakayama, Professor of Communication Studies, Northeastern University Birgit Neumann, Professor of English Literature and Anglophone Studies, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf Deirdre Osborne, Reader in English Literature and Drama, Goldsmiths University of London Sebastian Rasinger, Deputy Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University Guido Rings, Professor of Postcolonial Studies, Anglia Ruskin University Liisa Salo-Lee, Professor Emerita in Intercultural Communication, University of Jyväskylä; Associate Professor, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Michael Schachner, Head of Research, Hofstede Insights cultural consultancy, Helsinki Gesine Lenore Schiewer, Chair of Intercultural German Studies, University of Bayreuth Peter Stockinger, Vice-President of Research and Professor, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales Jan D. ten Thije, Associate Professor, Utrecht Institute for Linguistics; Lecturer, Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, University of Utrecht

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List of Contributors

xiii

Elizabeth A. Tuleja, Associate Partner with Hofstede Insights cultural consultancy, Associate Professor of Management, University of Notre Dame Bronwen Walter, Emeritus Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies, Anglia Ruskin University Stephan Wolting, Professor of Intercultural Communication, AdamMickiewicz-University Evelina Zurita, Associate Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Málaga

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers of the handbook proposal for their advice and support. Special thanks go to the authors who have written and revised their chapters with great care. We are also very grateful to the Cambridge University Press team, notably our Commissioning Editor Rebecca Taylor who provided support at every stage of the development of this handbook. Without you and numerous others it would not have been possible to complete this volume in the Cambridge Handbook series.

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Introduction Guido Rings and Sebastian Rasinger

The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Communication seeks to provide a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and state-of-the-art exploration of intercultural communication. To this aim, across it five parts, it offers: (I) a thorough discussion of key concepts; (II) an in-depth exploration of selected theoretical approaches; (III) a survey of particularly helpful methods and methodologies; (IV) a multidisciplinary overview of current research in various domains of application; and (V) a presentation of key issues pertaining to the assessment of intercultural communication and competence. In particular, the volume addresses the relationship between intercultural communication and power, and provides a contextual exploration of contrastive, interactional, imagological and ethical aspects. The Handbook has been designed as a reference book for lecturers, researchers, professionals and students in the field of intercultural communication, including advanced undergraduate as well as postgraduate and research students. With more than thirty chapters from leading experts in the field, it serves as a collection of current research which will be of interest to a wide-ranging audience, from those working in cultural studies to those in linguistics, anthropology, intercultural business communication, sociology, psychology and other related sub-disciplines. It is, however, not intended as a textbook introducing intercultural theory. There are several introductory textbooks on the market, including, for example, Scollon, Scollon and Jones’s Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (2012), Jackson’s Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication (2014) and Jandt’s An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community (2016), all of which serve this purpose. Since 2010 there has been a proliferation of handbooks on intercultural communication on the market. Yet the majority take a comparatively

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narrow approach to the topic, often with a linguistic focus. We would like to propose a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary volume that explores contrastive, interactive, imagological and interlingual approaches to intercultural communication within the context of power structures that shape cultural encounters. The groundwork for such an integrative approach has been laid by Stuart Hall’s discussion of different portrayals of culture from different positions of power (1980 [1973]; 1985) and by Homi Bhabha in The Location of Culture (2010 [1994]). In that seminal work, Bhabha elaborates on the ‘problem of cultural interaction [at the] boundaries of culture, where meanings and values are (mis)-read or signs are misappropriated’ (p. 50), which leads directly to questions of basic misunderstanding examined in particular by contrastive and interactional approaches. On the other hand, his discussion of the construction of cultural difference as a consequence of ‘the attempt to dominate in the name of a cultural supremacy’ (p. 34) enhances critical interrogations of stereotyping, discrimination, racism and actual mechanisms of exclusion, which are more frequently addressed by imagological approaches. Unfortunately, in the development of intercultural communication as an academic discipline, and consequently in most handbooks, readers and course books, the link between these aspects has often been overlooked. There are numerous reasons for this, but the marginalization of power questions in the discipline, which has repeatedly been highlighted by Nakayama (e.g. Halualani & Nakayama, 2010: 5), correlates in our opinion with a frequently rather narrow contrastive focus on two or more national cultures in the search for a quick fix to diplomatic and business relations from the 1950s to the 1990s. It also correlates with the similarly limited attention given to differences in speech acts within interpersonal interaction for the purpose of detailed linguistic analysis and application. On the other hand, imagological studies have far too frequently stopped at levels of deconstruction with relatively little concern for the development of applied solutions to day-to-day challenges in cultural encounters. In contrast, this volume aims to transfer the debates of power relations to contemporary monocultural settings, within which we see a need to consider contrastive, interactional and imagological approaches to intercultural communication as well as their interdependence in a much more balanced framework. Based on original contributions to the field, The Handbook takes a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to examining current developments in the field. It is divided thematically into five parts: Part I Introducing Intercultural Communication (Chapters 1 to 4); Part II Theoretical Approaches (Chapters 5 to 11); Part III Methods (Chapters 12 to 21); Part IV Application (Chapters 22 to 29); and Part V Assessment (Chapters 30 to 32).

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Introduction

1

3

Introducing Intercultural Communication

This first part examines some key concepts used in critical discussions in the field. In the first chapter, ‘What is Culture?’, Werner Delanoy explores different definitions of culture both in their historical context and with regard to future developments in intercultural communication. As an advocate of a dialogic approach, the author argues in favour of non-essentialist and power-critical perspectives in line with a (post-)humanistic and cosmopolitan agenda. In the second chapter, Jan D. ten Thije addresses the foundational question of the field in ‘What is Intercultural Communication?’. His chapter explores the spectrum of scientific and societal issues referred to as intercultural communication by pointing out five different theoretical and methodical approaches. First, he discusses the interactive approach which investigates intercultural (face-to-face) interaction. He then focuses on approaches that compare and contrast cultural and linguistic systems, before discussing those that consider collective and national images of ‘self’ and ‘other’ by analysing cultural representations in various forms of (computer-mediated) communication. A fourth approach comprises studies into multilingualism and linguistic diversities, and finally, the transfer approach integrates knowledge, attitudes, capacities, reflectivity and motivation in learnable intercultural competencies. Ten Thije elaborates on the interfaces and interrelations of these approaches in how they address the notion of ‘intercultural mediation’. In the third chapter, ‘Rethinking Intercultural Competence’, Jürgen Bolten explores intercultural competence as a form of general ‘action competence’, which is implemented in intercultural, i.e. uncertain contexts. In the context of increasing social mobility at nearly all levels and in most professions, intercultural competence is highlighted as more relevant today than ever before. However, that relevance correlates with a ‘rethinking’ of the concept, within which intercultural competence research has to expand its own horizons by integrating the hitherto still dominant focus on national cultural diversity into the much more complex field of micro-cultural diversity. The first part concludes with Heinz Antor’s chapter on ‘Interculturality or Transculturality?’ (Chapter 4), which discusses the common ground of two related concepts that are frequently presented as fundamentally different. Antor presents the diverse terminology used to describe contact situations between two or more cultures by focusing on Wolfgang Welsch’s seminal discussions of multi-, inter- and transculturality and the different conceptualizations of culture they are based on. The controversy sparked by Welsch is shown to have substantially enhanced a process of differentiation in the course of which cultures are no longer seen in binary terms or as

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separate and relatively homogeneous spheres but rather as interlinked networks, an insight which turns a clear-cut differentiation between interculturality and transculturality into a highly complex and problematic undertaking. The anthropological and psychological dimensions of cultural concepts are shown to arise from the need of human beings as patternbuilding and storytelling animals to position themselves by defining identities and alterities in a diverse environment which makes essentialist ontological self-definitions impossible. That the conceptualization of the world as an increasingly hybrid and transcultural one is not an abstract glass bead game, but rather has very concrete material, social and political consequences, is demonstrated with reference to several topical and historical examples. Antor then explores the connections between notions of cosmopolitanism and different conceptualizations of difference, particularism and universalism and their relevance, before discussing the ethical dimensions of different ways of categorizing cultures and their implications for developing intercultural and transcultural competence as the basis for constructing a peaceful and dialogic future of togetherness in difference.

2

Theoretical approaches

Part II offers an in-depth exploration of selected theoretical approaches in the field. In ‘Critical Intercultural Communication and the Digital Environment’ (Chapter 5), Thomas K. Nakayama discusses the importance of ‘critical intercultural communication’, an approach that he has proposed, defined and very substantially developed, with particular regard for interactions in an environment increasingly shaped by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Despite the rise of the network society, little attention has been paid to the ways that social media influence intercultural communication. The chapter seeks to remedy that by introducing examples that allow for an in-depth exploration of the ways that social inequality is reinforced in the digital environment, as well as the ways that people utilize social media to resist that inequality. In ‘From Shared Values to Cultural Dimensions: A Comparative Review’ (Chapter 6), Elizabeth A. Tuleja and Michael Schachner explore a substantial number of very influential contrastive approaches, from Hofstede and the GLOBE study to work by Schwartz, Inglehart and Minkov. The chapter discusses these approaches from both a conceptual as well as a methodological point of view and points out the continued need for multiple perspectives on cross-cultural research in a polycultural world. Rather than opting for an either/or solution, the authors suggest that researchers, educators and practitioners such as communication consultants, want to choose the theory that best suits their needs in a given context.

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Introduction

5

In the seventh chapter, ‘Towards Integrative Intercultural Communication’ (Chapter 7), Liisa Salo-Lee highlights the need to transform academic and professional work in intercultural communication, which is still largely shaped by the multidisciplinary coexistence of different approaches. Her chapter presents ‘integrative intercultural communication’ as a proposal for an interdisciplinary approach to research and practice, which places intercultural dialogue at its core and stresses intercultural communication as an ongoing process of learning in exchange. This approach aims to provide researchers with supporting concepts and tools, e.g. the use of the rhizome as a metaphor for culture and nexus analysis as a method for cultural analysis, to tackle the complexities of the field. The next three chapters explore the importance of literary, psychoanalytic and sociological approaches to intercultural communication. Birgit Neumann’s chapter, ‘The Power of Literature in Intercultural Communication’ (Chapter 8), focuses on the specificities of literature, i.e. its distinct poetic and affective potential, to create and negotiate concepts of self and otherness, which underlie processes of intercultural communication. This includes close readings of identity constructs in Andrea Levy’s Small Island (2004) and Teju Cole’s Open City (2011), which illustrate how literary representations may promote, trouble or problematize intercultural communication. In ‘Psychoanalytic Approaches to Memory and Intercultural Communication’ (Chapter 9), Jolanta A. Drzewiecka advances a psychoanalytic discursive approach to the analysis of public memories of the Other. This includes an overview of memory studies in communication, an introduction to key concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis and a discussion of a psychoanalytic approach examining representations of violence committed against Jews by gentiles in Poland and its implications for engaging knowledge and critical learning. Uttaran Dutta and Judith N. Martin’s chapter on ‘Sociological Approaches to Intercultural Communication: Exploring the “Silent Zones”’ (Chapter 10) identifies influential sociological concepts and methods across various paradigmatic approaches, including the influential concept of Simmel’s ‘stranger’ as well as the contributions of European critical sociologists (e.g. Habermas, Foucault). In particular, this chapter is a plea for more attention to the ‘silent zones’ in intercultural communication research – the geographical and conceptual gaps in current scholarship. It identifies historically under-researched topics (e.g. hidden/forbidden cultural practices, posthumanism) and addresses issues of socioeconomic and structural disparities particularly in the silent zones of the Global South region. The aim is to incorporate community authorship, alternate wisdoms and, ultimately, facilitate meaningful societal changes towards plurality, sustainability and the ecology of culture and languages.

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In closing Part II, Richard Evanoff’s chapter, ‘Introducing Intercultural Ethics’ (Chapter 11), examines aspects that are key for most of the approaches mentioned above. Intercultural ethics is here defined as the process by which people from different cultures negotiate the norms that will govern relations between them at a variety of levels, including interpersonal, intergroup and international. The chapter then discusses descriptive, normative and meta-ethical directions as three main methodological approaches to intercultural ethics, and it concludes by considering how intercultural dialogue on ethics might be conducted. In particular, Evanoff suggests that it may be possible for people from different cultures to co-create ethical norms on the basis of ‘third cultures’.

3

Methods

The third part provides a survey of methods and methodologies in intercultural communication. In line with Nakayama’s plea to focus more on the continuities and discontinuities in power relations (Part II, Chapter 5), Lara Martin Lengel, Ahmet Atay and Yannick Kluch propose in their chapter, ‘Decolonizing Gender and Intercultural Communication in Transnational Contexts’ (Chapter 12), to theorize decolonization as a framework that emphasizes empowerment through the potential to reframe and re/envision history. The aim is to break away from dominant Western and US-centric ways of studying culture, communication and identity and the relationships among them, including especially the construction and performance of gender. This chapter also presents methodological strategies for critical intercultural communication research, particularly with focus on the intersectional nature of gender, identity, culture and power. Peter Stockinger’s chapter on ‘Migration in the Digital Social Mediasphere’ (Chapter 13) provides a comprehensive theoretical and methodological framework for describing and interpreting audiovisual media as ‘tools’ for producing and communicating cultural images in the form of ‘common cultural topics’. This could be regarded as a potentially very fruitful way to take research on cultural values further (e.g. Tuleja & Schachner, Part II, Chapter 6) and it includes the elaboration of a research methodology based on structural semiotics and discourse analysis to deal with audiovisual corpora diffused on digital media platforms. More specifically, the author’s aim is to reconstruct the ‘meaning landscape’ of cultural images of migration based on a canon of ‘topoï’, which are used to produce, communicate, share and advocate cultural visions of the other. The chapter interprets such cultural representations through a corpus of 150 videos uploaded to YouTube and identifies them as folk culture frameworks, which are particularly popular with so-called millennials and post-millennials.

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Similar to Salo-Lee’s call for an integrative, multidisciplinary approach to intercultural communication (Part II, Chapter 7), Claus Ehrhardt in his chapter on ‘Linguistic Politeness’ (Chapter 14) proposes an approach that considers politeness as an integrative part to intercultural communication. Intercultural communication and politeness, Ehrhardt argues, are both theoretical models and social practices, with politeness forming one of the most prominent links between languages, cultures and communication, allowing for deeper understanding of intercultural communication. At the same time, he calls for more extensive empirical work to fully explore the dynamics of social relations in intercultural communication. The next three chapters link up to Neumann’s exploration of the power of literature (Part II, Chapter 8), but they take her ideas on the intercultural potential of narratives in three different directions: intercultural German studies, storytelling and cinema. Gesine Lenore Schiewer’s chapter, ‘Contemporary Literature and Intercultural Understanding’ (Chapter 15), explores approaches within intercultural German studies, which combine literary studies and communication research, to assess how dialogue competences and intercultural understanding can be trained by working with literary texts. After a presentation of selected research on intercultural communication, language learning and literature as well as a discussion of appropriate communication theories, the chapter examines selected literary texts and their potential for intercultural understanding. This leads to suggestions for applied work in the context of secondary schools, university courses, teacher training and communication training. In ‘Enhancing Intercultural Skills through Storytelling’ (Chapter 16), Stephan Wolting explores storytelling as an essential contribution to the development of intercultural skills, knowledge and competences. In the light of research on individual and collective formations of identity, the author comes to the conclusion that the significance of storytelling is likely to increase in the medium and long term. Moreover, contemporary cultural and memory studies as well as research in creative and autobiographical writing highlight storytelling as an innovative and sustainable area for the development of intercultural communication. Joanne Leal’s chapter, ‘Cinema as Intercultural Communication’ (Chapter 17), investigates how far and how exactly cinema is able to offer a representational counterbalance to conservative notions of national belonging and exclusionary constructions of what social cohesion should mean. It considers these issues mainly within a Western European framework, asking what film can do to promote intercultural sensitivities within contemporary European contexts in which attitudes to the impact of globalization and particularly the transnational movement of people are often ambivalent and sometimes actively hostile. In particular it examines critical assessments of the positive intercultural impact of watching foreign

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cinema, the possible political effects of films which encourage empathetic responses to transnational tales contained in generically familiar forms and the critical potential of two kinds of film which uses less conventional cinematic means to represent a globalized social world. In ‘Intercultural Memory and Violence in Jewish Literature’ (Chapter 18), Verena Dolle examines memories written down in exemplary fictional and referential (factual) texts by Jewish Latin American writers, especially Alberto Gerchunoff’s Los gauchos judíos (1910/1936, Argentina), Margo Glantz’s Las genealogías (1981, Mexico) and Bernardo Kucinski’s K. (2011, Brazil). Her chapter combines ideas of narrative power (Neumann, Part II, Chapter 8) and intercultural memories (Drzewiecka, Part II, Chapter 9) to analyse texts that address Jewish migration and adaptation to new countries. This leads to an elaboration of cultural memory of the Jewish minority in twentieth-century Latin America and highlights a strong correlation with the memory of the majority. By exploring the subjectivity and polyphony of memory reflected in literary texts, the chapter gives voice and visibility to competing narratives that stress crucial aspects in the interaction between different cultures. Antonio López Peláez and Emilio José Gómez Ciriano’s chapter, ‘Intercultural Communication in Social Work Practice’ (Chapter 19), draws on key ideas explored by Dutta and Martin (Part II, Chapter 10) and applies them to social work, a field that has until recently been largely neglected in intercultural communication research, although social work practice has been fundamentally shaped by international migration and globalization. López Peláez and Gómez Ciriano analyse the different frameworks within which intercultural communication is now placed in the field of social work, especially with regard to intercultural mediation. Their chapter then focuses on the extent to which intercultural communication is present in the different degrees in social work and social care studies in Spain, before it examines examples of intercultural communication in social work practice and concludes with recommendations for social workers. The next two chapters draw on key ideas elaborated by Evanoff (Part II, Chapter 11), especially on the plea to negotiate cultural norms that govern relations between people at different levels, which correlates with the development of intracultural and intercultural competence. In ‘Intercultural Education in Study Abroad Contexts’ (Chapter 20), Jane Jackson rejects the assumption that tertiary students who participate in a study abroad programme will always become more interculturally competent, globalminded and proficient in a second language. Drawing on contemporary research findings, her chapter gives reasons for strikingly different sojourn outcomes and develops a rationale for intercultural interventions at all stages of the study abroad cycle: pre-sojourn, sojourn and post-sojourn.

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The chapter underscores the need to define key constructs (e.g. culture and interculturality) when designing an intervention and explains how recent advances in theories, pedagogy and technology are bringing about exciting changes in intercultural education in study abroad contexts. Examples of innovative intercultural pedagogy in a variety of study abroad programmes are presented, including interventions that encourage students to push past ‘them versus us’ discourse to acquire a more critical awareness of themselves and their positioning in the world. The chapter draws attention to the numerous benefits of linking intercultural theories and study abroad research findings with practice to help achieve some of the common aims of internationalization, including enhanced intercultural learning and engagement and global-mindedness. It also explains the importance of systematically documenting and sharing the lessons learned from intercultural interventions to improve study abroad learning, teaching and assessment practices. Bertil Cottier’s chapter, ‘Intercultural Communication in the Courtroom: The Doctrine of Public Policy’ (Chapter 21), explores the doctrine of ordre public, which allows judges to block the ‘import’ of unacceptable foreign customs and traditions and which has received significant attention in the context of enhanced international relations at the personal and social level, including interethnic marriages and mass immigration. The ordre public doctrine is examined in respect of issues pertaining to family law and succession law, two domains where its impact is most significant since marriage, divorce, filiation and inheritance are deeply rooted in social and religious values. Special attention is paid to the clash, generated by increasing immigration from Muslim countries, between Islamic legal institutions such as polygamy and repudiation and Western principles of equality and non-discrimination.

4

Application

The fourth part of The Handbook shifts focus towards the application of the different theories and approaches to intercultural communication in a range of different contexts. Focusing on refugee students, Emmanuelle le Pichon-Vorstman, in her chapter ‘Intercultural Communication in the Context of the Hypermobility of the School Population in and out of Europe’ (Chapter 22), discusses how intercultural communication has imposed itself as a requirement with regard to the integration of these students in schools. In particular, le Pichon-Vorstman raises two key issues: (1) students’ mobility and the organization of their educational trajectories; and (2) potential segregation and the danger of social exclusion of this vulnerable group of students.

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Marie-Thérèse Claes’s chapter ‘Culture and Management’ (Chapter 23), examines the impact of positivist theories in intercultural management and proposes three further positions that hold a scientific view of culture, making a distinction between emic and etic approaches. In particular, this chapter suggests a moves from positivist to interpretive, postmodern and critical approaches, all of which are illustrated with examples. In line with the linguistic approaches discussed by Salo-Lee (Part II, Chapter 7) and Ehrhardt (Part III, Chapter 14), Anne Ife’s ‘Language and Othering in Contemporary Europe’ (Chapter 24) traces attitudes towards language tolerance in Western Europe during the last half of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century. This includes an exploration of the post-Second World War climate of cultural and linguistic acceptance as well as the current climate shaped by increased fear and suspicion, and the growth of populism and resentment of incomers. Using media and documented sources and relevant research findings, this chapter examines the evidence of linguistic othering and gauges its impact on intercultural relations, notably in the UK where language issues featured prominently in political campaigns and media discourse relating to migrant communities in the lead-up to the 2016 European Union referendum. Chapters 25 and 26 present applications to methodological suggestions regarding the power of narratives (e.g. proposed in Part III by Schiewer, Chapter 15; Wolting, Chapter 16; and Leal, Chapter 17). In ‘Black British Writing: Benjamin Zephaniah’s Didactic Poetics’ (Chapter 25), Deirdre Osborne examines Black British poetry as a distinctly aesthetic vehicle for catalysing intercultural communication. The chapter explores the concept of ‘Didactic Poetics’ in relation to intercultural communication as both ‘instructive’, that is teaching the reader how to read, listen and (re-) contemplate culture from minoritized perspectives, and ‘consequentialist’, in the sense that it speaks to a collective experience of the consequences of the British Empire’s aftermath and the vast inequalities caused by its legacy. In setting the parameters of cultural change from a frequently marginalized position in Britain’s institutions, Black British writers challenge – Osborne argues – canonical competencies to exert a palpable influence upon intercultural awareness. Of particular interest are Benjamin Zephaniah’s 1990s works City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996) and School’s Out: Poems Not For School (1997), because they exemplify Spivak’s call to deconstruct the dominant cultural processes that denote knowledge value through ‘reversing, displacing, and seizing the apparatus of value-coding itself’ (1990), and to build coalitions of resistance and understanding (Lugones, 2007). Sarah Barrow’s chapter, ‘Cultural Encounters in Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Intersections of Transnationality’ (Chapter 26), explores several examples from contemporary Latin American cinema as case studies to address some of the terms and

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issues that are raised by the notion of transnational cinematographic (dis) connections, and to capitalize on the productive intersection of ideas and debates that have begun to emerge in this area. Analyses of important films from Chile, Mexico and Peru that have crossed borders from many logistical and conceptual perspectives are deployed to highlight some of the many ways that we might better understand the way that film culture explores, highlights, disrupts and interrogates notions of intercultural communication. In ‘Religion and Intercultural Communication’ (Chapter 27), Margaret Littler adopts a critical approach to the understanding of religion as an object of intercultural knowledge, diverging from a view of religion as a set of codified and culturally specific practices and proposing instead an appreciation of the transformative nature of faith as a dynamic potentiality within life. Her chapter, which draws on ideas relating to the power of narratives and memory (e.g. in Part III, Schiewer, Chapter 15; Wolting, Chapter 16; Leal, Chapter 17; Dolle, Chapter 18), argues for a nonrepresentational approach to literary texts, in which religion is not only content or theme, but a source of creative intensity that erupts into a settled understanding of religious orthodoxies. The chapter focuses on German-language texts that engage creatively with religion, making of it an emergent phenomenon with the potential to unsettle and expand the dominant images of Islam and Christianity circulating in Europe today. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of minor literature, it seeks to demonstrate how a non-representational reading of texts opens up unexpected perspectives rather than representing what is already known. Bronwen Walter’s chapter, ‘Irish–English Cultural Encounters in the Diaspora’ (Chapter 28), draws on sociological concepts (e.g. Dutta & Martin, Part II, Chapter 10; López Peláez & Gómez Ciriano, Part III, Chapter 19) in its exploration of hidden nuances in relationships between Irish migrants and their descendants on the one hand and people of English background on the other. The chapter draws on qualitative data from ten discussion groups with second-generation Irish ‘experts’ in four locations in England – London, Manchester, Coventry and Banbury. Four themes are identified which illustrate major areas of cultural difference: language, religiosity, the importance of family and sociability. The author argues that the widespread failure to recognize them has led to inequalities in many parts of society. In ‘Intercultural Dimensions in Academic Mobility: South Korea and Spain’ (Chapter 29), F. Manuel Montalbán, Francisco M. Llorente and Evelina Zurita apply key ideas from critical assessments of study abroad contexts (e.g. Jackson, Part III, Chapter 20) when they examine the effects of academic mobility on exchange students’ intercultural competence. Their chapter draws on comments from Spanish and South Korean students

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within joint internationalization programmes led by the University of Malaga and South Korean universities to analyse how exactly international students construct their cultural experiences. In particular, they discover three interpretative repertoires, which focus on fundamental aspects of these experiences: mastery and interest in the language, counterstereotypic otherness and differentiation at the individual level. Some student comments demonstrate that progress in intercultural competence is frequently left to the spontaneous development of informal and personal interactions.

5

Assessment

Having explored the different theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches to intercultural communication, as well as a range of different contexts of application, the final part of The Handbook is dedicated to the discussion of different ways of assessing intercultural communication and intercultural communicative competence. Darla K. Deardorff’s chapter, ‘Defining, Developing and Assessing Intercultural Competence’ (Chapter 30), provides an overview of established definitions of intercultural competence before it examines how it is developed in a variety of contexts, including education, healthcare and within international organizations. The chapter concludes by outlining some principles of intercultural competence assessment as well as the changing assessment paradigm. In ‘Effects of Social Media Use on Cultural Adaptation’ (Chapter 31), Stephen M. Croucher and Ming Li start by providing an overview of the concepts of cultural adaptation and cultural fusion, highlighting how newcomers adapt to the new culture while also maintaining elements of their own culture. Simultaneously, they argue, interactions between the dominant and newcomer cultures lead to cultural changes in the dominant culture. Using Bourdieu’s notion of social capital, the chapter then discusses how social media play an important role in intercultural adaptations in terms of establishing interpersonal connections and acquiring intercultural communication skills and knowledge of the host society’s values and interaction protocols. We conclude this volume with Milton J. Bennett’s chapter on ‘A Constructivist Approach to Assessing Intercultural Communication Competence’ (Chapter 32). Setting out by providing an overview of assessing intercultural communicative competence (ICC) through a constructivist lens, Bennett uses the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity as an example of how constructivist theory and methodology can be applied to assessing ICC.

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References Bhabha, H. (2010 [1994]). The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge. Hall, S. (1980 [1973]). Encoding, decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, et al., eds., Culture, Media, Language. Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972–1979. London: Hutchinson, pp. 128–39. Hall, S. (1985). Signification, representation, ideology: Althusser and the poststructuralist debates. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 2(2), 91–114. Halualani, R. T. and Nakayama, T. K. (2010). Critical intercultural communication studies: At a crossroads. In R. T. Halualani and T. K. Nakayama, eds., The Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1–16. Jackson, J. (2014). Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication. New York: Routledge. Jandt, F. E. (2016). An introduction to Intercultural Communication. Identities in a Global Community, 9th ed. London: Sage. Lugones, M. (2007). Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1), 186–209. Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., Scollon, S. B. K. and Jones, R. H. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach, 3rd ed. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Spivak, G. C. (1990). Poststructuralism, marginality, postcoloniality and value. In P. Collier and H. Geyer-Ryan, eds., Literary Theory Today. Oxford: Polity Press, pp. 219–44.

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1 What Is Culture? Werner Delanoy

1.1

Introduction

It is a truth widely acknowledged that scholars in want of a definition of culture state that this is a term most difficult to explain. For Williams, culture ‘is one of the three most complicated words in the English language’ (1984: 87). Williams adds that this complexity results from the term’s ‘intricate historical development in different languages’ (p. 87) and its multiple ‘variations of use’ (p. 92). Building on Williams, Eagleton claims that ‘culture is a multifaceted concept, which makes it hard to run a tightly unified case about it’ (2016: viii). In similar terms, for Hall ‘culture is one of the most difficult concepts in the human and social sciences’ with ‘many different ways of defining it’ (1997a: 2). Yet all these scholars offer definitions by tracking the term’s histories and by pinpointing its different meanings. Following their approach, this article aims to highlight central meanings of the term in both diachronic and synchronic ways. What further complicates such an endeavour, however, is the explosion of culture-related research since the 1970s, cutting across disciplinary borders and leading to a variety of approaches to, and definitions of, culture. Following Clifford’s comment that ‘cultures do not hold still for their portraits’ (1986: 10), the same can be said of the manifold scholarly perspectives informing culture-related research. Thus, any attempt to capture the dynamics of the notions of culture in circulation – both in everyday discourse and in scholarly debates – can only be selective and subject to limitations. Yet, given the myriad instances in which this term is invoked, some clarity about what people mean by culture is indispensable for understanding the motives underlying how the term has been used in past and current debates. This article, therefore, aims to clarify different meanings

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of the term ‘culture’ and to invite discussion on a polyvalent, highly complex and developing concept.

1.2

Meanings of ‘Culture’: From the Roman colere to the Linguistic Turn

Employing a historical perspective, scholars such as Ort (2003: 19), Posner (2003: 39) and Williams (1984: 87) refer to the Latin verb colere as the linguistic and conceptual basis for the modern term ‘culture’. The meanings of colere are fourfold: (1) the tending of natural growth (husbandry, agriculture); (2) habitation in an area or place (the term ‘colony’ is a derivative of this meaning); (3) religious worship (cultus deorum); and (4) the spiritual, artistic and intellectual education of people (as in Cicero’s cultura animi or the Greek concept of paideia) (Ort, 2003: 19; Williams, 1984: 87). In the Middle Ages only two of these meanings remain active, namely culture as husbandry (cultura agri) and culture as religious worship (cultus). In the Renaissance a new meaning becomes important, which links back to the Latin cultura animi and the Greek paideia’, yet now with a secular emphasis. Culture, here, stands for human development, in the sense of both self-realization and collective development. In both instances the term designates an open-ended process towards human perfection. As for self-realization, such development implies moral education and the use of reason and scientific method. In its collective dimension, in line with a heliotropic worldview where great civilizations follow the course of the sun, European culture is seen as the culminating point in the history of civilizations (e.g. Piller, 2011: 20). Moreover, culture is placed in opposition to nature, whose roughness, savagery and unpredictability need to be tempered and improved upon by human intervention through education and through control over the natural environment (Ort, 2003: 19). With the advent of Romanticism, the term culture takes on a new meaning. As a reaction to the excesses of industrialization, the idea of culture is now linked to the wish to go back to a pre-industrial state in which human life was not corrupted by ‘soulless and impoverished’ industrial civilization (Eagleton, 2016: 10). Thus, culture and civilization, which in their meanings have previously been used interchangeably, now become opposite terms, with culture being the privileged concept (e.g. Ort, 2003: 21, 24). A key thinker here is the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, who breaks with earlier concepts in various ways. First, he is critical of European colonialism and its claim to cultural superiority (Eagleton, 2016: 77–8, 83; Herder, 1989 [1784–91]: 706). Rather than seeing cultural development as a universal and unilinear process, he speaks of a plurality of

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cultures, each having the right to exist with its own specific features (Herder, 1989: 298–304). Secondly, these different cultures are constituted by the Romantic concept of an ‘informing spirit’ (Williams, 1983: 11), which Herder conceives as being the result of a long tradition passed on over many generations (Herder, 1989: 294–335). Thirdly, in the light of the corrupting presence of civilization, Herder suggests a return to an unadulterated folk culture which helps to promote the health and longevity of a nation (Herder, 1989: 573). Fourthly, in current debates Herder is mainly criticized for viewing cultures as homogeneous, closed entities with distinctive world views (Eagleton, 2016: 83; Welsch, 2017: 10–11). However, Herder is not entirely averse to cultural hybridization, as becomes obvious in his comments on the composite nature of European culture (Herder, 1989: 707). Finally, contrary to a Cartesian perspective, Herder prefers intuition and faith over rational speculation (Eagleton, 2016: 81; Herder, 1989: part II). Following Herder’s definition, culture now designates a particular way of life, and, with the rise of nationalism, the term becomes a synonym for national culture. Culture as a way of life is also the concept used by early anthropology. Unlike Herder’s thinking, early anthropology is shaped by the belief in the superiority of European culture(s), as can be seen in the theories of social evolution suggested by Tylor (1903 [1871]) and Morgan (2013 [1851]). Eagleton, therefore, speaks of ‘the unholy alliance between colonial power and 19th century anthropology’ (2016: 131), and Piller adds that this belief in European cultural superiority ‘provided the moral justification for colonialism’ (2011: 21). In the second half of the nineteenth century another meaning of culture becomes established, one which is narrower in scope. As suggested by Arnold in Culture and Anarchy, culture, here, stands for ‘the best which has been thought and said’ (1996 [1869]: 6). In the light of this approach, high culture, as defined and practised by an elite group of artists and intellectuals, is put forward as the force to temper and refine people’s wild impulses and to unite nations riven by conflict (Eagleton, 2016: 118). The notion of culture as the spiritual means for national unification also lies at the heart of Whitman’s poetic and political programme. However, in contrast to concepts that stress national homogeneity, Whitman’s notion of e pluribus unum acknowledges the United States’ great cultural diversity. At the same time, he sees it as the task of the avant-garde poet to create a unifying force to hold the diverse energies together in the face of potential civil-war separation (Erkilla, 1989: 93–4). In contrast to Arnold and Whitman, Karl Marx regards culture as a phenomenon of secondary importance. For Marx (1867), culture is a superstructure dependent on a society’s economic base, which, depending on the specific constitution of that society, makes certain realizations of culture possible.

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All the above meanings persist in current debates, particularly outside academia. In academia, the term culture takes on a further meaning, which by the twentieth century has become the dominant definition. In Williams’ words, culture is defined as ‘the signifying system through which . . . a social order is communicated, experienced and reproduced’ (1983: 12). In other words, culture, here, stands for the language used by humans to give meaning to their lives. According to Ort (2003: 24) and Posner (2003: 39), such a perspective has its founding father in the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1998 [1923–29]), who defined culture as the sum total of a society’s signifying practices. According to Bachmann-Medick (2016: 21–2), another key influence is linguistic philosophy as advocated by Rorty (1967) with its tenet that there is no reality independent of language. Despite the continuing importance of this concept, the strong version of this theory, where language is viewed as ‘the’ dominant force, has been criticized by many scholars who warn against the disregard for non-linguistic influences inherent in such a perspective (e.g. Delanda, 2016: 25; Eagleton, 2016: 42–4; Hall, 1997b: 51). For these critics, culture as a signifying system co-shapes reality, yet it is in turn also shaped by non-linguistic factors – which is the view preferred by the author of this text. There are several sound reasons for advocating a semiotic definition of culture. First, scholars have expressed dissatisfaction with the notion of culture as a whole way of life, which in the eyes of Williams (1983: 209) or Eagleton (2016: 3) is too all-encompassing in approach. They argue that such a wide-reaching concept always runs the risk of ignoring or marginalizing economic, political, ecological or technological factors. Secondly, a restrictive definition with the emphasis on high culture can thus be avoided, since signifying practices concern all the discourses in circulation. Thirdly, essentialist concepts such as culture as the informing spirit of a people can now be discussed as discursive constructions serving particular purposes.

1.3

Meanings of ‘Culture’: From the Linguistic Turn to the Present Day

Since around 1970 ‘culture’ has become a widely used term in manifold contexts. In politics, it has served the far right to hide their racism behind insistence on preserving a culture in the face of unbridgeable cultural differences, while disadvantaged groups such as women or gay people have invoked it to fight for their identity-related aims. In business management, intercultural training seminars are offered, which focus on the behavioural dos and don’ts in intercultural business relationships, with the aim of generating sales and profits. In addition, there is a culture industry that

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imbues almost all goods with symbolic value to influence people’s world views and to instil in them a consumer mentality (Prischnig, 2009: 94). Finally, with the flourishing of culture studies as a transdisciplinary research field,1 many new perspectives have been developed, which in scholarly debates have been discussed as different cultural turns (Bachmann-Medick, 2016; Hegeman, 2012). This wealth of research has considerably increased the scope for culturerelated reflection. However, it has further complicated any attempts to gain an overview of the positions and definitions in circulation and mutation. In their comprehensive 1952 study, Kroeber and Kluckhohn distinguished 150 different definitions of culture. Nowadays, any similar attempt would probably end in a wild goose chase.

1.3.1 Cultural Research as Interpretation For Bachmann-Medick (2016: 21–3) the basis for the proliferation of research perspectives since the 1970s is the linguistic turn, with its premise that people’s understanding of reality is shaped by their uses of language. A key characteristic of this approach is its ‘strict departure from positivism’ (Bachmann-Medick, 2016: 22). Instead, an interpretive perspective is suggested, where cultural phenomena are studied as texts, performances or translations, as will be shown in the following reflections. Clifford Geertz’s work in the 1970s is a good example of an early realization of this approach. Geertz makes a case for a semiotic understanding of culture by arguing that cultures are ‘the webs of significance’ spun by human beings (1975a: 5), in which they are both caught and at the same time active as creators of new connections. For Geertz, this involvement in networks of significance requires an interpretive approach, by which scholars try to make sense of the meanings spun by people. In his famous essay on the Balinese practice of cockfighting (Geertz, 1975b), his method of interpretation becomes obvious. Geertz offers a thick description of cockfighting to capture the density of this specific practice. He then uses his textual notes to contextualize this practice within Balinese society in an attempt to understand its symbolic significance. According to Bachmann-Medick, Geertz’s method is ‘synecdochic’ in approach as it concludes from a single practice, which is documented in textual form, a general, holistic interpretation of Balinese culture and society (2016: 45). Indeed, there are severe limitations to such a 1

‘Culture studies’ serves as an umbrella term including different approaches to research on culture, such as anglophone cultural studies, German ‘Kulturwissenschaften’, cosmopolitan perspectives or different concepts in postcolonial studies. For example, see Winter (2016: 202) for a distinction between cultural studies approaches and ‘Kulturwissenschaften’, Chakrabarty (2000) and Dussel (2013) for a closer understanding of cosmopolitan perspectives, and Sobré-Denton and Bardhan (2014) for postcolonial viewpoints.

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methodology. Bachmann-Medick (2016: 52) argues that the ethnographer does not engage in a dialogue with Balinese people but imposes on them an interpretation that results from outside observation, thus treating them as ‘cultural representatives’ only. Moreover, a static image of a Balinese culture is created through texts fabricated by the researcher. In addition, the focus is on culturally shared values, thus insinuating the homogeneity of cultures. Finally, the outside interpreter is presuming to have the authority and power to give meaning to the practices of other people. The importance of interpretation is acknowledged by proponents of turns after Geertz, including the performative, postcolonial, translational and reflexive turn. However, their practices go beyond Geertz’s approach in significant ways. Advocates of the ‘performative turn’ see cultures as always in the making, i.e. as generated through continuous acts of performance. Such a perspective plays a significant role in Butler’s gender theory, with its focus on how gender values are internalized, embodied and challenged through repeated re-enactment (1999: 171–90). Such approaches have also shifted attention to ‘liminality and cultural innovation’ (Bachmann-Medick, 2016: 81–3). The term ‘liminality’ relates to disorienting, often contradictory in-between experiences, in which cultural values can be subverted or transformed, Homi Bhabha’s third-space metaphor (2004: 53–6) being a good example. Furthermore, the focus has shifted from shared values to ‘zones of contention’ (Eagleton, 2016: 128) with fissures, fault lines or unresolved ambivalences coming to the fore. Such zones of contention and innovation have played a significant role in the ‘postcolonial turn’ and the ‘translational turn’. In the light of postcolonial perspectives, ‘culture is no longer viewed as a system of meanings or a container of attributed traditions, but as contradictory layers of different, conflict-causing claims, articulations, self-conceptions and marginalized areas of discourse’ (Bachmann-Medick, 2016: 147). Concrete examples for such thinking are Frantz Fanon’s (1986 [1952]) notion of the split colonial subject and Homi Bhabha’s (2004) concept of mimicry. In a similar way, a translational perspective can bring to light ‘breaks, mistranslations and failed translation attempts’ (BachmannMedick, 2016: 186). The term translation, here, goes far beyond its traditional meaning of rendering texts into another language. It also extends to people and to what happens to them when they move into a new or different environment (e.g. Bassnett & Trivedi, 1999; Bhabha, 2004: 247). A further perspective is provided by the ‘reflexive turn’. Here, the key idea is that researchers do not give an objective account of the cultures under study but bring their own mindsets, including their power claims, into play when offering interpretations. In ethnography, this plea for critical self-reflection is stressed by Clifford, who argues that ethnographic studies are ‘partial truths’, i.e. that the knowledge created is (a) a

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fabrication and (b) subject to the limited pre-understanding of the researcher (1986: 1). In similar terms, George Marcus adds that engagement with cultures always implies a ‘surplus of difference’ that is not covered in the ethnographer’s account (1998: 186). If created knowledge is identified as a fabrication, however, this does not imply that the researcher deliberately creates, in the diction of Donald Trump, ‘alternative facts’. The term ‘partial-truth’ instead implies that the researcher makes a strong effort to give a truthful account despite the above-mentioned limitations. When applied to this handbook entry, therefore, the partiality of my reflections – in the double meaning of the word ‘partiality’ – needs to be stressed, the adjective ‘partial’ meaning both ‘incomplete’ and ‘unfair’. My account is incomplete because of the immense volume of texts and debates focused on culture-related issues, of which only a small proportion are alluded to in my discussion. It is also unfair since it favours certain debates. Indeed, my reflections are mainly influenced by definitions of culture as offered by Anglo-American and European scholars. There are references to postcolonial perspectives, yet Chakrabarty’s appeal to ‘provincialize’ (2000: 3–23), i.e. to de-centre Western perspectives, is only mentioned in passing. Like Chakrabarty, Dussel has argued that postcolonial cultures have their own rich histories and are capable of independent concept-formation (2013: 167). This perspective is indeed only covered marginally. Given such limitations, this chapter does not claim to give a full and unbiased account. Instead, it is intended as a self-critical invitation to its readers to compare their notions of culture with those expressed in this piece.

1.3.2 Cultures and Cultural Research in a Globalized Modernity In the face of transnational business relations, global ecological risks, world-spanning communication networks and migration on an unprecedented scale, new concepts of space have been developed to better understand how cultures coexist, interpenetrate, develop and conflict with one another in a globalized modernity. In this context, Bachmann-Medick (2016: 211–58) speaks of a ‘spatial turn’ in culture studies, whose proponents have focused on the dynamics of social relations in a world shaped by globalization processes. An early contribution to this debate is Soja’s Postmodern Geographies (1989), which argues in favour of a synchronic perspective to draw attention to the coexistence of diverse life approaches and the unequal distribution of power in social spaces. While in Soja’s case the focus is on difference and inequality, other approaches have shifted attention to hybridization processes in contemporary life-worlds. Indeed, the prefix often used to indicate this mode of spatial perception is ‘trans’, which can mean both ‘across’ and ‘beyond’. In other words, such perspectives are focused on phenomena that cut across cultures and go

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beyond definitions of culture as a homogeneous and closed entity. An important perspective is ‘transculturality’, which is a broad church indeed, including highly heterogeneous approaches (Delanoy, 2014). In German-speaking countries, Wolfgang Welsch is a major contributor to debates around the term. Welsch’s concept is strictly opposed to the notion of cultural monoliths, arguing in favour of cultural heterogeneity, cultural hybridization and open cultural boundaries in the interest of a more peaceful world. His concept, however, is also problematic, since until recently he has mainly stressed the positive impact of globalization processes without addressing the gross power imbalances resulting from them (e.g. Welsch, 1999; 2014). However, in his 2017 monograph, Welsch discusses globalization and transculturality as ambivalent phenomena (2017: 26–7). In Anglo-American and postcolonial debates, concepts of transculturality have usually been linked to powercritical perspectives. A good example is Marwan Kraidy (2005), who makes a case for a critical transculturalism that investigates neoliberal practices as the driving force behind current globalization processes. In a globalized modernity, ethical issues have taken on new spatial proportions. In recent cosmopolitan debates, a universalism is suggested that goes beyond concepts privileging European and Anglo-American perspectives. In line with the reflexive turn, a case is made for acknowledging a person’s implication in a certain tradition. Sobré-Denton and Bardham state that ‘claims of universality always arise out of particular locations’ (2014: 21). They argue in favour of a ‘dialogue between multiple universalisms arising from various cultural viewpoints and locations from around the world’ (p. 21), thus rejecting earlier Eurocentric concepts. They also characterize their approach as a ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ (p. 152), where a person’s contextual embeddedness is acknowledged, and where new perspectives are developed in an open intercultural dialogue. Another approach is Moses and Rothberg’s transcultural ethics, which sketches one possible path towards a universalistic morality. From their perspective, communities should acknowledge each other’s histories of suffering and how they are implicated in each other. That way they can develop sympathy for each other and begin to imagine ‘a more equitable future’ in transnational terms (Moses & Rothberg, 2015: 29, 33). In view of the various turns, which more recently include the ‘iconic turn’ (Boehm, 2015; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012) and the ‘cognitive turn’ (to be discussed in Section 4.2), Bachmann-Medick poses the question of whether ‘we now need a dialogical turn in order to escape the danger of the postdisciplinary fragmentation of the research landscape’ (2016: 280). To my mind, developing dialogic perspectives is a daunting but indispensable project. Such a project could build on a variety of already existing dialogic approaches, including a hermeneutics after Gadamer

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(e.g. Delanoy, 2017; Kögler, 1992), schools of ideology critique (e.g. Zima, 1999: 190–213), Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of heteroglossia, or Benhabib’s notion of a ‘complex cultural dialogue’ of global proportions (2002: 22). For all of these approaches, dialogue recognizes from the outset that human perspectives are always limited, unfinished and implicated in power claims. Yet through confrontation with other viewpoints a better understanding of self and other – the two being relational terms – and a fairer distribution of power can be achieved.

1.4

How Important is Culture for Constituting Human Life-Worlds?

Culture-related studies have proliferated since around 1970 to such an extent that a ‘turn away from the cultural turn’ has been suggested (Hegeman, 2012: 8). While advocates of the primacy of cultural perspectives refer to the salience of culture for the constitution of human life-worlds, opponents deem non-cultural factors to be more important. In the following, the focus is on three of the positions in this debate: a for- and an againstperspective, plus attempts at integrating the two dialogically. As for the first two positions, attention will be drawn to two well-known books, namely Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011) and Eagleton’s Culture (2016). In the second part of this section, this debate will be linked to approaches which may well point to future directions for engagement with human and posthuman life-worlds.

1.4.1 Which Comes First, Culture or Non-Culture? For some proponents of the cultural turns, language and its social function lie at the heart of human existence. An earlier example is Foucault’s (1970) argument that certain discursive formations provide the basis for what can be said, thought, felt and done in specific socio-historical contexts, with the will to power being the key motivator for discoursecreation. Four decades later, an alternative explanation is offered by the historian Harari (2011: 181) in his bestselling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harari (2011: 181) stresses the importance of powerful myths and fictions as the glue that holds people together. For him, the notions of religion, empire and money have proven to be the most effective forces in the history of humankind for creating imagined communities, with trust in money being the myth on which a neoliberal socio-economic order is based (Harari,

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2011: 234). Such trust includes the beliefs in the universal convertibility of money, continuous economic growth, and trust in a credit system inviting further investment. It shapes people’s mindsets by fostering a consumer mentality, encouraging risk-taking, or calling other powerful myths such as religion into question. All these ‘myths’ create ‘artificial instincts that [have] enabled millions of strangers to cooperate effectively’ (Harari, 2011: 181). Harari thus defines culture as a ‘network of artificial instincts’ created through powerful myths (p. 181). He adds that such myths are hegemonic in design, i.e. they ‘disavow [their] fictional origins and [claim] to be natural and inevitable’ (p. 150). Other scholars prefer to downplay the importance of culture as a signifying system. A good example is Eagleton’s monograph Culture (2016). Like Harari, Eagleton views culture as a force which influences people unconsciously. For him, culture is rooted in the ‘social unconscious . . . the vast repository of instincts, prejudices, pieties, sentiments, half-formed opinions and spontaneous assumptions which underpins our everyday activity, and which we rarely call into question’ (Eagleton, 2016: 49). In line with Harari, his position, therefore, also implies the need for critical perspectives to raise awareness of the workings of this powerful force. However, for Eagleton culture is not in itself the determining factor but a result of human materiality. Eagleton argues that of the material factors, the biological conditions shaping human lives are especially key determinants: people are born prematurely and their lives are finite (2016: 43). As a result, humans need cultures as nurturing systems for their survival. As a Marxist and humanist, Eagleton makes a case for support systems, by which humans can care for and share resources with one other as equals, and by which they can strive for self-realization (p. 106–7). For Eagleton, too strong a focus on language can divert attention away from more important issues such as ‘war, hunger, drugs, arms, genocide, disease [and] ecological disaster’, which ‘have their cultural aspects, but culture is not the core of them’ (p. 161). However, because systems of nurture can differ greatly in approach, I would not reduce culture to the status of a phenomenon of secondary importance. In other words, the social system preferred by Eagleton also depends on powerful discourses to create this specific view and to anchor it in people’s minds. Most current approaches do not wish to privilege either culture or other dimensions. Instead, they argue in favour of a dialogic approach, in which culture as a signifying system interacts with other factors, all having a shaping influence on one another. This may well mean that in certain constellations cultural or non-cultural factors can prove more important. Yet, there is no pre-given hierarchy, which is also the perspective that connects best to the dialogic approach advocated by the

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author of this entry. Such a perspective has been suggested, for example, by Williams (1983), Hall (1997b), and Nünning and Sommer (2004).

1.4.2 Culture and Beyond: New Directions? The interplay between cultural and non-cultural factors assumes a significant role in some current debates, which may well prove important for future theory-building. One of these concepts is ‘assemblage theory’, the term ‘assemblage’ going back to Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 503). Building on their concept, Delanda (2016) has developed a transdisciplinary theory that spans the humanities and the sciences. Delanda does not speak of cultures but of specific social wholes, constituted by the interaction of their various component parts, and defines ‘assemblages’ as specific, historically contingent constellations of interacting heterogeneous elements (2016: 19–20). For Delanda, such constellations comprise components such as ‘persons, material and symbolic artefacts’, plus environmental factors such as natural resources or topographic variables (e.g. mountains, coastlines) (p. 35). Studying social formations from this perspective goes beyond the cultural turns by including a broader spectrum of non-cultural factors, thus inviting a wider-ranging understanding of the constituent parts influencing human life-forms. Delanda acknowledges the importance of language as a constituting factor but warns against the ‘imperialist pretensions’ of language-based theories, which result from the ‘capacity [of language] to represent or translate all other strata’ (p. 25). The concept of assemblage can also be found in posthuman critical theory, with its focus on the interplay of human and non-human actors (Braidotti, 2018: 339). In contradistinction to transhumanists’ positive assessment of human enhancement technologies (e.g. Kurzweil, 2005), critical posthumanists have linked their engagement with environmental factors and new technologies to power-critical perspectives in the interest of a socialist and democratic agenda (Braidotti, 2013; Hayles, 1999). Posthumanism questions dualisms such as human and animal, nature and culture, and living organism and machine by showing how these phenomena can interact and condition each other (Braidotti, 2013; Haraway, 1991). It is worthwhile adding in passing that such thinking can benefit a dialogic approach by extending its scope of non-human actors, by questioning various dualisms, and by bringing dialogic concepts up to date with stateof-the-art technological development. The interaction between culture and nature is also of central significance in cognitive cultural studies which combines ‘literary and cultural analysis with insights from neuroscience, discursive psychology, cognitive evolutionary psychology and anthropology, cognitive linguistics, and philosophy

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of mind’ (Zunshine, 2010: 1). For proponents of this school of thought, ‘nature is not the other, the opposite of culture, but its condition’ (Grosz, 2005: 46). As stated above, this idea can also be found in Eagleton’s notion of culture, where being born prematurely necessitates culture as a system of nurturing. In cognitive cultural studies, however, the focus is on the architecture of the human brain, which has evolved through human interaction with changing environments. In the light of this non-dualistic approach, the brain is both a natural and a cultural phenomenon, since its neural architecture is the biological foundation for cultural development, while, on the other hand, cultural development impacts the brain as an evolving system. The concepts of culture suggested by this school are informed by the humanistic belief in the educational importance of specific cultural practices. In line with the concept of high culture, literature, here, plays a central educational role. Contrary to the notion of high culture and in line with approaches in US cultural studies (e.g. Fiske, 1989), the educational importance of popular practices (e.g. popular literature, films, sitcoms) is also acknowledged (Zunshine, 2010: 12). Such practices can help create new neural connections, which allow humans to gain new insights, and help them restructure their sensitivities in more empathetic ways (e.g. Sklar, 2009; Weik von Mossner, 2014). A central aim here is to demonstrate scientifically that practices such as literature have educational value. Indeed, by attempting to link culture-related research with scientifically generated data, such research goes beyond the interpretive research designs of the various cultural turns. From a pedagogical perspective, such data could help re-emphasize the educational importance of fiction, drama or poetry in its multi-modal realizations, which in standards-driven educational systems at best play a marginal role.

1.5

Culture and Communication in a Globalized Modernity

When culture is viewed as a signifying system, culture and communication are inextricably linked. In other words, culture is created, stabilized, contested and challenged through communication with the aid of various sign systems. In the light of Harari’s notion of myths, such communication can go beyond borders and aim for potentially worldwide impact. Indeed, the need for intercultural communication is a result of expansionist programmes (Piller, 2011: 19). In a globalized modernity, this need has increased tremendously because of economic, ecological, demographic, technological, political or ethical issues of global significance. Moreover, the availability of world-spanning communication networks has opened up

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new possibilities and increased communication to disproportionate levels when compared to earlier times. For Bauman (2000), human society in the twenty-first century lives in a ‘liquid modernity’ characterized by permanent and rapid change and the continual need to create new knowledge to cope with changing demands. The economic engine behind such modernity is neoliberalism with its consumerist and expansionist agenda. Politically and ethically, this programme has connections with concepts of postmodernism, in which old certainties are thrown overboard. As a result, state control or pre-given moral precepts have lost importance, and the onus has shifted to individual humans to take responsibility for their own lives. Indeed, because of this new global interconnectedness the personal is also implicated in widereaching dimensions. In other words, personal responsibility includes accountability for issues of potentially global significance. Moreover, since humans as social beings need to articulate and negotiate their interests, these responsibilities are connected to communicative competences. Intercultural communicative competence – which in my understanding should be recognized as an umbrella term combining so-called intercultural and transcultural competences (Delanoy, 2014, 2017) – has thus become a key competence in a globalized modernity. Indeed, the prominent role of communication in a globalized modernity is repeatedly emphasized in culture-related debates. From a cosmopolitan perspective, Sobré-Denton and Bardhan stress that ‘cosmopolitanism is inherently communicative’ (2014: 31). In a similar vein, Delanty points out that in a ‘postmodern world’ communication has become more important because of the ‘loss of markers of certainty’ (2009: 219). Delanty adds that ‘intercultural communication is now more important than ever’ and makes a case for connecting such communication with political action to further democratic aims and objectives (p. 219). In intercultural, transcultural and cosmopolitan studies, links have been forged between power-critical perspectives and communicative competence. For example, Piller states that ‘it is not the role of intercultural communication scholarship to be complicit in hegemonic cultural politics, but to help us understand how these work’ (2011: 53). Kraidy argues in favour of a transcultural perspective which gives insight into ‘the seductive discourse and reductive structure of globalization’ (2005: 161), while SobréDenton and Bardhan advocate a cosmopolitanism which is critical of colonial violence and European (and later also US) hegemony (2014: 2). For all these scholars, communicative competence includes ideology-critical abilities, and they all subscribe to a notion of culture which stresses the dynamism, diversity, interconnectedness and permeability of human life approaches in the twenty-first century. Thus, a critical perspective on culture and communication is indispensable to an understanding of the

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hegemonic interests underlying certain programmes and practices. There is a danger, however, that such criticism is only applied to neoliberal programmes and practices of Western (neo)colonialism, while anti-Western perspectives are not considered. In the light of new anti-Western fundamentalisms, such perspectives also merit attention to better understand the discursive strategies employed and the complex histories from which they are derived (e.g. Buruma & Margalit, 2004). For intercultural communication research, a critical perspective is also needed to pinpoint the limitations of the many travel guides cum advice books in circulation, which are often nationalist and highly stereotypical in approach. Such criticism also applies to intercultural management publications and seminars building on nation-bound concepts such as those suggested by Hofstede (1994) or Lewis (2006). Finally, a critical perspective must also include acknowledgement of non-cultural factors, which are swept under the carpet, when, for example, culture is invoked as the key differentiator between people by right-wing political groups. In this context, Piller refers to the ‘frequent misrecognition of material and social inequality as cultural difference’, with the purpose of excluding ‘outsiders’ from certain communities and their resources (2011: 172). Summing up, the approach suggested in this article views cultures as shared and contested sets of signifying practices resulting from human interaction with the complex environments in which people live. Moreover, cultures are treated as multidimensional, open-ended and dynamic entities, for which, as in Bakhtin’s words, ‘there is no first word . . . and the final word has not yet been spoken’ (1981: 30). A case is made for self-critical and power-critical perspectives that encourage dialogic relationships inside and outside academia in line with a (post)humanistic and cosmopolitan agenda. The importance for intercultural communication in a globalized modernity is acknowledged, without privileging language as a signifying system over other factors. Finally, I argue for a differentiated understanding of human life-worlds with reference to both the cultural and non-cultural factors co-shaping them. Culture is a highly complex concept with manifold meanings. However, awareness of some of its uses can foster critical selfreflection and a better insight into what other people mean by it.

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Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Discourse: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Tavistock. Geertz, C. (1975a). Thick description: toward an interpretive theory of culture. In C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. London: Hutchinson, pp. 3–30. Geertz, C. (1975b). Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight. In C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. London: Hutchinson, pp. 412–53. Grosz, E. (2005). Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hall, S. (1997a). Introduction. In S. Hall, ed., Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage, pp. 1–11. Hall, S. (1997b). The work of representation. In S. Hall, ed., Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage, pp. 13–64. Harari, Y. N. (2011). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Vintage. Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Routledge. Hayles, N. K. (1999). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hegeman, S. (2012). The Cultural Return. Berkeley: University of California Press. Herder, J. G. (1989 [1784–91]). Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag. Hofstede, G. (1994). Cultures and Organizations. London: Harper Collins. Kalantzis, M. and Cope, B. (2012). Literacies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kögler, H. H. (1992). Die Macht des Dialogs: Kritische Hermeneutik nach Gadamer, Foucault und Rorty. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler. Kraidy, M. (2005). Hybridity and the Cultural Logic of Globalization. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Kroeber, A.L. and Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museums of American Archeology and Ethnology. Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Viking. Lewis, R. D. (2006). Leading across Cultures. Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey. Marcus, G.E. (1998). On ideologies of reflexivity in contemporary efforts to remake the human sciences. In G. E. Marcus, ed., Ethnography Through Thick and Thin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 181–202. Morgan, L. H. (2013 [1851]). League of the Ho-Dé-No-Sau-Nee, or Iroquis. Los Angeles, CA: Hard Press Publishing. Moses, A. D. and Rothberg, M. (2015). A dialogue on the ethics and politics of transcultural memory. In L. Bond, J. Rapson and A. Ertl, eds., Media and

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2 What Is Intercultural Communication? Jan D. ten Thije

2.1

Introduction

Since around 1990, three different definitions of intercultural communication can be discerned (ten Thije, 2016). Traditionally, intercultural communication has been defined as all communication between people with different linguistic and/or cultural backgrounds (e.g. Jandt, 1995). According to this definition cultural groups can be attributed with specific characteristics that explain their (communicative) actions and predict potential misunderstandings in multicultural settings. A second definition restricts intercultural communication only to those communicative encounters in which linguistic and/or cultural differences become relevant for processing the outcomes of interlingual communication (e.g. SpencerOatey & Franklin, 2009; Zhu, 2014). The most restricted definition states that one can only speak of intercultural communication whenever at least one of the participants changes his/her mindset by critically reflecting on the representations, value orientations and action dispositions held by his/ her group (Rehbein, 2006). This range of definitions reflects the development in intercultural communication research from essentialist towards more non-essentialist models. The quintessence of the debate on essentialism concerns the question of how to investigate individuals as members of identifiable groups. For intercultural communication research this is a fundamental theoretical and strategic challenge. The spectrum of scientific and societal issues referred to as intercultural communication will be discussed by identifying five different theoretical and methodological approaches. First, the interactive approach investigates intercultural (face-to-face) interaction. Secondly, researchers have focused on comparing and contrasting cultural and linguistic systems. A third

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approach considers the images of ‘self’ and ‘other’ of collectives and nations by analysing cultural representations in various forms of (computer-mediated) communication. A fourth approach comprises studies of multilingualism and linguistic diversities. Finally, the transfer approach integrates knowledge, attitudes, capacities, reflectivity and motivation in learnable intercultural competencies. Ten Thije (2016) discusses the historical roots of the five approaches. This introduction will focus on more recent developments within and in-between these five approaches. In this context, the notion of ‘intercultural mediation’ will be addressed repeatedly (Busch and Schröder, 2005), because it covers various concepts within the different approaches. One of the important origins of mediation concerns conflict resolution (Crocker et al., 2015). The mediation procedure is characterized by an independent ‘third party’ that fulfils a crucial precondition by assisting (international) parties to find solutions to their conflicts. This third-party concept has influenced research within other fields of intercultural communication. When people do not understand each other, an interpreter can be invited to translate. In the field of intercultural research, the interpreter is not only considered as a translator per se but also as an ‘intercultural mediator’, who could facilitate mutual understanding (Herlyn, 2005; Katan, 2013; Tarozzi, 2013). Another example of the conceptual career of mediation can be found within sociology: researchers have conceptualized communication as a form of mediation. This means that manifestations of cultures are mediated via various media (e.g. literature, tourist guides, journalism) that negotiate common ground between individuals and groups. In this sense, I will discuss intercultural competence as the ability to act as your own intercultural mediator. Figure 2.1 illustrates the mutual relations between the five approaches and the notion of intercultural mediation:

Interactive Approaches

Cultural Representation Approaches

Intercultural Mediation

Contrastive Approaches

Transfer Approaches

Multilingualism and Linguistic Diversity Approaches

Figure 2.1 Mutual relations between five approaches to intercultural communication and the notion of intercultural mediation

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Interactive Approaches

Interactive approaches to intercultural communication originate from sociolinguistic (e.g. ethnography of speaking, Hymes, 1977) and discourse analytical studies on language variations and contact (e.g. Gumperz, 1982). Communicating is a process of collaboration, a joint/cooperative action in the service of solving a problem, e.g. to create mutual understanding between person A and person B, to convince somebody, or to jointly bring about something and express cultural identities. Effective communication requires (presupposing or creating) common ground, i.e., a body of knowledge that participants in a communicative exchange share and can use to understand the meaning of what is said. Gumperz’s (1982) notion of ‘contextualization cues’ has been groundbreaking in the analysis of intercultural misunderstandings, since it can relate specific linguistic structures to presupposed cultural knowledge in a given context. If people do not recognize the cultural knowledge that is cued by certain expressions, speech actions, intonation, code-switches or gestures, this may initiate misunderstanding in intercultural encounters. Studies in intercultural pragmatics have examined the process of intercultural (mis)understanding by investigating ‘context’, ‘common ground’ and ‘salience’ (e.g. Kecskes, 2014). These concepts expand the analysis of traditional linguistic meanings of words and sentences in discourse and enable the reconstruction of understanding that is processed in and by interaction. With respect to ‘context’, a distinction is made between ‘prior’ and ‘actual situational context’. Subsequently, Kecskes distinguishes three components of ‘common ground’: ‘information that participants share, understanding the situational context, and the relationship between the participants – knowledge about each other and trust, and their mutual experience of the interaction’ (2014: 155). ‘Salience’ is subdivided into ‘inherent’ and ‘emergent situational’ salience. It is interesting to point out how these distinctions specify the general function of contextualization cues for intercultural communication in more detail by integrating a cognitive perspective with an interactive perspective of understanding. Such analyses have also paved the way to study not only the characteristics of misunderstanding but also of successful intercultural communication (e.g. Bührig & ten Thije, 2006; Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2009). A complete survey of discourse pragmatic description models can be found in Bührig and ten Thije (2005). Within interactive approaches to intercultural communication special attention has been paid to the position of the interpreter. In cases where interlocutors do not speak and understand each other’s languages an interpreter can be appointed. For instance, interpreters are engaged in official

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conferences but also in various institutional settings such as healthcare, business and transnational governmental interactions. Moreover, nonprofessional interpreters fulfil an important function in healthcare and other governmental institutions (Knapp & Knapp-Potthoff, 1987; Zendedel et al., 2018). Interpretation studies has become a scientific discipline in its own right (Wadensjö, 1998; Bot, 2005; Tarozzi, 2013), which is relevant to the research into intercultural communication. In particular, interpreted interaction reveals cognitive and interactive structures that remain invisible in other types of multilingual interaction but are made explicit in the successive turns of the interpreter and the primary speakers involved. For instance, Knapp and Knapp-Potthoff (1987) investigate interactive interpretation strategies. In contrast to machine translation, the authors study the ‘strategy of perspectivizing’. When interpreters want to signalize to the primary speakers on behalf of whom they are speaking what the true value is of what is being said, they have to indicate their position verbally. In order to do so, they may use discourse introducing formulations such as ‘he or she says’ to mark their translations. By making use of these perspectivizing formulations, interpreters may signalize that they are summarizing and commenting upon the wordings of the primary speakers. Wadensjö (1998) states that interpreters always rephrase, summarize or mediate primary speakers and concludes that they are intercultural mediators. In his analyses of successful intercultural communication, ten Thije (2006) reveals that perspectivizing is also a strategy that is used in cases beyond interpreted communication, which can be found in regular face-toface intercultural interactions. He proposes a ‘discursive apparatus of perspectivizing’ that comprises three steps in discourse: Step 1: by generalizing, an interactant verbalizes the knowledge of the propositional content as a cultural standard. Step 2: by perspectivizing, the speaker transmits the knowledge of the propositional content in the actual speech situation by considering the cultural standards of the other. Step 3: by contrasting cultures, the speaker enables the hearer to compare the speaker’s cultural standards with his own and attain an adequate interpretation of the discourse (2006: 122–3). It is interesting to note that this discourse apparatus of perspectivizing makes explicit what in the notion of the contextualization cues is inferred. The relevance of cultural differences for the understanding of interaction are made explicit to speaker and hearer in realizing the steps of generalizing, perspectivizing and contrasting. Within the framework of intercultural pragmatics one could state that these three perspectivizing steps help to shape ‘common ground’ by referring to ‘salient’ aspects of the ‘context’.

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In a study on ‘meta-pragmatic awareness’, McConachy and Liddicoat (2016) offer a similar analysis of this process of creating common ground in intercultural communication by confronting and comparing cultural frames that are presupposed in the interaction. In the light of the overall argument in this text, it is striking that the authors name this process of reaching common ground ‘mediation’. They state: Mediation is constituted by a process where the individual makes a conscious effort to consider the cultural frames that shape interpretation of pragmatic acts in each language, how these differ across languages, and what the consequences of these differences are for the use of these languages in intercultural communication. From a meta-pragmatic perspective, mediation involves going beyond simplistic comparisons of pragmatic norms to probe the concepts and meaning structures that underlie language use and view diversity from beyond the scope of a single linguistic system (2016: 17).

In sum, Gumperz’s notion of contextualization cues can be linked to the notion of mediation in the way McConachy and Liddicoat describe metapragmatic awareness, assuming this awareness is an important underlying principle for coping with linguistic and cultural diversity in interaction in general. This special attention on mediation should not create the impression that all intercultural communication studies focus on inclusive understanding only. On the contrary, interlocutors can also agree to disagree since power relations determine their asymmetric interaction which may end up in exclusion. For instance, critical discourse analysis has contributed to this research tradition within the field of intercultural communication by investigating discourse realizations of stereotyping, discrimination, anti-Semitism and racism (e.g. Wodak & Van Dijk, 1980; Reisigl & Wodak, 2001). An important theoretical issue that directly relates to (in)equality and (a) symmetry of intercultural communication concerns the scale of how ‘context’ is conceptualized. One could distinguish between an intercultural communication context on a micro level in face-to-face communication in conversations, and the meso level in discourse that takes place in organizations or institutions. Subsequently, one can discern the macro level of the nation state where institutions or organizations have their legal basis. Finally, one considers the transnational and the global level that can be of decisive relevance to anchor and understand the aims, positions and action space of the interactants. From a pragmatic and conversational analytical framework, context is intermediated in the interaction itself (e.g. Koole & ten Thije 1994; Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2009). In this section the quintessence of the interactive approaches towards intercultural communication has been illustrated by discussing different

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concepts of mediation. With the notion of contextualization cues Gumperz (1982) addressed the question of how cultural knowledge is made relevant to the process of intercultural understanding. Studies into the work of the ‘interpreter as third person’ (e.g. translator and mediator) revealed how understanding between interlocutors can be reconstructed in a turn-byturn interaction process. Subsequently, it was argued that also in ordinary intercultural interaction interlocutors could apply ‘third-person strategies’ to anticipate and handle cultural understanding. It was claimed that these mediating strategies in fact constitute the core of intercultural understanding. Meta-pragmatic awareness is an instantiation of a third-person perspective. However, we should not forget that intercultural communication is often based on asymmetry and inequality and therefore the institutional and organizational context has to be accounted for in the analyses.

2.3

Contrastive Approaches

Contrastive approaches to intercultural communication originate from different disciplines. In the first place I will discuss second-language acquisition research and in particular studies that elaborate on the contrastive hypothesis (Lado, 1957; Fisiak, 1983). According to this theory, difficulties of language learning and teaching can be predicted by a systematic comparison with regard to the language learner’s first and second languages. Consequently, major studies have been executed comparing native languages all over the world. The aim was not only to find practical solutions for language teaching (e.g. coping with inferences or ‘false friends’), but also to develop universal categories to describe the typological characteristics of languages. Contrastive studies focus on differences within specific language families (e.g. Nordic languages; Bandle et al., 2008) or comparisons across language families (e.g. Japanese versus Korean, Thai or Turkish; Pardeshi & Kageyama, 2018). Pragmatic characteristics have also been included in contrastive approaches. For instance, Trosborg (2010) covers issues such as (im)politeness, compliments, terms of address, correcting self and other, and credibility in corporate discourse. Contrastive studies rely on the comparison of corpora collected within the languages and cultures under investigation. The distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘functional equivalence’ is of major importance in contrastive investigations. The former compares the same linguistic (e.g. syntactic, morphological, semantic and lexical) features across languages, whereas the latter can be described as ‘the presupposition for achieving a comparable function of a text or discourse in another cultural context’ (Bührig, House & ten Thije, 2007: 1). In other words, formal equivalence concentrates on formal linguistic structures whereas

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functional equivalence investigates the question of how people achieve corresponding purposes across language communities. With respect to the overall argument of this introduction, it should be put forward that looking for functional equivalencies between languages is an important prerequisite for a competent intercultural mediator. After all, being capable of using functional equivalencies to express culturally sensitive ideas or realize speech actions in another language contributes to intercultural understanding, whereas a literal translation (based on formal equivalence) could miss the point and might lead to communication breakdown. A second contrastive approach to intercultural communication originates from the discipline of translation studies. In order to find an adequate translation, the translator has to find correspondences between the source and target language. In actual fact, sometimes a text has to be reformulated differently in another language in order to achieve the corresponding purpose in the source language. The semioticist Eco has summarized this issue as follows: to translate is an intercultural mediation act aiming at saying ‘Almost the Same Thing’ (Eco, 2003). The third important contrastive approach to intercultural communication concerns studies that have developed dimensions to compare cultures. Based on anthropological investigations, Hall (1959; 1976) identified the ‘high/low context’ dimension and the ‘monochronic/polychronic’ dimension. The first dimension concerns the amount of contextual information that remains implicit for understanding communicative expressions, while the second concerns differences in tolerating simultaneous activities during one communicative event. It is interesting to note that Gumperz’s (1982) notion of contextualization cues is, in fact, an interactive elaboration of Hall’s first dimension, since Gumperz reconstructs how the amount and type of contextual information might contribute to understanding in ongoing intercultural interaction. The idea of dimensions for the comparison of cultural values has been elaborated by Hofstede (1986) from a psychological and management perspective. Based on his famous research of more than 100,000 IBM employees in forty countries he developed four dimensions to scale countries regarding cultural core values. These are ‘power distance’, ‘individualism’, ‘masculinity’ and ‘uncertainty avoidance’, with ‘long term orientation’ and ‘indulgence’ added later on (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010). His model has been immensely influential in the field of cross-cultural management studies and intercultural training, which is illustrated by the fact that according to Google Scholar Hofstede (1986) has been quoted 50,000 times up to 2018. Also, inspired by his work, many researchers have developed their own cultural values approaches (e.g. Schwartz, 1994; Trompenaars & Voerman, 2009).This model was made directly applicable for global leadership trainings within the GLOBE project (House et al., 2004). The GLOBE

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dimensions are: ‘charismatic/value based’, ‘team-oriented’, ‘participative’, ‘autonomous’, and ‘self-protective’, and the authors explain the aims of the project as follows: ‘This type of research is designed to be able to predict what behaviour will be the most effective so that the leader can have more control of a situation’ (Hall, Covarrubias & Kirschbauw, 2018: 343). Hofstede’s dimensions have been widely criticized. Croucher summarizes various arguments against Hofstede’s model: ‘for being hegemonic, too culturally generic, for not applying culture at all, for being inconsistent, and for lacking empirical support and transparency’ (2017: 88). In sum, since his dimensions focus on the level of the national group, individual differences are not relevant. Unfortunately, Hofstede’s epigones in intercultural businesses did not take this warning seriously and have equated individuals with cultures and with nations in their intercultural training manuals. This debate confirms the necessity to distinguish between various (micro, meso and macro) levels of contexts within the framework of the interactive approach, as discussed in the previous section, and researchers should be aware of essentialist characteristics. Non-essentialist studies contribute to the contrastive approach towards intercultural communication by developing alternative models for comparing languages and cultures. These proposals aim to reflect the complexities and paradoxes inherent in all cultures. From an applied linguistic perspective, Holliday proposes the concept of ‘small cultures’: Small cultures are cultural environments which are located in proximity to the people concerned. These are thus small groupings or activities where there is cohesive behaviour, such as families, leisure, and workgroups, where people form rules for how to behave which will bind them together (2013: 3).

This concept is related to the ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 2000) and both concepts together should (at the meso level) replace the traditional unit of ‘linguistic and cultural background’ (at the macro level) as an explanatory framework for intercultural (mis)understanding. From an anthropological perspective, Krase and Uhere (2017) propose the notion of ‘urban space’ to compare intercultural communication since urban space connects local to global developments. This approach can be exemplified with the analyses of urban space (Drzewiecka & Nakayama, 1998) and the ‘intercultural city’, which White describes as: ‘a city that makes deliberate use of the diversity and antidiscrimination paradigms in order to facilitate long-term, constructive interactions between citizens of diverse origins’ (2018: 28). Within this framework Massana (2018: 348) has elaborated a comparable model, which includes three criteria for comparing objectives and structuring principles of intercultural cities: diversity, discrimination and dialogue.

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Key for all contrastive approaches remains the point of reference that is used to account for an adequate and reliable comparison of different cultures. This point is known as the tertium comparationis, and it can include – as outlined above – linguistic or communicative features, the IBM company, the nation state, national cultures, small cultures, communities of practice or urban space. The tertium comparationis creates a third perspective that enables comparison, and it has an imminent importance to define the quintessence of these approaches considering that comparative studies do not have mediation as the core object of their study.

2.4

Cultural Representation Approaches

The third strand of approaches to intercultural communication takes place against the backdrop of interlocutors’ representations of themselves (‘the self’) and their counterparts (‘the others’), which includes an estimation of the others’ knowledge states, value systems, attitudes, and cultural backgrounds and perspectives (e.g. Goffman, 1959; Hall, 1997). Studying how (stereotypical) images and expectations of the other are formed and how these images impact communication among people with different backgrounds taking into account postcolonial history (Said, 1978) makes an important contribution to the analysis of processes of inclusion and exclusion. Notions such as ‘identity’, ‘identification’ and ‘othering’ have a central relevance for this approach (e.g. Holliday, Hyde & Kullman et al., 2010), which focuses on how image formation is (re)produced in media but also tries to deconstruct stereotypical images in order to contribute to a more open society. Cultural studies on intercultural communication comprise imagological investigations analysing the cultural characteristics of nations (e.g. archetypes, Beller & Leerssen, 2007; ten Thije, 2016). However, a Western bias seems to be present. In a survey of American journals regarding intercultural communication in the period between 1953 and 2004, Jackson II concludes that the field of ‘ICC suffers from the residue of one-sided, singular, patriarchal, racially biased and hegemonic interpretations of cultural experiences’ (2014: 88). New developments on cultural representation can be found in media studies by joining the debate on essentialism and non-essentialism. In this connection, representations are related to the notion of ‘mediation’. According to Siapera, the essentialist regime on representations operates within three themes. The first theme concerns ‘continuity, the uninterrupted manifestation of identity across time and place’ (2010: 150). Secondly, representations ‘work with an essential core, an unchanged set of commonalities that persist over time and place’ (p. 151). The third

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characteristic concerns the claims of authenticity and authority: ‘by asserting the right to speak on behalf of the group and by claiming to represent it as a whole’ (p. 152). By operating this way, the regime creates an ‘us and them distinction with outsiders’. This essentialist regime has been analysed in all kinds of studies on the representation of minority groups in mass media but also, for instance, in tourist communication (Held, 2018) on cultural and national heritages (e.g. memorial events and folklore). According to Siapera, the alternative regime on representation operates also within three themes: ‘firstly, ambiguity of representation; secondly, the creative ways in which representation deals with questions of cultural differences; and, thirdly, the multiplicity of perspectives and / or identities / images’ (2010: 158). It does not aim to duplicate strict oppositions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ but tries to create permanent crossovers between inside and outside the community, and relevant studies focus on the dynamics in the representation of these hybrid identities. An interesting example of the alternative regime concerns the music video for ‘APESHIT’, a song by The Carters (composed of Beyoncé and Jay-Z) that was recorded in the Louvre Museum, with the two musicians standing in front of famous paintings such as the Mona Lisa. The video creatively represents and addresses ambiguity and hybridity by bringing up all kinds of cultural, ethnic, racial, gender, feminist, power and postcolonial issues (Hosking, 2018). Interestingly, Siapera (2010) states that both essentialist and alternative regimes are necessary for cultural diversity. Identities should be considered as stable but potentially changeable, as only then may their representation contribute to ‘mediated multiculturalism’. This concept of mediation links ‘image formation’ to production and consumption of representation, and also includes how this dynamic process is realized by mass and digital media. Siapera’s concept of mediation can be related to interactive understandings of the concept discussed in Section 2.2 (e.g. meta-pragmatic awareness in face-to-face interaction). Both relate mediation to an inherent constitutive process in which cultural frames and images are studied beyond simplistic linguistic or semiotic systems by embracing various (micro, meso and macro) levels in investigations. Within gender and media studies ‘intersectionality’ has been developed as the heuristic tool to deconstruct the complexity of identity formation and, therefore, give insight into how intercultural mediation genuinely works. Identities are manifold and determined by class, race, gender, ethnicity, culture, citizenship, sexuality, skin colour and ability. Intersectionality helps to find out how categories of identities are partially defined by their relationships with other categories. Intersectionality analysis can thus uncover the contradictive effects on self-image and other image of a specific group in different media targeting different communities.

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In conclusion, recent developments indicate that studies on the representation of self and other have moved away from an imagological approach (e.g. ten Thije, 2016) towards a diversity approach in which the reciprocal determination (e.g. intersectionality) of a much wider spectrum of identity aspects can be accounted for. Consequently, these studies focus on how new mass media enrich and fragment the (re)production of cultural representations. This last development has been coined ‘mediatization’ (Agha, 2011). In this research the relationship between image production and consumption, on the one hand, and economic regularities and power oppositions, on the other hand, are foregrounded. The contribution to debates on (non-)essentialism from this approach can be paraphrased by bringing up the distinction between ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ frameworks, which Triandis summarizes as follows: ‘Emics, roughly speaking, are ideas, behaviours, items, and concepts that are culture specific. Etics, roughly speaking, are culture general – i.e. universal’ (1994: 67). Siapera’s summary (2010) that both non-essentialist and essentialist regimes are needed to understand cultural and linguistic diversity links up to ten Thije’s conclusion that in intercultural communication research, emic and etic ‘frameworks are not considered to be contradictory but rather as complementary. In actual fact, the emic-etic distinction can be considered as a basic fundamental characteristic that constitutes intercultural research itself’ (2016: 584).

2.5

Multilingualism and Linguistic Diversity Approaches

The fourth type of approach to intercultural communication originates from (socio)linguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis studies. For instance, studies on language contact (e.g. Clyne, 1994; 2003), language policies (e.g. Phillipson, 2003), globalization (e.g. Blommaert, 2010), bilingual and migrant families (e.g. Jessner-Schmid & Kramsch, 2015) and receptive multilingualism (e.g. ten Thije & Zeevaert, 2013; Rehbein et al., 2012), have entrusted new conceptualizations of multilingualism and linguistic diversity to counter traditional language ideologies (e.g. House & Rehbein, 2004). As a consequence of the formation of European nation states around the eighteenth century, an ideology was established that equated one country, one people, one language and one culture. Regional language variations were suppressed in education and other governmental domains in order to establish national centres for the legal exercise of power and to found cultural and linguistic hegemonies. One could say that this ideology is still present in the essentialist notion that individuals are essentially members of identifiable groups. For a long time this ideology has also determined the

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concept of multilingualism in Europe. Multiple languages were vigorous, but these were normally considered as a collection of separate, bounded, homogeneous entities next to each other. This ideology is resembled in the ‘additive concept of multilingualism’ (Schjerve-Rindler & Vetter, 2012; Hüning, Vogl & Moliner, 2012). Many studies attempt to dismantle this ideology that has penetrated all sectors of societal life (e.g. family, work, school, church and government). Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic investigations of multilingualism show that the ideal of additive multilingualism – in which, for instance, that which a bilingual can achieve in two languages, a monolingual can achieve in only one language – is a myth, in the sense that few reach this goal. Backus et al. argue that ‘in real life, most people have only limited skills in standard varieties of foreign languages – and in fact, even most native speakers do not have command of the standard variety of their mother tongue as codified in grammar books’ (2013, 188). In reaction to the additive concept of multilingualism, alternative models have emerged, such as ‘translanguaging’ (García & Wei, 2014), ‘polylingualism’ (Jørgensen, 2011), ‘semiotic resources’ (Blommaert, 2010), ‘translingual practice’ (Canagarajah, 2013), and ‘inclusive multilingualism’ (Backus et al., 2013). These models have in common the fact that they do not take the native speaker as the normative standard to describe and assess processes of language learning and language policies. Instead these models study modes and strategies of effective and fair communication that respect cultural identities and include the linguistic repertoires interlocutors bring with them. For instance, the research underlying inclusive multilingualism focuses in particular on the multilingual communicative modes that people use to cope with linguistic diversity with limited linguistic skills. These concern the integrated use of English as a lingua franca, a regional lingua franca, lingua receptiva, code-switching and mediation by translation or interpretation (Backus et.al., 2013; Rehbein et al., 2012). Many of these ‘inclusive’ models have been inspired by the concept of ‘superdiversity’ that was proposed by Vertovec (2007): superdiversity accounts for the long-term consequences of mobility waves and multiple generations of migrants on the distribution and acquisition of linguistic repertoires by diverse communities and individuals. Comparable concepts have also been put forward. Dervin and Gross (2016) propose the notion of ‘diverse diversity’ in their discussion of (non-)essentialist intercultural studies. In contrast to essentialist studies, diverse diversity should help to analyse the simultaneity of various cultural identities in intercultural communication (e.g. Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010) that assume their non-simultaneity. Grin (2018) argues in favour of the notion of ‘complex diversity’ in his account of the outcomes of a comprehensive interdisciplinary European project on mobility and social cohesion in Europe. Grin and

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Civico (2018) state that in fact two parallel paradoxes can be observed with respect to diversity. On the one hand, linguistic diversity is decreasing since small languages disappear as a result of homogenization and the emergence of English as the standard for global communication. On the other hand, linguistic diversity has increased in urban spaces where multilingual communities meet and have to live together. The second paradox rephrases the first in a more emotional direction: diversity is threatened and is threatening at the same time. In conclusion, multilingualism and diversity approaches to intercultural communication offer a terminological framework to study the mutual effects within various (micro, meso and macro) societal levels on the outcomes of intercultural understanding. In fact, the opposition between additive and inclusive multilingualism delivers new interesting insights into the essentialism debate in general and possibly specifically for intercultural mediation.

2.6

Transfer Approaches and Intercultural Competence

Language skills are a primary prerequisite for intercultural understanding. Not only do they help one learn to speak and/or understand a language, they also help one cope with and appreciate how languages and cultures diverge in mapping onto (social) reality and shaping understanding. This is also integral to forming policies with regard to dealing with linguistic and cultural diversity at various levels in society, its institutions, education, public services and industry. Therefore, the so-called transfer approach to intercultural communication focuses on language learning and intercultural competencies on an individual level, and diversity management on a societal level. Studies on transfer, however, reveal that learning intercultural competencies is not automatically included in language teaching. After all, language teaching has for a long time been instrumentalized to transfer national linguistic standards to the next generations of students (see the multilingualism approach). Byram can be considered as one of the representatives of the paradigm shift within language teaching. As a result of his research on the intercultural effects of students staying abroad he replaced the notion of ‘native speaker’ with that of ‘intercultural speaker’. Moreover, he elaborates six dimensions of intercultural competence (or ‘savoirs’ as he calls them): attitudes (savoir être), knowledge (savoir), interpreting and relating texts (savoir comprendre), discovering new behaviours, beliefs and values (savoir apprendre), interacting (savoir faire), and critical cultural awareness (savoir s’engager) (Byram, 1997). Subsequently, the notion of the intercultural speaker was replaced by intercultural mediator in order to

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emphasize the individual potential for social action (Alred, Byram & Fleming, 2002). These ideas have been elaborated by many later studies into various models to conceptualize the stages, aspects and purposes of intercultural competence (for a summary, see ten Thije, 2016). The basic assumption of all these models is that solely staying abroad does not imply an increase in competence. People have to learn to reflect on their experiences in order be able to mediate in multilingual and intercultural situations (e.g. Zarate et al., 2004; Beaven & Borghett, 2015; Ly & Rygg, 2016; Messelink & Thije, 2012). In line with the overall argument of this chapter, Cole and Meadows can be quoted to continue the debate on essentialism and non-essentialism: Intercultural Education is not about telling students how to behave appropriately in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people, but rather to provide students with the analytical tools they need to figure out how to act in each emerging encounter (2013: 44).

The tools the authors present in their study on multilingualism in Indonesia concern ‘objectification’, ‘prescription’ and ‘alignment’. With the help of critical discourse analysis they analyse how these processes are traditionally used to set, determine and transfer standardized linguistic norms in language classes. However, these tools can also be applied to introduce, explain and learn linguistic varieties that are crucial for identity construction within local or minority communities. With reference to Gumperz’s contextualization cues one could state that these tools give students insight into the details of linguistic potential that are at their disposal to contextualize meaning in interaction with culturally and linguistically diverse audiences. Genç and Rehbein (2019) have developed another tool – ‘multilingual nexus’ – that can be used to integrate interculturality into language teaching. The authors derive the notion of nexus from the language typological tradition (see the contrastive approach). Within typological studies, nexus refers to the syntactic linkage between two clauses in one language. In a functional pragmatic analysis of academic teaching of Turkish-German studies the authors apply the notion of multilingual nexus on an interactive and cognitive level. Along these lines, they reconstruct in detail multilingual understanding in teacher–student interactions. For instance, they illustrate how interactive procedures such as a ‘comprehension check’, ‘reformulation’ and ‘reflection’ exist by the grace of a multilingual nexus of equivalent elements in both languages. One could state that multilingual nexus is a didactic application of the previously discussed formal and functional equivalencies, used in translation and interpretation studies.

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These tools exemplify ‘reflexivity’ as a core characteristic of nonessentialist approaches to intercultural communication, which can be considered as alternatives to monolithic essentialist intercultural competence models (see contrastive approach). Dervin and Gross conclude: IC [intercultural competence] should move beyond programmatic and ‘recipe-like’ perspectives. Simple progression (‘stages’) in the development and/or acquisition of IC should be rejected. As such IC is composed of contradictions, instabilities and discontinuities (2016: 6).

Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the impact, distribution and application of these essentialist models and methods in the field of intercultural marketing and human diversity management.

2.7

Conclusion

This chapter has formulated a concise answer to the question, what is intercultural communication? By taking the notion of intercultural mediation as a starting point, the interrelations and interfaces between theories, methods and studies within the five approaches to intercultural communication have been laid out. One could summarize the contributions of the approaches as follows: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Interactive approaches contribute by clarifying how the need for contextualization in intercultural communication can be countered by applying a third-party perspective. Intercultural mediation connotes meta-pragmatic awareness. Contrastive approaches require a reliable tertium comparationis in order to develop proper comparisons between languages and cultures. Intercultural mediation practices formal and functional equivalencies to express sensitive issues or realize complex actions in other languages. Cultural representation approaches introduce the notion of intersectionality to understand how categories of identities (e.g. race, culture, social status, etc.) are partially defined by their relationships with other categories. Intercultural mediation involves processes of identification on an individual level and evolves in intercultural mediatization on a social level: image production and consumption are always subject to economic regularities and power dynamics. Multilingualism and linguistic diversity approaches provide intercultural mediation with theoretical models (e.g. inclusive multilingualism) and analytical tools (e.g. multilingual nexus) to dismantle the traditional language ideology of one nation, one culture, one language. The native speaker transforms via the intercultural speaker into the intercultural mediator.

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5.

Transfer approaches synthesize the contributions of the other approaches to intercultural mediation with the notion of reflexivity as general denominator of intercultural competence.

With regard to the essentialism vs. non-essentialism debate one could conclude that insights within both regimes are necessary for a mediated interculturalism. In actual fact, intercultural mediation assumes that identities are stable and at the same time potentially changeable. Finally, it can be argued that notions of third-party perspective, tertium comparationis, intersectionality, mediatization and reflexivity come together in the prefix inter- in intercultural communication. These notions combine core phenomena that determine the interface between established disciplines with the multiple methodologies that operate on the interdisciplinarity that epitomizes intercultural communication.

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3 Rethinking Intercultural Competence Jürgen Bolten

Cultures do not have clearly definable boundaries and are by no means homogenous within themselves. Instead, they are defined by dynamic relationships and interactions between people. What is the significance of this when it comes to designing models of intercultural competence? How can these insights be put into practice? This chapter explores intercultural competence as a form of general ‘action competence’, which is implemented in intercultural, i.e. uncertain contexts. Thus an interculturally competent person can be described as someone who is able to handle uncertain situations in a constructive way.

3.1

Positions, Models and Developments in Intercultural Competence Research

When we examine the history of intercultural competency models, which until now have clearly been shaped by Europe and the United States, the notions of what is meant by ‘intercultural competence’ are themselves strongly contextual and thus culturally dependent. The same applies to the development and implementation of competence measurement tools when selecting staff for international assignments and when developing intercultural competencies. In the Euro-American literature, two research directions can be distinguished, although one builds upon the other. The older method is committed to structural thinking patterns (3.1.1), while the more recent studies embody a more holistic and process-oriented understanding of intercultural competence (3.1.2).

3.1.1 List Models and Structural Models Conceptualizations of intercultural competence have typically consisted of descriptions of the personal character traits found in successful expatriates, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 06:34:38, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.005

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which were then categorized into taxonomies of the significant subcompetences, also known as ‘list models’. Lysgaard’s investigation of Norwegian Fulbright Scholarship recipients in the United States (1955), for example, set the stage for a series of methodologically similar and largely uncritically accepted studies. Thereafter, comparable cultural investigations were undertaken in the United States and more recently in Europe (e.g. the 1998 report by Stahl on German employees working in Japan and the United States). This work was intended to develop a useful corpus of effective characteristics or typologies (e.g. Ruben, 1976; Brislin, 1981), thus conceptualizing intercultural competence as an additive concept. Regrettably, therefore, this impressive volume of decades of data collected in this manner represents an incomplete and indeed rather arbitrary set of findings. Despite the sheer mass of statistics and variety of descriptions of intercultural competence, however, a distinct set of relatively stable ‘core characteristics’ have been established. These include concepts such as ‘empathy’, ‘ambiguity tolerance’, ‘self-oriented role behaviour’ (Ruben, 1976), ‘cultural awareness’ (Triandis, 1977), ‘open-mindedness’, ‘respect for cultural differences’, ‘interaction attentiveness’ (Chen & Starosta, 1998) and ‘ability to adapt’ (Fritz, Möllenberg & Chen, 2004). In critical reaction to the earlier ‘list models’ (see Erpenbeck, 2010: 272ff.; Mahadevan & Kilian-Yasin, 2013: 155), a new movement in the 1990s led by Gertsen (1990) sought to establish a ‘structural model’ (e.g. Zülch, 2004: 22ff.), within which intercultural competence is subdivided into cognitive, behavioural/conative and affective categories (cf. Stüdlein, 1997: 154ff.) or into analogue frameworks which focus on knowledge, skills and attitudes/ awareness (Byram & Zarate, 2004). Müller and Gelbrich (2005) also developed a structure-based model in order to establish correlations between intercultural competence and potential success in foreign environments. They employed the terms ‘effectiveness’ and ‘appropriateness’ as ‘external criteria’ in their model, effectively describing intercultural competence as ‘the ability to interact effectively and appropriately with members of other cultures’ (Müller & Gelbrich, 2004: 793; e.g. Deardorff, 2006: 5). Indeed the incorporation of this type of structure-based model has contributed to the effectiveness of intercultural training programmes by providing orientation and a systematic approach. Typically, these training measures incorporate elements from the three categories mentioned above and a variety of other methods too. The resulting ‘holistic picture’ (Chen & Starosta, 1998: 370) can therefore be considered a kind of synthetic ‘best-ofall-worlds’ solution. Opinions differ here regarding the definition of ‘efficiency’: a frequently articulated counterposition states that economic and political (power) interests influence the efficiency criterion when assessing desired character traits for intercultural competence and thus intercultural competence measurement can be abused as a tool for manipulation (e.g. Rathje, 2006). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 06:34:38, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.005

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3.1.2 Process Models The implementation of the holistic solution described above, which reveals the connections between cognitive (Wissen), behavioural/conative (Können) and affective (Wollen) categories in fact illustrates the interdependent relationship between the categories (Mahadevan & Kilan-Yasin, 2013: 157) and therefore gives credence to the fact that intercultural competence is best understood as a synergetic product resulting from the permanent interaction between individual components (e.g. Bolten, 2017). The resulting understanding of intercultural competence must then be one that considers the dynamic process rather than a static description of the structure. Support for this hypothesis can be found in discussions in theoretical educational disciplines regarding the term ‘action competence’ (Handlungskompetenz). Since the 1990s there has been special emphasis on the term as an ‘active construct’ (Rauner, 2004: 8). This reflects the fact that the word competence itself comes from the Latin word competere meaning ‘to bring together’. Action competence therefore must be conceptualized as the combination (bringing together) of other areas of expertise: in this case, personal, social, strategic and specialist competences (Erpenbeck, 2010). Action competence therefore is not simply a necessary fifth individual skill alongside the other four, but is instead the synergetic result of the interdependent relationship between these other fields of competence. When one integrates the existing results regarding intercultural competence characteristics into this type of synergetic process-oriented model, two results appear that have consequences for the conceptualization of intercultural competence. First, the three dimensions present in the structural model (cognitive, behavioural/conative and affective) can easily be integrated into the four competence categories of the process-oriented model (self-, social, strategic, and specialist competence) (Table 3.1): Second, we must consider the question of whether the construct we call intercultural competence is indeed a separate category of competence on its own. When we list many of the accepted characteristics necessary for intercultural competence such as ‘empathy’, ‘role distance’, ‘ambiguity tolerance’, and ‘the capacity for (meta-)communication’, we find that these characteristics are, without exception, valuable skills even in situations that cannot be considered ‘intercultural’. Managers who lack intuition, do not understand role distance or have little tolerance for ambiguity are also unlikely to find success in ‘intracultural’ environments. If, then, there is no real difference between intercultural and intracultural (or, in other words, ‘general’) competence criteria, then it can be concluded that intercultural competence is therefore a form of general action competence expressed in uncertain contexts and is not simply a fifth competence to be added to the list. Therefore, if there are corresponding overlaps between action

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Table 3.1 Integrated model of action competence Self-Competence Cognitive e.g. knowing and (knowledge) reflecting on one’s own strengths and weaknesses Conative e.g. exercising role (ability) distance and selfcriticism Affective (desire)

Social Competence e.g. knowing the rules of communication in a particular field of action e.g. to be able to communicate and show empathy

e.g. motivation, e.g. willingness to empowerment, engage in interaction, willingness to show collaboration and initiative show tolerance

Strategic Competence

Specialist Competence

e.g. knowing e.g. possessing organizational/ specialist knowledge problem-solving strategies e.g. to be able to e.g. to be able to manage time implement and and solve communicate problems specialist knowledge e.g. to act in a goal- e.g. willingness to use oriented way, to and curiosity about want to solve specialist knowledge problems

competence and intercultural competence, it is evident that there cannot be a clear, binary distinction between ‘(intra-)culturality’ and ‘interculturality’, but rather that the border must be thought of as being ‘fuzzy’ in the sense of blurred, multivalued logic (Bolten, 2011; 2014). This thinking is in line with the concept of ‘fuzzy sets’, which are described by Lotfi Zadeh as the basis of multivalued logic: based on the premise that the key elements in human thinking are not numbers, but labels of fuzzy sets, that is, classes of objects in which the transition from membership to non-membership is gradual rather than abrupt. Indeed the pervasiveness of fuzziness in human thought processes suggests that much of the logic behind human reasoning is not the traditional two-valued or even multi-valued logic, but a logic with fuzzy truths, fuzzy connectives, and fuzzy rules of inference (Zadeh, 1973).

A correspondingly ‘fuzzy’ understanding of intercultural competence (see Delamare-Le-Deist & Winterton, 2005) is primarily based on the gradual manifestations of (un)plausibility, (in)security and familiarity/strangeness, with which actors are confronted in concrete action contexts. Thus, there are hardly any contexts that are experienced as ‘absolutely’ alien but most experiences are within the spectrum of lesser or greater degrees of familiarity/strangeness. Accordingly, intercultural encounters are almost always characterized by a set of rules that seem at least partially familiar to all those involved. However, the context of action is predominantly foreign/insecure. Consequently, if the ad hoc actors do not have opportunities to adequately create the conditions for predominantly secure, plausible action, it follows that this is a sign that the competencies acquired to date by the interactants in the respective ‘habitual’ fields of cultural activity are not sufficient. Intercultural competence therefore consists of identifying possible appropriate rules in contexts with less familiar and less

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obviously determinable rules in order to generate plausibility and security among the actors involved. This process is bidirectional – and can be seen as an explicit or implicit negotiation process. Examples are greeting situations between actors who are accustomed to relatively different greeting conventions from ‘their’ respective cultural fields of action – for example, shaking hands in one context and no physical contact in another. Due to these different prerequisites for action or indeed different expectations, such greeting situations can lead to uncertainty. In order to create security of action in this context, it is necessary to find a common action rule (greeting form). This can be successful on condition that the ‘usual’ action competence with their differentiations described above is used in predominantly unfamiliar contexts in such a way that reciprocal relationships become possible. Thus, intercultural competence turns out to be a transfer competence (Peña, 2008) and reciprocity competence (Bolten 2017) where the rules for the production of normality, plausibility and routines (e.g. Schütz & Luckmann, 1979) are unclear or largely unfamiliar. This confirms once again that intercultural competence cannot be understood as an independent, fifth sub-area of action competence. Rather, it is about being able to act even in predominantly unfamiliar and indefinable action contexts; in other words, being able to transfer the action competence, which one implements in familiar contexts, to unfamiliar situations. Intercultural action competence is therefore necessary in contexts in which familiar structures and methods of regulating action no longer work. These are precisely the rules and structures that need to be explicitly generated by the actors in order to produce a type of fragile culturality, which forms a basis for productive communication (Figure 3.1). Whether this is successful or not is ultimately dependent upon how flexible the ‘territories of the self’ (Goffman, 1974: 54) prove to be in a particular situation. This flexibility needs to occur without risking loss of face, self-respect or sense of responsibility (on both sides). The ‘change of self’ that is produced in negotiating intercultural encounters is, however, not successful, if there are no limits. A part of intercultural competence is therefore also the ability to ‘say no’ - in a respectful and plausible manner. The latter is vital, since such decisions are usually inherently ‘fuzzy’, and therefore neither ‘right’ nor ‘wrong’ in themselves. An example of this would be the following: when deciding whether an employee from a western European company should be allowed to wear a burka for reasons of religious conviction, effective intercultural communication will depend on the extent to which the actors can make their viewpoint plausible without devaluing other standpoints. One of the aspects that is emphasized in latest research (e.g. Nazarkiewicz, 2016) is the fact that a great deal of cultural (self-)reflection is

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Figure 3.1 Intercultural competence as transfer competence

required, as well as reflection regarding the intercultural process as such. Whether the dialogue continues after such an exchange is, however, not only contingent upon the intercultural competence of the individual participants but also on the constellation of the entire field of action and networks in which the encounter is embedded. One particularly popular criticism of the current models is that they are decidedly ‘Western’ in their formulation (e.g. Benseler et al., 2003). This criticism has some justification, while the question of the character of intercultural competence between constellations of specific cultures or in specific situations has received little attention. A first successful example of a compilation of studies on the topic of ‘What does intercultural competence mean?’ can be seen in the The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence (2009), edited by Darla Deardorff. The questions raised here should undoubtedly be subject to further academic scrutiny in the future.

3.2

Measuring Intercultural Competence

Another relevant issue related to intercultural competence is the ability to objectively measure it and whether it is possible ‘to negotiate a framework of action that is agreeable to both sides’ (Schönhuth, 2005: 102). This is naturally a desirable goal but has proven to be either highly problematic (or indeed not at all possible) in certain professional contexts (in laying off employees, for example). Since the 1960s, assessment centres (AC), largely emanating from the United States, have been able to establish themselves as a central human

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resources (HR) selection tool in many countries (Pottinger & Goldsmith, 1979). Based on these models, subsequently specific intercultural ACs were developed, starting in the late 1980s. The various approaches can be divided into point-by-point and systemic, process-oriented testing procedures. Point-by-point oriented ACs are predominantly based on list models and structural models of intercultural competence and are composed of exercises that focus on cognitive, affective and conative parts of intercultural competence such as self-reflexivity, empathy, role distance and tolerance (Kühlmann & Stahl, 1998). However, such tests usually take place in laboratory conditions, and therefore it is extremely difficult to anticipate the intercultural situations in which an employee might have to prove his/her competence when sent abroad. Another feature of a point-by-point approach to competence assessment, is, for example, that it captures intercultural self, social, strategic and specialist competences summatively but not in their interaction with each other. Personal and social competences, the so-called ‘soft’ skills, are given priority by HR development managers over the two ‘hard’ skill areas, i.e. strategic and specialist competences (e.g. Kühlmann, 2004). Conversely, those in charge of organizational development often favour ‘hard’ skills which, especially in economic downturns, leads to postponing measures that promote intercultural competence development. On the other hand, intercultural competence assessment models with ‘stages’ tend not to be related to genuine intercultural fields of action (e.g. Hammer, Bennett & Wiseman, 2003). They are based on quantitative surveys and assume that intercultural competence is a general construct that is valid independent of context. The method for arriving at competence levels here is diverse: in some cases, there are similarities to language-level measurement methods such as the European Reference Framework (Baten, Dusar & Van Maele, 2011). From a less universalistic point of view, however, the classification of intercultural competence through a level such as ‘A1’ (beginner), which might be derived from a lack of language knowledge for example, is problematic. This is because the candidate to be assessed might well possess many useful skills that can or cannot be transferred to the specific situation, depending on the type of intercultural context. Systemic process-oriented evaluation procedures understand intercultural competence as a complex process, and precisely for this reason there can be no ‘highest level’ of competence development. Indeed, it conceptualizes intercultural competence rather as a learning spiral in the way that Deardorff (2006) describes. Intercultural competence development proves to be an integrative and lifelong learning process, always dependent on concrete experiences embedded in each particular context, and thus excludes constructs such as ‘global intercultural competence’ (Gröschke & Bolten, 2012; Mahadevan & Kilian-Yasin, 2013).

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Instead of ‘competence measurement’ it is therefore more fruitful to use the term ‘competence assessment’. Such an assessment is based on holistic perspectives and monitors, for example, the interaction of subjects in concrete contexts (primarily on the basis of observation), which are experienced as largely indefinite and unfamiliar (see an overview of this in Gröschke, 2009: 86ff.). It is clear that the respective findings from observation cannot be generalized, but only apply to the observed context. In order to assess the intercultural competence of an individual, on-thejob situations are well suited, in particular if they are similar to future work environments. Virtual intercultural simulation games such as ‘Megacities’ (Bolten, 2015), in which the participants reside in different physical, global locations (for example, members of a company or network) can be deployed ‘near the job’. The participants are connected via a virtual classroom in which they can master unclear and unfamiliar situations via webcam, whiteboard and chat, and must demonstrate their ability to transfer their skills during the intercultural negotiation processes. Subsequent assessments of participants can thus benefit from the recorded gameplay debriefings and this information in turn can be used to discuss concrete intercultural skills and be linked to potential personal and career development goals.

3.3

Conclusion and Current Perspectives

In sum, the acceleration of tendencies leading to greater complexity and globalization demands that our understanding of intercultural competence be based on an interdependent and interactive model. The familiar ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors in business communication should therefore not be thought of as oppositional concepts but rather as complementary, integrative features of a larger communication process. What separates intercultural competence from intracultural competence is the cultural constellation in which communication transpires. What is key here is not an artificially ‘balanced’ emphasis on the individual, social, strategic and specialist competences as stand-alone skills, but the flexibility and ability to transfer ‘standard’ competences into an uncertain cultural context. Foreign-language skills are undoubtedly important, but equally essential is a clear understanding and openness to the dynamic communication processes between one’s own cultural framework, the foreign cultural environment, and the resulting intercultural context. The term intercultural competence has lost popularity in recent years and has, to some extent, moved into the background due to competing terminologies such as ‘diversity competence’ or ‘transcultural competence’. Despite this, in the face of the uncertainties inherent in the increasingly

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volatile political, economic and social dynamics since the beginning of the new millennium, intercultural competence is now more topical than ever. Some examples include new HR and organizational development concepts that are currently establishing themselves, especially in the Euro-American region, in order to meet the challenges of the so-called VUCA world (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity; Abidi & Joshi, 2015; Mack, 2016). In order to ensure constructive and goal-oriented management of these increasingly indeterminate and complex situations, the current management literature mentions leadership principles or attitudes such as trust, networking, openness, participation and agility. These function as guiding principles for the development of work organization models, which are currently becoming popular under terms such as ‘New Work’ (Hackl et al., 2017) or ‘Agile Management’ (Denning, 2018). The goal here is to design strategies and actions, through which uncertain situations produced by the VUCA world can be convincingly addressed. In this pursuit, scholars ask similar questions as in the intercultural competence research of past decades. The difference, however, is that the challenges of ‘intercultural’ vagueness in the VUCA world are no longer limited to foreign experiences of national, cultural and ethnic differences. National cultural differences undoubtedly still play a role in terms of intercultural complexity, insecurity, ambiguity and structural volatility. However, for a considerable time now, global networks, multiple identities and a large number of cultural reference points have become omnipresent in people’s everyday lives. The indeterminacy of ‘intercultural’ experiences and the challenges associated with their high degree of processuality are no longer a matter of distant, exterritorialized ‘foreign cultures’. These experiences are now (also due to technologies that have made the world smaller) much closer to people’s micro-worlds hic et nunc. Against this background, it is evident that intercultural competence is more relevant today than ever before. However, at the same time it is clear that rethinking interculturality and rethinking intercultural competence is vital. As part of this rethinking, intercultural competence research needs to expand its own horizons by integrating the hitherto still dominant focus on national cultural diversity into the much more complex field of microcultural diversity. The term intercultural competence does not need to be and should not be abandoned. Compared to diversity competence, cultural competence or transcultural competence, one advantage of the term intercultural is that when the prefix inter- is understood from a structural and processual point of view (Bolten, 2017), both differentiation and networking in the sense of dialogical togetherness can be indicated. Conversely, HR and organizational development models, which are currently being conceptualized as responses to VUCA challenges, may well benefit methodologically from developments in intercultural competence

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research. Thus, it can be observed that in the design of competency models for vocational tasks in the VUCA world, list models are once again gaining significant appeal. Examples of this include sets of criteria that are considered necessary to adequately respond to VUCA uncertainties, including trust, networking, openness, participation or even agility (Buhse, 2014; Petry, 2016). The criticism of these lists relates above all to their lack of a systematic basis and their inherent incompleteness. Consequently, this situation harbours potential for a déjà vu in relation to early phases of intercultural competence research. The objective here should be to utilize the methodological experience of intercultural competence research to date and initiate a joint, ‘content and method’-integrated rethinking of how to deal with uncertain intercultural situations (in VUCA contexts), which acknowledges the systemic, holistic and dynamic nature of competence development.

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4 Interculturality or Transculturality? Heinz Antor

4.1

Introduction

The terms ‘inter-’, ‘multi-’, ‘cross-’ and ‘transcultural’ have been at the centre of animated debates in recent years, both with reference to current social and political developments and with regard to how to categorize phenomena in the arts, particularly in literature. While in the 1980s and early 1990s, these terms were often used rather fuzzily and inconsistently, with some authors using them as if they were simply interchangeable and others using them in self-contradictory ways, greater terminological accuracy can be observed since the turn of the millennium, and interculturality and transculturality have come to dominate the various discourses in the field. This is of great importance because the various terms have come to designate different cultural phenomena and are based on different understandings of the term ‘culture’. In what follows, we will look at these conceptual distinctions and discuss their relevance to issues of identity and alterity, borderlines and their transgression, hybridity and diversity, as well as their cultural, anthropological, political, social, religious and psychological implications.

4.2

Different Notions of Culture

The most important contribution to the debates mentioned above came in the 1990s through a series of articles originally written in German by the philosopher Wolfgang Welsch (Welsch, 1992a, 1992b, 1994). This led to the publication of an anglophone text entitled ‘Transculturality: the puzzling form of cultures today’ (Welsch, 1999), which became extremely influential. Welsch pits the concept of single cultures against those of

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transculturality, multiculturality and interculturality, and sets off transculturality against the latter two categories on the basis of what definition of culture they use. He shows how inter- and multiculturality are based on Johann Gottfried Herder’s concept of cultures as presented in his Ideas on the Philosophy of Mankind (1784–91), which described cultures as Volkskulturen, i.e. cultures of a folk, characterized by internal homogenization and ethnic consolidation as well as by external delimitation towards other such cultures. Such a unificatory concept is no longer tenable today because of the internal differentiation of modern diverse societies and the complex interlinkages between different cultures in the age of globalization. Herder wrote that ‘[e]ach nation has its center of happiness in itself, like every sphere its center of gravity!’ (Herder, 2002: 296–7), but according to Welsch, such a conceptualization of ‘cultures as closed spheres or autonomous islands’ (Welsch, 1999: 195) is no longer possible due to their multifarious intermingling. The clear distinction between inside and outside, ownness and foreignness has become unrealistic. Moreover, imagining cultures as separate spheres or islands is prone to creating clashes between them, i.e. to furthering intercultural conflicts. Interculturality thus envisages contact between different cultures but is still based on the same Herderian idea of culture and therefore cannot solve the problems it describes. ‘It remains cosmetic’ (Welsch, 1999: 196). Similarly, multiculturality is based on the same idea of different and selfcontained cultures and deals with the coexistence of such cultures within one single society. In a multicultural society, its constituent cultures are still conceptualized as separate and internally homogeneous, with the concomitant advocacy for tolerance, openness and mutual understanding aiming at the avoidance of conflict but bearing the risk of indifference and thinking in terms of particularistic autonomous identities. This in turn entails the danger of fundamentalism, chauvinism, and, ultimately, conflict after all (Welsch, 1999: 196–7). While the concepts of inter- and multiculturality go beyond Herder’s idea of Volkskulturen in as far as they stress to a greater extent the coexistence of and interaction between different cultures, they are still indebted to the same basic conception of culture, one which ignores the results of globalization and the dynamics of the ever-increasing number of contacts on the cultures involved. In this respect they have become unrealistic. This is why Welsch introduces a new way of conceptualizing cultures today: ‘They have . . . assumed a new form, which is to be called “transcultural” in so far as it “passes through” classical cultural boundaries. Cultural conditions today are largely characterized by mixes and permeations. The concept of transculturality . . . seeks to articulate this altered cultural constitution’ (Welsch, 1999: 197).

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Cultures, within this new paradigm, can no longer be distinguished along geographic, nationalist or any other clearly demarcated lines, and the boundaries between cultures that still exist in the concepts of inter- and multiculturality have become blurred or porous. The so-called container theory of cultures (e.g. Beck, 1997: 50) no longer works. Rather, cultures are to be imagined as permeating each other, the separate entities of Herderian thinking having been replaced by network structures characterized by intermingling, hybridization and the disappearance of the absolutely foreign. The concept of transculturality thus stresses the ‘inter-meshed and inclusive’ (Welsch, 1999: 200) quality of today’s cultures. Sameness and otherness have partially merged. This requires a change of attitude which allows us to give up our traditional thinking in monocultural perspectives and an intellectual flexibility that enables cognition beyond narrow and exclusive conceptions of culture. Welsch’s redefinition of today’s cultures has precursors in the postcolonial world which was strongly influenced by processes of hybridization and mestizaje or métissage. In particular, he takes up again the Cuban writer and anthropologist Fernando Ortiz’s notion of transculturación. Ortiz, in his study Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar, first published in 1940, coined the term in order to describe the processes of the mixing of people and cultures in his native Cuba and the colonial and postcolonial world (Ortiz, 2002). Transcultural forms of life are characterized by internal heterogeneity and a renegotiation of the diverse elements that constitute them and keep them in constant flux, both internally and with regard to other such transcultural formations, with internal and external being hard to distinguish. The concept of transculturality thus de-essentializes and relativizes the notion of culture and substitutes a dynamic model for a rather static one. The questioning and even the dissolution of cognitive and material borderlines become the order of the day, and so does transgression with its concomitant questioning of established patterns and norms. Important as Welsch’s conceptualization of multi-, inter- and transculturality turned out to be due to his foregrounding of different notions of culture on which these categories are based for him, his distinctions between them did not remain uncontradicted. He was opposed particularly by scholars of interculturality who attacked his criticism of interculturalism as purely cosmetic and as ultimately indebted to a static and essentialist understanding of culture. Indeed, many aspects of what Welsch would refer to as transcultural are included by contemporary scholars in their concepts of multiculturality (e.g. Neubert, Roth & Yildiz, 2013) and interculturality (e.g. Delanoy, 2012). They do not see culture as what Welsch calls ‘a homogeneity event’ (Welsch, 1999: 201), and they ‘incorporate the foreign’ (Welsch, 1999: 201) to the same extent as Welsch’s notion of

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transculturality does so that the clear opposition between multi- and interculturality on the one hand and transculturality on the other turns out to be one that is constructed by Welsch in his attempt to order the chaos that reigned the conceptual landscape up to the early 1990s. This initially laudable undertaking, according to Welsch’s critics, led to a certain schematism that fails to do justice to the complexity of modern notions of multi- and interculturality and requires a more differentiated approach. This is why Guido Rings suggests further differentiation when he distinguishes between different forms of multi- and interculturality, classifying Welsch’s version of these concepts as ‘traditional multiculturality’ and ‘traditional interculturality’ (Rings, 2016: 8) and supports the positions of Antor (2006: 30f.) and Delanoy (2012), who do not see interculturality as incompatible with but as complementary to transculturality. Indeed, Welsch himself, in his most recent publication on the issue, performs a first tentative step in the direction of his critics, although he still claims that multi- and interculturality are indebted to the notion of cultures as separate spheres (Welsch, 2017: 22). However, he also points out that transculturality is by no means a new phenomenon (p. 7) and admits in a somewhat self-contradictory way that in intercultural studies in the social and cultural sciences there is a consensus as to the need to conceptualize cultures as interlinked networks rather than as separate and homogeneous spheres so that the difference between interculturality and transculturality is at best a gradual rather than an essential one (p. 27).

4.3

Anthropological and Psychological Dimensions of Cultural Concepts

The fact that concepts of culture and of how to deal with the multiplicity of cultures are so hotly contested is partly due to the anthropological and psychological aspects involved. The tendency to think in reductive categories such as those of cultures as internally homogeneous and outwardly clearly separable spheres just as in territorial or nationalist categories is due to our anthropological constitution as pattern-building animals (Antor, 1996: 67–9), i.e. as creatures with a tendency to structure their environment in clearly definable categories that form intelligible patterns and offer seemingly useful frameworks for reducing the confusing and disorienting complexity and diversity of the world into manageable and controllable entities. This is how exclusionary concepts that seek to clearly demarcate one culture from another come into being, and this is also one of the origins of, for example, nationalist narratives – storytelling being one of our prime tools of pattern-building (e.g. Boyden, 2010) as storytelling animals

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(Gottschall, 2012) – that tell the story of the birth, development and often superiority of one nation as opposed to others (Anderson, 1983). Welsch himself points out the psychological aspects of some problems we encounter in dealing with transculturality when, referring to psychoanalytic research, he interprets ‘[h]atred directed towards foreigners [as] basically projected hatred of oneself’ (Welsch, 1999: 201), i.e. as the consequence of a process in which we internally repress negative aspects of ourselves and instead project them onto the other in order to fight them externally. This is closely linked to human processes of identity constitution. Our identity is something we often claim to have found, but in fact such an essentialist ontological conception of identity is erroneous because the self, be it our individual or collective identity, is always constructed, i.e. manmade, in pattern-building processes that allow us to position ourselves with regard to others and thus to know who we are. As Charles Taylor put it: ‘To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand’ (Taylor, 1989: 27). The concept of alterity thus is essential to processes of identity constitution because we need an other from which we can set ourselves off in order to define ourselves. We draw a line between ‘I’ and ‘thou’, and belonging to one culture or another frequently serves as one of the major factors that allows us to engage in such processes of demarcation. However, identities have become just as hybridized as cultures in the age of transculturality, and this makes humans react in different ways depending on their ability to cope with complexity, fluidity, heterogeneity, and only limited controllability. In order to be able to cope with external transculturality, Welsch argues, we have to accept and learn how to deal with our inner transculturality (Welsch, 1999: 201).

4.4

Hybridity, Transculturality, and Their Social and Political Consequences

It is no coincidence that Welsch’s theory of transculturality was developed in the 1990s, a decade that saw the publication of a number of studies analysing the related concept of hybridity, which also questions the Herderian conceptualization of culture. As Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin point out, ‘[t]he idea of hybridity also underlies other attempts to stress the mutuality of cultures . . . in expressions of syncreticity, cultural synergy and transculturation’ (Ashcroft, Griffths & Tiffin, 1998: 119). In the hispanophone world, the Argentinian anthropologist Néstor García Canclini had already published his Culturas híbridas: Estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad in 1990, a study in which he defined the transitional position of Latin American nations and cultures in between tradition and modernity.

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In the Anglo-Saxon sphere, Robert J. C. Young presented a history of the idea of hybridity in his Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (1995), in which he traced the development of the concept from nineteenthcentury theories of race via twentieth-century linguistics right up to contemporary postcolonial approaches. The most important and by now foundational text in this debate, however, was Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture, published one year before Young’s study in 1994, which, from a postcolonial perspective, fundamentally challenges traditional conceptualizations of culture. Bhabha begins his study with a chapter on ‘border lives’ which starts with the observation that ‘[i]t is the trope of our times to locate the question of culture in the realm of the “beyond”’ (Bhabha, 2004 [1994]: 1). This sets the tone for an analysis of the boundary-crossing nature of contemporary culture. Although there is no direct reference to Herder in Bhabha’s text, it becomes clear that a container theory of culture is no longer appropriate to the constitution of culture(s) in the day and age of globalization. The forms of culture engendered in the colonial and postcolonial period according to Bhabha are always necessarily transcultural because they emerge in a contact zone (Pratt, 1992) that is invariably characterized by processes of mutual intermingling and cross-pollination so that the separate entities of different cultures in earlier conceptualizations now merge in a ‘Third Space of enunciation, which makes the structure of meaning and reference an ambivalent process’ (Bhabha, 2004 [1994]: 54). The ambivalence of hybrid cultures makes it impossible to categorize them with Herder as externally separate and internally homogeneous and pure. As Bhabha states: ‘we should remember that it is the “inter” – the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the “inbetween” space – that carries the burden of the meaning of culture’ (p. 56). What is described here is a transculturality that goes well beyond the notions of culture on which multiculturality and interculturality are based. Such an approach, in Bhabha’s words ‘overcomes the given grounds of opposition and opens up a space of translation: a place of hybridity’ (p. 37). Not only is the reconceptualization of contemporary cultures by thinkers like Welsch, Bhabha, and others an important contribution to the theoretical discourses of such academic disciplines as inter- and transcultural philosophy, sociology and political science, but it goes far beyond the status of the merely descriptive and also constitutes an active intervention in today’s political environment. It must thus be seen as what Welsch himself calls ‘an “active factor” in our cultural life’ (1999: 200). He points out that the concrete manifestations of our culture are always the result of the way in which we conceive of culture as a phenomenon. Thus, he concludes, using the old Herderian conceptions of culture in the day and age of globalization ‘has today become irresponsible’ (p. 200).

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Mary Louise Pratt, in her Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Acculturation (1992), also points out the political consequences of the shift towards transculturality. She underlines that, in the contact zones of (post)colonial encounters, ‘disparate cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of dominance and subordination’ (Pratt, 1992: 4), and it is these very processes of initially intercultural encounters that transform the cultures involved, creating hybrid transcultures as the result of an often ignored mutual determination. ‘While the imperial metropolis tends to understand itself as determining the periphery (in the emanating glow of civilizing mission or the cash flow of development), it habitually blinds itself to the ways in which the periphery determines the metropolis, beginning, perhaps with the latter’s obsessive need to present and represent its peripheries and its others continually to itself’ (p. 6). Thinking about cultures in strictly binary terms thus is no longer possible. Nor is it feasible to think about the relations between, for example, colonizers and colonized as a one-way process, with power, knowledge and influence originating in the imperial centre and being exerted or distributed in relation to the colonial margin. Rather, such imperial binarisms are disrupted due to ‘the interactive and dialectical effects of the colonial encounter. . . . the dynamic of change is not all in one direction; it is in fact transcultural, with a significant circulation of effects back and forth between the two’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin, 1998: 27). Similarly, Stuart Hall, in his analysis of the ‘cultural effects of the “transculturation” which characterized the colonizing experience’, states that ‘[t]he differences, of course, between colonizing and colonized cultures remain profound. But they have never operated in a purely binary way and they certainly do so no longer’ (Hall, 1996: 247). The potentially negative consequences of humans’ reactions to such symptoms of transculturality must not be ignored and need to be dealt with. For example, hybridity, as one of the salient characteristics of transculturality, often creates fears of the pollution of the supposed purity of one’s culture and identity in humans with a strong tendency to think in Herderian categories of internally homogeneous and externally clearly separable entities. Such fears of contamination can result in xenophobia, i.e. the fear (Greek φόβος or phóbos) of the foreigner or stranger (Greek ξένος or xenos). This is often based on imaginary constructions of the other based not on knowledge and accurate information but on stereotypes and prejudices, which are just as reductive as the simplistic conceptualizations of cultures as separate and distinct entities. For example, in the current political situation in Europe in the midst of the migration crisis, negative and even xenophobic evaluations of foreigners are strongest in those parts of Germany with the lowest number of immigrants, just as the pro-Brexit vote was strongest in rural areas of Britain with very low numbers of immigrants. The anti-immigration policies of such Eastern European countries as Hungary and Poland are another case in point. The

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strong populist movements that can currently be found in Europe thrive on a conceptualization of culture and identity that rejects hybridity and the development towards transculturality of recent years in an attempt to reestablish the clarity and internal purity of Herderian notions of culture. This kind of thinking strongly emphasizes difference and otherness and focuses not on what we share, on human commonalities, but on what separates us. Alterity and island identities, in this approach, are more important than sameness, mutual permeations and what is shared by different people. This is by no means a new phenomenon, as can be seen in Shakespeare’s Othello when, in the first scene of the play, Roderigo tries to incite Brabantio against Othello by telling him that his daughter Desdemona, in running away with ‘the moor’, is ‘Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes / In an extravagant and wheeling stranger / Of here and everywhere.’ (I.i. 135–9). Roderigo here complains about the hybrid and transcultural side of Othello, who displays an in-betweenness that makes him difficult to place and categorize, part of Venice and yet not part of it, somebody with affiliations to Venetian culture and at the same time to other cultures. Othello’s and Desdemona’s union is constructed by Iago and Roderigo as an act of miscegenation, something that pollutes the purity of Venetian blood, race here becoming a marker of an alterity that needs to be absolute and insuperable in order to enable the perpetuation of white supremacist constructions of Venetian culture and identity (e.g. Antor, 2016: 78). Significantly, Othello’s Venice is under stress from outside in its confrontation with the Turks, and it is indeed in situations of stress caused by increased speed of transformation and heightened complexity that humans tend to seek orientation in simplification and the reduction of multiplicity and the rate of change by coming up with often reductive and simplistic patterns of thought, concepts the function of which it is to turn the runaway world into a more manageable and controllable one again. This is why, in the current cultural, social and political situation, and particularly since the beginning of the so-called migrant crisis in 2015, notions of transculturality and hybridity have often been rejected outside liberal intellectual circles in favour of greater stress on alterity and difference, frequently linked to a strengthening of stereotypes and prejudices, a kind of ‘frozen thought’ (e.g. Blaicher, 1987) unable and unwilling to accommodate the changed and dynamic constitution of today’s cultures with their truly puzzling form, in Welsch’s terms.

4.5

Partial Cosmopolitanism, Difference, Particularism and Universalism

The notion of transculturality is also closely linked to the idea of cosmopolitanism, which is similarly critical of the idea of subdividing human lives

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into separate entities, i.e. internally homogeneous units that exist side by side. The cosmopolitan considers himself or herself to be a citizen (‘polite¯s’) of the world (‘cosmos’) rather than merely his or her own ‘polis’. This idea, with its roots in ancient Stoic and Cynic thought and with Diogenes as one of its first representatives, was further developed by Immanuel Kant in his ‘Idea of a universal history from a cosmopolitan standpoint’ (1784) as well as in his Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay (1795). Today the idea has become the focal point of a debate that parallels discussions of inter- and transculturality in as far as it questions the delimitating and separatist strategies of nationalist thought. This can be seen, for example, in Jürgen Habermas’s analysis of a so-called post-national constellation, which results from the opening up of human lives in the context of a cultural, political and economic environment that can no longer be restricted to and described with reference to national spaces. Habermas concludes that the new situation makes it necessary for us to develop a ‘Bewusstsein kosmopolitischer Zwangssolidarisierung’ (Habermas, 1998: 168), i.e. an awareness of the inevitability of a cosmopolitan solidarity. The sociologist Ulrich Beck argues in a similar way when he revives the tradition of cosmopolitanism in his study entitled Cosmopolitan Vision (2006), in which he juxtaposes the notion of the cosmopolitan outlook, which is aware of the boundarydissolving transformative effects of globalization, with the by now obsolete idea of a national vision still trying to preserve borderlines that have become just as tenuous as the exclusive identity concepts based on them (Beck, 2006). Such views of cosmopolitanism have elicited criticism from the supporters of nationalist movements as well as from the champions of the politics of difference because they think they need the notion of boundaries in order to define and defend what they are campaigning or fighting for (e.g. Brennan, 1997: 4). The opponents of a transcultural cosmopolitanism are suspicious of the potential cultural and political homogenization of a McDonaldized world characterized by standardization and control (Ritzer, 1993). The cosmopolitan view is also opposed to such conceptualizations of the world as that presented by Samuel T. Huntington who, in his by now classic study The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), sees conflict between civilizations as one of the greatest threats for the future and adheres to a view that subdivides the world into distinct entities based on the cultural and religious identities of human beings, with the resulting differences being a major cause of conflict. Huntington thus contradicts conceptualizations of the new world order as one characterized by ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama, 1992) and adheres to a concept of culture that is closer to that of Herder than to the more fluid view of culture on which transculturality is based.

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In a more recent intervention, Anthony Kwame Appiah tries to take seriously the positions both of the representatives of transcultural thinking and of those in whose categorizations of the world boundaries and the differences and identities they establish play an essential role. In his Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006), he advocates a ‘partial cosmopolitanism’ (Appiah, 2006: xvii) which avoids ignoring humans’ need for delimitating cultural marker buoys that provide them with a sense of orientation while at the same time allowing for an overcoming of the separatist potential of difference, which is nevertheless to be respected. Appiah points out that it is the task of a partial cosmopolitanism to bridge the gap between two seemingly contradictory approaches: ‘The challenge . . . is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become. . . . People are different, the cosmopolitan knows, and there is much to learn from our differences. . . . these two ideals – universal concern and respect for legitimate difference – clash’ (pp. xiii, xv). The critical cosmopolitanism described by Appiah is characterized by both an awareness of and respect for the differences between human beings and their cultures. However, unlike the concepts of inter- and multiculturality, it is not based on a Herderian understanding of culture in as far as it prioritizes what humans as well as their different cultures share over what separates them: ‘the one thought that cosmopolitans share is that no local loyalty can ever justify forgetting that each human being has responsibilities to every other’ (p. xvi). In such an approach, the seemingly indissoluble opposition between difference and identity can be overcome by the at first sight paradoxical idea that what separates us ultimately is what unites us. This idea is closely related to a conceptualization of universalism and particularism which does not see these approaches as mutually incompatible, but as two different sides of one and the same coin. We are confronted here with two different levels of cultural interpretation, a ‘thin’ (Walzer, 1994) level foregrounding universalist assumptions about all human beings as pattern-building animals with certain needs – for example, the need to establish an identity of one’s own, to interpret the world through the narrative patterns we call stories and thus to construct a sense of orientation – and a ‘thick’ level (Walzer, 1994; Geertz, 2017: 3–36) on which the particular concretizations of these universal needs are studied in their varied, culturally different manifestations, such as different religions, narratives of national identity or structures of social organization. This leads to a ‘differentiating universalism’ which acknowledges the fact that ‘[t]he epistemic systems used by different cultures to explain and make manageable their respective environments and the resulting aesthetic, social, political, religious etc. practices may be very distinct indeed’, but also stresses

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that ‘they nevertheless share their common function as epistemic systems. The universal and the specific thus go hand in hand, and both have to be given their due, just as the pitfalls of both have to be avoided’ (Antor, 2008: 202). Such an approach enables a critical transcultural and cosmopolitan dialogue which neither ignores difference nor exaggerates its function as something that separates us. Instead, it is based on ‘a consciousness of the separate togetherness of people, societies and cultures’ (p. 198) in which boundaries are acknowledged as well as transgressed so that they join us as much as they create distinctions between us. Such an approach has far-reaching ethical consequences, which is why Appiah’s study explicitly claims to be a contribution to the field of ethics. The transcultural cosmopolitan ethics advocated by Appiah are by no means synonymous with an ethical relativism that amounts to the position of a radically postmodern ‘anything goes’, however. In acknowledging the need for individual and collective positionality and identity constitution, it makes possible the simultaneous coexistence of tolerance towards the positions of others as well as intransigent intolerance towards the violation of universal values and norms, such as, for example, human rights. Consequently, the camouflage on a thick level of interpretation of human rights violations as merely cultural particularities is no longer acceptable. Appiah’s partial cosmopolitanism grants all peoples and cultures their local customs and at the same time rejects the potentially negative consequences of a misunderstood particularism. Or, as Seyla Benhabib has it in her discussion of cosmopolitanism: ‘The refrain of the soldier and the bureaucrat – “I was only doing my duty” – is no longer an acceptable ground for abrogating the rights of humanity’ (Benhabib, 2006: 28).

4.6

The Requirements and Ethics of Inter- and Transcultural Competence

What consequences does ‘the puzzling form of cultures today’ (Welsch, 1999) have for us if we want to live satisfying lives in a globalized world that is characterized by the complexities of transculturality on the one hand and by (often right-wing) identitarian movements of retrenchment that are frequently based on a radical neo-essentialist and purist understanding of a Herderian concept of Volkskultur on the other? The various aspects of intercultural competence will still be relevant even though the concept of interculturality in itself may not be sufficient any longer to describe what is needed due to the diverse and heterogeneous constitution of the contemporary world. The three main levels of intercultural competence, i.e. the cognitive, affective, and pragmatic dimensions of interacting with people from a different cultural background (Antor, 2002: 143–7), will have

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to be taken into account. Despite the growing obsolescence of the Herderian notion of culture and the increasing fuzziness of cultural boundaries that have become more and more blurred, the phenomena of difference and alterity have not disappeared. On a cognitive level, then, knowledge about what distinguishes one culture from another, about different traditions, about historical factors, religious, social, political, philosophical, economic, etc. systems will be required in order to avoid misunderstandings and conflict. We will have to acquire knowledge of how members of a different culture think about themselves and about us, their common stereotypes, and cultural and conceptual patterns. It will also be necessary to know the strategies humans use to deal with alterity in general. Otherness needs to be seen as a complex phenomenon that can only be understood if paired with a critical self-understanding of one’s own positionality. Self-reflexion and reflexion on the other must go hand in hand, then, in an attempt at understanding the other. The hermeneutic competence required here is one the aim of which cannot be a fusion of horizons, in a Gadamerian sense (Gadamer, 1986: 311), which would amount to the annihilation of alterity through complete assimilation of or total accommodation to the other, but rather a partial ‘rapprochement’ or overlap of horizons that accepts a persistence of difference that cannot be dissolved completely. We can widen our horizons, but we cannot make them identical. Intercultural competence will allow us to put ourselves in an other’s position and view ourselves from an outside perspective, thus relativizing and de-essentializing the way we conceptualize the world. Intercultural competence thus also presupposes a constructivist sensibility in as far as it allows us to see our own cultural systems as well as those of others as the result of the same human processes of construction of interpretive patterns that make the world available, intelligible and manageable to us, without there being an ultimate or best cultural framework that is superior to all others. Next to a cognitive openness and the concomitant tolerance towards the other, intercultural competence also requires an affective openness that allows us to imagine ourselves in another’s shoes and to overcome the fear of the other, the xenophobia that is the source of so much conflict, violence and injustice. On the other hand, the very tolerance that is the hallmark of intercultural competence must not be limitless if it does not want to degenerate into the arbitrariness of an extreme position of anything goes. That this has become a real danger is expressed by Richard Rorty who observes that ‘[w]e have become so open-minded that our brains have fallen out’ (Rorty, 1991: 203). An exaggerated form of relativism would ultimately lead to indifference and make intercultural exchange superfluous because one position would be as good as any other. The dialogic and constructive exchange of the negotiation of different positionalities is

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threatened by total relativism just as much as by monocultural essentialist fundamentalism. Some scholars have begun to talk about the need to foster what they refer to as transcultural competence (e.g. Matz, Rogge & Siepmann, 2014), but the difference to intercultural competence is only a gradual one, with theorists of transcultural competence establishing not a counterposition to that of interculturalists, but stressing to a lesser degree the concept of difference and emphasizing what links and unites us within the global networks that characterize the world today (e.g. Volkmann, 2014). Finally, therefore, on a pragmatic level, what is needed is a dialogic communicative competence that includes a mastery of foreign languages and an understanding of the world pictures they transport, but also the ability to navigate the to and fro between different positionalities in a way that honours their cultural particularities as well as their universal human aspects as manifestations of our common constitution as pattern-building animals. Our awareness of the differences that distinguish us must be supplemented by a deeply felt and practised knowledge of what we share as well as by scepticism towards the simplifying strategies of those who try to subdivide the diversity of world cultures into separate, internally homogeneous and distinct entities. In other words, we have to acquire both intercultural and transcultural competence.

References Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Antor, H. (1996). The ethics of criticism in the age after value. In R. Ahrens and L. Volkmann, eds., Why Literature Matters: Theories and Functions of Literature. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, pp. 65–85. Antor, H. (2002). Die Vermittlung interkultureller Kompetenz an der Universität: Das Beispiel Kanada. In L. Volkmann, K. Stierstorfer and W. Gehring, eds., Interkulturelle Kompetenz. Tübingen: Narr, pp. 143–63. Antor, H. (2006). Multikulturalismus, Interkulturalität und Transkulturalität. Perspektiven für interdisziplinäre Forschung und Lehre. In H. Antor, ed., Inter- und Transkulturelle Studien: Theoretische Grundlagen und interdisziplinäre Praxis. Heidelberg: Winter, pp. 25–39. Antor, H. (2008). Diversity, cosmopolitanism and ethics in the age of inter- and transculturalism. In D. Carpi, ed., Practising Equity, Addressing Law: Equity in Law and Literature. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, pp. 191–206. Antor, H. (2016). Constructing alterity: race, gender, and the body in Shakespeare’s Othello. In J. Drakakis and S. Fiorato, eds., Performances and Regulations of the Renaissance Body. Berlin: DeGruyter, pp. 73–105.

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Appiah, K. A. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: Norton. Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin H. (1998). Key Concepts in Postcolonial Studies. London: Routledge. Beck, U. (1997). Was ist Globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus, Antworten auf Globalisierung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Beck, U. (2006). Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity. Benhabib, S., with J. Waldron, B. Honig and W. Kymlicka (2006). Another Cosmopolitanism, ed. R. Post (The Berkeley Tanner Lectures 2004). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bhabha, H. K. (2004 [1994]). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Blaicher, G. (1987). Erstarrtes Denken. Studien zu Klischee, Stereotyp und Vorurteil in englisch-sprachiger Literatur. Tübingen: Narr. Boyden, B. (2010). On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brennan, T. (1997). At Home in the World: Cosmopolitanism Now. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Delanoy, W. (2012). From ‘inter’ to ‘trans’? Or: quo vadis cultural learning? In M. Eisenmann and T. Summer, eds., Basic Issues in EFL Teaching and Learning. Heidelberg: Winter, pp. 157–67. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (1986 [1960]). Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge iner philosophischen Hermeneutik. Tübingen: Mohr. García Canclini, N. (1990). Culturas híbridas: Estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad. México: Grijalbo. Geertz, C. (2017). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 3rd ed. New York: Basic Books. Gottschall, J. (2012). The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Habermas, J. (1998). The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory. Boston and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hall, S. (1996). When was ‘the post-colonial’? Thinking at the limit. In I. Chambers and L. Curti, eds., The Post-colonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons. London: Routledge, pp. 242–60. Herder, J. G. (2002). Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. M. N. Forster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Matz, F., Rogge, M. and Siepmann, P., eds. (2014). Transkulturelles Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Theorie und Praxis. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Neubert, S., Roth, H.-J. and Yildiz, E. (2013). Multikulturalismus – ein umstrittenes Konzept. In S. Neubert, H.-J. Roth and E. Yildiz, eds., Multikulturalität in der Diskussion: neuere Beiträge zu einem umstrittenen Konzept. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 9–29.

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Ortiz, F. (2002). Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar. Madrid: Cátedra. Pratt, M. L. (1992). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge. Rings, G. (2016). The Other in Contemporary Migrant Cinema: Imagining a New Europe? New York and Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Ritzer, George (1993). The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life. Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press. Rorty, R. (1991). Objectivism, Relativism, and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shakespeare, W. (1986). Othello. In S. Wells and G. Taylor, eds., William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 925–64. Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Volkmann, L. (2014). Die Abkehr vom Differenzdenken: Transkulturelles Lernen und global education. In F. Matz, M. Rogge and P. Siepmann, eds., Transkulturelles Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Theorie und Praxis. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, pp. 37–51. Walzer, M. (1994). Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Welsch, W. (1992a). Transkulturalität – Lebensformen nach der Auflösung der Kulturen. Information Philosophie, 2, 5–20. Welsch, W. (1992b). Subjektsein heute: Zum Zusammenhang von Subjektivität, Pluralität und Transversalität. Studia Philosophica, 51, 153–82. Welsch, W. (1994). Transkulturalität – die veränderte Verfassung heutiger Kulturen. In F. Duve, ed., Sichtweisen: Die Vielheit in der Einheit. Weimar: Stiftung Weimarer Klassik, pp. 83–122. Welsch, W. (1999). Transculturality: the puzzling form of cultures today. In M. Featherstone and S. Lash, eds., Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World. London: Sage, pp. 194–213. Welsch, W. (2017). Transkulturalität. Realität – Geschichte – Aufgabe. Vienna: New Academic Press. Young, Robert J. C. (1995). Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge.

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5 Critical Intercultural Communication and the Digital Environment Thomas K. Nakayama

5.1

Critical Approaches to Intercultural Communication

Questions of power lie at the heart of the critical intercultural communication project, but the ways that power is deployed and its alignment with various identities is enormously complex and dynamic. Despite the rise of the digital environment, little attention has been paid to the ways that social media influence intercultural communication. In this chapter, I explore the ways that social inequality is reinforced in the digital environment, as well as the ways that people utilize social media to resist that inequality. More specifically, this chapter looks at the Twitter account of President Obama, the use of Twitter in the Black Lives Matter movement, the development of the Microsoft artificial intelligence bot, Tay, and the tweets that shaped her early development. Using a dialectical approach (Martin & Nakayama, 1999), this chapter highlights the ways that digital media’s ‘status-levelling’ and other digital media concepts can reinforce and resist social inequality across cultures and cultural differences. While there is no definitive history of critical intercultural communication, the development of this approach arose as a response to the social scientific or functionalist approach that dominated intercultural communication studies in the United States. The critical approach emphasizes understanding intercultural communication in the context of social relations, such as race, class, gender, sexuality and nationality, for which an understanding of the role of power in intercultural interactions and encounters is key. Others have begun to write the history of the emergence of critical intercultural communication (Halualani, Mendoza & Drzewiecka, 2009). While there is no definitive history, the roots of the development can be traced to the late twentieth century in which critiques of many concepts

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central to traditional intercultural communication emerged. Critiques of the notion of a unitary ‘culture’ began as early as 1992 (Altman & Nakayama, 1992) which challenged the assumption in functionalist research that culture could and should be conceived as simply a variable that explains differences in communication. The domination of the functionalist or social scientific approach throughout a large part of the history of intercultural communication meant that alternative approaches were sought to help explain and understand other ways of thinking about how cultures come into contact. This work has continued into the twenty-first century. For example, critiques of static notions of culture began to be challenged by scholars who envisioned culture as a ‘site of struggle’ (Collier et al., 2001; Martin & Nakayama, 1999; Moon, 1996; Starosta & Chen, 2001). Others have critiqued notions of ‘nation’ and argued that nations should not be viewed as having a unified national culture (Altman & Nakayama, 1992; Ono, 2010). Scholars have also critiqued more traditional notions in intercultural communication, such as approaches to adaptation that do not sufficiently consider the impact of race, sexuality and gender (De la Garza & Ono, 2015). Scholars in the critical tradition were interested in asking questions about the larger social and historical forces that shape intercultural interaction, particularly in the context of tensions between Israelis and Palestinians or Greeks and Turks. They also wanted to look at histories of colonialism to help understand the postcolonial condition), and it is probably fair to summarize that the rise of postcolonialism enhanced the critical study of intercultural communication. Additionally, I would argue to consider the power relations between individuals, which might be linked to differences in status. For example, interaction might vary substantially if the communicators are tourists, business people or refugees. Unfortunately, most critical intercultural scholarship does at this stage not focus on the interpersonal level of interaction. Critical scholars also explore media representations of cultural groups to understand the construction of particular stereotypes and the interests that are served by these images. Concerns about how newspapers write about various immigrant groups are not new, and that includes ‘yellow journalism’ and especially representations of the ‘yellow peril’. Yet, concerns about media representations increased in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this context, I wrote an early piece (Nakayama, 1988) on the stereotype of Asian Americans as a ‘model minority’ in order to critique this portrayal and the ways that it served the interests of white America. Ono and Pham’s book (2009) on Asian American images in the media draws on such criticism when it explores the impact of stereotypical portrayals on Asian American identities. Their analysis demonstrates the importance of

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understanding the histories of Asian American cultural groups, as well as the role of stereotyping in media images, which serves different purposes at different times. While this research developed, other scholars were analysing media representations of many other cultural groups, including African Americans, Latinx, indigenous peoples, women and sexual minorities. Critical scholars have also been very focused on understanding how the past has been constructed to serve different interests and the impact of those constructions on contemporary intercultural relations. For example, the master narrative of whiteness in the history of South Africa creates tensions with shifting racial relations in post-Apartheid era (Steyn, 2001; 2004). Under apartheid, the national narrative insisted that the white European settler arrived in South Africa at the same time as the black (Bantu-speaking) South Africans who came down from the north (Dean et al., 1983: 17). This narrative means that the black South Africans have no more legitimate claim to the land than the Dutch immigrants who rebranded themselves as ‘Afrikaners’ and their language as ‘Afrikaans’ in a move to claim their place. As whiteness needs to establish a new identity in this new post-Apartheid context, it has to grapple with a complex history of race relations, racism and Eurocentric ways of thinking. One of the first textbooks in the United States to incorporate social scientific or functionalist approaches with qualitative or interpretative and critical approaches to intercultural communication was titled Intercultural Communication in Contexts (Martin & Nakayama, 1997). Since then, additional textbooks have appeared and some of them focus exclusively on the critical approach such as Intercultural Communication: Globalization and Social Justice by Kathryn Sorrells (2013). On the other hand, the eighth edition of Lustig and Koester’s Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures has been revised to include a more critical perspective when Halualani was brought in as co-author (2017). These changes in the teaching of intercultural communication point to a robust future for critical intercultural communication.

5.2

The Digital Environment and Intercultural Communication

The emergence of the digital environment has influenced intercultural communication, but the digital environment is, of course, not monolithic. There are many different platforms and ways of communicating from Facebook to Twitter and Instagram to Snapchat. Each of these platforms has its own characteristics and strengths and weaknesses. In an earlier analysis of the role of race on the Internet, Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White co-edited an important collection that highlighted the ways

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that the Internet was changing and influencing racial relations (2012). Others have analysed how search engines compound racial attitudes (Noble, 2018) or the ways that race, sex and class are treated in the online environment (Noble & Tynes, 2016). In addition, I have examined the ways that whiteness has been shaped by the Internet (Nakayama, 2017). The online digital environment is not necessarily a place of liberation, but it does contain the power to resist domination. Let us attend to this aspect of the digital environment and intercultural relations by briefly discussing three aspects in particular: user-generated content, pseudo-anonymity and statuslevelling. User-generated content: across these various digital platforms, one of the unique characteristics vis-à-vis traditional mass media is the role of usergenerated content. Awareness that the digital environment could be weaponized emerged as early as the claim that the then-president of the United States, Barak Obama, was not born in the United States. Since the Constitution of the United States requires that only ‘natural-born citizens’ are eligible for the presidency, proof to the contrary would have made him an illegitimate president. While proof was never provided, Donald Trump popularized and gained widespread notoriety for related rumours on the Internet (Applebaum, 2015; Ortiz, 2016). Claims that anyone could print out their own Kenyan birth certificate with a website to do so floated around (Bateman, 2009), and fake Kenyan birth certificates of Barak Obama were produced online (Bump, 2017). The user-generated content and struggle over the birth certificate, ‘natural-born’ citizenship and whiteness demonstrated the power of the digital environment in creating questions about the legitimacy of the Obama presidency (Nakayama, 2013), which ultimately also helped Donald Trump in his election campaign in 2016. Even today, a significant number of US Americans believe that Obama was not born in the United States. In a poll conducted in December 2017, ‘51 percent of Republicans said they think former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya’ (Glum, 2017). This movement that denies the legitimacy of the Obama presidency is called ‘birtherism’ and it maintains an important force in Republican politics. Pseudo-anonymity: the power of user-generated content combined with the pseudo-anonymity of the Internet can be a very powerful force in creating tensions across cultural differences. An example of these two powerful aspects of social media was reflected in the initial release of Tay, an artificial intelligence bot from Microsoft that was programmed to learn through her interactions with people. When it was launched, Gibbs summarized it as follows: ‘Tay is made in the image of a teenage girl and is designed to interact with millennials to improve its conversational skills through machine-learning’ (Gibbs, 2016). However, interactions between the US American ‘internet mob’ and Tay led Ohlheiser to state: ‘It took

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mere hours for the Internet to transform Tay, the teenage AI bot who wants to chat with and learn from millennials, into Tay, the racist and genocidal AI bot who liked to reference Hitler’ (Ohlheiser, 2016). In this case, the pseudo-anonymity, coupled with the mob of internet trolls, overwhelmed Tay and they were able to turn her into an incredibly racist (and antiSemitic, homophobic, misogynistic) bot, which denied that the Holocaust happened. Microsoft apologized and took Tay down. When they tried to bring her back, Tay had another meltdown (Gibbs, 2016). Now, Tay is available only to registered users. As Microsoft notes on their Tay tweets page: ‘Only confirmed followers have access to @TayandYou’s Tweets and complete profile. Click the “Follow” button to send a follow request’ (TayTweets, n.d.). Since then, Tay has been replaced with Zo, which has been criticized for being too politically correct and not learning the nuances of how hate and bias function. Instead, certain words trigger her to avoid the topic: ‘Zo won’t be caught dead making the same mistakes as her sister. No politics, no Jews, no red-pill paranoia. Zo is politically correct to the worst possible extreme’ (Stuart-Ulin, 2018). For critical intercultural communication scholars, these artificial intelligence chatbots raise important questions about the use of social media to create more tension between cultural groups, and to create or enhance dominant groups on the basis of powerful fake news. In addition, critical intercultural communication scholars may also want to understand why this happened to Tay but not to Microsoft’s Chinese XiaoIce chatbot, which ‘successfully interacts with more than 40 million people across Twitter, Line, Weibo and other sites’ (Gibbs, 2016). While more research needs to be done to understand these cultural differences, perhaps the racial struggle in the United States is more salient to internet users and so they feel a stronger need to reassert their racial positionalities by interacting with these artificial intelligence bots in different ways. Status-levelling: social media has made communication with people up and down various hierarchies much easier. This phenomenon means that ordinary people can communicate directly with the president of the United States. In May 2015, when President Obama posted his first tweet on a new Twitter account, he entered the digital environment with all of the implications of that move. His first tweet optimistically announced: ‘Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account.’ By now, experienced social media users should not be surprised that ‘it took only a few minutes for Mr Obama’s account to attract racist, hate-filled posts and replies’ (Davis, 2015). In fact, it took just ten minutes from President Obama’s initial tweet to draw the first racist tweet calling him the N-word and telling the president to ‘get cancer’ (Badash, 2015). From that tweet, many more racist and hateful messages would follow,

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which included words like monkey, the N-word, anti-gay slurs and an image of President Obama in a noose. All these are tropes from an older era, but new is the ability of ordinary people to communicate directly with the president, especially in this hateful and ugly way. President Trump is well known for his use of Twitter. Unlike President Obama, President Trump has weaponized his Twitter account, i.e. he has used it to campaign and communicate his policy ideas but has also used it to attack various cultural groups and nations. Many people have responded to a number of Trump’s tweets and some have been blocked by him. In a recent lawsuit, the court ruled that it is unconstitutional for Trump to block people, as his Twitter feed is a public forum and people have the right to communicate their ideas (Herrman & Savage, 2018). Although it required a lawsuit and a favourable court ruling, the ability of ordinary people to communicate with the president and others has been maintained. This status-levelling is a feature of the digital environment that empowers more voices and views. We see the characteristics of pseudo-anonymity, status-levelling and user-generated content playing out in many different examples. When Miss New York (Nina Davuluri) won the Miss America pageant to become Miss America 2014, she was the first American woman of Indian descent to do so. She also faced a torrent of tweets that reinforced older forms of racism to delegitimate her crown, some of which, claiming that she was not an American, harkened back to older forms of racism and racial laws such as the 1790 Naturalization Law that determined that one must be a ‘free, white person’ to be eligible for US citizenship. Although there are no longer any racial restrictions on US citizenship, many tweets claimed that she was ineligible to be Miss America. The Miss America pageant itself was originally limited to white women but that period has ended as well. Other tweets claimed that she was a terrorist and a Muslim, both of which are false claims. By redrawing boundaries around who is and who is not ‘American’, the tweets reinscribed older forms of racism and racist thinking, but the public arena of Twitter significantly increased the impact of these claims and allowed them to become very well known in American life (Cisneros & Nakayama, 2015). Similar kinds of events can trigger a torrent of racist discourse into the public sphere. In 2012, when the Boston Bruins, a National Hockey League team, lost to the Washington Capitals in the play-offs, in the deciding Game 7, the winning score was made by Joel Ward, a black Capitals player. The public sphere was filled with ‘a whole lot of vile stuff going on, in multiple platforms, on multiple sites’ (Steinberg, 2012). The situation was very similar in 2014, also during the hockey play-offs, when the Boston Bruins lost Game 1 in double overtime to the Montreal Canadiens. This time the winning goal was scored by P. K. Subban, also a black player, and

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Twitter lit up again with extremely racist tweets. Like the tweets in 2012, the 2014 tweets were so ugly and hateful that the Boston Globe included a link to see the tweets, but did not include the tweets (Fagerberg, 2014). In both cases, there is no definitive agreement on the number of tweets that were sent out, but there is evidence that the damage to the public image of Boston was substantial.

5.3

Digital Media and the Resistance to Domination

The digital environment also allows people to organize collective action to change contemporary cultural conditions, because social media tools are tools that empower people to organize resistance and social change. As critical intercultural communication scholars begin to explore the possibilities of the digital environment, many new ways of using social media for social change have become more evident. In August 2014, Michael Brown, an African American male, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St Louis. In the ensuing aftermath, activists utilized a wide range of tactics, including social media, to criticize the relationships between the police and African Americans. In this case, the hashtag #ferguson began trending and reporting what was happening. The early initiators, who were everyday citizens, began to build this network and connect to other stories of police shootings of African Americans. By tracking the development of this network and its features in a longitudinal way, we can understand how the activists were able to frame the relevant issues (Jackson & Foucault Welles, 2016). This is an example of the ways that social activists used social media to build networks and effectively reach large audiences to inform them about what was happening in Ferguson. However, it should also be noted that this was not a stand-alone strategy: activists also organized marches and more traditional forms of protest to pursue their goals. The point here is that the digital environment also contains tools to resist the domination of certain groups and reject older ways of thinking about race, racial difference and racisms. The Internet and social media are tools that can be used for a wide range of goals. Unfortunately, the rise of digital media has led to a particularly substantial increase in the empowerment of hate groups and neo-nationalist racist discourses that challenge intercultural relations, and internet companies have been unable to do much about it (Rosen, 2018). This means that the digital environment at this stage is considerably more of a threat rather than a benefit to intercultural relations.

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5.4

Outlook for Intercultural Communication in the Digital Environment

The Arab Spring first brought attention to the need to better understand intercultural communication in the digital age, because it highlighted the increasingly important role of social media in a society without open and free media (Khondker, 2011). Some scholars have analysed the way the network was built and information flowed from media sources, as well as particular types of individuals involved in the uprising (Lotan et al., 2011). Again, user-generated content, in this case through Twitter, played a significant role. However, since that time, we have come to see that the Arab Spring did not fulfil all of its promises, Twitter is not necessarily a revolutionary and liberating force, and the power of social media in countries with free and open media has been increasing as well. Considering the need for more research in this new field, Robert Shuter has established the Center for New Media Intercultural Research as a global network of intercultural communication scholars working on issues related to intercultural communication and the digital environment. To date, the Center has built its network of 390 scholars from fifty-eight countries and their goals are to: (1) gather, generate and disseminate intercultural new media research; (2) apply intercultural new media research to organizational challenges in private and public sectors; (3) provide CINMR research associates with a searchable and interactive directory that enables them to identify and communicate with intercultural new media scholars worldwide (CINMR, n.d.). Although much of the work that goes on under this larger umbrella network is not critical in its orientation and perspective, it is addressing the larger issues of the online environment and that may have tremendous implications for critical intercultural communication scholars as the digital environment grows and changes. No one can foresee what will happen in the future, much less in the digital environment, but we are all engaged in working towards a better future, and the ways in which the digital environment presents opportunities and challenges must be thought through and resisted if necessary. These are powerful tools that people can use in a wide range of ways for a wide variety of goals. The future will be built by all of us in the digital environment but the outcome is far from determined.

References Altman, K. E. and Nakayama, T. K. (1992). The fallacy of the assumption of a unitary culture. Paper presented at the ‘Speech Communication Association Convention’, Hilton and Towers Hotel, Chicago, IL, 1 November.

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6 From Shared Values to Cultural Dimensions A Comparative Review Elizabeth A. Tuleja and Michael Schachner

CULTURE DOESN’T EXIST. In the same way values don’t exist, dimensions don’t exist. They are constructs, which have to prove their usefulness by their ability to explain and predict behaviour. Hofstede (2002: 1359, capitals in the original)

6.1

Introduction

The quote above has been used by Geert Hofstede, the founder of modern cross-cultural research (Carraher, 2003: 98), as a way to emphasize that there is no one set of true cultural dimensions, as they do not exist as such. They are constructs that should help us to explain and predict behaviour. We decided to start with this quote as there have been many debates in the academic world and beyond about which type of research and its respective cultural dimensions is better or more accurate, as if there was one true method of analysis to be found. That is why we would like to remind the reader that cultural dimensions are a means for humans to explain phenomena in our behaviour that can be attributed to how and where we grew up. Past, current and future research into cultural dimensions has a direct impact on how scholars and practitioners in the field of intercultural communication pursue our goals. Understanding where we have come from and where we are going as a scholarly community reinforces the critical importance of our field as we bring forth new ideas that are challenged from multiple perspectives, methodologies and means of analysis. As Hofstede explained, ‘a dimension is an aspect of a culture that can be measured relative to other cultures’ (Hofstede, 1997: 14). The cultural dimensions described here are the result of quantitative studies using aggregated self-descriptions. Standardized surveys are translated and filled in by respondents representing a cultural entity, such as an ethnicity, a

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region or a country – in case of the latter we speak of national culture. Thereafter, the answers are analysed using various data reduction methods, resulting in cultural dimensions that best explain the differences in participant responses across cultures and which help us solve challenges. After all, cultural dimensions do not serve a purpose by themselves. Rather, they can help us to explain differences in behaviour across cultures and improve the way we deal with those differences. Dimensions have two poles but should be viewed as continua. If countries have dimension scores from 0 to 100, a scale often adapted for convenience, the country with a score of 0 is simply the country with the lowest score found among the countries measured. There are, of course, other ways of studying culture. Qualitative studies tend to use observations or interviews. Often, they are called idiographic studies, starting from the idea that each society has its own unique cultural traits (Minkov, 2013: 62–3) which could not be explained by quantitative studies across cultures. Idiographic studies focus on the explanation of meanings, whereas quantitative research, such as the research on cultural dimensions, focuses on verifiable predictions (e.g. the higher a country scores on Collectivism, the higher the inequality coefficient of that country will be). The first type of study can be attributed to cultural psychology whereas the latter is typical for cross-cultural psychology (Leung & Van de Vijver, 2008: 145). Therefore, while qualitative studies may be better at explaining certain cultural phenomena, quantitative studies are better suited to comparing cultures because they look at common factors that operate across societies despite any local peculiarities (Minkov, 2013: 63). Criticism of the concept of national culture dimensions has been manifold. Some critics are sceptical about even the existence of such a thing as an enduring, causal, shared, ‘national culture’ (McSweeney, Brown & Iliopoulou, 2016: 49). The most prevalent arguments are: • National cultures are enduring in the sense that relative national culture differences are persistent over time. This does not mean that cultures do not change – most cultures have become more individualistic over the last decades, whereas economic development is the biggest cause for this change (Beugelsdijk & Welzel, 2018: 1499). • Causality, as in many other research areas, is difficult to establish. Does culture have an impact on educational achievement or is it the other way around? We only know that the two are associated (e.g. Minkov et al., 2018: 310). Cultural dimensions are frequently used to explain behaviour on levels other than the level of measurement (McSweeney, 2013: 495). For example, Germany may score higher on Individualism than Spain. Yet, when you work with a group of Spaniards and a group of Germans, you cannot assume that the Germans in that particular group are more individualistic than the Spaniards (neither the individuals nor the group

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as a whole). This is known as the ecological fallacy and is being committed by academics and practitioners alike (McSweeney, 2013: 484). This is a serious concern, but it does not invalidate cross-cultural dimension research. • Culture is often defined as a shared meaning system (e.g. Hofstede, 2010: 6) – something that distinguishes one group of people from another. This would assume that one group of people would share something, such as certain values, that differ from another group of people. However, none of the popular dimension theories ask for agreement within cultural groups or sufficient variability to other groups when measuring culture. Therefore, there is a discrepancy between the definition of culture as a shared meaning system and the way it is being measured (Fischer, 2009: 36). Moreover, most values (but not all) are shared across countries and value differences between individuals within countries can be larger than value differences between countries (Fischer & Schwartz, 2011: 1137). The definition of culture as a shared meaning system is therefore problematic and culture evidently should not be reduced to only values. • The nation as a unit of measurement is another concern. Cultures may move across borders, or regional cultures within nations may exist. Yet, when clustering regions of countries based on the values of inhabitants, the regions nearly always cluster together with regions of the same country (Minkov & Hofstede, 2012: 152). This is true even for African nations where borders were drawn rather arbitrarily. As most indicators (Gini coefficient, educational achievement data, crime rates, etc.) associated with cultural dimensions are available on the national level, it makes most sense to measure culture on the same level. This chapter gives a short overview of the research that led to the ‘discovery’ of cultural dimensions by Geert Hofstede, published in 1980 in his renowned book, Culture’s Consequences (Hofstede, 1980). Once Hofstede’s cultural dimensions paradigm was accepted by academia, others followed suit by developing their own dimensional studies. These were sometimes in direct competition with Hofstede’s theory, such as the GLOBE study (House, et al., 2004) and later the Mediacom–itim study (Minkov, 2018). Others picked up on the dimensional theory but did not seek to replace or update Hofstede’s dimensions, such as the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world or the value orientations of Schwartz based on his theory of basic human values (Schwartz, 2006). With a focus on Hofstede’s study, we will give a brief overview of each of these key studies, what their main contributions are, and how they are used to analyse values and dimensions (see Table 6.1). The first topic focuses on the beginnings of cultural value research which formed the foundation for work on cultural dimensions.

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Table 6.1 Major cross-cultural dimension research, commonalities and differences Study or model

6D model (initially 4D)

GLOBE study

Schwartz’s Value Orientations

Main scholar Data Discipline

Geert Hofstede 1967–9, 1971–3 Business/ Management

Robert House 1994–7 Business/ Management

Shalom Schwartz 1988–2000 Social psychology

Underlying theory Most used

Work values

Leadership effectiveness

Basic human values

Cross-cultural awareness training 116,000 IBM employees 78 6 (initially 4) Introducing cultural dimension paradigm

Leadership training

Cross-cultural psychology

17,000 Middle managers 62 9x 2 Contribution to leadership studies

35,000 Teachers and students 73 3 (7 value orienta-tions) Method of calculating cultural distances

Responses Sample Countries Dimensions Uniqueness

World Values Survey

Mediacom–itim study

Ronald Inglehart 1981–> Political science/ Sociology (Post) materialism

Michael Minkov 2015–16 Social psychology

Sociology and political science 340,000 (2015) Population sample 113 2 Longitudinal data

Based on previous cultural studies Marketing and consumer behaviour 56,000 Consumer panels 56 2 High predictive properties

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6.2

Explaining Shared Values as Building Blocks of Societies: Milton Rokeach

All societies have shared values as well as a range of values held by individuals, which make up the building blocks of a society and provide structure, guidance and familiarity for its people. A ‘value’ is an enduring principle which helps us determine that one way of thinking, believing or doing is preferable over another, while a ‘value system’ is the incorporation of principles and rules that people in a society learn in order to interact with each other. Early twentieth-century work on values was conducted by social psychologist Milton Rokeach (1973; 1979), who described the concept of values as being made up of cognitive, affective and behavioural characteristics that help guide humans in preferring one behaviour over another. According to Rokeach (1979: 328), there are terminal values and instrumental values. ‘Terminal values’ are goals that people might want to achieve in life, such as friendship, love, happiness, wisdom and peace, while ‘instrumental values’ are means of behaviour for reaching one’s goals, e.g. courage, honesty, imagination, independence, forgiveness. Values are the standards that guide our daily choices, attitudes and actions which are learned at an early age. These values serve as internal reference points that shape a person’s attitudes and opinions and vary among different groups in different cultures. Such values have a tremendous impact on us whether we are aware of them or not. At our very core is our belief system, which tends to be the most stable and is hard to change. Attitudes are the result of our beliefs and tend to be consistent with them. Our opinions are at the edges of our belief system and have a tendency to be the most easily changeable. Rokeach believed that ‘values are multifaceted standards that guide conduct in a variety of ways. They lead us to take particular positions on social issues and they predispose us to favour one ideology over another. They are standards employed to evaluate and judge others and ourselves’ (1973: 79). Values, therefore, are the fundamental principles we live by, which guide, shape and order our lives. While the field of psychology has been instrumental in the foundation of cultural dimensions research, the field of anthropology has also contributed significantly, which leads us to pathbreaking research by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck.

6.3

Identifying Value Orientations: Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck

Some of the earliest work on values in the field of anthropology led to important conceptual foundations in the field of intercultural communication as conducted by anthropologists Francis and Clyde Kluckhohn and Frederick Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 07:08:13, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.009

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Strodtbeck through the Harvard Values Project in the 1940s. In trying to make sense of human world views via their work in south-western United States, they set out to investigate the core values of different cultures by comparing Mexican, Navajo, Zuni, Texan, and Mormon communities (Kluckhohn, 1951: 390; Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961: 49). Their hypothesis stated that all cultures have a limited set of common human problems that need solutions and concluded that there were five human concerns that all societies are based upon: human nature, people and nature, time sense, activity, and social relations (Hills, 2002: 4). They believed that intercultural understanding could be improved by exploring any culture’s five concerns, since the way people understand and deal with problems in life reflect their collective values. While these five concerns are not values in themselves, the anthropologists believed that they were orientations – outward manifestations or indicators – of societal and individual values. By studying the foundational assumptions upon which a culture would build its value system, they provided groundbreaking research that paved the way for future studies. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s work has had significant influence on the field of intercultural communications and these five orientations have been important to our understanding of how humans interact with both their physical and social environments. The five orientations are: • Human Nature: what innate character is important to humans (world view)? • People and Nature: what is the relationship of humans and how they interact with nature? • Time Sense: what is the temporal focus of life in how humans view and use time? • Activity: what is the pattern of human activity – is the default to be busy and involved in ‘doing’ or to be balanced and involved in ‘being’? • Relationships: what is the practice of human interaction – is it to focus on relationships within the group or the individual? These concepts have been operationalized into teaching and training materials, and have also become instrumental in developing cross-cultural assessment tools used in education and business. While Rokeach and Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck identified the foundational aspects of values and cultural orientations, other work has tested these theories through empirical research in order to provide us with data that tell us what it means to deal with time or activity or relationships.

6.4

Creating a Landmark Breakthrough: Geert Hofstede

In 1980 Professor Geert Hofstede, a Dutch psychologist who had been working for IBM, published his work that was derived from analysing data collected from over 100,000 employees at IBM subsidiaries in forty nations. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 07:08:13, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.009

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This was the largest and most comprehensive study at the time and its reception was varied – from enthusiastic to sceptical. By the late 1980s the idea of cultural dimensions had become normal science. Today Hofstede’s dimensions have become part of intercultural training programmes and are included in textbooks and readers in cross-cultural psychology, organizational psychology, sociology, management and communications (Hofstede, 2001: 73). Hofstede’s 1980 book Culture’s Consequences defined the idea that cultural dimensions can be determined at the national level and compared to other cultures. He used continua to contrast differences in order to demonstrate how a particular country could be more or less of any particular dimension – for example, some countries, such as the United States, generally tend to be more individualist in their social make-up. Individualist cultures are inclined to have looser ties within the community and weaker interpersonal connections, whereas collectivist groups generally have stronger group cohesion, loyalty and responsibility for members of the group. He summarizes his findings as follows: So it seemed that employees of this multinational enterprise . . . could serve for identifying differences in national value systems. The reason is that from one country to another they represented almost perfectly matched samples: they were similar in all respects except nationality, which made the effect of national differences in their answers stand out unusually clearly (Hofstede, 2011: 6).

Country scores (based on national boundaries as defined by political units (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010: 20) are not absolutes but indicate the relative cultural distance on a dimension from one country to another. To explain this, Hofstede used the computer metaphor of programming the mind by explaining three different levels of mental programming within a triangle (see Figure 6.1). • At the deepest level (the base of the triangle) is the broadest level of mental programming, which is human nature. Because of human nature, there are many behaviours and understandings that all people share even though they come from different cultures. • Next is the middle level of culture which is based on common experiences that we share with a group of fellow human beings. Cultural values, attitudes and assumptions about proper behaviour give us something in common with a definable group of others, but not with all of them – for example, this could be a national culture, a community culture or a work culture. • At the top is personality. Our personality is based upon genetic make-up and personal experiences that make each of us unique. Because of personality, each of us has many behaviours and understandings that are

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Figure 6.1 Hofstede’s levels of mental programming. Source: Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov (2010: 6)

quite different from those of others, even though we come from the same culture (or even family). These levels of mental programming are a useful way to visualize the complexity of human beings. While humans have the same genetic makeup, it is culture, subcultures and personality that create limitless differences and diversity in how values, beliefs, attitudes and norms are played out on the world’s stage. Hofstede initially described four separate dimensions: power distance, individualism and collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity and femininity. Later, the model was extended by two dimensions in collaboration with Michael Bond (long-term orientation) (Hofstede, 1997: 14–15) and most recently Michael Minkov (indulgence vs. restraint). (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010: 280–1). Hofstede always recognized his own bias as a Dutch researcher. He was therefore open to adding a dimension focusing on differences between East Asia and what is commonly referred to as the West in collaboration with Bond. Bond was pursuing his own research based upon values of Chinese populations and had produced a separate study called the Chinese Value Survey (Hofstede, 2010: 236). Seeking to learn why there were such stark

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differences between cultures in the West (such as his native Canada) and cultures in East Asia (such as mainland China and Hong Kong), he surveyed students in Hong Kong using a questionnaire that had been developed by Chinese scholars with the Chinese Culture Connection (1987: 145). Bond’s premise was that countries in East Asia had common cultural roots that dated back in history, and he originally named this Confucian dynamism (Hofstede & Bond, 1988: 6) because many of the teachings of Confucius adhere to the nature of relationships and status, perseverance and shame, which are all present in countries with a Confucian heritage (Hofstede, 2011: 13). The dimension was not found in the IBM database because the corresponding questions had not been asked. This is an example of the subjectivity that cannot be avoided even in quantitative research – researchers tend to be biased when formulating questions, even if the bias is unconscious. The following is a short overview of Hofstede’s dimensions. Actual country comparisons can be found at www.hofstede-insights.com/countrycomparison. Power Distance: power distance examines how people deal with inequality in their society. While power and inequality exist in all societies, some are more unequal than others. Perhaps surprisingly, power distance is predominantly defined by those without power, and it questions to what extent they accept that power is distributed unequally. For example, high power distance in organizations is demonstrated by employees expecting to be under tight supervision. They interpret supervision as a sign that their work is considered important. In low power distance countries, employees would feel overly controlled and hence distrusted. Individualism versus Collectivism: this dimension deals with how people interact on a social level, and the default system compels people to think in terms of ‘me’ or ‘we’ (Hofstede, 2011: 11). Societies on the individualist side of the continuum tend to have fewer interpersonal connections beyond family and close friends; therefore, people act in their own interest first and have less personal responsibility for other’s well-being. Usually, the state has a stronger role in more individualist societies (for example by providing social security, replacing the need for belonging to in-groups) (Hofstede, 2010: 108). Societies tend to become more individualistic the wealthier they become (Hofstede, 2001: 253). Individuals living in societies on the collectivist side tend to have stronger ties with the family and extended family structures. There is strong commitment, loyalty, respect and obedience to the group, which is rewarded in terms of protection and inclusion and sanctioned through strong social control (Hofstede, 2010: 113). Expectations of more collectivist societies generally mean that members are

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expected to act on the behalf of the good of the group – not the self. For example, the mainly Southern African concept of Ubuntu means that ‘I am by virtue of many.’ It is the reciprocal hospitality and collaboration that supports and benefits everyone. In African cultures, this concept generally suggests that people strive for a win-win situation – ‘when you win, I win; when you hurt, I hurt’ (Elkington & Tuleja, 2017: 67). Uncertainty Avoidance: uncertainty is part of life because no one can know the future. However, some cultures deal with it differently than others. Reflecting on the Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck model as well as Schwartz’s Mastery versus Harmony definition (which will be discussed later), societies can try to control nature or be a part of it. Normally the highest degree of uncertainty is found in collective societies because of the need to act interdependently and because beliefs and institutional systems have been created to provide structure, behavioural codes, rules and laws (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010: 188–190). In more uncertainty avoidant countries like Germany or Japan official credentials are extremely important. They are meant to provide certainty. For example, toothpaste commercials will usually include a dentist, acting as the expert, recommending the product. Masculinity versus Femininity: masculinity and femininity are based upon the Latinized words for manlike and womanlike. A ‘masculine’ culture refers to a society that values competition, achievement and success, which are typically considered masculine roles, whereas a ‘feminine’ culture values cooperation and caring. This means that in masculine cultures the emotional gender roles are distinct – boys should be assertive and grow up to be focused on material success; girls are encouraged to focus on the quality of life. In a feminine culture there is less role separation – where men can be modest, tender and focused on the quality of life. For example, in more feminine cultures, such as Sweden, Norway and Finland, there are strong national laws that allow fathers to take almost as long paternal leave for a newborn child as the mother. Fathers, in general, take on an important role in child-rearing (Storo & Jansen, 2007). Long-Term versus Short-Term Orientation: long-term oriented societies are defined by perseverance and thrift. Being successful in the long run has the utmost importance, even if in the short term sacrifices need to be made. Short-term societies have a strong respect for traditions and value personal steadiness and stability. For example, Chinese immigrants (China and East Asia being long-term oriented) may have no problem with changing their name to an English one that is easier to pronounce for non-Chinese, something people from Arab countries (being short-term oriented) generally might not do. For the Chinese, the goal is to create harmony so that going forward all people are comfortable – the Chinese are comfortable with using both names.

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However, this generally is not the case within Arab countries – altering a name to blend in is not considered suitable and could have a negative effect on a person’s identity. Indulgence versus Restraint: indulgence refers to societal standards for immediate gratification of basic human needs in order to enjoy life; restraint stands for a society that believes one should control and regulate gratification, which is done through strict social norms. For example, in Russia, it is generally not common to smile at a stranger as this is interpreted as overly indulgent, yet in the United States, sales associates are encouraged to smile at customers upon entering an establishment. To do otherwise is considered too restrained and impolite. While Hofstede’s research focused on quantifying cultural differences between country values, another study focused specifically on identifying differences in leadership behaviours.

6.5

Examining a Leadership Perspective: GLOBE

Another important study on culture is the GLOBE study of sixty-two societies. GLOBE stands for ‘global leadership organizational behaviour effectiveness’ and the study was conducted in collaboration with a cross-cultural team of social scientists from around the world with the purpose of studying leadership attributes. Though this study found definite leadership patterns across cultures, the main finding was that leader effectiveness is contextual – a leader’s efficacy is drawn from the norms of a society, its organizations as well as the values and beliefs of its people. Extending the original work of Kluckhohn, Hofstede, Schwartz and others, the late Robert House, professor of management at the Wharton School, mobilized 170 social scientists from sixty-two countries around the world to survey thousands of middle managers about leadership attributes. The research team analysed the responses of 17,300 employees from 951 organizations to determine the characteristics of a global leader. The GLOBE study measured cultural practices and values regarding leadership attributes – defining cultural practices as being the ‘way things are’ and values as the ‘way people would like things to be’ (note that this definition is completely different from other researchers such as Hofstede, Schwartz or Minkov). This would make it possible to capture the similarities and differences in the norms, values and beliefs regarding leadership practices among societies (House et al., 2004: 15). The GLOBE study found that certain leadership traits, such as being trustworthy, fair, honest, decisive, and compassionate, are global; however, how these traits are conveyed can differ based upon cultural norms. For example, in Anglo cultures, such as the USA, leaders might be considered

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decisive if they can make a quick decision, because being quick is usually more important than being 100 per cent accurate. However, leaders from Germany or France might take a different approach since the tendency is to be deliberate and precise when making decisions. The GLOBE study found nine cultural dimensions, many of them similar to Hofstede’s original research: • Performance Orientation: the degree to which a collective encourages and rewards (and should encourage and reward) group members for performance improvement and excellence. • Assertiveness: the degree to which individuals are (and should be) assertive, confrontational and aggressive in their relationships with others. • Future Orientation: the extent to which individuals engage (and should engage) in future-oriented behaviours such as planning, investing in the future and delaying gratification. • Humane Orientation: the degree to which a collective encourages and rewards (and should encourage and reward) individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring and kind to others. • Institutional Collectivism: the degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward (and should encourage and reward) collective distribution of resources and collective action. • In-Group Collectivism: the degree to which individuals express (and should express) pride, loyalty and cohesiveness in their organizations or families. • Gender Egalitarianism: the degree to which a collective minimizes (and should minimize) gender inequality. • Power Distance: the extent to which the community accepts and endorses authority, power differences and status privileges. • Uncertainty Avoidance: the extent to which a society, organization or group relies (and should rely) on social norms, rules and procedures to alleviate the unpredictability of future events. The greater the desire to avoid uncertainty, the more people seek orderliness, consistency, structure, formal procedures and laws to cover situations in their daily lives. The GLOBE study aimed to refine Hofstede’s culture dimensions (Peterson, 2004: 641), which include power distance and uncertainty avoidance (same name but not necessarily the same meaning). In some cases there is a name change (e.g. Future Orientation), while in other cases a Hofstede dimension is subdivided (instead of Individualism, GLOBE measures Institutional Collectivism and In-Group Collectivism). The remaining dimensions (performance orientation, gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, and humane orientation) are related to elements of Hofstede’s Masculinity dimension. The study differentiates between practice (as is) and value (should be) dimensions. The practice dimensions are deducted from question items asking respondents about their perceptions of their national context

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(asking them how they see people behaving in their own society, rather than how they themselves behave). The resulting dimensions can therefore be referred to as national auto-stereotypes. The value dimensions are based on items asking respondents how they would like people in their society to behave. This definition of values is substantially different to the other studies discussed in this chapter, which are, generally, based on selfdescriptions. Therefore, GLOBE’s measure of values can be viewed as additional predictors of cultural effects rather than an alternative to the other approaches discussed in this chapter (Smith, 2006: 916). Even though GLOBE is evidently inspired by Hofstede’s research, House et al. (2004) strongly criticized Hofstede’s research, which sparked a correspondence between the GLOBE authors (Javidan et al., 2006: 898) with Hofstede (2006: 884) in the Journal of International Business Studies. In a commentary, Peter Smith (2006: 915) summarized that the debate had moved from whether empirically measured cultural dimensions are useful at all (compared to qualitative studies) to the question of how they should be measured properly. While the next approach is outside the fields of communication, anthropology, psychology and sociology, the theory behind it and the findings produced have proved to be invaluable to the field of cultural dimension research.

6.6

Identifying Cultural Shifts via a Political Science Approach: Inglehart–Welzel’s Cultural Map

The Inglehart–Welzel map is based on data from the World Values Survey (WVS), the largest cross-national survey investigating attitudes, values and beliefs around the world. Its uniqueness is that it has been carried out every few years with mostly similar items since 1981. The available data is hence longitudinal and provides a great opportunity to observe changes in attitudes, beliefs and values. Today the WVS is an ongoing project managed by hundreds of social scientists around the world who are interested in understanding the impact of changing values on social, economic, religious, gender and political life as well as identifying connections between cultural factors and economic development. Since its inception, two political scientists, Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel have analysed the WVS data and created a cultural world map (see Figure 6.2) that plots societal values based upon two dimensions: ‘traditional versus secular rational’ and ‘survival versus self-expression’. Traditional societies: • emphasize importance of parent-child ties; • show respect towards authority;

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Figure 6.2 Inglehart–Welzel map of the world based on data collected 2010–14

• hold absolute standards and traditional family values; • have high levels of national pride and nationalism. Secular societies have the opposite views to traditional ones. The second dimension shows the transitions from industrial to postindustrial societies in terms of advancement and improvement that moves people from survival to self-expression. Post-industrial societies: • take survival for granted because of economic advances; • demonstrate a shift in economic/physical security to quality of life; • desire opportunities for self-expression and well-being. Industrial societies have the opposite needs to post-industrial ones. By comparing the values surveyed every few years, this scatter plot graph (www.worldvaluessurvey.org) reveals noticeable shifts from traditional to secular values and survival to self-expression values. Nonetheless, the database has also been useful in demonstrating that the relative position of countries does not change that much over time (Beugelsdijk, Maseland & Van Hoorn, 2015: 224), giving validity to Hofstede’s research despite its age. Inglehart and Welzel posit that, as societies develop great economic

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security, there are attitudinal shifts in people which lead to more selfexpression and independence in contrast to more traditional beliefs. When values shift from survival to self-expression, this movement produces changes in child-rearing values that move from emphasizing hard work to encouraging imagination and tolerance. With increased subjective well-being follows more tolerance and trust within the political atmosphere of a culture. Inglehart and Welzel point out that values equal cultural proximity rather than geographical proximity – for example, the United States, UK and Australia have similar values even though they are in different parts of the world (Inglehart, 1997: 336). Within a society’s value system there are value orientations which can be ordered on a continuum ranging from low to high. For example, democracy, freedom, fairness, achievement, cooperation and caring are values and the degree to which we place these on a continuum – from high to low – demonstrates one’s orientation. Such values are shaped by dominant cultural patterns which have a tremendous impact on both collective and individual values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of a group of people. Cultural patterns can include ethnicity, language and religion, as well as political, economic and social class influences. This model is useful for demonstrating how cultural values can shift over time based upon the impact of social, economic, religious, gender and political events.

6.7

Examining a Social Psychological Approach to Cultural Value Orientations: Shalom Schwartz

The Schwartz Value Survey (Schwartz, 2012: 4) has become the predominant personal and cultural values instrument in international business research (Ralston et al., 2011: 2). Based largely on Rokeach’s work, Schwartz developed a strong theoretical model for assessing individual values by using a large sample of teachers and students across fifty countries. By 1994 he had refined this study to measure national-level values. Respondents rate the importance of values, such as equality and pleasure, ‘as a guiding principle in my life’ on a 9-point scale (Schwartz, 1994: 16). Schwartz identifies three cultural dimensions along seven cultural value orientations. Similar to Hofstede’s quote in the introduction of this chapter that culture does not exist, Schwartz views culture as a latent, hypothetical variable that we can measure only through its manifestations (Schwartz, 2008: 4) such as whether people are generally on time or a few minutes late. However, in his view, culture is not located in the minds and actions of individual people but outside the individual, referring to stimuli and expectations that individuals are exposed to by living in particular social systems. Hence, culture is not part of an individual as it is in Hofstede’s

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pyramid (Figure 3.1). Culture is not beliefs, values and behaviours distributed in a distinctive way among the individuals within a society; rather it is the distribution of beliefs, actions and goals through the press and comprises the expectations to which people are exposed (Schwartz, 2008: 5). Like Hofstede’s theory, Schwartz starts from Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s assumption that all societies confront certain basic issues in regulating human activity. Cultural values evolve and change over time as societies generate preferred responses to challenges and problems (Schwartz, 2008: 6). Schwartz chose a set of three basic problems and derived his value orientations a priori by theorizing about possible societal responses to these problems (rather than first analysing the data and then coming up with a theory that fits best). Schwartz’s dimensions are the following: ‘Autonomy versus Embeddedness’ deals with the boundaries between the person and the group: to what extent are people autonomous versus embedded in their groups? In autonomy societies people should cultivate and express their own preferences, feelings, ideas and abilities, and find meaning in their own uniqueness. The autonomy pole further splits into two value orientations: intellectual autonomy (people should think for themselves) and affective autonomy (people should pursue their positive experiences and pleasure for themselves). In embedded societies people identify with the group. Embedded cultures emphasize maintaining the status quo and restraining actions that might disrupt in-group solidarity or the traditional order (Schwartz 2006: 140). This dimension is a variant of the Individualism/Collectivism of other cultural models (Hofstede, 1980: 213; Minkov et al., 2017: 397). ‘Egalitarianism versus Hierarchy’ deals with guaranteeing that people behave in a responsible manner that preserves the social fabric. Cultural egalitarianism seeks to induce people to recognize one another as moral equals who share basic interests as human beings. Cultural hierarchy relies on hierarchical systems of ascribed roles to insure responsible, productive behaviour (Schwartz 2006: 141). This dimension is conceptually equal to Hofstede’s Power Distance dimension. ‘Mastery versus Harmony’ is about how people relate to nature and to the social world: do they try to fit in or to dominate? Mastery cultures encourage self-assertion and actively changing the natural and social environment to achieve goals. Harmony cultures, on the other side of the pole, try to fit in the world as it is rather than change it (Schwartz, 2006: 141). This dimension is conceptually similar to Hofstede’s Masculinity versus Femininity dimension. A key differentiator of Schwartz’s dimensions compared to the previous studies, apart from the a priori theorizing, is that Schwartz’s dimensions are not independent. Cultural values yield a coherent circular structure and the cultural dimensions form an integrated system. The method used is

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called multidimensional scaling and it calculates the distances between the various values. For example, egalitarianism and intellectual autonomy are likely to appear together as they share the assumption that people can and should take responsibility for their actions. Therefore, egalitarian cultures are also likely to be intellectual autonomy cultures. The same goes, for example, for embedded and hierarchical cultures (Schwartz, 2006: 141). Similar to calculating the distances between values, Schwartz calculates the cultural differences between countries, which can then be plotted on a spatial map. Most recently, cultural dimensions research has been expanded to include new insights based upon the latest research standards and a representative dataset collected through online panels that involve representatives from all over the world.

6.8

Predicting Consumer Behaviour: Minkov’s Map of the World

The latest addition to the cultural dimension research is the Mediacom– itim study by Michael Minkov and others. In 2015, Mediacom, a marketing agency, hired the culture consultancy firm itim International (now branded Hofstede Insights) to repeat Hofstede’s research. The original goal was to update Hofstede’s dimensional scores and to attain granular data, allowing the calculation of scores for subgroups of people (e.g. by ethnic group, sex, age, etc.) which would be used for marketing and advertising purposes. The questionnaire included 108 items. Nearly all items were taken from various existing studies, mainly the Schwartz Value Survey and the WVS. Respondents were presented with two opposites (e.g. ‘I can easily hide my feelings’ vs. ‘It is difficult for me to hide my feelings’) with an option in the middle if they couldn’t decide between the two (Minkov et al., 2017: 393). Minkov found two dimensions of national culture: Collectivism– Individualism and Monumentalism–Flexibility. Plotted onto two axes, the resulting diagram looks astonishingly like a real map of the world – the East Asian countries build a cluster; so does South Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. The Anglo-Saxon countries build a logical exception to the geographic clustering – they cluster together somewhere between the European countries. This geo-economic clustering is viewed as a validation of the cultural measures – countries with similar values tend to be geographically or historically close to each other (see Figure 6.3). The two dimensions found are Collectivism–Individualism and Monumentalism–Flexibility. Collectivist cultures focus on conformism (conflict avoidance, restrictiveness), social ascendance and in-group favouritism. Individualist cultures have a greater concern for the rights and

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Figure 6.3 Minkov map of the world (unpublished manuscript)

interests of all individuals and allow personal discretion about which societal rules to follow. Monumentalist cultures encourage high self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as an invariant self that maintains its genuineness and consistency across situations. Flexible cultures emphasize adaptability and a modest opinion of one’s self. It de-emphasizes helping others. Collectivism versus Individualism is conceptually the same as Hofstede’s Individualism versus Collectivism dimension (as well as similar measures by many other scholars, such as Schwartz’ Autonomy versus Embeddedness or Inglehart’s Self-Expression versus Survival Values), but, according to Minkov et al. (2017: 399), compared to Hofstede’s measure it has better face validity (meaning the items measure what one would expect them to measure), it is more recent, and has better predictive properties. For example, it has higher correlations than any other individualism measure with various indices, such as the rule-of-law index, the political freedom index, the societal accident-proneness index, and the coefficient of human inequality (Minkov et al., 2017: 397). The facets of Collectivism are conformism (being humble and submissive, being like everybody else,

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following traditional cultural rules), social ascendency (wishing to achieve social status: power, wealth, fame) and exclusionism (different treatment of people based on group membership: privileges for one’s group, exclusion of others). Monumentalism versus Flexibility is a new variant of Hofstede’s LongTerm Orientation. It describes cultural differences between the geographic East–West axis and is a predictor of educational achievement: flexible countries (e.g. Japan, Korea and Finland) tend to score higher on various assessments such as the OECD’s Programme for International Assessment study compared to monumentalist countries (e.g. Venezuela, Kenya and Indonesia) (Minkov et al., 2017: 15). Minkov hypothesizes that the differences can be explained by Steven Heine’s self-enhancement and selfstability theory (Heine, 2003: 101): people in monumentalist societies are happy with themselves as they are and hence see little need to improve themselves (e.g. by studying), whereas people in flexible societies are never satisfied with themselves and hence are always try to improve. The facets of Monumentalism are self-stability (always being the same person regardless of the situation – same values, same beliefs, same behaviours, and being genuine), a high self-regard, and interdependence (being generous and willing to help people and share resources with them). Time will show if this new study will become adapted by textbooks. Having two dimensions of national culture may be considered an oversimplification of the world. On the other hand, Smith (2006: 918), in trying to answer the question of ‘How many dimensions do we need?’ stated that ‘even in response to Hofstede’s earlier choice of five dimensions, the field as a whole has tended to ignore three of these dimensions and concentrate upon the two correlated dimensions of individualism and power distance’ (Hofstede, 2006: 918). In addition, the fact that geographically close countries are also culturally similar appears to be not as interesting as some of Hofstede’s dimensions that put the remotest countries right next to each other. It seems likely that, at least for the near future, Hofstede’s dimensions on national culture will continue to be popular in university classes and intercultural awareness training courses, whereas Minkov’s model may find application in the academic circle of cross-cultural value researchers and in what it was developed for – the prediction of (consumer) behaviour across countries.

6.9

Determining the Future of Cultural Dimensions Research

We have attempted to provide a snapshot of the key research which has led to the development of cultural dimensions. From the fields of

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anthropology, sociology, psychology and political science, we can see that theories and methodologies are still evolving as researchers challenge each other’s findings, perspectives and methods. Michael Bond, mentioned earlier, sees the unfolding of the study of cultural dimensions in four stages (2019: 45). The first stage began with contrasting psychological outcomes of behaviour between different cultural groups (by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961). The second stage began mapping the globe by analysing human values across forty nations that provided structure and theory to the field of cross-cultural psychology (by Hofstede, 1980). The third stage of comparing national averages of psychological outcomes resulted in culture becoming a ‘positioning force’ (Bond, 2019: 53) with the need to examine the socialization of individuals into different cultural systems. The fourth stage recognized, as Bond calls it, is the polycultural nature of our globalized society (Bond, 2019: 57). This stage emphasizes the need to shift from categorizing societies as uniform entities to recognizing the multiple cultural influences and life experiences that shape a person’s identity. The polycultural nature includes the intersection of all the effects of living in a complex world where people interact and engage on many different levels as never experienced before in human history. This fourth stage is critical to our understanding of cultural dimensions research. It recognizes the importance of past work in light of new statistical techniques and massive data sets collected across countries and samples. Future research must look at the complexity of cultural influences on both individuals and groups. The challenge will be to address consistency, from the definition of culture – and its measurement – to its application in our rapidly changing world. At this point, there is an apparent misalignment: culture is defined as a shared meaning system, measured through an aggregation of respondent answers, without taking sharedness into account, at the national level and applied at any level convenient for the purpose, despite the general awareness of the fallacy that is being committed.

6.10

Conclusion

This chapter begins and ends with a discussion on how human beings try to solve the problems related to basic human conditions. The work of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists has helped us identify, organize and deal with cultural differences throughout our world. As Hofstede has aptly stated: Dimensions should not be reified. They do not ‘exist’ in a tangible sense. They are constructs [in our minds]. They should help us in understanding and handling the complex reality of our social world . . . Country

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scores on the dimensions do not provide absolute country positions, but only their positions relative to the other countries in the set. The relationship of the dimensions to basic problems of societies and the historical evidence of the continuity of national solutions to such problems suggest that even over much longer periods the measures obtained will retain their validity (Hofstede, 2011: 12–13).

What the future holds for cultural dimensions research – and how this research will inform the study of intercultural communication – is in the hands of a new wave of researchers who must consider changes in our world and the rise of the polycultural nature of our global societies. This cultural imperative is needed in order to continue making sense of basic human values and how they shape and define and redefine who we are as both individuals and societies.

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Leung, K. and Van de Vijver, F. J. (2008). Strategies for strengthening causal inferences in cross cultural research: the consilience approach. International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 8(2), 145–69. McSweeney, B. (2013). Fashion founded on a flaw: the ecological monodeterministic fallacy of Hofstede, GLOBE, and followers. International Marketing Review, 30(5), 483–504. McSweeney, B., Brown, D. and Iliopoulou, S. (2016). Claiming too much, delivering too little: testing some of Hofstede’s generalisations. The Irish Journal of Management, 35(1), 34–57. Minkov, M. (2013). Cross-Cultural Analysis: The Science and Art of Comparing the World’s Modern Societies and Their Cultures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Minkov, M. (2018). A revision of Hofstede’s model of national culture: old evidence and new data from 56 countries. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 25(2), 231–56. Minkov, M., Bond, M. H., Dutt, P., Schachner, M., Morales, O., Sanchez, C., Jandosova, J., Khassenbekov, Y. and Mudd, B. (2018). A reconsideration of Hofstede’s fifth dimension: new flexibility versus monumentalism data from 54 countries. Cross-Cultural Research, 52(3), 309–33. Minkov, M., Dutt, P., Schachner, M., Morales, O., Sanchez, C., Jandosova, J., Khassenbekov, Y. and Mudd, B. (2017). A revision of Hofstede’s individualism-collectivism dimension: a new national index from a 56country study. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 24(3), 386–404. Minkov, M. and Hofstede, G. (2012). Is national culture a meaningful concept? Cultural values delineate homogeneous national clusters of incountry regions. Cross-Cultural Research, 46(2), 133–59. Peterson, M. F. (2004). Culture, Leadership and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies [book review]. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48, 641–7. Ralston, D. A., Egri, C. P., Reynaud, E., Srinivasan, N., Furrer, O., Brock, D., Alas, R., Wangenheim, F., Darder, F. L., Kuo, C. and Potocan, V. (2011). A twenty-first century assessment of values across the global workforce. Journal of Business Ethics, 104(1), 1–31. Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: The Free Press. Rokeach, M. (1979). Understanding Human Values: Individual and Societal. New York: The Free Press. Schwartz, S. H. (1994). Beyond individualism/collectivism: new cultural dimensions of values. In U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, Ç. Kâğitçibaşi, S. C. Choi and G. Yoon, eds., Individualism and Collectivism: Theory, Method, and Applications (Cross-Cultural Research and Methodology 18). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 85–119. Schwartz, S. H. (2006). A theory of cultural value orientations: explication and applications. Comparative Sociology, 5(2), 137–82. Schwartz, S. H. (2008). Cultural Value Orientations: Nature and Implications of National Differences. Moscow: Publishing House of SU HSE.

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7 Towards Integrative Intercultural Communication Liisa Salo-Lee

7.1

Introduction

During the last few decades, particularly since the 1990s, the intercultural communication field has faced increasing challenges that require attention, both in theory and practice. Parallel but interacting developments in the social environment, such as globalization, migration and digitalization, and the corresponding questioning and criticism of prior intercultural research, have led to revisions of intercultural communication research and reformulations of core concepts such as ‘culture’. Moreover, to analyse the interactions of culturally complex people in culturally complex situations, insights from multiple approaches and perspectives are needed. The challenges in intercultural communication research are thus both conceptual and methodological. For example, what concept of culture would capture the elusive and constantly changing nature of cultural manifestations in communicative processes? Or is there any use for culture at all in the current realities? What kinds of cultural analyses would comprehensively describe the inherent complexities involved in any intercultural encounter today? How can intercultural communication researchers learn from each other in academic contexts? Although intercultural communication is generally considered to be a multidisciplinary field of scientific inquiry, it typically lacks academic-level interdisciplinary interactions and collaboration among the various approaches investigating culture and its influence on communication. In this chapter, an interdisciplinary approach to intercultural communication – integrative intercultural communication – is proposed as a means of unifying various complementary approaches within this multidisciplinary field. This approach aims to provide researchers with ideas and tools to tackle the complexities of the intercultural field, both as individuals and as members of their disciplines.

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Relatedly, intercultural communication is seen as learning, with intercultural dialogue at its core. The goal of this chapter is to open up a dialogue within the intercultural communication field and to explore the possibilities of integrative intercultural communication to enhance understanding of the complex interplay between culture and communication. This approach is motivated by the increasing pleas among researchers and practitioners to combine insights and research findings from various disciplines within and beyond intercultural communication and to find means of operationalizing them. The chapter begins with a brief look at how the history of the intercultural communication field has set the stage for new and innovative ways of viewing culture and intercultural interaction. I then briefly look at the continued opaqueness of the concept of culture. Next, the concept of integrated intercultural communication is addressed, with further description of the supporting concepts and tools (i.e. the use of rhizome as a metaphor for culture, the use of nexus analysis as a methodological tool, and intercultural dialogue, in conjunction with negotiating reality, as a sound method). I conclude with thoughts on what the integrative intercultural communication concept provides to the intercultural communication field and how it might continue to develop as a useful contribution.

7.2

Intercultural Communication: Revisiting the Development of the Field

Looking back at the intellectual and theoretical underpinnings of the various approaches in intercultural communication is key to the development of alternative paths that may have escaped attention. In particular, reviewing earlier work can help researchers ask new or different questions and pull together threads of history that would best serve the current concerns in the field (Carbaugh & Berry, 2001). All this is particularly important during times of paradigmatic shifts (see Kuhn, 1970) or ‘theoretical turbulences’ (Poutiainen, 2014), such as have been experienced in intercultural communication since the mid-1990s. It is now timely to draw on the most employable inherited ideas to creatively develop new and more comprehensive approaches to intercultural communication research and practice. In the last sixty years, a diversity of approaches and terminologies have been employed in the field. Specifically, two major research orientations can be distinguished: ‘cross-cultural’ and ‘intercultural’. In the past, these terms were used interchangeably, but they represent distinct perspectives on intercultural communication. Nowadays, ‘cross-cultural’ generally reflects a lens of comparative research employing group-based

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demographics, while ‘intercultural’ typically indicates research that focuses on the nature of the process of interaction between and among culturally complex individuals within culturally complex situations (SaloLee & Crawford, 2017). These two research orientations do not necessarily meet in intercultural communication research and are seen often as conflicting currents. What used to separate these two orientations has been the different ways to think about intercultural communication and how to conceptualize culture. Friedman (2014) illustrated the distinctions of these approaches by identifying two ‘waves’ of cultural analysis in the last few decades. The first wave of cultural analysis (most evident in the 1980s) focuses on collective meaning systems of groups (e.g. ethnic, national, organizational). In this perspective, groups create culture, which is then transmitted to other individuals of the group through socialization. This process is supported and maintained through the group’s institutions. In this macro-level approach, culture comprises the values, meanings and norms that shape behaviours (Friedman, 2014). Thus, researchers analysed data through comparative studies, with the unit of analysis often identified with someone’s nation or ethnicity. In other words, people ‘have’ culture (Salo-Lee & Crawford, 2017), and their culture was conceived as encompassing and static. The second wave of cultural analysis (around the 2000s and ongoing) focuses on the various processes of cultural construction. Culture is no longer viewed as something someone has but rather something that people co-create (Salo-Lee & Crawford, 2017). Moreover, this approach allows for people to identify with multiple cultures. Thus, in research, the unit of analysis focuses on individuals (the micro level) and acknowledges that individuals can and do make use of their cultures in various and creative ways. In this approach, culture is fluid and negotiable, serving as a resource for the individual rather than as a challenge or obstacle as was present in the first wave (Friedman, 2014). How research in the intercultural fields was conceived within Friedman´s waves parallels the change in the conceptualization of culture over time. Culture has been considered, until recently, the core of intercultural communication research.

7.3

Do We Still Need Culture?

Culture is assumed to influence communication and social interactions, at least to some degree. Despite the ubiquity of culture, as well as its innumerable definitions from various disciplines, the concept of culture remains opaque. Within intercultural communication, ‘the biggest problem with

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the word culture is that nobody seems to know exactly what it means, or rather, that it means very different things to different people’ (Scollon, Scollon & Jones, 2012: 3). Moreover, no consensus has been reached regarding how culture influences social interactions or how it can empirically be captured or framed (Busch, 2009; Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2009). From its very beginning as an academic discipline, intercultural communication has been a multidisciplinary field of inquiry. The most influential disciplines have been psychology, communication, sociology and anthropology. Linguistics also significantly contributed to intercultural communication study (Hart, 1999: 581). However, linguistics has not contributed much to the conceptualization of culture in that ‘culture’ never has had its own place in classic linguistic theory (Busch, 2009: 2); linguists have borrowed the concept and definitions from other disciplines. Investigating primarily the influence of culture on social interactions, Busch (2009) differentiates between ‘primordialist’ and ‘constructionist’ notions of culture, which aligns well with Friedman’s (2014) waves and could be summarized as follows: Primordialist notions of culture represent concepts that exist prior to a given situation. Culture’s influences on individuals are taken as givens. In social interactions, people react to these influences in a variety of ways that are often outside their awareness and scope of action. The emergence of cultural differences is assumed as having taken place pre-encounter. On the other hand, constructionist notions of culture are based on assumptions that culture and its influences on interaction are constituted uniquely within a given situation. In other words, cultural differences are not a given fact but rather people construct them for their own purposes: culture is situationally produced by the interactants (Busch, 2009: 4). According to the primordialist view, culture is a form of specific knowledge, e.g. of particular interaction contexts or particular communicative rules of convention that an outsider needs to learn and internalize (Busch, 2009: 5). In constructionist notions of culture, however, culture is what people do: they create culture and cultural differences and identities within situations. Instead of ‘being culture’, as in the primordialist approach, people are ‘doing culture’ (Jensen & Andreasen, 2014: 49). Investigating what people do can expand the scope of cultural analysis even beyond the actual interaction. Scollon (2002) pointed to the cultural complexity present in any social action. Every social action occurs at an intersection of multiple lines of actions, discourses and material and biological life trajectories, and is therefore inevitably culturally complex (Scollon, 2002: 2). This cultural complexity calls for a new and different kind of analysis, such as ‘nexus analysis’ (see Section 4.3). In general, conceptualizations of culture tend to reflect the scientific paradigms of their respective eras, and research focuses on the disciplines

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involved in investigating intercultural communication. One iconic example of the scientific ethos of a particular era, its disciplinary background and research focus is Geert Hofstede´s definition of culture as ‘collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another’ (1980: 25). The ‘Hofstedian legacy’ (Holliday, 2010: 6; see also Dervin & Tournebise, 2013: 534), heavily criticized since the 1990s, has influenced intercultural communication research and practice for decades. One important benefit of recent criticism within the intercultural communication field is that the interplay among language, identity, culture (however it is defined) and the historical, personal and material trajectories of those involved in any intercultural interaction have become visible and noted (Salo-Lee & Crawford, 2017). Therefore, intercultural communication research should reject a priori definitions of culture and culture-comparative approaches based on essentialist group criteria, such as in primordialist conceptualizations of culture. In the constructionist approach, new and more appropriate concepts are being advanced in attempts to illustrate the difficult-to-capture idea of the interplay of culture and communication, interculturality being the most commonly used term. The advocates of ‘new intercultural communication’ (e.g. Dervin & Keihäs, 2013) suggest ‘interculturality without culture’ (Dervin, 2011). Notwithstanding, interculturality is frequently perceived as equally diffuse as culture (e.g. Halualani, 2014) even within the same field (Dervin & Tournebise, 2013: 533). Moulakis (2003: 12) has warned about the danger of ‘reification over and above indeterminacy of eclectic usage of intricately elusive terms such as “l´interculturel”’. However, in recent intercultural communication studies, interculturality is depicted quite clearly as a process, with its manifestations in social interactions as momentary and in constant motion (e.g. Lahti, 2015). In those configurations, interculturality comes close to culture in constructivist conceptualizations. I hence take the stand of Scollon that ‘there is still a considerable usefulness of culture if we think of it not as fact or a concrete or unified object’ (1997: 8) and advocate here for intercultural communication ‘with’ culture. Furthermore, I follow Piller (2012: 7), who argues against static views of culture and for theories and understandings that make culture and intercultural communication amendable to empirical analysis, which corresponds to current understandings of culture in intercultural encounters. In this endeavour, I propose a ‘rhizomatic approach’ to culture, in which a ‘rhizome’ is a theoretical metaphor for culture that incorporates stability and variation, change and transformation. As for the methodological approach, the nexus analysis is suggested for cultural analysis, and I posit intercultural dialogue, negotiating reality in particular, as a means to support mutual learning. In the following section, the concept of integrative intercultural communication and its underpinnings will be

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summarized, and this approach will be positioned in the context of multidisciplinarity in scientific work.

7.4

Towards Integrative Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication scholars increasingly acknowledge the intricate reciprocity between permanence and variability in culture and cultural expression, with more also voicing the need for analyses that combine macro- and micro-level perspectives (Salo-Lee & Crawford, 2017). Comparative studies can provide culture–interactional studies with valuable baselines for interpretation purposes (Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2009: 4; also Frame, 2014: 13). In discussing current challenges for intercultural communication, Poutiainen called for the integration of micro and macro levels of culture, contexts and communication (2014: 5). However, within a profoundly multicultural field, the successful integration of different approaches, as well as dialogue among researchers from diverse disciplines and cultures, can be difficult to implement in practice.

7.4.1 Multidisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Integration Varying degrees of ‘multidisciplinarity’ can be identified in scientific work: • weak form (multidisciplinary): examining a socially relevant problem from the perspectives of several scientific fields; • stronger form (interdisciplinary): studying a common object in which researchers learn and employ complementary theoretical approaches but preserve own identities; • strongest form (transdisciplinary): aiming to establish a new theoretical framework or paradigm; yet old disciplines continue their existence (Niiniluoto, 2005). How could intercultural communication be characterized today? In academic research, the field seems to be conceived and applied most often as a multidisciplinary, multitheoretical and multifaceted approach, and thus varies in research perspective according to the depth of research or the manner of application (Salo-Lee & Crawford, 2017), i.e. the weak form of multidisciplinarity seems to be the state of the art. Notably, attempts are increasing towards the stronger form of multidisciplinarity, i.e. the interdisciplinary approach, while the strongest form (transdisciplinarity) may be neither a realistic nor a desirable aim because of the multitude of paradigms and approaches. In this chapter, I suggest integrative intercultural communication as a term for the stronger form of multidisciplinarity, i.e. the interdisciplinary

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approach. ‘Integrative’ stands for the three ‘Is’ at the core of this approach: ‘interdisciplinarity‘, ‘integration’ and ‘intercultural dialogue’. In interdisciplinarity, mutual learning is emphasized, while integration entails the ability to engage multiple approaches, to capture the complexities involved in intercultural encounters, and to bring the complementary approaches together in flexible ways. Thus, integration means combining, complementing and sharing learning. Finally, intercultural dialogue, particularly among diverse fields of inquiry, is essential for mutual learning. For integrative intercultural communication, I draw on the rhizomatic discourse approach (e.g. Heller, Pietikäinen & Pujolar, 2018; Pietikäinen, 2014; 2016; Pietikäinen, Compton & Dlaske, 2015), in which culture is imagined as a rhizome. With regard to the methodological approach, nexus analysis (Scollon, 2002; Scollon & Scollon, 2004) is proposed as a tool for cultural analysis, and intercultural dialogue provides an interactive means for operationalizing integrative intercultural communication.

7.4.2 Rhizomatic Approach to Interdisciplinary Research The rhizomatic approach draws on the innovative interdisciplinary studies of Sari Pietikäinen and her associates from the fields of multilingualism, minority and indigenous languages, sociolinguistics, ethnography and critical discourse analysis. Although Pietikäinen does not research intercultural communication issues explicitly, her work is highly relevant to the foundation of integrative intercultural communication, as is her use of the rhizome as a metaphor. The core components of the rhizomatic discourse approach by Pietikäinen and her colleagues are ‘rhizome’ and ‘nexus’. Rhizome represents a dynamic, weblike organic entity for research practices and provides an epistemological metaphor for studying the complexity and connectivity in social phenomena (Heller et al., 2018: 15). Pietikäinen drew on the work of Scollon and Scollon in defining nexus as ‘a point where historical trajectories of people, places, discourses, ideas, practices, experiences and objects come together to enable some action which itself alters those historical trajectories in some way as those trajectories emanate from this moment of social action’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2004: 159). This definition aligns with the concept of rhizome. Rhizomatic thinking is a particularly useful approach for trying to understand the complex dynamics and manifold relationships involved in intercultural encounters. Using rhizome as a metaphor for culture invites looking anew at intercultural situations where static and a priori categorizations do not suffice (e.g. Pietikäinen, 2016: 277). As a constructionist metaphor, the rhizome represents dynamism, flow and creative transformation. The construct of rhizome, originally

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attributed to French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari (1987), is a metaphor of an interconnected multiplicity of ongoing processes and incorporates the idea of complexity, connectivity and intersectionality (Pietikäinen, 2016: 277). Rhizomatic thinking is, according to Pietikäinen (2015: 209), an open system that emerges and transforms in the interaction. It is hence applicable also to integrative intercultural communication, and provides a sufficiently inclusive and malleable concept for use in capturing and framing the interplay of cultures and interculturality in intercultural interactions in practice. Furthermore, the metaphor rhizome incorporates past, present and future. Intercultural encounters can be characterized as an intricate web of cultures, languages, identities, and historical, personal and material trajectories. In the rhizomatic approach, with the use of analytical tools such as nexus analysis, one can map those various and changing trajectories while also capturing the connectivity and interaction (Pietikäinen, 2016). Thus the rhizome is an ‘interbeing, intermezzo’ and reflects ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; e.g. also Pietikäinen, 2016: 278).

7.4.3 Nexus Analysis: A Rhizomatic Tool for Cultural Analysis Nexus analysis is an analytic framework that has inspired researchers to further develop and apply a rhizomatic discourse approach in research and knowledge-mobilization activities (e.g. Pietikäinen, 2014; Pietikäinen et al., 2015). Nexus analysis has its origins in discourse analysis; it is however, as Scollon calls it, ‘mediated discourse analysis’, which centralizes social action rather than discourse as the object of study (2002: 7). It broadens the scope of what discourse analysis formally can take into account when perceiving social action to include all meditated means, not only discursivelinguistic ones (p. 7). Nexus analysis allows exploration into how language and other semiotic and material tools are used to mediate action (Lane, 2014). For the Scollons, nexus analysis is ‘the study of semiotic cycles of people, objects and discourses in and through moments of sociocultural importance’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2004: x). Nexus analysis also integrates both micro and macro levels of intercultural communication. Positioning nexus analysis in the wider context of discourse analysis, Scollon and Scollon regard discourse analysis as a field of study that is either the microanalysis of unfolding moments of social interaction or a much broader socio-political-cultural analysis of the relationships among social groups and power interests in the society (2004: 8). A nexus analysis is hence a strategy to unify these two levels of analysis. The broader social issues are ultimately grounded in micro-actions of social interaction and, conversely, the most mundane micro-actions are nexuses

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through which the largest cycles of social organization and activity circulate (p. 8). The practice of nexus analysis involves three main tasks or activities: • engaging the nexus of practice (which includes establishing a zone of identification and the negotiated recognition of a significant nexus of practice); • navigating the nexus of practice (engaging activities such as mapping the nexus, setting the circumference, and timescaling and identifying boundary objects); • changing the nexus of practice (consisting of a motive analysis and a discourse analysis) (Scollon, 2002: 14). The nexus of practice is the intersection of multiple practices (or mediated actions) that are recognizable by a group of people, as well as by researchers and others. However, group membership is not essential for a nexus of practice, and shared practices do not imply community membership. The theoretical focus of a nexus analysis is not a group or community but rather social actions (Lane, 2014). Without going into the practicalities of nexus analysis, which is outside the scope of this article, one characteristic feature of this framework should be mentioned, i.e. the role of the researcher. In addition to being a map-maker of sorts, the researcher is an integral part of the nexus of practice being studied, and thus also an agent of social change (Heller et al., 2018). With regard to integrative intercultural communication, the nexus analysis approach encompasses the three Is (interdisciplinarity, integration and intercultural dialogue). Nexus analysis is interdisciplinary in multiple ways, as well as being highly rhizomatic in the ways in which it has been constructed. Scollon and Scollon developed the idea of nexus analysis over a decade, through team work, in a nexus of research and practice, by engaging in dialogues with scholars and practitioners from various fields and cultures, and by recursively revising and self-criticizing their own approach. Thus, they refer to the process of creating nexus analysis as ‘organic research – a kind of research that grows and develops and changes structure as it progresses’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2004: 148). Dialogue is an essential part of nexus analysis. Scollon and Scollon highlighted this point when they summarized the basic ethos of this approach: We close with the plea to continue to open up processes of discussion, debate and interrogation which will ultimately lead to social changes in the discourses within which we live. It is a charge to discourse analysts to locate ourselves within meaningful zones of identification and to continue to pursue our active interrogations of the discourses of our lives. (2004: 151)

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Thus the process of intercultural dialogue supports researchers’ engagement with the various multifaceted phenomena in scientific inquiry and society.

7.4.4 Intercultural Dialogue Intercultural communication is, at its best, intercultural dialogue, a jointly travelled path towards learning and understanding (Salo-Lee, 2003). The move from the first wave of cultural analysis to the second wave (Friedman, 2014) shifted the emphasis in intercultural communication research from a priori cultural knowledge to learning culture in situ, as it emerges among people in their intercultural interactions. Similarly, negotiating reality (Friedman & Berthoin Antal, 2005) is about mutual learning and dialogue and how this can be done in practice. Philosophy and the educational sciences, among others, have long traditions of dialogue studies and theories. In those studies, dialogue is seen from an ethical point of view, as an attitude that supports the human growth of others, considers their perspectives and recognizes one’s own responsibility towards others (e.g. Törrönen, 2001). The essence of a true dialogue is listening to and respecting the other person. Additionally, dialogue allows the possibility for finding and creating something new together. Intercultural communication researchers have looked at dialogue mainly from the point of view of communication, speech communication in particular, often focusing on intercultural competence in professional contexts (e.g. Salo-Lee, 2007; 2015). The following definition of dialogue exemplifies these perspectives: Dialogue of any sort assumes, at its minimum, that participants have the capacity to understand and acknowledge their own worldview and express it competently. It also assumes that they are able to grasp the worldview of the other, and through discourse, develop some kind of common language and common ground (Kersten, 2000: 238).

Intercultural communication, management and ethical perspectives towards intercultural dialogue have been combined in an interdisciplinary study by Isotalus and Kakkuri-Knuuttila (2017). In their exploratory study, the negotiating reality approach and educational programme of Friedman and Berthoin Antal were introduced as the process for generating shared meanings and mutual understanding to improve communication practices in diversity management.

7.4.4.1 Negotiating Reality: An Integrative Dialogical Approach The negotiating reality approach by Friedman and Berthoin Antal (2005) is apt for integrative intercultural communication for at least three reasons: it is interdisciplinary, involves intercultural dialogue at various levels, and

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integrates the two waves of the cultural analysis (Friedman, 2014) into a coherent framework. Moreover, it offers a theoretically sound and proven tool for learning how to engage intercultural dialogue in practice. In their approach, Friedman and Berthoin Antal draw on various scientific fields because: ‘No single discipline captures the cognitive and behavioral dimensions of culture´s impact on interactions, nor is there one body of theory that provides guidance for dealing more effectively with such interactions’ (2005: 70). Culture is conceptualized by Friedman (2014) as a construction of social space. Social space takes shape during interactions among people and is constructed among them through cognitive and behavioural processes that occur almost automatically and out of conscious awareness (Friedman, 2014: 18). Friedman’s approach to intercultural communication is constructionist, yet the unit of his analysis of culture is neither the individual (as in the second wave) nor the group (as in the first wave), but rather the relationship. According to Friedman, this approach combines the first and the second waves of cultural analysis into a framework that enables one to trace the links between culture and the individuals who constantly construct or reconstruct it through their thinking and action (p. 17). Like the rhizomatic approach, negotiating reality incorporates dynamism and change. Moreover, Friedman emphasized people’s ‘conscious construction of social space’ when enacting their ‘cultural repertoires’ in intercultural interactions (p. 18). According to Friedman, people typically are unaware of the dynamic, ongoing intersubjective loop through which they shape and are shaped by cultures. The constructionist perspective invites people to step out of this loop and critically reflect on cultural influences (p. 18). In this sense, Friedman’s framework provides the basis of a method and educational programme that focuses on intercultural communication as jointly constructing shared social spaces.

7.4.4.2 Negotiating Reality: A Tool For Learning Intercultural Dialogue Friedman and Berthoin Antal (2005) position negotiating reality in the context of developing intercultural competences in professional life. Negotiating reality is, however, a transferable skill from one cultural context to another and to any interpersonal situation (Friedman & Berthoin Antal, 2005). In professional contexts, negotiating reality is ‘a kind of conscious exploration’ that aims to generate new skills of interpretation and action for current and future intercultural encounters (Isotalus & KakkuriKnuuttila, 2017: 454). First and foremost, it is however about learning in a particular situation and about the people involved in that interaction (p. 424).

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The negotiating reality educational programme (Berthoin Antal & Friedman, 2008) encompasses intensive dialogic working through various steps and the personal cases of the participants. Each case features a personal intercultural encounter experienced by a programme participant that, in one way or another, has evoked conflicting thoughts. The case is presented in a form of a dialogue between the ‘case owner’ and others involved in the event. The steps of this approach include joint group reflections on, for example, the influence of culture on thinking and behaviour, theories of action (Argyris & Schön, 1974; e.g. also Berthoin Antal & Friedman, 2008), and various ways of framing conflict or responding to it. Most importantly, case owners have an opportunity, based on the feedback of their programme colleagues and together with them, to reflect upon and revise their own case dialogues. This way of working offers participants the possibility to test openly their images of reality or to inquire into those of others. In everyday situations, people tend to treat their reality images as concrete facts, thus making unilateral judgements and taking action based upon these judgements. According to Berthoin Antal and Friedman (2008: 367), their pedagogical approach is based on the understanding that people learn through experience, but only if experience is reflected on and if assumptions are explored and tested. Among the various conceptual tools developed by Berthoin Antal and Friedman (2008) for learning negotiating reality skills, the matrix of dialogic communication strategies is particularly useful for analysing and revising the dialogues within the personal cases. The strategies of the matrix depict a balance between advocacy and inquiry. Four strategies in this constellation are proposed in the matrix: ‘high advocacy and low inquiry’, ‘low advocacy and low inquiry’, ‘low advocacy and high inquiry’ and ‘high advocacy and high inquiry’ (Berthoin Antal & Friedman, 2008: 378). In professional contexts, the most efficient communication strategy is suggested to be ‘high advocacy and high inquiry’ which, according to Berthoin Antal and Friedman, provides the highest potential for learning (p. 378). This strategy is exemplified in the matrix, for example, with the following characterizations: opinions are treated like hypotheses, the reasoning behind them is uncovered, and questioning one’s own reasoning is invited. The strategy also comprises asking questions and listening to understand the reasoning of the others, as well as searching for data that may disconfirm one’s own opinion (p. 378).

7.5

Concluding Remarks

This chapter has presented integrative intercultural communication as a proposal for an interdisciplinary approach to intercultural communication

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research and practice. From the field’s history, integrative intercultural communication pulls together threads supporting the approach, i.e. interdisciplinarity, intercultural dialogue, and the interface of research and practice. Contemporary ideas, such as rhizomatic thinking (e.g. Pietikäinen, 2015), are also included. Integrative intercultural communication is thus like a rhizome (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; also Pietikäinen, 2016) an intermezzo incorporating the past, present and future – becoming rather than being. It is an open system that accommodates reflections, revisions and ongoing change, and can enhance and expand the development of interdisciplinary research and application not only for individual researchers but also, more importantly, at disciplinary levels. For the further development of this approach, a similar rhizomatic, integrative journey could continue in intercultural communication theory building and applications, research work and community outreach. Major challenges are to be found in the academic environments that have not, in the last decades, sufficiently encouraged interdisciplinarity and/or outreach and dialogue with people outside of academia. Drawing on Scollon and Scollon, I concur that intercultural communication scholars have frequently been ‘networked in a nexus of practice so distant from the world under examination that their analyses are not in any way part of the discourses which are constructing those worlds’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2004: 9). As to one’s own intellectual and professional development, going beyond disciplinary boundaries and taking new or different paths, instead of habitual ones, might be worthwhile. This also has been the case with integrative intercultural communication. Interdisciplinary and visionary research work and approaches, such as those of Scollon (2002; Scollon & Scollon, 2004) and Friedman (2014; Friedman & Berthoin Antal, 2005), as well as the rhizomatic approach of Pietikäinen et al. (e.g. Pietikäinen, 2015; 2016), have contributed significantly to this exploratory journey towards integrative intercultural communication.

References Argyris, C. and Schön, D. A. (1974). Theories in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Berthoin Antal, A. and Friedman, V. (2008). Learning to negotiate reality: a strategy for teaching intercultural competencies. Journal of Management Education, 32(3), 363–86. Busch, D. (2009). The notion of culture in linguistic research. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(1), art. 50, 1–24. Carbaugh, D. and Berry, M. (2001). Communication history, Finnish and American discourses: an ethnographic contribution to intercultural communication inquiry. Communication Theory, 11(3), 352–66.

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Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Dervin, F. (2011). A plea for change in research on intercultural discourses: a ‘liquid’ approach to the study of the acculturation of Chinese students. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 6(1), 37–52. Dervin, F. and Keihäs, L. (2013). Johdanto uuteen kulttuurienväliseen viestintään ja kasvatukseen [Introduction to new intercultural communication and education]. Helsinki: FERA. Dervin, F. and Tournebise, C. (2013). Turbulence in intercultural education: does it affect higher education? Intercultural Education, 24(6), 532–43. Frame, A. (2014). On cultures and interactions: theorizing the complexity of intercultural encounters. In S. Poutiainen, ed., Theoretical Turbulence in Intercultural Communication Studies. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 29–44. Friedman, V. (2014). Negotiating reality: intercultural communication as constructing social space. In S. Poutiainen, ed., Theoretical Turbulence in Intercultural Communication Studies. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 9–27. Friedman, V. and Berthoin Antal, A. (2005). Negotiating reality: an action science approach to intercultural competence. Management Learning, 36(1), 67–84. Halualani, R. T. ed. (2014). Online discussion forum: international and intercultural communication. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 7(1). DOI: 10.1080/17513057.2014.869524. Hart, W. B. (1999). Interdisciplinary influences in the study of intercultural relations: a citation analysis of the International Journal of Intercultural Relations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 23(4), 575–89. Heller, M., Pietikäinen, S. and Pujolar, J. (2018). Critical Sociolinguistic Research Methods: Studying Language Issues That Matter. New York: Routledge. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in WorkRelated Values, Beverley Hills, CA: Sage. Holliday, A. (2010). Intercultural Communication and Ideology. London: Sage. Isotalus, E. and Kakkuri-Knuuttila, M.-L. (2017). Ethics and intercultural communication in diversity management. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 37(5), 450–69. Jensen, I. and Andreasen, L. B. (2014). Methods for researching intercultural communication in globalized complex societies. In S. Poutiainen, ed., Theoretical Turbulence in Intercultural Communication Studies. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 45–61. Kersten, A. (2000). Diversity management: dialogue, dialectics & diversion. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 13(3), 235–48. DOI: 10.1108/ 09534810010330887. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

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Lahti, M. (2015). Communicating Interculturality in the Workplace. Doctoral dissertation (Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities 262), Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Lane, P. (2014). Nexus analysis: an action oriented approach to discourse. In J.-O. Östman and J. Verschueren, eds., Handbook of Pragmatics: 2014 Installment. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 1–18. DOI: 10.1075/hop.18.nex1. Moulakis, A. (2003). The trouble with intercultural communication. Studies in Communication Sciences, 3(2), 11–40. Niiniluoto, I. (2005). Tieteellisyyden haaste [The challenge of multidisciplinarity]. Lecture presented to the ‘Proact Annual Seminar’, 1 February, Helsinki, Finland. Pietikäinen, S. (2014). Circulation of indigenous Sámi resources across media spaces: a rhizomatic discourse approach. In J. Androutsopoulos, ed., Mediatization and Sociolinguistic Change. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 515–38. Pietikäinen, S. (2015). Multilingual dynamics in Sámiland: rhizomatic discourses on changing language. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(2), 206–25. DOI: 10.1177/1367006913489199. Pietikäinen, S. (2016). Critical debates: discourse boundaries and social change. In N. Coupland, ed., Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 263–81. Pietikäinen, S., Compton, S. and Dlaske, K. (2015). Putting resources into practice: a nexus analysis of knowledge mobilisation activities in language research and multilingual communities. Current Issues in Language Planning, 16(3), 187–200. DOI: 10.1080/14664208.2015.972533. Piller, I. (2012). Intercultural communication: an overview. In C. Bratt Paulson, S. F. Kiesling and E. S. Rangel, eds., The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 3–18. Poutiainen, S., ed. (2014). Theoretical Turbulence in Intercultural Communication Studies. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Salo-Lee, L. (2003). Intercultural communication as intercultural dialogue: revisiting intercultural competence. In P. Kistler and S. Konivuori, eds., From International Exchanges to Intercultural Communication: Combining Theory and Practice. Jyväskylä: EMICC and University of Jyväskylä, pp. 121–8. Salo-Lee, L. (2007). Towards cultural literacy. In T. Kaivola and M. MelénPaaso, eds., Education for Global Responsibility: Finnish Perspectives. Helsinki: Ministry of Education, pp. 73–82. Salo-Lee, L. (2015). Intercultural communication as intercultural dialogue: challenges and new paths. In F. Jiang, ed., China Intercultural Communication Annual. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, pp. 174–215. Salo-Lee, L. and Crawford, B. (2017). Intercultural communication study in Finland. In Y. Y. Kim, ed., The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication. DOI: 10.1002/9781118783665.ieicc0081.

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Scollon, R. (1997). Current trends in intercultural communication studies. Lecture presented to the School of English Language Communication, revised 3 April, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. Scollon, R. (2002). Intercultural communication as nexus analysis. Logos and Language: Journal of General Linguistics Theory, 3(2), 1–17. Scollon, R. and Scollon, W. S. (2004). Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. New York: Routledge. Scollon, R., Scollon W. S. and Jones, R. H. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. 3rd ed. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Spencer-Oatey, H. and Franklin, P. (2009). Intercultural Interaction: Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Törrönen, M. (2001). Tulkintoja dialogisuudesta projektijohtajuudessa [Interpretations about dialogicality in project leadership]. Master’s thesis, University of Jyväskylä.

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8 The Power of Literature in Intercultural Communication Birgit Neumann

8.1

Introduction

In her TED talk ‘The danger of a single story’ (2009), Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie accentuates the power of stories, in particular of fiction, to provide highly compelling and normative frames for understanding other cultures. Literature, according to Adichie, may open up new worlds and provide insights into foreign cultures, thus imaginatively connecting readers with faraway places, foreign people and distant histories. But the power of stories to cross boundaries and thus to establish a sense of intercultural affiliation is unequally distributed across the world: while Western stories traverse borders fairly effortlessly, African stories hardly enjoy the same mobility. The Nigerian writer explains how, after migrating to the Unites States, she realized that her fellow students knew little, if anything about ‘Africa’: ‘My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals’ (Adichie, 2009). What Adichie implies in this remarkable statement is that the ‘single story’ is an obstacle to successful intercultural interaction because it makes it impossible to understand others as ‘human equals’. Like many writers who are placed between cultures, Adichie, in her fiction, persistently works against the ‘dangers of the single story’, striving to achieve what Chinua Achebe once called a ‘rebalancing of stories’ (Boxall, 2013: 176) to afford more balanced forms of intercultural exchange. This chapter sets out to explore the multifaceted role of contemporary literature in intercultural communication. Possibilities and limits of intercultural communication, it is argued, are closely tied to culturally

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circulating narratives, powerfully construed in and by literature.1 Literature provides a rich site for creating and negotiating concepts of self and otherness, which underlie processes of intercultural communication. Although these concepts are linked to culturally prevailing knowledge and may therefore allow insights into larger sociopolitical configurations and cultural value systems, it is important to acknowledge the specificities of literature: as a fictional discourse, literature enjoys poetic licence and makes use of distinct literary forms to give shape to concepts of self and otherness. To come to a fuller understanding of how literature may affect intercultural communication, this chapter will therefore focus on the characteristics of literature, i.e. the distinct aesthetic and affective potential of (narrative) fiction (Sections 8.2 and 8.3). Sections 8.4 and 8.5 will provide close readings of two selected texts, namely Andrea Levy’s Small Island (2004) and Teju Cole’s Open City (2011), to illustrate how literary configurations of intercultural encounters may promote, trouble or problematize connectivity between different cultures.

8.2

Literature and Intercultural Communication: The Knowledge of Literature

In our contemporary age of accelerated globalization, literature more than ever bears the imprints of transcultural exchange, dislocation and migration. An abundance of literary texts from different parts of the world portrays intercultural contacts between different people and explores the ‘border and frontier conditions’ (Bhabha, 2004: 12) of migrants, refugees, exiles and travellers. In one way or the other, these texts, often written by authors who have themselves experienced some form of dislocation and write from the in-between of cultures, engage with notions of cultural difference and examine the affordances of intercultural communication. Broadly speaking, intercultural communication can be defined as the verbal and non-verbal interaction with members of other cultures, frequently speakers of a foreign language (e.g. Byram, Gribkova & Starkley, 2002; Lüsebrink, 2008).2 Successful intercultural communication requires the ability to comprehend and respect the values, beliefs and habits of (those who are perceived as) cultural others and to act accordingly. Intercultural communication is therefore best understood as a multifaceted process, consisting of several competences. Generally, scholars distinguish 1

Due to the importance of narratives to processes of meaning-making and understanding, the focus of this chapter is on narrative literature.

2

It is important to note that ‘other’ and ‘otherness’, whether in real-life situations or literary texts, does not reference the state of being different. Rather, it refers to ideas about others and the other, i.e. to individual and cultural constructions of others and concomitant processes of othering (e.g. Antor, 1995: 323).

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between a cognitive, an affective and a pragmatic component, which mutually influence one another (e.g. Erll & Gymnich, 2015: 11–13; Lüsebrink, 2008: 9): while the cognitive dimension refers to knowledge about other cultures, including foreign language skills, the affective dimension designates an emphatic interest in and openness towards other cultures. The affective dimension includes the capacity to tolerate values and habits that might conflict with one’s own. Finally, at the pragmatic level, intercultural communication competence comprises the capacity to consider the communication standards of other cultures, to anticipate the addressee’s abilities of understanding, to overcome ethnocentric attitudes and to treat persons from other cultures respectfully. While narrow definitions restrict intercultural communication to interpersonal face-to-face communication (e.g. McDaniel, Samovar & Porter, 2009: 7), broader understandings recognize the mediated dimension of intercultural communication, namely different cultural media, such as films, TV, radio, Internet and literature originating from foreign cultures (of course, in global media cultures, many of these productions emerge from transnational cooperations; e.g. Lüsebrink, 2008: 8). These media provide insights into the ways in which cultures give meaning to the world and show how cultures construct a sense of self; they also reveal some of the genres, formats and forms cultures may use to structure experiences, beliefs, values and anxieties. Evidently, as media products circulate with ever increasing speed across the globe, the mediated dimension of intercultural communication is swiftly gaining importance (e.g. Lüsebrink, 2008: 8). The mediated dimension of intercultural communication is particularly relevant to conceptualizing the role of literature in intercultural communication. After all, some sense of intercultural understanding is necessary to comprehend literary works from other cultures. Importantly, however, the relation between literature and intercultural communication is a dynamic, reciprocal one. That is to say that the understanding of literature does not only require some kind of knowledge about other cultures. Rather literature also conveys particular kinds of knowledge about others and may thus become an agent in advancing intercultural understanding. To be sure, as a fictional discourse, literature offers no factual or objective knowledge about other cultures. Literature is constructed and constructive, which is to say that it does not represent any kind of given reality but actively constructs a specific version of reality. This version is inevitably suffused with cultural imaginations, creative invention and subjective meanings. According to Nelson Goodman, literature is therefore best understood as a fundamental way of ‘world-making’ (Goodman, 1995 [1978]). As such, it makes use of specific literary forms and a distinct language to bring imaginative worlds into being, which are necessarily open and ambivalent. Literature is characterized by an aesthetic

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polyvalence that exceeds pre-given concepts of the world and that pervasively troubles literature’s referential relation to the world. At the same time, however, literature only exists in relation to the non-literary world. Although literature does not index ‘the historical, sociological, and ideological texture’ (Attridge, 2004: 7) of cultures, it unavoidably carries traces of the world. Literature is permeated by the knowledge, discourses and concerns of what lies outside it, but it cannot be reduced to them. Derek Attridge, in his insightful study The Singularity of Literature, argues that literary texts express an ‘idioculture’ (Attridge, 2004: 21), that is the individual and subjective embodiment ‘of widespread cultural norms and modes of behaviour’ (Attridge, 2004: 21). From this vantage point, literature is a verbal representation of distinct idiocultures, which both reflects and challenges culturally prevalent knowledge, beliefs, norms and prejudices. In literary texts, cultures construct knowledge about themselves and others, while at the same time testing this knowledge and opening it up to alternative, imagined and hitherto unknown ideas. If literature can become a powerful agent in intercultural communication, it is not least due to its ‘paradoxical structure’ (Derrida, 1992: 46). On the one hand, its referential dimension imbues literature with a sense of implicated worldliness: literature is a site in which cultural knowledge, habits, beliefs, fears and desires, which shape a community’s sense of the world, manifest themselves. After all, literary works like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) or Monika Ali’s Brick Lane (2013) can provide fascinating insights into Nigerian, Indian and British Asian communities, respectively, and thus broaden our cultural horizons. According to Volkmann, literature can be regarded ‘as a semantic key to other cultures, as our major source of the other’ (1999: 141). Literature by non-Western authors, such as Orhan Pamuk, Yvonne Owour or Gabriel García Márquez, frequently confronts Western readers with alternative knowledge and culture-specific forms of world-making, which open up familiar orders for critical negotiation and which challenge existing cognitive and affective patterns. ‘For European readers’, Volkmann states, non-European literatures from the postcolonial world ‘allow access to a wealth of stimulating cultural sources of the Other, a wide range of possibilities to engage in negotiations of meaning which can challenge the very foundations of one’s own identity’ (1999: 142). On the other hand, literature’s fictionality, creativeness and distinct language place the represented knowledge playfully under erasure and create a sense of ambiguity that invites readers to enter into an open dialogue with the text (e.g. Attridge, 2004: 22). As a fictional and inventive discourse, which enjoys poetic licence, literature reworks existing knowledge and probes the validity of established cultural models. By creatively fusing known knowledge with alternative ideas about, for example, history,

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gender or ethnicity, literature affords new perspectives of the world and asks readers to question all too familiar beliefs. The genuinely literary language, largely residing in the use of forms that are ambivalent, imbues literature with an openness and indeterminacy that refuses to congeal into unequivocal knowledge. The semantic openness and affective intensity of literature troubles referential readings. To treat literary texts as mere sources of intercultural knowledge – or even as ‘open windows on other individuals, ethnic groups or nations’ (Volkmann, 1999: 142) – therefore inevitably means glossing over literature’s specificities, most importantly its imaginative and aesthetic dimensions. The meticulous portrayal of Igbo rituals, beliefs and values in Achebe’s hyper-canonical postcolonial text Things Fall Apart is not adequately understood if read from a merely ethnographic perspective and reduced to a document of given knowledge. The novel elaborately constructs a fictional Igbo world and it does so by translating a genuinely oral culture into a literary tradition and by crafting complex literary forms, which confront Western literary models with the otherness or singularity of Igbo modes of expression. Principally, then, any literary text from a different culture can provide some insights into the beliefs, values, ideologies and preoccupations of that culture. However, these portrayals cannot be taken at face value. Rather, they should be read for the ways in which they construct a world and generate meaning by means of literary forms (e.g. Nünning, 2002).3

8.3

Representations of Intercultural Encounters

To recognize the power of literature in intercultural communication, it is necessary to consider different levels of analysis and to operate on several fronts. Rather than merely treating literature as a source of intercultural knowledge and putting it down to a single purpose, we should take seriously the multiplicity of its roles and functions. If literature can make an important contribution to intercultural communication, it is also by how it represents, through its content as well as its formal strategies, intercultural encounters and attendant constructions of identity and otherness. Literature, and this holds particularly true for so-called minority, postcolonial and transcultural fiction, provides a powerful site in which the complexities of intercultural communication can be explored and in which cultural norms and subjective beliefs that impact intercultural communication can be registered. Literature may offer affectively 3

The seemingly straightforward relation between a foreign text and a foreign culture is troubled by the fact that literature frequently evokes the knowledge of multiple places. In our transculturally entangled world, few literary texts can plausibly be located within a singular cultural, let alone national, frame.

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engaging insights into intercultural encounters, with perspectives on, for example, colonial and postcolonial histories, concepts of self and otherness, experiences of racism, the persistence of racialized prejudices and the emergence of new, possibly open and hybrid forms of identification. Against this backdrop, several scholars (e.g. Sommer & Surkamp, 2002: 227–37; Freitag-Hild, 2010) stress that literary texts representing specific scenarios of intercultural interaction and addressing conflicting norms are powerful tools for enhancing intercultural communication, for such texts may reveal reasons for intercultural misunderstanding and gauge possible solutions to conflicts. The unique appeal of literary representations of intercultural encounters resides in specifically literary qualities. Literature typically, though not always, features highly distinct and vivid characters, who are portrayed in concrete situations and who struggle to come to terms with the material, cognitive and affective complexities of life. Thriving on what Monika Fludernik (1996) calls ‘experientiality’, literature may provide insights into the minds of characters and uncover their emotional responses to intercultural encounters, such as anguish, fear, excitement or surprise. As literature familiarizes readers with the experiences, world views and emotions of individualized protagonists, it may undo stereotypical notions about cultural others. Providing access to fictional consciousness and illuminating the subjectivity of unfamiliar characters, literary works invite readers into emphatic character identification (e.g. Keen, 2018). In so doing, they encourage perspective-taking and ‘“imagine-other” conditions’ (Keen, 2018), which is a precondition for any kind of successful intercultural communication. The above remarks on literary specificities also suggest that reading for content alone inexorably amounts to a misrepresentation of the power of literature in intercultural communication. As a specific mode of worldmaking, which enjoys fictional privileges, literature needs to be understood from a performative and constructive perspective, i.e. a discourse that construes its worlds by means of literary forms. Scholars in the field of literary theory accentuate that literary forms are not neutral or purely ornamental. Rather they are semanticized, i.e. they carry meaning and therefore pervasively influence how readers give meaning to a text (e.g. Schmid, 1977). What is more, literary forms, such as representations of time, narrative discourse and generic conventions, are closely connected to specific cultural and historical contexts. In her study Forms, Caroline Levine argues that literary forms are imbued with values and norms, frequently doing ‘political work in particular historical contexts’ (Levine, 2015: 5). As culture-specific ‘organizing principles’ (p. 7) that impose order, forms are what connects literature to the broader realm of culture and politics: ‘Forms matter . . . because they shape what it is possible to think, say, and

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do in a given context’ (p. 5). That is to say that forms in literature not only organize literary constructions of intercultural encounters, including notions of identity and otherness. Rather, literature also makes available specific forms by which cultures can think about cultural others, themselves and the affordances of intercultural contact. To grasp the power of literature it is therefore necessary to analyse the forms that are employed to model concepts of self and otherness and to reveal how these forms possibly convey political assumptions, values and norms (e.g. Nünning, 2002). How, for instance, do fictional narratives create and legitimize differences between members of different ethnic communities? Do literary forms suggest strict, maybe even hierarchically structured dichotomies between identity and alterity or do they highlight interconnectedness and open up spaces for mutually transformative exchange? Do generic conventions, such as the Bildungsroman, convey an ideological agenda and do they privilege specific, possibly Western concepts of subjectivity? In practice, the interest in what Fredric Jameson calls ‘ideology of form itself’ (Jameson, 1981: 141) requires examining literary forms in relation to particular cultural contexts and focusing on their potential meanings as well as sociopolitical effects. It is useful to remember that literary forms never carry a single meaning and that they cannot be reduced to a single function. Forms have multiple meanings, meanings that also depend on the literary and cultural contexts in which they appear and on the readers who make sense of them. Forms are therefore also responsible for the genuine ambiguity characteristic of many literary works: they cannot be contained within any closed structure and call for different, possibly even conflicting interpretations. The value of literature in intercultural communication also lies in this sense of differential openness: literature asks readers to tolerate ambiguity and difference; it cultivates an openness that may prevent readers from readily accepting totalizing world views and from ‘falling prey to stereotypes’ (Antor, 1995: 44). Literary forms offer sheer endless possibilities for staging intercultural encounters and negotiating the complex relations between different cultures. As stressed by Fludernik (1999: 72) and Sommer (2001), any literary form, if semanticized accordingly, can become a formative factor in depicting the possibilities and limits of intercultural communication: autoand heterostereotypes, either articulated by one of the characters or by a narrator (e.g. Neumann & Nünning, 2011); the constellation of characters and modes of characterization (including the belongingness of these characters to a specific, ethically marked community); the perspective structure, i.e. range of perspectives that a text evokes; narrative discourse and modes of focalization; the historical and temporal setting of the story; the chosen language and register (e.g. Sommer, 2001: 67–73); modes of emplotment and generic conventions. From the broad range of literary forms, the

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perspective structure, representations of consciousness and language use deserve attention because they are vital to the – necessarily open – value system created by literary works:4 • Perspective structure: the term ‘perspective structure’, originating from the analysis of drama (e.g. Pfister, 1974), refers to the entirety of perspectives – both of characters and the narrator(s) – and their relationships to each other. Literary texts evoke a limited number of perspectives and organize them in various relationships of contrast and correspondence. The relation between the narrator and characters is vital, not least because narrators enjoy a number of privileges (such as arranging the story; providing background information on the characters; allowing insights into the characters’ consciousness, emotions and affects and commenting on the characters’ experiences and decisions), which influence the value system of a text. The perspective structure is closely connected to the politics of representation, because it determines whose perspective is presented and whose is excluded (e.g. Sommer, 2001: 67–73). In this vein, Robert Scholes points out that the political enters literature ‘primarily through questions of representation: Who is represented, who does the representing, who is object, who is subject – and how do these representations connect to the values of groups, communities, classes, tribes, sects, and nations?’ (Scholes, 1998: 153). While monoperspectival texts only include a single perspective, typically that of a homodiegetic narrator, multiperspectival texts assemble different, frequently conflicting perspectives of the same event. Broadly speaking, monoperspectival texts thrive on the particularity of experience and are apt at empowering previously silenced subjects, endowing them with a complex psychology. By contrast, multiperspectival texts may reveal the plurality of norms and interpretations, which vie for recognition (e.g. Sommer, 2001: 67–73). They not only point towards the conflictual and culturally heterogeneous dimension of cultures, but also register the subjective predispositions and biases that influence interpretations of the world. • Representation of consciousness: literary narratives can explore the characters’ minds, thoughts, emotions, desires and affects, thus revealing the cognitive and affective predispositions of experience in general (e.g. Palmer, 2004) and of intercultural communication in particular. Representations of consciousness may provide insight into the ways in which characters from different ethnic communities make sense of the world and how they perceive cultural others and intercultural contact. Several scholars claim that literary depictions of consciousness are conducive to enabling a change of perspective and in fostering a sense of empathy (e.g. Bredella, 2002).

4

For a detailed definition of these narrative devices, see Sommer, 2001: 67–77; Neumann & Nünning, 2011.

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• Language: the imposition of the colonial language on colonized peoples was a crucial element of the imperial educational system, typically designed to denigrate local knowledge and to subject the colonized to hegemonic orders. The creative use and abuse of the formerly colonial language offers a central means of renegotiating intercultural hierarchies and reconfirming alternative, subaltern identities (e.g. Neumann, 2016). A number of postcolonial, migratory and transcultural texts, such as Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners and Andrea Levy’s Small Island, use vernacular forms, such as Caribbean creoles and Jamaican English respectively, to contest the authority of Standard English and to assert the presence of culturally distinct voices in Britain. Working together, these literary forms offer multiple ways of exploring the possibilities and limits of intercultural communication. The following readings of Levy’s Small Island and Cole’s Open City will make the potential of literary forms and the power of literature in intercultural communication more concrete.

8.4

Andrea Levy’s Small Island: Opening Up the National Past for Transcultural Histories

Andrea Levy’s highly acclaimed historical novel Small Island, which was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction and selected as the Whitbread Book of the Year, gauges the relations between the English ‘mother country’ and the Caribbean colonies before, during and after World War II.5 Striving to historicize the multi-ethnicity of contemporary Britain, the novel revolves around a number of intercultural encounters between the white English population and Jamaican immigrants. The narrative present is set in 1948, the year in which the SS Empire Windrush returned with 492 men and women from the Caribbean to Tilbury docks: ‘1948, this suggests, was a watershed moment not only for those West Indians who were to become black Britons, but for white Britons as well’ (Rupp, 2010: 151). Though the black presence in Britain can be traced back to the Roman Empire, 1948 is commonly ‘considered to mark the beginning of postwar migration’ (Rupp, 2010: 151), which, facilitated by the Nationality Act, ultimately changed Britain into the multi-ethnic society it is today. Levy, a black British author, whose Jamaican parents migrated to England aboard the Empire Windrush, powerfully remembers national interpretations of World War II from a genuinely transcultural perspective, creating entangled histories between ‘two small islands’, that is Britain and Jamaica. In the process of writing the colonies’ war efforts into Britain’s national memory, Small Island probes the 5

In this section, I draw on ideas that I have developed in Neumann (2018).

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possibilities of intercultural conviviality in post-war London and makes room for new, hybrid forms of community-building to emerge. The novel’s commitment to exploring the individual and social preconditions for intercultural understanding is underlined from its very beginning. In the prologue, we see a young child, Queenie, visiting the 1924 British Empire Exhibition. What follows is an almost prototypical ‘first contact scene’ (Richter, 2007: 159) between Queenie and a black, possibly African, man, in which relations between self and other are put to the test. Torn between racist prejudice and erotic fascination (e.g. Richter, 2007: 159), Queenie describes the black man as both ‘[a] monkey man sweating a smell of mothballs’ and as someone ‘who looked to be carved from melting chocolate’ (Levy, 2004: 6). Both descriptions dehumanize the black man and reduce him to the mere physicality of an exotic animal and commodity respectively. It is indicative of the novel’s revisionist thrust that these racialized stereotypes are immediately questioned and displaced. For when Queenie is teasingly asked to kiss the black man, the latter offers ‘to shake hands instead’ (Levy, 2004: 6). The handshake indexes a form of ‘social equality’ and ‘mutual recognition’ (Richter, 2007: 160) that the novel posits as an intercultural ideal. This ideal, however, has yet to be realized within the fictional universe of post-war Britain (e.g. Richter, 2007: 160), which, as the subsequent story reveals, is thoroughly shaped by multiple forms of racism. In Small Island, multiperspectivity becomes a central force in revising hegemonic notions of the national past and unitary concepts of national identity. Though dedicated to construing a counter-memory that retrieves the largely forgotten achievements of Caribbean soldiers in fighting Nazi Germany, Small Island does not promote a monolithic account of the past. Rather than writing back in anger to the former colonizers, the novel establishes the grounds for an intercultural dialogue between Jamaican and English protagonists, revealing both differences and similarities between them. The novel recounts the historical events before, during and after the war from the perspective of four homodiegetic narrators – the white English couple, Queenie and Bernard, and the Jamaican couple, Hortense and Gilbert. For all characters, World War II involves far-reaching changes as it brings them into frequently disturbing contact with cultural others and ushers forth complex processes of dislocation and migration. Bernard leaves London to fight in India, while his wife Queenie, struggling to make a living, decides to rent rooms to migrants, among them the Jamaican Gilbert Joseph. An ex-soldier in the Royal Air Force (RAF), Gilbert returns to England after the war, hoping to find better living conditions than in Jamaica and to study law. Institutionalized racism, however, soon thwarts this dream and he must make do with work as a delivery man. Gilbert is eventually followed by his somewhat snobbish wife Hortense,

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whose idealized notions of Great Britain, perpetuated by the colonial educational system, give way to a pervasive sense of disillusionment. Indeed, upon realizing that her thoroughly ‘English education counts for little in the Mother Country’ (Rupp, 2010: 154), she struggles to reconcile with the fact that she now lives in a small, war-torn nation which needs to be rebuilt and where she ‘has to start from scratch’ (Rupp, 2010: 154). As each of the homodiegetic narrators is given its own, highly distinct voice, the novel foregrounds the subjectivity of experience and renders concrete individual perceptions, tacit knowledge and stereotypes that affect intercultural encounters and that cause various intercultural misunderstandings. At the same time, the multiperspectival structure enacts a pluralization, even democratization of cultural memory, which points to the heterogenous and conflictual make-up of societies, in which different versions of the past vie for recognition (e.g. Neumann, 2018). The constant changes between different narrators invites readers to assess the events from different perspectives and to tolerate the ensuing ambiguity and openness – a capacity that is certainly vital to successful intercultural communication. Meticulously depicting the workings of individual minds, the novel offers insights into the racist attitudes of white Britons, but also how such attitudes are experienced by Jamaican migrants. When Bernard, upon returning from war in India, finds out that his wife Queenie has taken in ‘coloured people’ (Levy, 2004: 468), his immediate reaction is to denigrate them and to deny their right to belongingness: ‘These coloured people don’t have the same standards. I’d seen it out east. Not used to our ways. . . . The war was fought so people might live amongst their own kind. . . . England for the English and the West Indies for these coloured people”’ (Levy, 2004: 468–69). It is one of the great achievements of Small Island that such xenophobic attitudes are countered in multiple ways. Firstly, as the elaborate depiction of Bernard’s consciousness reveals subjective biases, fears and anxieties, his racist attitude is exposed as an affective response to his own insecurities. Secondly, the novel’s multiperspectival structure confronts Bernard’s attitude with alternative points of view, which challenge the validity of his assessment. The Jamaican Hortense, to give one example, explicitly takes issue with the English standards that Bernard so defiantly lauds. Upon her arrival in the fabled mother country, Hortense is bewildered by the ‘shabby’ standard of living in war-torn Britain and appalled by the impoliteness of its inhabitants: ‘I never dreamed England would be like this. So cheerless. . . . The room was pitiful in the grey morning light’ (Levy, 2004: 225). Thirdly, Small Island shows Gilbert and Hortense struggling to cope with the racism they are subjected to, thus encouraging narrative empathy and engaging readers’ affective responses (e.g. Keen, 2007). When Gilbert and his RAF comrades walk through an English village, they feel dehumanized, even criminalized under the villagers’ stigmatic gaze:

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The entire village had come out to play dog with gecko. Staring out from dusty windows, gawping from shop doors, gaping at the edge of the pavement, craning at gates and peering round corners. . . . Under this scrutiny we darkies moved with the awkwardness of thieves caught in a sunbeam (Levy, 2004: 137).

The significance of the representation of consciousness lies in its potential to foster responsiveness. Racism, this passage makes painfully clear, does not only amount to a denial of social recognition. To the extent that racist attitudes are inevitably internalized, it also denies cultural others the right to self-recognition. As Small Island provides access to the minds of Hortense and Gilbert, granting them the right to tell their own story, it endows the Jamaican characters with a full-blown and complex subjectivity, which undoes stereotypical generalizations of ‘the’ other. This sense of subjectivity is also highlighted by the fact that Gilbert speaks in Jamaican English, which the novel puts onto the page, thus powerfully contesting the existence of a single standard and confirming the right of migrants to transform norms. By meticulously orchestrating a multiplicity of perspectives, which at times complement, at others contradict one another, Small Island models a multifaceted, polyphonic and open cultural memory that highlights transcultural entanglement without glossing over difference and conflict. In refusing to privilege any single voice or perspective, the novel calls for active, open-minded readers who are willing to negotiate the meanings of the past from multiple perspectives, again and again and always with a difference. Clearly, the novel’s literary forms unfold sociopolitical effects for they encourage readers to embrace a sense of openness and to accept a plurality that may point the way towards a more egalitarian community. Importantly, this kind of community is not yet achieved on the level of story but only becomes thinkable through the power of literary forms. In the course of the novel, all characters experience some disillusionment about their old and new home, whose post-war, post-Windrush sociopolitical order must yet be negotiated. Queenie’s mixed-race child, resulting from a passionate affair with Jamaican RAF pilot Michael, might well be read as embodying this new, still fragile order. Though even her somewhat parochial husband Bernard eventually accepts the baby boy, Queenie entrusts her son to the care of Gilbert and Hortense, admitting that she is incapable of coping with the racism of post-war Britain. She paints a bleak picture of the country’s multi-ethnic make-up: ‘Bernard. One day he’ll do something naughty and you’ll look at him and think, The little black bastard, because you’ll be angry. And he’ll see it in your eyes. You’ll be angry with him not only for that. But because the neighbours never invited you round. Because they whispered about you as you went by’ (Levy, 2004: 521). To be sure, the ending offers a pessimistic view of Britain’s capacity to sustain cultural

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others. At the same time, however, it is forward-looking as it invites readers to imagine new modes of community-building (e.g. Richter, 2007: 167). Such a community relies on an ethics of caring that – the distant blood relation between the baby and Hortense notwithstanding (Perfect, 2014: 70) opens the constraints of race, genealogy and origin up for willed, politically motivated relations of responsibility.

8.5

The Limits of Intercultural Communication: Teju Cole’s Open City

Whereas Levy’s Small Island explores possibilities of intercultural connectivity and invites emphatic identification with characters, Open City by Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole persistently points to the limits of intercultural understanding. Published in 2011, Cole’s Open City quickly became an international success, with critics hailing the novel’s originality in narrative mediation and its complex engagement with intercultural contact, cosmopolitanism and mass migration. As a number of scholars have argued (e.g. Hallemeier, 2014; Schoene, 2017; Vermeulen, 2015), the novel invites an intercultural reading only to reveal the limits of such a reading. Instead of portraying new forms of conviviality, Open City accentuates the many obstacles to intercultural understanding and unmasks cosmopolitan attitudes as a neoliberal ‘façade’ (Krishnan, 2015: 677). In Cole’s text, attempts at intercultural communication are largely reduced to a set of stylized gestures of a privileged elite (e.g. Vermeulen, 2015: 85). Rather than opening up a site in which capacities for intercultural communication – such as narrative empathy and perspective-taking – can be probed, Open City invites critical reflections on the premises underwriting the practice and concept of intercultural understanding.6 Contrary to what its title might suggest, the novel takes critical issue with notions of openness, which, after all, are a precondition for cross-cultural connectivity and cosmopolitan conviviality. Oscillating between New York, Lagos and Brussels, Open City tells the story of Julius, a half-Nigerian, halfGerman psychiatrist at New York City’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Five years after 9/11, he relentlessly roams the streets of New York City and later Brussels, mulling over history, philosophy, politics and the arts. Step by step, his ruminations, crisscrossed by a multiplicity of other voices and stories, excavate past injustices and histories of violence, ranging from the Native American genocide and the transcultural slave trade to the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War. What the novel suggests is that it is such histories of exploitation – and not shared values or a cosmopolitan ethics – that bind 6

In this section, I partly draw on ideas that I have developed together with Yvonne Kappel in Neumann and Kappel (2019).

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diverse places, people and cultures into networks of exchange. The titular ‘open city’ is therefore far from indexing an ethics of hospitality (e.g. Neumann & Kappel, 2019). Instead, conjuring up Brussels’ war-time capitulation, openness, in Cole’s novel, is tied to violence and complicity: ‘Had Brussels’s rulers not opted to declare it an open city and thereby exempt it from bombardment during the Second World War, it might have been reduced to rubble. It might have been another Dresden’ (Cole, 2011: 97). As such, it reminds readers of the other, frequently repressed side of crosscultural contact. Open City makes use of various narrative devices to invite critical reflections on the conditions of intercultural affiliation. Most importantly, the novel’s modes of characterization radically challenge conventional notions of the black diasporic subject. Cole’s text features a narrator-protagonist who remains strangely disconnected from his surroundings and who refuses to let himself become affected by the stories others share with him. Apparently an epitome of a hybrid character who straddles different cultural legacies, Julius makes much of his immense knowledge of the arts, history and philosophy and he almost obsessively draws attention to global injustices. In the course of the narrative, however, he turns into an increasingly enigmatic, almost uncanny figure since his intellectual openness does not translate into any kind of affective engagement. Time and again, he makes a point of remaining ‘magnificently isolated from all loyalties’ (Cole, 2011: 107) and shies away from attempts by his African ‘brothers’ to establish some sense of solidarity. When a Liberian refugee, whom Julius visits at a detention centre in Queens, tells him about his experiences during the civil war in Liberia, the narrator-protagonist fails to respond to this account of suffering in any satisfying way. He bluntly remarks: ‘I had fallen in love with [the] idea’ that ‘I was the listener, the compassionate African who paid attention to the details of someone else’s life and struggle’ (Cole, 2011: 70). Clinging to his self-understanding as an urbane intellectual, well-versed in the theories of Roland Barthes, Paul de Man, Walter Benjamin, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Alain Badiou and Michel Serres, Julius refuses to see himself as ‘[t]he victimized Other’ (Cole, 2011: 105). Against this backdrop, his ostentatious passion for classical Western music and his dislike of jazz – a musical style that is thick with black histories of suppression and resistance – might indeed be indicative of Julius’s overidentification with hegemonic white practices (e.g. Goyal, 2017: 66). At the same time, the undoing of the familiar, almost naturalized association between racial identity and cultural preference considerably complicates notions of black subjectivity: there is no intrinsic or natural relation between race and specific styles (e.g. Goyal, 2017: 66). Julius’s failure to connect with others also materializes in the specificities of narrative discourse. What begins as a homodiegetic narrative,

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highlighting Julius’s attempts at finding some deeper meaning lying beneath surfaces, is quickly turned into a polyphonic narrative (e.g. Vermeulen, 2015: 92). Julius’s elaborate account evokes a broad range of other voices and stories, largely of people he accidentally meets on his strolls through the metropolis, such as Saidu, the refugee from Liberia; Pierre, a Haitian shoe-polisher; Dr Maillotte, with whom be becomes acquainted on his flight to Brussels; Farouq, an African immigrant Julius meets in Brussels, and many more. Importantly, however, the evocation of these other voices first and foremost reveals Julius’s incapacity to affectively relate to the experiences of others and to critically assess the political ideas they express (e.g. Neumann & Kappel, 2019). While the replacement of the single-narrative perspective with multiple voices might index plurality and openness, strategically challenging the validity of self-contained homodiegetic accounts, it first and foremost illustrates ‘failed attempts to live up to the expectation of achieved polyphonic form’ (Vermeulen, 2015: 92). Gradually, Julius transforms from a knowledgeable ‘observer of the world around him’ (Krishnan, 2015: 677) into a self-complacent narrator marked by an ethically precarious detachment – not only from the world and others but also from his past. It is characteristic of the novel’s interest in the dynamics of repetition and difference that the collective repression of histories of violence is echoed in Julius’s refusal to fully acknowledge his own past, a past that is intricately connected to his Nigerian heritage. In an anti-climactic scene near the end of the novel, his former friend Moji accuses him of having raped her as a teenager back in Nigeria. When, at a party in Manhattan, confronted with this accusation, Julius acts like he ‘knew nothing about it, had even forgotten her, to the point of not recognizing her when [they] met again’ (Cole, 2011: 244). The act of distancing himself from a past that still traumatizes Moji again hints at the power structures and partiality that inform any construction of memory, inviting readers to question the selectivity of hegemonic accounts. Instead of showing a sense of response-ability, the erudite Julius, who is acutely aware of political injustices, simply leaves the party. It is clear that this revelation disqualifies him as a reliable narrator and ‘custodian of cultural memory’ (Goyal, 2017: 66). But what are readers to do with this shocking exposure and which consequence does it have for Julius’s revelation of past atrocities? To be sure, the historical weightiness and sociopolitical urgency of Julius’s account cannot be negated. But can Julius claim the right to remember the past in an ethically sound manner? Cole’s Open City does not offer itself as an easily applicable ‘tool’ in advancing intercultural communication: it consciously thwarts the power of narratives to encourage perspective-taking and to incite narrative

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empathy with the narrator-protagonist. Though the narrative provides access to Julius’s mind, his thoughts, impressions and (some of ) his memories, it does not render him, the black diasporic subject, readable. To the contrary, by featuring an unreliable narrator, the cultural other remains opaque. As a matter of fact, the text might even be read as defending, in the sense described by the Caribbean philosopher Édouard Glissant (e.g. Glissant, 1997: 111–20), the right to opacity of cultural others, in particular of blacks, which Western society almost obsessively seeks to render transparent. What is more, Julius, far from being a victimized other, is shown to be complicit with the histories of violence and repression he so insistently excavates. The power of Open City, one might conclude, lies in the ways it asks readers to reconsider established and seemingly self-evident assumptions, assumptions that also underlie intercultural and postcolonial studies: most importantly, Open City unsettles the conventional association of the postcolonial or diasporic subject with histories of exclusion and victimization (e.g. Neumann & Kappel, 2019). This act of questioning gains additional importance in light of Cole’s claim that Open City is an ‘African book’. The sense of Africanness presented is incompatible with established narratives about black solidarity and resistance to model more multifaceted notions of identification (e.g. Goyal, 2017: 68). In this way, the novel reveals some of the shortcomings of identity politics, which treats subjects, including authors, as representative of a particular social group. But by means of characterization, Open City also illustrates that knowledge about past atrocities and intercultural injustices is not sufficient for successful intercultural understanding, let alone for propelling political change. What, the text compels us to consider, do we do with the knowledge we possess and how reliable are the stories we tell about others and ourselves? (e.g. Goyal, 2017: 68) Maybe more than anything else, Open City invites ongoing reflections about the responsibilities that ensue from our reading and knowing about others and about histories of violence.

8.6

Conclusion

In our contemporary media culture, in which people, ideas, products, money and violence, travel faster than ever before, literature can indeed raise awareness of the challenges of intercultural communication. By means of a number of different literary forms, literature may stage intercultural encounters and attune readers to the various individual and cultural forces that shape acts of intercultural communication. In, for instance, making accessible the minds of fictional characters, literature may unsettle stereotypical notions about others, and by drawing on multiperspectivity it may encourage readers to apprehend events from

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different perspectives. These literary modellings do not translate into any kind of settled and fixed knowledge about others. Rather, due to the ambiguity of many literary forms, literature creates unstable knowledge, which provides room for different, partial truths and which may still be ‘outside the horizon provided by the culture for thinking’ (Attridge, 2004: 19). It might well be that this sense of openness is literature’s most important potential contribution to intercultural communication for it prevents readers from falling prey to one-dimensional and totalizing world views.

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Perfect, M. (2014). Contemporary Fictions of Multiculturalism: Diversity and the Millennial London Novel. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Pfister, M. (1974). Studien zum Wandel der Perspektivenstruktur in Elisabethanischen und Jakobäischen Komödien. Munich: W. Fink. Richter, V. (2007). Andrea Levy, Small Island: imagining multiracial conviviality in British postwar culture. In T. Döring, ed., A History of Postcolonial Literature in 12½ Books. Trier: WVT, pp. 155–68. Rupp, J. (2010). Genre and Memory in Black British Literature (Studies in English Literary and Cultural History 47). Trier: WVT. Schoene, B. (2017). Contemporary American literature as world literature: cruel cosmopolitanism, cosmopoetics, and the search for a worldlier American novel. Anglia, 135(1), 86–104. Scholes, R. (1998). The Rise and Fall of English. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Schmid, W. (1977). Die Semantisierung der Form: Zum Inhaltskonzept Jurij Lotmans. Russian Literature, 5, 61–80. Sommer, R. (2001). Fictions of Migration: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie und Gattungstypologie des zeitgenössischen interkulturellen Romans in Großbritannien. Trier: WVT. Sommer, R. and Surkamp, C. (2002) ‘Mit anderen Augen’ – Multikulturalismus und Fremdverstehen am Beispiel ausgewählter britischer multikultureller Erzähltexte. Neusprachliche Mitteilungen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis, 4, 227–37. Vermeulen, P. (2015). Contemporary Literature and the End of the Novel: Creature, Affect, Form. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Volkmann, L. (1999). Universal truths or ethnic peculiarities? On tensions inherent in the reception of postcolonial and minority literature. In H. Antor and K. L. Cope, eds., Intercultural Encounters: Studies in English Literatures. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, pp. 131–52.

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9 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Memory and Intercultural Communication Jolanta A. Drzewiecka 9.1

Introduction

Memory and psychoanalysis have the potential to illuminate relations among groups but have received scant attention in intercultural communication. Memory studies is a grand interdisciplinary and multi-methodological field built with significant contributions from communication, rhetorical and media scholars; intercultural communication scholars are now turning their attention to the dynamics of remembering and forgetting as forms of communication with and about the other. In the United States the 1980s definition of intercultural communication as interpersonal interaction between people from two different cultures excluded questions of history and memory despite early calls to do so (see Drzewiecka, Ehrenhaus & Owen, 2016). In Europe the focus has been on language learning and multilingualism which precludes questions of historical context. This is slowly changing as more scholars are exploring questions of memory construction in news, museums and memorials, although they have been positioning themselves primarily in cultural and/or critical (postcolonial) studies, media and rhetoric. Nevertheless, the blurring of disciplinary and geographical boundaries has stimulated recognition and attention to the importance of the dynamics of memory to intercultural communication. Intercultural communication scholars have been heavily influenced by poststructural and critical theories following the discursive turn in social sciences, giving the construction of meaning the central role in the analysis of the social processes (Dervin & Machart, 2015; Holliday, 2011; Hoops & Drzewiecka, 2017). This produced immense insights for intercultural communication: cultures are now understood as systems of production of meanings and cultural texts ridden with struggles over signification, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 07:42:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.012

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whereby attempts to establish some common-sense truths are always undermined since meaning is deferred and never final but only contingently and momentarily fixed. We now have many insightful analyses of various cultural texts illuminating multiplicity and shifting of identities, particularly race and national identities, transnational configurations such as diasporas, contestation over meanings of space, resistance and challenging essentialist thinking about identities and culture. Various discourse analysis methods informed by the foundational work of Foucault and Derrida powered these analyses. Recognizing insights produced by these approaches, it is time to ask what we are missing by focusing exclusively on discursive constructions of the other. My students often find discursive deconstructions of othering unsatisfying, asking, why does it persist, and what drives it, suspecting that there is something deeper at play that goes down to our psyche. They sense that there is something intangible that drives a particular text, that we cannot quite explain the persistence of representations of particular groups in certain ways by deconstructing the themes, the discursive strategies, categorizations, etc. Are there libidinal forces at work that animate discursive configurations? The lack of interest in intercultural communication in Lacanian psychoanalytic criticism is surprising given the central role Lacan gives to the other in his theory of the formation of the subject. Lacan’s writings are immensely challenging and his complex notion of the other refers to another, the other inside, and, most importantly, the Symbolic order of language, i.e. the Big Other. Lacan’s approach is based in structural and poststructural linguistic theories and gives the key importance to language in the structuring of the self, both the ego and the unconscious. Lacanian psychoanalytic cultural analysis identifies deeper discursive mechanisms revealing what we enjoy and what we fantasize about, and what desires and drives shape these texts (Lundberg, 2012). Discursive and rhetorical studies of public memories tend to focus on their uses in the present, while a psychoanalytic approach reveals the role of desires and passions in the repetition of coded figures of speech cycling through different texts about similar or seemingly different events and issues in the past and present. I will first briefly highlight the main theoretical issues in the study of memory. I will then map out some of the key concepts of Lacanian psychoanalytic criticism as a method for studying the relational dynamics of memories about others. I will illustrate these concepts with examples from my research on a passionate debate in a Polish newspaper about Jan T. Gross’s book Neighbors: The Destruction of Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (2001), which documents a massacre of Jewish Poles by gentile Poles, their neighbours in a small north-eastern town of Jedwabne under Nazi occupation in 1941 (Drzewiecka, 2014). Some commentators proclaimed that Polish memory would never be the same after the publication of

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Neighbors. I thus analysed articles published about Jewish Polish history in the same newspaper in 2016, the year of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the massacre. I present also this analysis to further illustrate some theoretical points.

9.2

Memory Studies in Communication

Scholars have long recognized that memories are creative and strategic responses to present needs and interests; they are created in the present context as a resource, and also create the present (deTar, 2016; Hasian & Carlson, 2000. From a rhetorical standpoint, public memories are not static bodies of texts and/or objects that anyone or any group simply have but are active projects, performances and struggles with persuasive goals to shape the present and the future, renovate national identities and/or advance interests and visions of particular groups (Biesecker, 2002; Mitchell, 2018). As public memories are circulated, their publics are constituted and kept active in creating and maintaining selective, creative and sometimes antagonistic accounts of the past to advance and/or legitimate political goals, create identities and/or yield power (Han, 2013; Owen & Ehrenhaus, 2010). What is forgotten, omitted, rearticulated or fabricated provides insights into the shape of political affiliations, identities and what matters to those in whose interests particular memories are spun (Biesecker, 2002; Drzewiecka & Hasian, 2018; Zelizer, 1998). Memory-crafting is never innocent because remembering creates knowledge that might endure and shape not only our understanding of the present-in-the-past or past-in-the-present but also our relations with others (Stormer, 2010; Zelizer, 1998). Remembering and forgetting were conjoined in Greek mythology. Forgetting is often a strategic and laboured act that involves a choice not to remember what is inconvenient or intolerable. Forgetting does not result in the absence of memory, but rather ‘it produces certain memories rather than others’ (Stormer, 2010: 345). Forgetting depletes discursive resources for shared sense-making about events, relations and policies (Hoerl, 2008). With racially violent pasts, forgetting repetitively, imaginatively and actively serves to recuperate nationalistic sentiments and identities, cleanse memories of guilt and repel or pre-empt accusations of racism in the present (Hoerl, 2008; Steyn, 2012). Scholars have demonstrated that amnesia works through silences, absences, distortions, selections, reductions and negations in museum exhibits, popular media, and news cleansing past racial violence and struggles and encouraging ignorance of present-day racism. For example, Malcolm X is excluded from the memories of the civil rights movement in favour of benign representations that distorted the politics of Martin Luther

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King (Hoerl, 2008). Such mechanisms not only foreclose alternative interpretations of history but also encourage racist interpretations of the current situation of blacks in the United States and validate white-dominant interpretations (Hoerl, 2008). Importantly, Hoerl distinguishes between absence that is inevitable and absence that negates histories of injustice. She concludes that selective amnesia of racial violence ‘fosters conditions for a traumatic future for race relations’ (p. 196). Stoler reminds us that forgetting requires active imaginative and effortful repetitive acts to keep the history of racial violence out of sight (Stoler, 2011). Resulting ignorance is systematic and regulates relations among groups maintaining dominance over others (Alcoff, 2007; Steyn, 2012). The above necessarily short review of discourse and rhetorical memory studies points towards dynamics that escape the analytical focus on textual configurations without attention to the psychic constitution of the subject. Memories are seen as wilful, creative and strategic responses to current political and/or identity needs that ignore facts or truth. The notion of needs takes us to a rational functional examination of what these needs might be in a specific context but ignores why, at least in some cases, such needs never seem to be satisfied as apologies are often ignored, requests for them are renewed, certain memories are erased and historical knowledge is ignored. Jews began migrating to Poland in the eleventh century to escape persecution elsewhere. They constituted 10 per cent of the national population (50 per cent in some towns) and became a significant national other, cast out in religious and national terms from the category of ‘Polish’. Three million (90 per cent) of them were killed during World War II and most of those who survived left immediately thereafter or as a result of the government’s anti-Semitic cleansing in 1968. While the Jewish Historical Institute, established in 1947, documented Shoa, the specificity of the Jewish experience during World War II was suppressed in the public memory, although punctuated by small-scale projects and voices challenging the laboured ignorance and forgetting of anti-Semitism. The collapse of state socialism brought lively interest in the Jewish Polish past but given the tiny numbers of Jewish Poles, the attention given to Gross’s Neighbors was unprecedented. My analysis of the debate about Neighbors in Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading Polish newspaper, in 2001 showed that the book did not just shatter Polish myths of national bravery and martyrdom. It also revealed continued dependence on and dynamics of desire and revulsion against the other manifesting itself in discursive impairments. Since many commentators proclaimed that Polish memory would never be the same, I examined how the same newspaper represented the Jewish Polish past in 2016, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the massacre. In the next section, I use examples from the news study in my exploration of Lacanian concepts.

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Follow Your Desire

Psychoanalytic discursive criticism approaches to memories about (and relations with) cultural others offer unique and rich insights. Discourse and rhetorical scholars have developed psychoanalytic criticism from the works of Jacques Lacan who based his rereading and reformulation of Freudian concepts and development of new ones on linguistic structural and poststructural theories, thus making his approach compatible with discourse theories. He argued that the unconscious is structured like language and is ‘the Others discourse’ (Lacan, 2006: 436) pointing to the formative role of language in the constitution of subjectivity and its fundamental role in our psychic lives. Lacan gave primacy to language in his psychoanalytic work making it applicable to understanding psychic drives, desires and fantasies at the collective social discursive levels. Many scholars have translated and extended psychoanalytical concepts to collective identities and cultural texts, including Julia Kristeva, Renata Salecl, Slavoj Žižek and Judith Butler. Lacan’s attention to tropes and discursive mechanisms such as metonymy, metaphor and anchoring signifiers, i.e. point de capiton, aligns his work to rhetorical criticism focusing on the means of production of subjectivity and knowledge. Rhetoricians have demonstrated how Lacanian analysis can illuminate the production of memories (e.g. Biesecker, 1998; Ott, Aoki & Dickinson, 2011) and the strategic role of fantasies (Gunn, 2004; Lundberg, 2004; 2012). Scholars working with his ideas combine them with further rhetorical or discursive concepts. For example, Renata Salecl (1994) combined Lacanian psychoanalysis with a set of specific discursive vocabulary in a compelling analysis of gender and the postcommunist transition in Slovenia. All these scholars work on features of text as animated by libidinal forces. I will base my discussion of the main ideas in Lacan’s collected works Ècrits (2006) and useful explanations and elaborations by Bruce Fink (1995) and Slavoj Žižek (1989; 1993). A psychoanalytic reading requires looking awry at a text, since looking straight on accepts the commonsensical reality. My analysis of the 2001 newspaper debate about Neighbors showed that the contributors referred to ‘Poles’ and ‘Jews’ reflecting the persistent separation and exclusion of Jews from the category Polish. In articles published in the same newspaper in 2016, this naming problem persisted. One article revealed that the history of a housing cooperative called Spółdom, set up in 1927 by Jewish Poles (Domagała, 2016), presented on its website the name of its first director as Józef Kotliński, a gentile Pole who took the post in 1939, rather than Lejba Gelibter, a Jewish Pole, who was in fact the founding director. The paper reported the objections of a cultural leader who criticized the erasure of the ‘Jews who lived next to us’. The current director stated that while he was willing to add the names, he would not use the word ‘Jew’, but

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only ‘Poles of Moses’s faith’ because the first creators of the cooperative were Poles. Are these two phrases acts of admission and inclusion? In this linguistic and historical context, stating that ‘Jews who lived next to us’ might be seen, straight on, as challenging such exclusion but only because the linguistic code distorts reality. To see through the linguistic code requires looking awry, from an angle, in a way that recognizes our desire and thus we are then able to see how things really are. Each of these phrases is an act of exclusion. In the first, the objection to the term ‘Jew’ signals the heavy load that the term continues to carry in Poland where calling someone or suspecting them of being ‘a Jew’ (Żyd in Polish) is an offence and an exclusion. But to say that ‘Jews lived next to us’ also excludes them as not being of Poland, of the cities where they lived for centuries as the other. It works like a Lacanian slippage that betrays not only the speaker’s ambivalence, i.e. that she/he does and does not believe this, but even more crucially, that the linguistic code, an other agency, betrays the subject’s relations to the other in the symbolic in which ‘Jews’ could not be ‘Poles’ (Fink, 1995). Others: the other appears in several different forms in Lacanian psychoanalysis going well beyond the poststructuralist notions of other as difference and negation. The formation of the subject proceeds through three orders: the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic. The subject develops by going through a mirror stage, the developmental period when a six-toeighteen month-old baby recognizes itself in the mirror as ‘I’. Up to this point, a baby is a fragmented entity of needs which it cannot express in language and without clear boundaries from its mother. It exists in ‘the Real’. The moment of recognition as an ‘I’ cancels out the Real and presents a bounded image of ‘I’ that becomes internalized, i.e. an Ideal-I expressed in the narratives we tell about who we are. This is a moment of separation from the mOther, the first other outside. The Ideal-I also becomes an other for oneself as an image looking back at one from the mirror, an other inside. The image mirrors how the mOther looks at the child and thus identification involves a desire to be what she (the other that has to be expelled so that the baby can develop identity) desires, whereby our inner self is defined by the other who is outside but whose object of love we desire to be. The mirror moment is actually a moment of misrecognition of the Ideal-I as bounded and independent from others. The mirror image is the look from the place of the other misrecognized as the self. This misrecognition forms the imaginary Ideal-I and marks the entrance into the Imaginary order. The misrecognition is repeated throughout the rest of adult life when we misrecognize our social identities as autonomous and independent from others whom we place in the position of the Other whom we desire to love us, to complete us.

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This already involves another order, that of the Symbolic. When we learn language and enter into the Symbolic order, the Big Other, that makes communication with others possible, our experiences, ideas and sense of self are forever subject to the indeterminacy of meaning, i.e. the subject is split. The entrance into language further cancels out the Real and displaces it into impossibility. This institutes a lack that is constitutive of identity, or the object-cause of desire, the objet petit a. In discourse studies, Ernesto Laclau adopted the notion of the lack in the centre of identity as a driving force of political discourses, i.e. identities do not naturally exist but have to be constructed through identification with something beyond the individual, something that the individual desires (Stavrakakis, 2005). But this lack cannot ever be filled thus identities are always incomplete since meaning is never final but always deferred. The lack is also embroiled in the complex dynamics between self and other. Since the subject’s relation to the object-cause of desire has no genuine object, it is the shared pursuit of enjoyment threatened with theft by the menacing other that constitutes the collective self. The object that holds out the promise of completing us and thus providing what we desire, or rather, what we misrecognize as a real object (e.g. a person or a group) is the objet petit a, or the object-cause of our desire. The moment of misrecognition in the mirror is a moment of abjection of the other and a key process in the formation of the subject. This process also occurs in the formation of collective cultural identities (Kristeva, 1982) and national identities (Salecl, 1994; Žižek, 1993) when the abjected other – the other who is significantly not like ‘us’ – is the barred other that defines the collective self. Both Kristeva and Žižek discuss ‘the Jew’ as the abjected other. In the early formation of US American identity, the early colonialists formed their identities in the new territory by abjecting the native people as ‘savages’ which justified their violent conquest. Abjection persists in memories repeated in fantasy scenarios, like the display in the Cody Firearm Museum that erased native people who had been exterminated by the displayed firearms while reaffirming the US American identity as brave, powerful and civilized (Ott et al., 2011). But abjection is not a one-time hardand-fast act: ‘we may call it a border; abjection is above all ambiguity. Because, while releasing a hold, it does not radically cut off the subject from what threatens it—on the contrary, abjection acknowledges it to be in perpetual danger’ (Kristeva, 1982: 9). Hence, abjection is remembered and repeated in memory texts. The 2001 newspaper debate over Neighbors demonstrated the complicated notion of otherness. On the one hand, there is ‘the Jew’, not real Jewish Poles but a conceptual other, abjected from the Polish self in the historical formation of Polish national identity as Catholic. It is the other seen as the enemy threatening the wholesome Polish self with accusations,

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quintessentially ‘unPolish’, whose Shoa victimhood thus becomes impossible to recognize. At the same time, ‘the Jew’ is desired to affirm the Polish identity, ‘the Jew’ who loves Poland and does not accuse it of anti-Semitism. Some contributors called for an apology for Jedwabne but rather than justify it by a need to approach the real Jewish Poles living in Poland or abroad, the descendants of those who were killed and persecuted, they were concerned with how Poland would be viewed by the Western world. The West is the Lacanian Big Other, in this case, the international symbolic order that condemns genocide and sees Central and Eastern European countries as backward and uncivilized. Hence there were urgent attempts to explain the Polish situation in statements published in various media, including the New York Times. The Real, a sense of pre-symbolic fullness, does not exist and yet produces discursive effects through distortions and displacements in discourse, e.g. misrecognitions and metonymies, and manifests itself as an antagonism. Hence, the self as can be expressed in language is never unified or stabilized by some core ‘natural’ identity, and any claim to such is a fiction, a misrecognition. We produce fictions of the self, fantasies, in response to the lack in the symbolic. Fantasies are symptoms of unconscious desires and defences against the pre-symbolic and pre-subjective void that threatens us, and they offer plenitude and completeness. Such completeness, being in the Real, we could only reach through the death of symbolic subjectivity. In fantasies, the Real is misrecognized as symbolic, i.e. completeness achievable through communication which gives rise to agency. However, the loss of this pre-symbolic Real fullness means sacrificing it to the Other, the symbolic order. Our only means of recapturing some of this enjoyment is to give ourselves over to language (Žižek, 1993). Pathology of the symbolic: language was at the centre of my analysis of the Neighbors debate marred by defences, disconnections and redirections that were already severing the new-found knowledge of the massacre from rethinking Polish history and memory. This led me to the concept of aphasia developed by Roman Jakobson (1971), whose writing inspired Lacan, and its recent applications by Ann Stoler (2011) to France’s ‘rediscovery’ of its colonial past. In psychological linguistics, aphasia describes a type of speech marked by ‘difficulty generating a vocabulary that associates appropriate words and concepts with appropriate things’ as a result of brain damage (Stoler, 2011: 125). Aphasia manifests itself through an inability to interpret linguistic signs by connecting them to a linguistic code or the context of speech, which results in misrecognition, the inability to properly name things and consequent discursive ‘losses and compensations’ (Jakobson, 1971: 31; Sacks, 1987). While first developed to characterize an affliction resulting from brain damage, Michel Foucault (1970), Sergei Oushakine (2000), and

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Ann Stoler (2011) apply aphasia to structural afflictions in ways of speaking available at the collective social level. Oushakine explains that aphasia pertains to ‘the peculiarity of intersection of the individual’s ability to speak and society’s ability to provide a language with which to speak’ and thus ‘the pathology of the symbolic’ (2000: 994). In the social discursive context, aphasia is a metaphor elucidating the peculiarity of simultaneous knowing and not knowing manifesting itself in dissociations and blockages of what is sayable. This dynamic is common in denials of uncomfortable or inconvenient or disturbing knowledge (Cohen, 2001). The concept of aphasia directs the analytical focus on ‘how occlusions of knowledge are achieved . . . knowing is disabled, attention is redirected, things are renamed, and disregard is revived and sustained’ (Stoler, 2011: 153). Metonymy and metaphor are key figures of speech that accomplish these effects, while Lacanian psychoanalysis reveals how the production of knowledge is implicated in the production of subjectivity. In aphastic speech, statements’ dependence on a context is misrecognized leading to misinterpretations and thus the dissociation of knowledge. In the debate about Neighbors, some contributors misrecognized Gross’s claims as assertions that all ‘Poles’ are anti-Semites just like the Nazis and thus responsible for Shoa. This misrecognition could protect the fiction of the Polish self as only having suffered and fought against the Nazi occupation and thus dissociate the knowledge that there were gentile Poles who committed violence against Jewish Poles, before, during and after World War II. This entailed another misrecognition of the anti-Semitism in Poland that drives an essentialist fiction of the Polish ego ideal as independent of the complexities of the past. This response also involved a metonymic reduction of the anti-Semitic violence of Shoa committed by the Nazis whereby violence perpetrated by Poles is excised and made unnameable. Metonymy, as Lacan observes, is invested with ‘desire aiming at the lack that it supports’ as it displaces meaning through ‘signifier-to-signifier connection’ (2006: 428). Metonymy substitutes a simpler term for a more complex one thereby resulting in an inability to name certain things. If ‘Poles’ did not commit Shoa, they were not anti-Semitic. This then enables claims that ’Poles’ are unjustly suffering from baseless accusations made by ‘Jews’. The metonymic reductions sidelined and blocked any implications of this knowledge for Polish identity and national history. In 2016 the Gazeta Wyborcza published stories about gentile violence against Jewish Poles after World War II. One article told a story about post-World War II attacks on an orphanage with traumatized Jewish Polish children under the leadership of a local priest, now highly regarded for his resistance against the communist state (Kurasˊ , 2016b). Another recounted an attack by wartime resistance fighters on a group of Jewish Polish men,

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women and children trying to leave Poland (Kurasˊ , 2016a). Such recovered stories add to knowledge and reshape memory. They challenge claims that anti-Semitism was isolated and limited to a small number of criminals. However, the second story notes that a public discussion of a recent book that documented the attack was met with disbelief. Some news articles exposed systematic attempts to disable knowledge. One article presented plans of the new team working in the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk to strip the displays of implications of anti-Semitism among gentile Poles, including the case of the Jedwabne massacre, contrary to the findings of the Polish Institute of National Memory (Flieger, 2016). And another one reported demands by the ruling party senator to change a display in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw which showed current cases of anti-Semitism, including statements by politicians, along with cases from before World War II (Sulowski, 2016). Calling attention to the past and current attempts to erase or disable knowledge is critical for being able to remember otherwise, even on a limited scale. Fantasies and enjoyment: A rhetorical studies scholar, Joshua Gunn, has argued that the concept of fantasy can address the ‘suasive’ dynamics of communication as a mediation between the self and the other, which, from the poststructural standpoint, cannot truly communicate. If a successful bridge with the other is impossible, it is the fantasy, in its psychoanalytic reading, that mediates between self and other and thus ‘demonstrates the continued utility, power, and function of the ideas of communication and agent’ (Gunn, 2004: 4). Building on Žižek’s interpretation, Gunn proposes that ‘fantasies refer to psychical-rhetorical narratives about Self (the ‘I’) and other (a symbolic ‘not me’) and the way desire generates and traverses these narratives’ (Gunn, 2004: 5). Thus, the very idea of communication as a connection with the other is a fundamental fantasy that channels our desire and makes agency possible, while ‘communication occurs in practice as cooperation or as coordination of effects’ rather than true understanding (Gunn, 2004: 19). Fantasies are important because they reveal and sustain the unconscious desires of individuals and groups. They are not explicit narratives. Whereas specific narratives hold an unspoken meaning that has to be surmised by the listener in addition to their explicit meaning (Salecl, 1994), fantasy is a larger frame whereby the meaning of specific narratives can be surmised if the fantasy already animates our desires, or ‘organizes the ideology’s economy of enjoyment’ (Salecl, 1994: 18). For example, a display of guns as objects of beauty in the Cody Firearms Museum spins a fantasy of white powerful dominant masculine American identity that won the West, while withholding the obscene violence of the colonial power in the new nation (Ott et al., 2011). As the authors note, there was something very seductive in the display; the visitors, especially male visitors, enjoyed watching the shiny and beautifully arranged guns. Fantasies sustain desires, e.g. a desire

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for a powerful masculinity, by a promise of an intense and complete satisfaction held by a gun. Enjoyment, jouissance, is an excessive and charged satisfaction that produces both pleasure and pain; jouissance can never be achieved, but the promise of its achievement animates our desire and reveals the investments of our passions. At the social level, enjoyment is pursued through shared social bonds; individuals collectively organize their enjoyment through communal events, festivals, interpretations of symbols, etc., (Žižek, 1993). The promise of enjoyment secures commitment to political projects, as can be seen in the current success of Brexit or in election campaigns that promise to put an end to immigration and thus hold out the possibility of returning to a pure, comforting ‘us’. Fantasies support our pursuit of enjoyment, particularly when we fail to achieve it over and over and the lack is reinscribed. This can take a form of creating memories that are passed around by the collective and ‘take a life of their own’ (Fink, 1995: 99). In our continued failure to recapture fullness, enjoyment reveals its obscene dimension in charging others, e.g. specific cultural groups, with having stolen it from us. Some contributors to the 2001 debate rejected the implications of Neighbors as an aberration and instead held onto myths of Polish bravery and martyrdom in the face of overwhelming Nazi forces and having been forgotten by Western allies. Other contributors claimed that it was necessary to rethink this myth. But rather than recognize the Polish dependence on the exclusion of the Jewish other manifesting itself in discriminatory laws and practices as well as pogroms throughout the common past, they spun a narrative of a new nation that courageously accepts its past faults and is thus worthy of renewed pride. These two fantasy discourses demonstrate the Lacanian notion of enjoyment as a mechanism driving common identification acts, i.e. attempts to construct complete wholesome identities. Enjoyment has its obscene dimension manifesting itself in the idea that the other is stealing it, e.g. with accusations of anti-Semitism. The accusations by Neighbors destroys the enjoyment of being of a heroic nation: we could be our own heroic myth if only ‘Jews’ were stop unjustly accusing us. Articles published by Gazeta Wyborcza in 2016 exposed enduring myths of Jewish violence against the Catholic church materialized in grotesque reliefs and persistent beliefs among priests and churchgoers. The journalist interviewed historians who made it clear that the local story of profanation was a legend compiled from various earlier myths brought to the site by pilgrims who adopted it to the local realities at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and revived 200 years later (Wisˊ niewska, 2016). Besides scrutinizing such anti-Semitic legends, the news articles bring to light the efforts to legitimate them and obstruct knowledge of their creation as anti-Semitic myths. We can see how deeply ingrained such stories are in the cultural fabric.

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9.4

Conclusions

Scholars of memory have long told us that memories are creative inventions in the service of identity, power and legitimacy. The above analysis illustrates how such needs are satisfied through discursive strategies that block memory and recognition of anti-Semitic violence while supporting myths of bravery and victimhood as bases of political mobilization. However, it also illustrates that a prolonged attachment to certain memories about the relations between self and other does not just satisfy functional needs but rather goes much deeper to libidinal fantasies of desire and revulsion for the other that are fundamental to the formation of collective identities. Far from being alien to the communication discipline, psychoanalytic criticism focuses on figures of speech and how their circulation in texts reveals desires for mythical identities and antagonisms against the other. The year 2016 started with the Polish ruling conservative party, Law and Justice, managing parliamentary approval of a new law that would criminalize accusations against the Polish nation or the Polish state for co-responsibility for the crimes of the Third Reich. This new legislation occurred on the back of a movement to push for greater recognition of Polish victimhood during World War II as equal to that of the Jews. That same year, a newly opened Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw won the European Museum of the Year Award. Lacanian psychoanalysis can explain the curious persistence and attachment to the memories of Jewish Poles as a desire of the other constitutive of the Polish identity. It thus also goes some way towards explaining the curious phenomenon of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in a country with only a tiny minority of Jewish Poles as the desire for the other. As long as relations among groups are animated by enjoyment of striving for love, recognition and assertion of collective identities to the continual exclusion of others on whom these identities depend, no rapprochement is possible. Because it is never actually the goal. However, scrutinizing collective fantasies about the past and laying bare our desires could move us to desire something else than protecting fictions of identity and thus creative inclusive memories that remind us of the present danger of old antagonisms being renewed.

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10 Sociological Approaches to Intercultural Communication Exploring the ‘Silent Zones’ Uttaran Dutta and Judith N. Martin 10.1

Introduction

Intercultural communication scholarship is an interdisciplinary endeavour, and sociology – the study of society, social relationships, social interaction and culture (Calhoun, 2002) – has contributed a great deal to intercultural communication scholarship, both historically and contemporaneously.1 To attempt to identify all sociological approaches is beyond the scope of this chapter. We therefore identify and describe four areas of research with roots in sociological concepts and theories, and then highlight the ‘silent zones’ in intercultural communication scholarship, discussing challenges for future researchers.

10.2

Sociological Approaches

There are several identifiable ‘moments’ in sociological theorizing that have impacted intercultural communication research, including: theoretical conceptualization, intergroup contact, conflict and attitudes, sojourner adaptation and immigrant assimilation, as well as recent critical studies.

10.2.1 Conceptualization One of the most influential sociological concepts in intercultural communication theorizing is Simmel’s (1908; 1921) and later Schütz’s (1944) concept 1

Note: putting in three search words (intercultural, communication and sociology) in one research database yielded 311 citations.

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of ‘the stranger’ (Cooks, 2001; Rogers, 1999). Simmel’s stranger was originally conceptualized as someone who has not always been in the society and is both an insider and outsider, reflecting Simmel’s conceptualization of society as groups of individuals at varying degrees of social distance from one another. This focus formed the foundation of the traditional (early) definition of intercultural communication: ‘a communication relationship between two or more people who are dissimilar’ (Rogers, 1999: 60). Gudykunst, with graduate training in sociology, introduced the concept into US intercultural communication scholarship (Gudykunst & Kim, 1984) as ‘the key intellectual device to broaden the meaning of intercultural communication’ (Rogers, 1999: 69) to include many types of cultural groups – ethnicity, race and even organizational culture or the culture of the deaf. This conceptualization was accepted by many intercultural communication scholars and spawned years of related research.2 We should note that some scholars now question the utility of Simmel’s notion. For example, Marotta (2012) argues that Simmel’s category of ‘stranger’ reflected a position of power and privilege, excluding disenfranchised migrants, refugees etc., and Harman (1988: 44) suggests that in postmodern globalized society strangeness ‘is no longer a temporary condition to be overcome, but a way of life’, defined by mobility and multiple identities. These critiques led Cooks (2001) and others to adopt more critical theorizing of intercultural encounters (see Section 10.2.4).

10.2.2 Intergroup Contact, Conflict and Attitudes Early conceptualizations emphasized the group membership of individuals in intercultural encounters and emphasized that this group membership (e.g. nation, ethnicity, race, etc) was a primary factor in interaction processes and outcomes (Gudykunst, 1986). However, this focus (and terminology) gradually shifted from ‘intergroup’ to ‘intercultural’ communication (Gudykunst & Shapiro, 1996: 20–1) and to individual attitudes (e.g. stereotypes, prejudice, ethnocentrism) – despite the objections of some scholars. For example, Landis and Wasilewski (1999: 560) noted the shift and admonished that ‘sociological and political theorists are clamouring to be heard’. An example of the social psychological focus is the extensive research on the contact hypothesis and various conditions affecting attitude change, particularly in interethnic and interracial encounters (e.g. Pettigrew et al., 2011) and for recent investigations, Nshom’s (2016) study of the effect of 2

We should note that European studies of intercultural communication followed a slightly different trajectory, more oriented towards language issues. The role of language in intercultural encounters and the role of intercultural communication in language education (Corbett, 2009; Jackson, 2017; Kramsch, 2001) was influenced by research in applied linguistics, linguistics, language education, disciplines like psychology and applied fields like business and management (e.g. Hofstede, 1991).

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intergroup contact on Finns’ prejudice towards Russian immigrants. Another example of the social psychological perspective is the research based on social identity and its relationship to linguistic practices in communication accommodation theory (e.g. Ng & Stolte, 2017). However, there are a few communication approaches that incorporate the macro-level societal/context of intergroup encounters. For example, Y. Y. Kim’s (2005) model of interethnic communication emphasizes that communicators are always embedded in hierarchical levels of context (e.g. national, regional, neighbourhood, institutional and so on), and one can understand interethnic communication only by considering the impact and input of these various levels, e.g. Lee’s (2012) study of communication between Hakka and other ethnic groups in Taiwan, and de Vries’s (2002) study of ethnic tensions in Fiji and implications for ethnic cohabitations.

10.2.3 Sojourner Adaptation and Immigrant Integration By some accounts cultural adaptation of sojourners (strangers) and immigrants is the most theorized concept in intercultural communication research (e.g. Dutta & Martin, 2017) and a few contemporary investigations of intercultural contact are based explicitly on Schütz’s concept of the stranger. There are at least three important sociological influences in this area of research, all building on the notion of the stranger. First, a less emphasized element of Simmel and Schütz’s work is the notion that interaction between strangers involves uncertainty and anxiety, due to cultural differences and a lack of familiarity with cultural rules. As Gauthier (2009) points out, Gudykunst’s anxiety and uncertainty management (AUM) theory builds on this concept and attempts to explain (and predict) how individuals manage to balance anxiety and uncertainty at optimum levels in order to communicate effectively in intercultural encounters (e.g. Gudykunst, 2005). Using AUM theory, Samochowiec and Florack (2010) investigate the impact of predictability and anxiety on the willingness to interact with a member from an unknown cultural group. Second, intercultural communication scholars were also influenced by Simmel’s student, Robert Park’s (1928) concept of the ‘marginal man’, an individual who lives in two different cultural realities. Park’s concept was later extended to ‘the sojourner’, who visits another culture for a period of time but retains his or her own original culture, leading to studies on the U-curves of adjustment, culture shock, re-entry shock, etc (Fuhse, 2012; Hart, 1999). Unfortunately, Park’s concept of the marginal man remains unrelated to his later theory of the assimilation process and to the wider theoretical approach of the Chicago School (Fuhse, 2012: 641), e.g. Blumer’s theory of

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symbolic interactionism,3 and later Milton Gordon’s (1964) theory of assimilation, a third area of influence on intercultural communication studies. Park and Gordon theorized that the successful acculturation of immigrants depends on their incorporation into host community networks, i.e. the development of their relationships with host nationals leads them to adopt the host definitions of situations, leading then to a lessening of ethnic divisions, and eventually the attainment of status equality. Similarly, a more recent approach by Fuhse (2012), explicitly based on Simmel’s stranger and the work of Gordon and Park, emphasizes the centrality of personal relationships and networks in the successful adaptation and integration of migrants into host communities. He argues that any ‘theory of interethnic relations has to link two levels: the relational level of relationships and networks, and the symbolic level of cultural differences, ethnic categories and symbols of demarcation’ (Fuhse, 2012: 640), noting that previous work has rarely embraced these dual levels. In a similar vein, Horgan (2012) revisits the stranger concept and introduces the notion of ‘strangership’ – emphasizing the element of relationships among strangers as a better theoretical description of contemporary fluid and mobile intercultural encounters, which opens up ‘conceptual space to examine conditions where strangership is present, where it emerges, where it intensifies and where it diminishes’ (p. 613). Y. Y. Kim’s integrative theory of adaptation (2005, 2008), like Fuhse’s work, integrates macro sociocultural elements along with the micro interpersonal elements in a systems approach to adaptation, e.g. Cheah et al.’s (2011) comprehensive study of adaptation of Bosnian refugees.

10.2.4 Critical Theorists More recent developments of sociological theorizing come from European and US critical theorists in the late twentieth century. As has been fully described elsewhere (e.g. Halualani & Nakayama, 2010; Halualani, Mendoza & Drzewiecka, 2009), many intercultural communication scholars rejected the earlier micro (interpersonal) and acontextual focus of intercultural communication scholars. They called for closer attention to be paid to historical specificity and contextual grounding (González & Peterson, 1993; Lee et al., 1995) and to the impacts of ‘larger structures of power (governmental, institutional, legal, economic, and mediated forces)’ (Halualani & Nakayama, 2010: 2). They promoted a re-theorizing of culture as ‘sites of struggle’ based on power relations and ideologies (Collier et al., 3

The premise of Blumer’s (1969) symbolic interactionism is that at the centre of human interaction is the negotiation of meaning (symbols) in densely connected primary groups, which determines individuals’ (and groups’) larger schemes used to assess particular situations and then as a basis of action. It follows that races, nationalities and communities all develop their schemes of interpretations and particular ways of defining situations.

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2001; Cooks, 2001) and once again turned to sociologists, specifically the European critical theorists. For example, Moon (2010) cites Foucault’s (1972) notions of power and knowledge in her study of the genealogy of the field, rooted in colonialism and US imperialism (p. 34). Similarly, Hasian (2012) extends the biopolitical work of Foucault (1977, 2003) in analysing the legal and cultural arguments used to abuse Filipinos during the Philippine–American War. Critical scholars also problematize the notion of adaptation as a ‘power neutral, linear process’ (Moon, 2010: 41) and pursue critical studies of immigrant adaptation and diaspora (e.g. Le Pichon-Vorstman, Chapter 22 of this volume). Critical scholars also focus on language and power in studying intercultural encounters (e.g. Ife, Chapter 24 of this volume). Based on Habermas (1996), Striley and Lawson (2014) theorize communication orientations of privilege in showing how white discourses (de)construct Australian aboriginals. More recent critical sociologists, such as Patricia Hill Collins and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, are also integrated into intercultural communication research. For example, Willink et al. (2014) chart new methodologies for critical intercultural communication research based on Collins’s critical race theory, and Moon’s (2016) and other scholars’ studies of white identity have often relied on Bonilla-Silva’s (2010) work.

10.3

The Way Forward: Silent Zones in Intercultural Communication Research

Consonant with a critical approach to intercultural communication and shifting from a static-nation orientation (e.g. Hofstede’s 1991 framework) to an ever-emerging contextual orientation, current intercultural communication research is committed to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and bringing about ‘multiculturalism without hierarchy’ (Asante, 2003). Rather than being confined to ‘student-convenience sampling’ (primarily from Europe and America) (Merkin, Taras & Steel, 2014), we echo those who call for progress towards achieving multi-accentualities and restoring polyphony (Alexander et al., 2014). In this spirit, we now identify seven ‘silent zones’ – never researched or under-researched subdomains/ aspects (both physical/material and abstract/conceptual) of intercultural communication research – and suggest avenues for future scholarship.

10.3.1 Representation of Culture We, the human race, practice different cultures and speak in a wide variety of languages. However, our different geographical locations, languages and

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cultures/cultural practices are not represented equally in discursive spaces. Recent studies show that North America, Europe and East Asia receive more attention in published literature than the rest of the world. Countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia (except for East Asia) represent more than 60 per cent of the global population but receive significantly less attention (Worldometers, 2018). For example, approximately 2 per cent of recent articles published in five primary culture and communication journals focus on African, and South and Central American countries/cultures (Dutta & Martin, 2017) and more than 100 countries have never appeared in those journals. In terms of linguistic diversity, more than 90 per cent of the languages spoken are in Asian, African, Latin American and Pacific regions, and 500 out of 6,500 living languages are on the brink of extinction (Simons & Fennig, 2018). According to UNICEF, around half of all existing languages will be lost by the end of this century – a serious concern (Austin & Sallabank, 2011). Similarly, local/indigenous cultural communication behaviours, preferences (various forms of songs, dances, theatrical performances and arts and crafts artefacts) and practices (e.g. cultural paradigm, awareness, mythology, oral narrative and religious practices) are also experiencing severe challenges in this neoliberal world (Alexander et al., 2014). Not only is the geographical representation of culture unequal, but scholars of under-represented regions constantly face challenges to publishing their scholarship. For example, Miller, Kizito and Ngual (2010) have noted the struggle of non-Western (particularly African) scholars in the world of academic publication. Such limited attention and research engagement potentially leads to a lack of theoretical inquiry, awareness and knowledge about under-represented regions; this then further delegitimizes less-known cultures and practices. The complexity and nuances of cultural dynamics, linguistic diversity, and religious and spiritual practices warrant academic attention, specifically to those regions and cultures that are less represented in scholarship.

10.3.2

Socio-economic and Structural Disparity and Global Missions Rising social, economic and political disparity is producing cultural marginalization in the contemporary world. This vicious cycle of inequality is true for underserved regions of both developing and developed countries. When most of the global population is living with or under US$5 per capita per day (Kochhar, 2015), it is crucial for intercultural researchers to study these populations at the margins, whose voices and issues are historically delegitimized or erased from spaces of decision-making. These economically poor populations are also suffering from a lack of access to education, health and technological resources, which consequently reproduces and reinforces the conditions of marginalization. Such poverty and other

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socio-economic disparities, along with a growing global population (the United Nations estimates a global population of around 8.5 billion by 2030 (2017)), anthropocentric activities and environmental deteriorations have led to several global missions including the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. In these long-term missions, global organizations are seeking to make the world a better place by 2030; scholars, researchers and practitioners from various academic disciplines (including STEM and social sciences) are contributing towards achieving these ambitious goals.4 However, in many such development and social change projects, culture and communication scholarship still remains a peripheral component, and the volume of culture and communication research on these emergent and macro issues is negligible, which makes our discipline less visible and less engaged in academic and professional discursive spaces. In one of the few studies, Thornton and Cimadevilla (2010) have showed the impact and relevance of participatory communication in the context of Latin American development, and scholars like Broome (2013) and Dutta (2018) have argued that as researchers we need to be more applied and focus on key social issues, fostering partnerships within the academic community to foreground cultural realities through the voices of cultural participants (Chen, Lawless & González, 2015; Ting-Toomey, 2007). Examples of such academic-community partnership in the context of participatory communication can be seen in several research initiatives such as (a) Niyamgiri movement (where indigenous populations are organizing bottom-up, local-centric development by foregrounding alternate epistemologies and resisting neoliberal agendas (Padel & Das, 2010); and (b) Sonagachi project (where sex workers, by building alliances with academics and practitioners, have made organized efforts towards fighting HIV/AIDS and ensuring and improving health and well-being at the margins (Jana et al., 2004). It is therefore urgent and timely for culture and communication scholars to contribute to the aforementioned global missions towards making the world more habitable, tolerant and just.

10.3.3 Hidden, Dark and Forbidden Cultural Practices There are several aspects of life, particularly dark and forbidden ones that we usually prefer not to talk about or disclose in public in order to maintain social decorum. However, oftentimes these aspects constitute the foundation and development of our thought processes, through communication processes. For instance, watching politically charged or

4

For example, goals 1 and 2 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals seek to end hunger and poverty in all its forms everywhere by achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture. Likewise, goals 4 and 5 focus on inclusive education/lifelong learning opportunities and gender equality to bring about empowerment for all. Goal 16 focuses on promoting peace towards building an inclusive society for sustainable development and providing justice to all.

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superstitious conspiracy theory videos can influence those predisposed to particular political and social attitudes (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). Moreover, secret associations with propagandist discourses (which are socially disapproved of ) or participating in taboo rituals can result in fatal and/or socially unhealthy consequences; e.g. following superstitious predictions, so-called religious practitioners and cults have committed dangerous and damaging actions, including mass suicide (Mancinelli et al., 2002). In short, secret and forbidden aspects of culture and communication play important roles in shaping the collective (un)consciousness. For another example, the microaggressive behaviours and attitudes of men (sometimes without consciously realizing it) towards women, or the growing rape culture in various parts of the globe, can be traced to a lack of sex/family education and/or over-reliance on mediated pornographic and misogynist content (Makin & Morczek, 2016). Even as the outcome of all of these behaviour creates public sensations or shame, their roots can be traced back to our everyday actions and thought foundations. Instead of condemning these outrageous or uncivil behaviours and their societal impact, intercultural communication scholars need to engage with them in depth to learn the unconscious (or subconscious) foundation of our different rationalities and actions.

10.3.4 Plurality and Cultural Ecology Many under-represented peoples across the globe, e.g. indigenous people, are constantly exploring and experimenting with situated (and limited) material and cultural resources to ensure their survival. Such negotiations have given birth to alternate knowledge, science and technology; unfortunately, these knowledge resources receive little or no recognition in Western academia. For example, several age-old alternate medicinal approaches are often labelled as folk or pseudoscientific practices (Beyerstein, 2001). Moreover, the strategic ignorance of the hegemon and the resource scarcity of those seeking to preserve them mean these alternate knowledge resources are rapidly disappearing, many of them already on the brink of extinction, others lost forever, an irreversible and irreparable loss to humanity. Therefore, responsible intercultural research needs to pay attention to both documenting and preserving such alternate knowledge and knowledge productions, potentially leading to better understanding and cultural interactions towards resolving conflicts, achieving equity and improving intercultural exchanges and relationships. Dutta and Das (2015) have demonstrated that intercultural factors are instrumental in co-creating culture-preserving solutions with underserved populations of the global south. Together with community members, they co-developed digital/information solutions by paying attention to (a) long-term

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participatory research engagements in overcoming linguistic/literacy barriers; (b) in-situ design development of visually guided digital interfaces; (c) embracing dialogic and critical reflexive praxis when designing solutions for local audiences. The digital application addresses contextual/ communicative barriers (e.g. literacy, linguistics and technological proficiency) so that people at the margins can communicate (i.e. retrieve, share and create cultural information) with other community members and the outside world. Scholars have further suggested that our inability to accept differences in communication styles and alternate repertories or knowledge systems leads to barriers to health and development activities and contributes to growing inequalities (Croucher, Sommier & Rahmani, 2015; Viswanath & Ackerson, 2011). Therefore, intercultural research needs to actively reflect on overcoming ethnocentrism, naive scientism, and apparent neutrality in describing ‘others’. Intercultural communication as a discipline deeply believes in plurality and the right to exist and function for every culture and cultural components such as languages, identities, values and world views. However, dominant forces historically have delegitimized opposing and resistive voices and perspectives by promoting the monocultural logics of modernism to maintain the status quo (Mendoza & Kinefuchi, 2016). It would be interculturally unfortunate if we are content with a mono-religious, monolingual, mono-ideological world; such approaches are antithetical to the essence of interculturality. Embracing the social justice and equality perspectives of interculturality (Alexander et al., 2014), communicators need to foreground the different/alternate cultural values and practices that are still alive today, before their extinction. Such an approach towards ensuring cultural ecology and diversity will prevent the creation of an ahistorical and uncritical world and possible (re-)establishment of a supremacist and colonial order.

10.3.5 Future Approaches and Methodologies Intercultural communication as an academic discipline is uniquely situated, as it is dedicated to learning known, less known and unknown cultural and communication practices. Conventionally, we use academic methodological tools to understand, analyse and represent various cultures, which are mostly suited to US and other Western contexts (Ting-Toomey, 2017). These theoretical and methodological frameworks and approaches yield a certain kind of academic output (which is standardized and conventionally appreciated in academic and professional domains). However, it can be argued that various cultural practices and behaviours can be better understood if we create or modify contextually appropriate methodological

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tools, specifically designed to study under-researched cultures and societies across the world; it would also enable us to better theorize and present our findings. For instance, Pink (2009) and Dutta (2019) promote sensory (including visual) methodological approaches, useful for researching underserved cultures which face communicative barriers such as illiteracy, habitual shyness and muteness, and a lack of linguistic proficiency in mainstream languages. Specifically, Dutta (2019) has co-generated (with participants) culturally appropriate hand-drawn images as prompts in order to more easily conduct qualitative interviews in indigenous communities in the global south. In this way, extant non-Western academic approaches (e.g. decolonizing, delinking, indigenous methodologies, performance and action-based work) should be consulted and studied, cocreating with local community members new theoretical and methodological frameworks. Moreover, a focus on decentring dominant knowledge production practices by foregrounding local/alternate world views, paradigms and cultural conditioning can be instrumental in exploring and bringing forth contextual narratives, imaginaries, identities and cultural spaces (Schneider, 2010).

10.3.6 Emerging Realities and Cultural Complexities As a dynamic entity, culture is being produced, reproduced and transformed every moment, which gives birth to new cultural formations and dynamics. Examples such as the Arab Spring and similar movements remind us of human creativity and innovation in performing resistance and collective action. Recent scholarship, e.g. on the dislocated people’s resistance in China (Shi, 2011), collective mediated voices of dissent (Coopman, 2011), and Dreamer’s articulations (Hartelius, 2016) represent new possibilities and explorations of collective movements. Another example of the emerging realities in which we live is the contemporary post-truth scenario, where authentic cultural expressions are under severe threat by opponents who create (seemingly true) untruths and communicate strategically ambiguous and confusing messages to meet their own vested interests. Such a scenario makes knowledge production process more complex than ever before (Harsin, 2015). Emerging cultural realities such as these not only mark the beginning of possible new formations and dynamics (e.g. the emergence of new global middle class through social media (Polson, 2011)) but also open up new opportunities for engaged research to understand such phenomena. For instance, intercultural research on the intersections of culture and post-human (including Anthropocene and non-human aspects) (Stephens, 2014) and trans-human (including cyborg and technological interactions)

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paradigms may potentially yield new understandings and theorizing of emerging human behaviours.

10.3.7 New Dynamics of Digital Media Shuter’s (2012) article on intercultural new media studies marked the beginning of systematic intercultural research on new media and mediated behaviours (see also Chapter 5 of this volume by Nakayama). So far, cultural communication research has been primarily invested in studying socially mediated cultural behaviours, particularly those found on surface internet platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter. Apart from conventional new media research, researchers could explore several new cultural dynamics such as the culture of shaming, new moral panics (Ingraham & Reeves, 2016) and non-traditional media ownerships and disruptive platforms (Cunningham & Craig, 2016). However, more than 90 per cent of internet activities are either Deep Web or Dark Web in nature (Chertoff, 2017). Research on Dark Web activities are notably missing from cultural and communication research; this is important because Dark Web interactions are specifically responsible for drug dealing, weapons sales, gambling, hacking, and child pornography, among others (Bartlett, 2015). These platforms are also facilitators of alternate financial exchange and market possibilities such as introducing and promoting bitcoins (Kethineni, Cao & Dodge, 2018). In addition, when we use social media and online search engines, service providers generate content based on pre-designed algorithms, which selectively provide us partial access to information (as well as block certain content) eventually leading to a limited variety of available opinions and information; such anomalies and short-sightedness are often unintentional. Moreover, explorations in mediated communications and cultural behaviours, particularly in virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence led (multisensory) environments, may potentially spawn new understandings and possibilities to design culture-driven and communication-driven meaningful information-technology solutions for everyday human communication.

10.4

Conclusion

As described here, sociological theorizing has contributed a great deal to intercultural communication scholarship, historically and contemporaneously. Our hope is that critical communication scholarship will continue to embrace goals of a more just, polyphonous ‘multiculturalism without hierarchy’ (Asante, 2003) and a ‘new paradigm, beginning with the re-awakening of the human imagination to new/old long-forgotten possibilities’ (Mendoza, in Alexander et al., 2014: 22).

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11 Introducing Intercultural Ethics Richard Evanoff

11.1

Intercultural Ethics and Ethical Norms

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the norms and principles that are adopted to govern our individual behaviour (personal ethics), our interactions with others (social ethics) and our relationship with the natural environment (environmental ethics). Intercultural ethics is an emerging area of applied ethics, also being pursued within the field of intercultural communication (e.g. Collste, 2016; Evanoff, 2015a; TingToomey, 2011), which considers the norms that people from different cultures may adopt to govern relations between them. In its widest sense, the term ‘ethical norms’ can be used to refer to norms that apply to all areas of human behaviour, not simply to norms specifically concerned with morality. The key problem investigated by intercultural ethics is how these norms might be arrived at, given the fact that different cultures have different systems of ethics, which may be incompatible with each other. ‘Cultural norms’ are ideas shared among some or all members of a given social group regarding what constitutes ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ beliefs, values and behaviour within that group. Social groups include not only formal organizations, which typically have fixed rules (norms) for their members, but also informal groups. Examples of the latter include various identity groups based on ethnicity, religion, class, age, physical ability, gender, sexual orientation, and the like, in which norms may not be explicitly stated and are more fluid. Within any given group there can be a considerable amount of variation in the norms held by individual members. Rather than adopt the essentialist view that certain norms must be shared by all members of a particular group, it can be acknowledged that a group’s members may share only some norms in common, while not sharing others.

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In the field of intercultural communication, the term ‘norms’ is frequently used in a restricted sense to refer to standards of behaviour, or social norms, within a cultural group (Evanoff, 2016). While intercultural ethics may also consider norms related to a culture’s beliefs and values, its primary concern is with the judgements cultures make with respect to human actions. ‘Intracultural norms’ are norms that are adopted within cultures to govern relations among the members of that culture, while ‘intercultural norms’ are norms that are adopted between cultures to govern relations among people when they interact with each other crossculturally. Following Singer’s (1987) typology, norms may be constructed at a variety of levels, from the intrapersonal/interpersonal to the intragroup/ intergroup and intranational/international levels. Intercultural ethics concerns itself with various types of norms. ‘Conventions’ in general are cultural norms that are adopted by social groups to coordinate action among their members. ‘Social conventions’ include both informal conventions, such as norms related to good table manners, and legally binding conventions, such as norms regarding which side of the road people in a given country drive on (e.g. Marmor, 2009). A distinction is also sometimes made between ‘folkways’, which include customs, practices and manners; ‘mores’, which are norms related to values, morality and religion; and ‘laws’, which may be adopted locally, nationally or internationally (Kim, 2008). This chapter surveys the main methodological and metaethical approaches to intercultural ethics, and considers how intercultural dialogue might be conducted among cultures whose norms differ from each other.

11.2

Methodological Approaches to Intercultural Ethics

Intercultural ethics may be approached from a variety of methodological perspectives, three of which are considered in this section: descriptive approaches, normative approaches and meta-ethical approaches.

11.2.1 Descriptive Approaches ‘Descriptive ethics’ uses empirical research methods to describe the ethical norms found in particular cultures and is usually comparative in nature. Macer (2006), for example, has conducted wide-ranging surveys of attitudes towards bioethical issues, such as genetic engineering, healthcare and the environment, from a cross-cultural perspective. Although the social sciences can provide useful accounts of the norms that are actually adopted by different cultures, they offer little or no guidance with regard to the norms that might be adopted when people from different cultures with

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differing ethical traditions interact with each other (Evanoff, 2015b). For example, social scientists may observe that bowing is a widespread form of greeting in Japan, while shaking hands is more common in the United States. Social science alone, however, is unable to tell us which form of greeting should be used when Japanese and Americans meet each other. The philosophical question of which norm should be followed in such situations is separate from the empirical question of how widely shared any given norm is within a particular culture. Norms can be analysed and evaluated philosophically as ideas in themselves, regardless of the extent to which they are actually subscribed to by particular individuals or social groups.

11.2.2 Normative Approaches Rather than simply provide an empirical account of how people from different cultures actually behave, ‘normative ethics’ considers which norms might be plausibly adopted between people from different cultures when they interact with each other. While it is possible that some ethical norms may be shared between people from different cultures from the very start, it is also possible that other norms may come into conflict with each other. Some cultures, for example, may regard child marriage as an acceptable social practice, while other cultures regard it as a violation of human rights. A normative approach to intercultural ethics considers how conflicts that may arise due to differing cultural norms might be resolved. Simply stating on the basis of empirical observations that two cultures have conflicting norms is insufficient. Instead, the parties involved must be able to negotiate mutually satisfactory ways of living together and overcoming shared problems. Examples of normative approaches to ethics at the international level include the overlapping fields ‘international ethics’ (Frost, 2011) and ‘global ethics’ (Widdows, 2011), both of which consider how countries with differing ethical traditions might cooperate with each other on issues such as war, poverty, development, migration, human rights and the environment.

11.2.3 Meta-ethical Approaches A third methodological approach to intercultural ethics is ‘meta-ethics’. Whereas normative ethics is concerned with the actual norms that are adopted between cultures to resolve mutually faced problems, meta-ethics considers the process by which norms are established cross-culturally, as well as the criteria that are employed to justify those norms. Ethical justification involves providing reasons for why a particular norm should or should not be adopted. For example, people that subscribe to some

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religions may argue that abortion is wrong because it violates the norms of their religion, whereas some non-religious people may argue that abortion is wrong because it violates humanitarian principles. In this case, even though the two sides agree on a specific norm – abortion is wrong – they employ different meta-ethical perspectives to justify that norm. In other cases, people may share the same meta-ethical perspective but disagree on the norm, e.g. both opponents and defenders of abortion may agree that the matter should be decided on humanitarian grounds but nonetheless disagree over whether the rights of the foetus take precedence over the rights of the mother, or vice versa. In yet other cases, the two sides may disagree on both the norm and the meta-ethical perspective, e.g. some people may think abortion is unacceptable on religious grounds, while others may regard abortion as acceptable on humanitarian grounds (the reverse is also possible, of course).

11.3

Meta-ethical Approaches to Intercultural Ethics

Due to space limitations, this section confines itself to a consideration of three meta-ethical positions that might be adopted when engaging in intercultural dialogue on ethics: moral realism, moral anti-realism and moral constructivism.

11.3.1 Moral Realism ‘Moral realism’ is the view that ethical norms are given by or can be found in whatever is ‘real’, either in the world itself (‘ethical naturalism’) or in a realm beyond physical reality (‘transcendental ethics’, e.g. some forms of metaphysical and religious ethics). In the realist view, ethical norms are objective in the sense that they are derived from a mind-independent reality. Virtually all moral realists also regard ethical propositions as cognitive in the sense that they are based on moral facts, which are discoverable in objective reality and may be judged true or false in the same way that any other statements about reality (including scientific facts) are. The implication for intercultural dialogue on ethics is that people confronting the same objective reality should ultimately perceive and think about ethical norms in exactly the same way regardless of culture. If the ethical norms of two cultures come into conflict with each other, then at least one, or perhaps both, of these norms are wrong. 11.3.1.1 Moral Universalism Moral realism is frequently associated with ‘moral universalism’, which holds that there is a core set of norms which apply to all people throughout

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the world and are not subject to cultural variation. As the following two sections will show, universalist approaches to intercultural ethics may be either inductive or deductive (Evanoff, 2004). Inductive approaches to moral universalism are empirical, in that they attempt to discover an existing set of core beliefs, values and norms, which are shared by all human beings regardless of culture. Wiredu (1996: 29), for example, regards ‘sympathetic impartiality’ as a universal ethical principle that can be found in all cultures. Following the claim of perennial philosophy that there are certain universal truths which are shared by all of the world’s religious and philosophical traditions, Mall (2000) embraces the view that while no single culture can lay claim to the whole truth, different traditions may nonetheless share overlapping views, which constitute common ground among them. More naturalistic explanations of universal morality include Pinker’s (2002) argument that there is an innate human nature based on evolutionary adaptations, which accounts for why certain cultural patterns, referred to as ‘cultural universals’, can be found in all known societies. While anthropologists may indeed discover some universal cultural patterns (e.g. all cultures have food taboos and norms regarding marriage systems), the specific norms that are adopted within various cultures may nonetheless differ considerably (food taboos and norms related to marriage systems vary widely among cultures). The main objections to inductive approaches to intercultural ethics are, first, that it is very difficult to find specific norms which are indeed shared universally among all cultures. The existence of even a single exception in any culture refutes the claim that a given norm is held universally. For example, although the incest taboo was long regarded as a universally shared ethical norm, it was later discovered that incest may in fact have been an accepted practice in some cultures (such as among the royalty of ancient Egypt). Second, the mere fact that a norm is universally shared among all cultures does not necessarily mean that it should be accepted as ethically valid. If anthropologists discover that aggression, violence and war are universally present in all cultures, for example, we are by no means obliged to regard such behaviour as ‘good’. Third, even though it may be plausible to look for ethical norms that are shared in common by two or more cultures (even if not universally), merely noting cultural similarities in norms provides no help whatsoever in resolving disagreements over cultural differences or in arriving at mutual solutions to emergent problems, which no cultures have needed to deal with previously. Deductive approaches to moral universalism attempt to base ethical norms on religious or philosophical foundations, often regarded as certain and infallible. Following the claim of moral realism that ethical norms are to be found in objective reality, once these norms have been discovered, they provide the basis for making judgements about particular actions. ‘Foundationalism’ in ethics is the view that norms must ultimately be

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grounded on certain principles which can be agreed to by all people regardless of culture. While specific norms can be derived, or inferred, from such principles, the principles themselves are regarded as beliefs which, on pain of an infinite regress, cannot be derived from other beliefs and, hence, serve as non-inferential, or self-evident, axioms. Historically speaking, many of the earliest ethical systems were established on religious grounds and some of these systems continue to be widely followed in the present. While liberal, moderate and fundamentalist tendencies exist in all of the world’s major religions, those who regard the norms of their own religion as universal and absolute may adopt the dogmatic stance that these norms should never be questioned or challenged, an attitude which poses particular problems for interreligious dialogue on ethics. Philosophy, in contrast, adopts the stance that any ethical norm or principle may be challenged if persuasive arguments can be offered in favour of changing or abandoning it. Some philosophers (e.g. Hollis & Lukes, 1982) may nonetheless argue that there are universal standards of truth and rationality which enable people to reach agreement not only about how the world is (science) but also about how it should be acted in (ethics). This claim, which is empirical rather than normative, is contradicted by evidence which suggests that people from different cultures may in fact employ different standards of rationality (e.g. Nisbett, 2005) with respect to how they think both about the world and about ethics. Whereas Western cultures frequently adopt a contextless ‘one-size-fits-all’ attitude towards ethical norms, for example, some Asian cultures may be more inclined to take a situational ‘case-by-case’ approach. Rationality itself is, thus, something that needs to be negotiated between people from different cultures. The chief difficulty with deductive approaches to intercultural ethics is that there is little agreement among various cultures about which, if any, norms can be regarded as foundational and, therefore, universal. It seems unlikely that all humans will at some point adopt the same religion or that philosophers will ultimately agree about what constitutes the ‘one true theory of ethics’. Moral realism in general cannot account for why cultural differences with respect to ethics would arise in the first place. If moral facts exist objectively as part of a mind-independent reality, then it should be possible for everyone to cognize and reason about these facts in exactly the same way. Cultures should no more disagree about the existence of moral facts than they disagree about the existence of the sun and moon.

11.3.2 Moral Anti-realism ‘Moral anti-realism’ is the view that ethical norms do not exist objectively in a mind-independent reality but rather exist only within the human mind

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and are, therefore, not ‘real’ in the same way that, say, physical objects are real (e.g. Mackie, 1977). Norms held by an individual person are said to be subjective, while those that are shared by two or more people in a given social group or culture are said to be intersubjective. Anti-realist theories of ethics often (though not always) regard ethical propositions as noncognitive since such statements refer to internal mental states rather than to moral facts that can be perceived in external reality. Hence, anti-realists contend that it is meaningless to attempt to judge whether an ethical proposition is true or false in any ultimate sense. The implication of moral anti-realism for intercultural communication on ethics is that it is impossible to assess the validity of any cultural norm outside of the cultural context in which that norm is found. Since there is no objective position from which cultural norms may be judged, any attempt to make judgements about the norms of another culture can only be made from a standpoint within one’s own culture. Differing norms are said to be incommensurable when they cannot be judged using the same standard. If the norms of two cultures come into conflict with each other, there is no way to determine whether either or both of the norms is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The conclusion may then be drawn that all cultural norms must be regarded as equally valid.

11.3.2.1 Moral Particularism ‘Moral particularism’ is the view that the ethical norms which are adopted by any given culture are specific to that culture and, hence, may or may not be shared with other cultures. Since each culture is in some way unique, norms are subject to cultural variation. Cultural relativity in ethics (and other areas of human thought and behaviour) may be accepted as an empirical fact, since it can be readily observed that different cultures often subscribe to different and sometimes conflicting ethical norms. Cultural relativism, however, is the normative position that such differences should be accepted and respected just as they are, both by people within a given culture and by people from other cultures whose norms may be different. Although cultural relativism is widely endorsed in the field of intercultural communication, the following section will consider some of the arguments that might be made against it. 11.3.2.2 Arguments against Cultural Relativism While cultural relativism has the laudable goal of promoting tolerance among people from different cultures, it also suggests that since there are no objective criteria by which norms can be evaluated, the norms of cultures which are different from our own should always be respected and never criticized. There is a subtle but crucial difference, however, between respecting cultural norms in themselves and respecting the people who

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hold those norms. While respect for others is certainly important, cultural norms are simply ideas about what a given group of people takes to be acceptable or unacceptable beliefs, values and behaviour. Ideas, as such, can always be subjected to critical evaluation. A fundamental principle of both debate and negotiation theory is to separate positions from persons. There is a clear distinction between saying, ‘That’s a bad idea’ and ‘You are a bad person for holding that idea’. Indeed, there may be occasions in which we avoid criticizing the ideas of others because disagreements can lead to arguments, which in turn may escalate conflicts. In the context of an open but respectful dialogue about cultural differences, however, it should be possible for people from different cultures to submit both their own norms and those of other cultures to constructive criticism. A standard philosophical argument against cultural relativism is that the fact of cultural relativity does not entail the norm of cultural relativism. Descriptive ethics (what is actually believed or done in a particular culture) cannot be equated with normative ethics (what should be believed or done in that or any other culture). Moral descriptions cannot be conflated with moral prescriptions. Any attempt to derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ commits what is referred to as the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ (e.g. Hume 1975: 469–70). For example, the fact that cancer exists does not entail either the value that cancer is good or the norm that people should get cancer. In the same way, the mere fact that cultures subscribe to different norms does not in itself mean that those norms are ‘good’ or that they should just be accepted as they are. Rather than simply acknowledging the (obvious) empirical claim that cultural differences exist, philosophical arguments must be offered to show why a particular norm should be accepted or rejected. Another objection to cultural relativism is that it fails to provide guidance for how sojourners and host cultures should interact with each other. Determining the extent to which sojourners should either be expected to assimilate themselves to their host cultures or be permitted to maintain separate cultural norms in the name of promoting cultural diversity is a key question that all societies must confront when accepting tourists, immigrants and refugees. The relativist notion that the cultural norms of both sides should simply be ‘respected’ provides no answer to the question of whether sojourners should respect the norms of their host cultures or host cultures should respect the norms of sojourners. ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do’ does not really solve the problem, since this maxim simply privileges respect for the host culture over respect for the culture of the sojourner, thus violating the relativist principle that all cultural norms should be given equal respect. Cultural relativism appeals to many interculturalists because it adopts the seemingly tolerant attitude, ‘I’m OK – you’re OK’, and avoids any attempt to impose one’s own cultural norms on others. This stance may

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also lead to cultural isolation, however, and the ghettoization of cultures: ‘you live in your cultural bubble and I live in mine’. By remaining in the ‘rut’ of our own respective cultures, we shield ourselves from the possibility that we might have something to learn from others and perhaps also something to share. Moreover, from a purely practical perspective, the relativist notion that ‘you have your culture and I have mine’ simply sidesteps the question of how people from different cultures might be able to cooperate with each other to resolve mutually shared problems. Ultimately cultural relativism denies the possibility of critical reflection and imaginative creativity. ‘Don’t criticize other cultures’ implies that existing cultural norms should be blindly, even subserviently, followed. Individuals are not permitted to think for themselves or to make their own judgements about whether a given cultural norm should be adopted or not. Followed strictly, cultural relativism suggests that people should refrain from criticizing not only the norms of other cultures but also the norms of their own culture. If existing norms are regarded as ‘good’, not because we have judged them to be ‘good’ but simply because they are part of our cultural tradition, they may never be questioned or challenged. Cultural relativism is often regarded as a progressive point of view whereas in fact it is highly conservative and tradition-bound. By implying that existing cultural traditions should be preserved and respected just as they are, there is no possibility of progress. Cultural innovation is impeded if we are unable to criticize the norms of our own or other cultures, and to propose alternatives which may lead to improvements. If such criticisms and proposals are judged on the basis of their merits rather than on the basis of who makes them, then whether they come from within or from outside a given cultural tradition is irrelevant.

11.3.3 Constructivist Approaches to Ethics The term ‘constructivism’ is used in both the social sciences and philosophy to designate the view that our ideas about reality are not derived from reality alone but also from human thought processes. While some versions of constructivism are idealistic in the sense that something is regarded as real only if people think it is real (i.e. reality itself is in some sense minddependent), there are also realistic versions of constructivism, which hold that if something is real, it is real regardless of whether people think it is real or not (i.e. the ideas we have about reality may be mind-dependent but reality itself is not). ‘Ethical solipsism’ is the idealist view adopted by some constructivists that any ethical norms adopted by individuals are purely subjective and arbitrary. If I am uncertain about the existence of minds other than my

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own (the key tenet of solipsism), then there is no need for me to take the opinions of others into account. Idealist versions of social constructionism accept the existence of other minds but hold that ethical norms are constructed solely on the basis of reaching intersubjective agreements with others. If we are uncertain about what can be taken as ‘real’, no appeals can be made to an objective reality to settle disputes among people from different cultures regarding how we think about or act in the world. Global warming exists only if we think it exists, for example (e.g. the discussion in Evanoff, 2011: 64–6). ‘Constructive realism’ (Wallner, 1994) rejects all such idealist versions of constructivism in favour of the commonsense view that the external world and other minds indeed have an existence which is independent from our own, and that ethics is, therefore, a matter of determining which norms we adopt not only personally but also in relation to others and the environment. From a constructive realist perspective, the construction of cultural norms is an attempt to arrive at intersubjective agreements about how we will act in relation both to each other and to the objective circumstances we find ourselves in. The physical reality that we attempt to identify with the term ‘global warming’ exists whether we think it exists or not, and it is to our advantage to make sure that the facts we construct about the world and our moral responses to those facts are as adequate as possible. While some constructivist theories hold that ethical norms are constructed while facts are not, constructive realism (henceforth simply ‘constructivism’) holds that while the world indeed exists, the world itself does not unequivocally tell us how it should be either thought about (facts) or acted in (norms).

11.3.3.1 The Construction of Cultural Norms As ‘constructs’, any ideas we formulate represent what we take to be the best way of thinking, given our present state of knowledge. As such, constructs are inevitably based on value judgements. Constructs themselves, however, are never absolute, but always revisable. It is recognized that constructs may be modified or even abandoned if we are able to create other constructs which enable us to interact with others and the world in what we take to be a better way. Rather than think of factual or moral constructs as being either ‘true’ or ‘false’, it may be more plausible to think of them as being ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than other constructs (more or less viable, adequate, satisfying). A constructivist approach to intercultural ethics (e.g. Evanoff, 2006b) contends that we do not need to formulate a single, monistic set of norms which apply to everyone universally. Instead norms should be constructed at the appropriate level, from the micro to the meso and macro levels in Apel’s (1980) terminology (e.g. Singer’s typology in Section 1 above). Moreover, norms which are constructed at one level may or may not have

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applicability at other levels. Habermas (1990), a co-originator with Apel of discourse ethics, proposes that norms can be regarded as valid only if everyone who may be affected by the consequences of adopting a given norm can participate in the discursive process by which the norm is adopted and give their approval to that norm. For actions which have consequences only for ourselves, we are free to adopt personal norms to govern our behaviour, while recognizing that others may adopt different norms. When our actions have consequences for another person or persons, however, then almost by definition any norms we adopt are no longer personal but social, and must be negotiated, even though there may be no universal norms which all dyads or other social units are expected to adopt. In the same way that there can be a plurality of norms adopted by different individuals, there can be a plurality of norms which govern relations in different social groups. If, however, the actions of one group have consequences for another group, then the norms which will govern relations among these groups must also be negotiated, a principle which can be applied both intraculturally to relations among people within a given culture and interculturally to relations among people from different cultures.

11.3.3.2 Constructivism and Intercultural Ethics The primary problem for intercultural ethics is the fact that people from different cultures are socialized into accepting different sets of norms, and these norms may come into conflict with each other in intercultural situations. The norms we have each been socialized into adopting tell us how to interact successfully with people from our respective cultures, not with people from a culture that is different from our own. Intercultural situations are by their very nature anomic, which literally means that there is no ‘law’ to govern them. In the absence of shared norms, which norms should be adopted in intercultural situations? Constructivism suggests that if no common ground currently exists between people from different cultures, shared norms can nonetheless be created (constructed) through dialogical processes involving the relevant persons. If norms are socially constructed within cultures through communicative processes, then there is no reason why norms cannot also be constructed between cultures through intercultural dialogue aimed at determining which norms should be mutually adopted to govern interactions among people from those cultures. While the existence of cultural differences can be acknowledged as an empirical fact, it is still possible to adopt the normative position that since any cultural norm is simply an idea, it can be re-evaluated through critical reflection. Among the plurality of norms that we find in various cultures, it is not necessary to accept all norms as equally ‘good’. Rather, it is possible to make distinctions between those norms which we are willing to accept as ‘good’ and those which we reject as

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‘bad’. There is a difference between accepting the norms of another culture simply because we think they must be respected and because we have made a considered decision to accept them. Constructivism is pragmatic in that its intent is to solve problems which arise when people from different cultures interact with each other, and also dynamic in the sense that it does not simply rely on existing ethical traditions to solve contemporary problems, but also attempts to create entirely new norms when necessary to deal with emergent situations (e.g. ethical issues related to new forms of technology). As new problems emerge, new solutions must be found. Moreover, solutions cannot be arrived at only by empirically observing existing conditions (what the sciences do). Rather, solutions must first be imagined, and then implemented and tested to see if they really work.

11.3.3.3 Negotiating Cross-cultural Norms One objection to constructivism is that it may be overly optimistic about the prospects for people from different cultures to reach agreement regarding the norms that will be mutually adopted among them. Indeed, consensus is by no means assured. Nonetheless, total agreement in all areas of thought and behaviour is neither mandatory nor desirable. Agreement is necessary only in problematic areas, while diversity may be perfectly acceptable and even encouraged in non-problematic areas. We do not all need to subscribe to exactly the same world view, for example, to be able to do business with each other. In the context of a joint venture between companies from different cultures, however, a shared set of norms about appropriate procedures that enables the two sides to work together effectively is undoubtedly advantageous. How might mutually shared values and norms be arrived at? One possibility is through the creation of ‘third cultures’ (Evanoff, 2000), referred to as ‘third-culture building’ by Casmir (1997), which attempt to integrate what are taken to be positive aspects of two (or more) different cultural traditions, while rejecting what are regarded as the negative aspects (Evanoff, 2006a; 2012). In its critical dimension third-culture building involves the ability to critically reflect on the norms of both our own and other cultures. In its constructive dimension, third-culture building involves selectively combining aspects of different cultures in an entirely new framework, which is not simply an incoherent bricolage of the two views but rather a genuinely integrated perspective. It may also be possible for people from different cultures to actively generate (construct) entirely new norms, particularly when dealing with emergent situations. It may not be desirable to create third cultures in all situations, of course, since there may be many cases in which we want to strongly affirm certain values (e.g. justice, fairness), while totally rejecting others (e.g. racism, discrimination).

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Intercultural Dialogue on Ethics

‘Intercultural dialogue’ (or ‘polylogue’ when more than two parties participate in a discussion) involves an exchange of opinions among people from different cultures, with the possibility that we may change our own opinions in light of persuasive arguments presented by others. Dialogue may involve not only mutual understanding but also mutual transformation. If we adopt the ethnocentric notion that our culture has a monopoly on ‘the one universal moral truth’, then intercultural dialogue becomes little more than the attempt to persuade people from other cultures that they should adopt our norms as their own (or to threaten them with force if persuasion fails). Conversely, if we adopt the relativist view that all cultural norms are equally valid, then intercultural dialogue may amount to little more than an exchange of opinions in which no attempt is made to overcome any conflicts that may arise as a result of cultural differences. Constructivism rejects both of these approaches in favour of the view that intercultural dialogue is a process by which people first gain a wider understanding of human possibilities by considering the views of other cultures and then critically examine the norms of both their own and other cultures. Finally, an attempt can be made to mutually negotiate the norms that will govern relations between them. Of course, there may still be situations in which an attempt is made to construct universal norms through persuasion (e.g. the international norm that all countries should abandon nuclear weapons) and other cases in which the aim of intercultural dialogue is simply to gain a better understanding of traditions which are different from our own (e.g. interfaith dialogue in which we try to learn more about another religion without necessarily becoming a convert). Whenever cooperation between people from cultures with conflicting norms is necessary, however, perhaps the best way to peacefully resolve such conflicts is through dialogue which aims to build (construct) not walls but bridges between those cultures. Dialogue is undoubtedly one of the most important forms of intercultural communication that can be engaged in by people from different cultures, particularly in a globalized world in which people with different ethical norms increasingly interact with each other.

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Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Penguin. Singer, M. (1987). Intercultural Communication: A Perceptual Approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ting-Toomey, S. (2011). Intercultural communication ethics. In G. Cheney, S. May and D. Munshi, eds., The Handbook of Communication Ethics. London: Routledge, pp. 335–52. Wallner, F.G. (1994). Constructive Realism: Aspects of a New Epistemological Movement (Philosophica 11). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Widdows, H. (2011). Global Ethics: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Acumen. Wiredu, K. (1996). Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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12 Decolonizing Gender and Intercultural Communication in Transnational Contexts Lara Lengel, Ahmet Atay and Yannick Kluch

There is an inherent subtlety to dancing between [the academic and indigenous] worlds. (Hunt, 2014: 28)

12.1

Introduction

In Decolonizing Methodologies, Māori scholar Tuhiwai Smith argues, ‘Decolonization is a process which engages with imperialism and colonialism at multiple levels. For researchers, one of those levels is concerned with having a more critical understanding of the underlying assumptions, motivations and values which inform research practices’ (2012 [1999]: 20). Twenty years after Smith’s groundbreaking work and, despite the call from scholars of critical intercultural communication for new directions or perspectives in the discipline, there is much work to be done in efforts to decolonize research broadly and intercultural communication specifically.1 In order to engage in the decolonizing of intercultural communication, we are guided by several questions. First, Desjarlait, an Anishinaabe environmental activist, asks, ‘decolonization of what, of whom? How can decolonization be a part of the process if the occupiers are occupying land?’ (2011: para. 9). Second, how do we move beyond decolonizing as a mere buzzword in education, research and activism? Third, and most central to 1

There is a growing body of work in decolonizing methodologies in disciplines ranging from education to gerontology to public policy (e.g. Asselin & Basile, 2012; Braun et al., 2014; Chilisa, 2012; Coburn et al., 2013; Hart, 2010; Kovach, 2010; Lavallée, 2009; Pihama, Cram & Walker, 2002; Sikes, 2006; Sutanuka, 2012; Vasquez-Fernandez et al., 2018; Wilson, 2008). However, there is unfortunately very little in communication studies (e.g. Kalscheuer, 2009; Willink et al., 2014).

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this study, what does decolonization mean in relation to critical intercultural communication studies? All this is not easy to answer. To decolonize, one must revisit, rework, reorient and re/envision cultural, political, social, economic and academic histories. Postcolonial theory, while it aims to decolonize, emphasizes a decentring of the subject, in this case centring postcolonial subjects and their experiences. For Madison, postcolonialism is the ‘multiple forms and locations of discourse, performance, politics, values, and the “everyday” – both past and present – that emanate from the history of colonialism’ (2012: 55). To decolonize, she recommends examining ‘the various circumstances that constitute the present setting – settlement and dislocation, economic and material stratification, strategies of local resistance, as well as representation, identity, belonging, and expressive traditions’ (p. 55). Informed by Shah and Khurshid, we aim to ‘take a critical, feminist, postcolonial approach to challenge traditional hierarchies of knowledge and incorporate the scholarship and perspectives of non-Western scholars, problematizing the traditional self-other distinction’ (2018: 257). These scholars, and others (e.g. Davis & Craven, 2016; Hurtig, 2017; Isasi-Diaz & Mendieta, 2011; Lengel, 1998; Patai, 1991), question epistemological and cultural hierarchies. Further, to more fully comprehend the present, Madison (2012) looks to postcolonial theory to interrogate and re/envision history. Through this re/envisioning, decolonization emphasizes empowerment through the potential to reframe and re/envision history and the breaking away from dominant Western and US-centric ways of studying culture, communication and identity and the relationships among them. When interrogating the history of intercultural communication as a subdiscipline, it is evident that it was developed with colonial and imperialistic tendencies, e.g. for training US Foreign Service2 officers before they departed to posts abroad. Even though it had a cultural training focus, it swiftly became an area of inquiry in which white Euro-American scholars studied other cultures, either quantitatively or through anthropological ethnographies (Leeds-Hurwitz, 2013), firmly grounded in a social science perspective. Most of this work was post-positivist research aimed at analysing broad cultural norms of nation states.3 Although interpretive and critical perspectives in intercultural communication scholarship promised a shift, and to a degree achieved one, there remain missed opportunities to substantially decolonize the discipline. This study analyses these missed opportunities and the need to de-essentialize intercultural communication studies, then presents methodological strategies for critical intercultural

2

The US Foreign Service Institute was established after the passing of the 1946 US Foreign Service Act. Many researchers point to the Institute as the birth of intercultural communication studies, at least in the United States.

3

For critiques of post-positivist research, see e.g. Chuang (2003).

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communication research, particularly with focus on the intersectional nature of gender, identity, culture and power.

12.2

De-essentializing and Decolonizing Intercultural Communication

Our previous work argues that much intercultural communication research, particularly that emerging from the social and behavioural scientific and post-positivist paradigms, essentializes culture (e.g. Atay, 2015; 2018; Lengel & Martin, 2013; Lengel & Warren, 2005). For instance, in a study of gender, performance and cultural identity, Lengel and Warren (2005) point out the dangers of essentializing culture and cultural identity, which are a substantial limitation in many areas of intercultural communication scholarship. Such scholarship, even that which claims a critical foundation, continues to remain US- and Western European-centric even though much current research has focused on cultural issues about racial, ethnic, national, gender, sexual, disability and socio-economic differences and identity construction in, for instance, the Global South. We argue that the underlying problem of the Western-centricity of intercultural communication work is that researchers continue to work within Western-centric research paradigms and are not employing the theoretical perspectives and methodological tools that could disorient Western-centrism (e.g. Cruz, 2008; Denzin, Lincoln & Tuhiwai Smith, 2008; Dutta, 2015; Miike, 2003). The essentializing of culture leads to another question guiding this study: how do we transcend the nexus of intercultural communication and the politics of theoretical and methodological frameworks? For example, what are the ways in which, as scholars, we can both focus on the particularity of intercultural communication, such as interpersonal conflicts steaming from cultural differences (micro focus), and also rather larger cultural issues, such as the role of power and political and economic structures in national and international conflicts and peace efforts (macro focus). As outlined by Halualani and Nakayama (2013), examining the macro to micro dimensions of critical intercultural communication calls for differing methodological tools and processes, e.g. critical ethnography, oral history, political economy, performance, autoethnography, in-depth interviews and surveys. This problem calls attention to the importance of building and identifying theoretical and philosophical lenses that facilitate critical dialogues.

12.2.1 Decolonizing Epistemology Scholars who critique colonialism and postcolonialism are situated in the critical perspective of intercultural communication. Postcolonialism is a

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cultural, political and intellectual movement calling for the independence of colonized and formerly colonized nation states. It also calls for a ‘liberation from colonialist mentalité, or ways of thinking’ because the ‘legacy of this cultural invasion often lasts much longer than the political relationship’, the aftermath of which ‘may include the ongoing use of the colonial language, culture, and religion’ (Martin & Nakayama, 2010: 69). Shome and Hegde note that postcolonial theorizing not only interrogates ‘colonial conditions but why those conditions are what they are, and how they can be undone and redone’ (2002: 250). It is the ‘undoing’ that is the mission of decolonization. Our previous work identifies five major themes interrogated by postcolonial scholars across disciplines to ‘include (a) a resistance of all master narratives with a critique of Eurocentrism as a primary goal, (b) a resistance against all forms of spatial homogenization and temporal teleology and (c) an understanding of the dialectical relationship between the colonizer and the colonized’ (Chawla & Atay, 2017: 4). It is also important to note the visibility and expansion of Eurocentric colonialism, while other colonial forms, such as Japan’s colonialist domination in Korea, have been significantly overshadowed in scholarship. Moreover, most of the decolonization discourse primarily engages with the Eurocentric colonialist past and decolonization of efforts. Shome (2009) points out the dominating nature of Western and Euro-American perspectives and of English as the primary language of intercultural communication and cultural studies in Western academia. She notes even international scholars often use tools and languages of the Western academy, including established concepts for appointments, promotion, tenure and publication and research efforts that are valued by Western academic norms. Could writing on the margins or writing from in-between spaces help us to achieve decolonization? Shome postulates: For many like me, raised in post-colonial contexts, our intellectual existence itself has always been a ‘post-colonial predicament’ from day one; our psyches and imaginations could never escape the violence and relations of the ‘international’; our imaginations have always had to move through different routes of the ‘international’ in order to make sense of ourselves and subjectivities. . . . The point is that for scholars raised in post-colonial contexts, some form of ‘post-colonial predicament’ has been the ‘natural’ condition under which they have performed scholarship (2009: 701–2).

This ‘natural’ condition calls for the need for intersectional research theories and methods, primarily those that identify and interrogate hegemonic cultural norms and discourses that many accept as normative. These taken-for-granted norms and discourses are particularly challenging in intersectional approaches that critique the complex, often subtle, multifaceted racial, gendered and classed Othering.

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Critiquing Othering discourses and practices requires an epistemological shift. Key to the decolonizing mission is a critical epistemological perspective, in which we acknowledge that reality is socially constructed, where power is situated at the centre of analysis and all knowledge as historically and socially situated. A decolonized epistemology should be guided by, among others, feminism, queer theory and critical race theory, to ‘locate individual actions within relations of dominance and subordination that, according to them, characterize the world’ (Markula & Silk, 2011: 39). At the heart of critical research is the assumption that societies are organized hierarchically based on lines of differentiation. As such, the primary goal of critical research is to expose and deconstruct the complex workings of hegemony and ideology to reveal how hegemonic and ideological constructions are maintained by powerful groups in society that benefit from such constructions at the expense of those on the margins. It is for this reason, as Markula and Silk have argued, that ‘with the ultimate goal of emancipatory action, the [critical] researcher assumes the position of a political advocate who takes up an openly ideological stance to fight imbalances between powerful and marginal groups’ (p. 42). Taking an intercultural communication project beyond a mere description of experiences, a critical epistemology considers how power operates in the context of participants’ experiences, which renders such a project as inherently political and allows researchers to provide a social critique of the experiences of participants. Lengel (1998) notes that researchers are transformed by projects interrogating culture and power and, due to the political nature of our project,4 the critical researcher becomes what Lincoln and Guba describe as a ‘transformative individual’ (2000: 161). A critical epistemology places focus on subjectivity as well as the interpretation of experience and meaning, which illustrates that critical and interpretive scholars acknowledge the coexistence of multiple truths – rather than one monolithic ‘Truth’ – that can be observed and documented through empirical methods. These multiple truths emerge from diverse lived experiences, within which each experience is considered as a distinct and partial story that reflects individuals’ and communities’ construction and interpretation of and reaction to their social settings.

4

Such projects are politicized due to their critique of hegemonic cultural practices, their problematization of dominant ideologies, their grounding in cultural studies and critical epistemologies, and, as a result, the opportunities to provide pathways for emancipation for both the researcher and the communities she or he researches. Custer notes transformative research ‘requires vulnerability, fosters empathy, embodies creativity and innovation, eliminates boundaries, honors subjectivity, and provides therapeutic benefits’ (2014: 1). An example of this type of research is Lengel’s (2018) feminist research on identity as it is shaped by the legalization of sex work and sex tourism in Costa Rica, as it questions the dominant ideological constructions of sex workers and the gendered nature of work and citizenship, particularly as it relates to national politics.

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12.2.2 Decolonizing Perspectives and Subjectivities Along with acknowledging multiple perspectives, experiences and ‘truths’, the epistemological shift needed to decolonize intercultural communication requires an acknowledgement of the human capacity for bias. Numerous scholars challenge the notion of true objectivity and argue that researchers are in no way neutral entities when it comes to knowledge production but are always influencing the various interactions and cultural phenomena under investigation (e.g. Braun et al., 2014; Chilisa, 2012; Coburn et al., 2013; Fontana & Frey, 2005; Lavallée, 2009). Critical intercultural communication researchers must acknowledge (and embrace) our own subjectivity in our research. For example, a study on how participants construct their identities will in the presence of a critical intercultural communication researcher lead to both researcher and participants becoming co-producers of knowledge. In this context, the researcher becomes a ‘bricoleur’ who ‘assembles images into montages’, like ‘a maker of quilts’, which leads to ‘a pieced-together set of representations that are fitted to specifics of a complex situation’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005: 4).

12.2.3

Decolonizing Methodologies through Collaborative Knowledge Production Robust explications of methodological approaches to critical intercultural communication are sorely missing in scholarship. Given this lack of work, we draw from critical cultural methodologies, such as critical ethnography, phenomenology, performance studies, critical rhetoric, qualitative textual analysis, ethnography and autoethnography. We recommend, for instance, Richardson’s approach which ‘fuses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with Edward Said’s [1978] critique of Orientalism’ in order to interrogate ‘the inseparable combination of “social practices,” “discursive practices” and the “texts” themselves’ (2004: 3). In so doing, we highlight approaches to intercultural communication that value globalized and localized cultural experiences and that provide an understanding of the multidimensionality of everyday life. Analysing the communicative tensions and opportunities that emerge from dialectical tensions of local/global, centre/margin and Self/Other, researchers should consider the ‘relations between discourse, dominance, marginalization, social inequality, ideology and hegemony’ (Hashemi & Ghanizadeh, 2012: 38), in order to explore the ways in which discourses about difference perpetuate power and systemic social, cultural, political and gender inequality. Given our epistemological framework, we argue for collaborative, reflexive, ethical, feminist, intersectional and indigenous methodologies, particularly for research that aims to understand the intersections of culture and power.

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Collaborative methodologies: following the notion of the bricoleur, it is important to understand that critical intercultural communication research is a highly interactive process that is shaped by both our own backgrounds, identities and epistemologies as well as by those of our participants. As such, researchers do not simply document representations of lived experience but contribute to the creation and construction of these representations. Drawing from Tuhiwai Smith (2005), Simpson and Ake explain the importance of participation which requires researchers to avoid simply data-gathering, but rather together with stakeholders, to identify expected benefits; meet face to face; look and listen; share results and ideas; be generous; and remain open to engaging in processes important to those stakeholders concerned, but not necessarily directly related to the research or even considered by the researchers (Simpson & Ake, 2010: 86; see also Lengel & Holdsworth, 2015; Stanton, 2014).

Given that decolonial knowledge production is collaborative and participatory, critical intercultural communication research has to be closely linked to our own identities as researchers. The centrality of identity politics in knowledge production also reveals that researchers’ interactions and relationships with the individuals and communities we study will, in turn, become a meaningful source for knowledge production (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). Further, Mendoza, Halualani and Drzewiecka argue for engaging in dynamic translation, an interpretive lens to embark upon a ‘nonreductive reading of identity politics’ (2002: 322). Drzewiecka and Steyn suggest that ‘Critical and postcolonial studies reject the possibility of a direct isomorphic transfer between languages and highlight the intercultural communication processes of transmission, circulation, and exchange of meanings between cultures’ (2009: 190). Such knowledge production is best when interdisciplinary, incorporating scholarship from affect studies (e.g. Ahmed, 2014), area studies (Abu-Lughod, 2006), history (Dobrowolsky et al., 2017), memory studies (Drzewiecka, Ehrenhaus & Owen, 2016), traumatology (Alexander et al., 2004; Barlow & Hetzel-Riggin, 2018; Killian & Agathangelou, 2018; Kucharska, 2018; Ruitenberg, Knowlton & Li, 2016). Reflexive methodologies: reflexive methodologies prompt critical intercultural communication researchers to embark upon a continuous process of reflexivity throughout the duration of a project. Vandenberg and Hall (2011) propose that qualitative researchers need to actively reflect on their own values and beliefs during the research process to evaluate how they influence their inquiry. These processes of reflexivity remind researchers to be ‘attentive to and conscious of the cultural, political, social, linguistic and ideological origins of one’s perspective and voice, as well as the perspective and voices of those interviews and those whom one reports’ (Patton, 2002: 65). Overall, reflexivity is accomplished through ‘detachment, internal

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dialogue, and constant (and intensive) scrutiny of “what I know” and “how I know it”’ (Hertz, 1997: vii), but there are also precise methods to support the necessary detachment, which includes the use of research diaries.5 Therefore, it is important for researchers to scrutinize our own values and assumptions to reflect on how they impact interactions with and questions for our participants as well as our analysis of the data (Mahon & McPherson, 2014). Reflexivity is the ‘heartbeat of qualitative research’ (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011: 72). To ensure quality, reflexivity needs to occur at all stages of the research process (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004), so that researchers can adequately assess the credibility of their findings (Cutcliffe, 2003). It must be central to critical intercultural communication research due to its focus on power relationships and its ultimate aim to identify and deconstruct power hierarchies, but also because our position as researchers holds some level of power. Ethical methodologies: a reflexive methodology should not only be used to ensure rigour but also to ensure that our research practices are ethical (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004). An emphasis on ethical research practices is another key characteristic of a critical methodology. As Guillemin and Gillam explain, ‘being reflexive in an ethical sense means acknowledging and being sensitized to the microethical dimensions of research practice and in doing so, being alert to and prepared for ways of dealing with the ethical tensions that arise’ (2004: 278). An ethics of care perspective allows critical intercultural communication researchers to foster authentic dialogues with participants (Asselin & Basile, 2012; Austin, Goble & Kelecevic, 2009; Gentelet, 2009; Gilligan, 1982; Lengel, 1998). One way for a researcher to express such an ethics of care, for instance at the beginning of an in-depth interview, is to emphasize there are no right or wrong answers to questions that will be posed and each response has value for the research project. Establishing this understanding helps frame a project as a collaborative one that will benefit from participants’ sincere and honest responses. Employing an ethics of care means treating the self and others as entities that are of equal worth and allows researchers to deconstruct hierarchies in the relationship between researcher and participants as well as acknowledge the researcher–researched divide (Collins, 1989). After all, researchers and participants enter a social relationship through a data-gathering encounter. More importantly, as Seidman stresses, this relationship is

5

Kluch (2018) has detailed his strategy to place reflexivity at the forefront of inquiry through a detailed research diary in the form of field notes throughout the research process. After each interview, he took detailed notes to reflect on the interview, the participants and his relationship with them, and the rapport-building process throughout the interview. Writing these field notes (and, later, reading through them) can provide an effective way to reflect on one’s positionality as researcher.

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‘fraught with issues of power – who controls the direction of the interview, who controls the results, who benefits’ (2006: 99). Researchers must be aware of the inequities of their relationship with participants and should always strive for equity in the research process, which Seidman defines as ‘a balance between means and ends, between what is sought and what is given, between process and product, and a sense of fairness and justice that pervades the relationship between participant and interviewer’ (p. 109). Using an unstructured interview protocol, for instance, could allow researchers to promote equity in the research process by providing more agency and control to participants to guide the direction of the data gathering process. Feminist and queer methodologies: there are several characteristics of feminist and queer methodologies, each of which builds on the aforementioned collaborative, reflexive and ethical aims. Both feminist and queer research methodologies are concerned with challenging oppression and ‘begins from the premise that the nature of reality in Western society is unequal and hierarchical’ (Skeggs, 1994: 77). At the centre of each are concerns with social change and justice (Doucet & Mauthner, 2006; Fanow & Cook, 2005). Ramazanoglu and Holland identify feminist research as ‘imbued with particular theoretical, political and ethical concerns that make these varied approaches to social research distinctive’ (2002: 2–3). Even though critical intercultural communication scholarship has interrogated social, cultural and political power structures, theorizing the notion of identity and examining intersecting identity markers, ranging from gender to ethnicity, it has often failed to engage with queer bodies and queer theorization. Both Chávez (2009) and Yep (2013) argue that while intercultural communication researchers focus on difference and ‘Othered’ bodies, they often neglect analysing queerness or queer bodies. They also call for the inclusion of queer lives, experiences and voices in intercultural communication scholarship and focus on intersections of queerness with racial, gendered, classed and national identity construction. In an article titled ‘Pushing boundaries: queer intercultural communication’, Chávez (2013) presents the historical linage of queer research in communication studies. She points out that most early queer research was done in media and cultural studies, performance and rhetoric. She reminds us that Queer Theory and Communication: From Disciplining Queers to Queering the Discipline(s), edited by Yep, Lovaas and Elia (2003), was the first collective effort to spotlight the slow development of queer studies in communication. Since then, queer intercultural work has grown, albeit slowly. For instance, the intercultural relationality work of Eguchi (2015) interrogates the role of ‘other’ bodies in mainstream US-American gay culture. Drawing upon Yep’s thick intersectionality, ‘multiple identity positionings that mirror macrostructural implications’ (2010: 29), Eguchi uses

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autoethnographic writing to highlight the intersections of race, nationality and queerness. Similarly, Atay highlights transnational and postcolonial perspectives to decolonize intercultural communication and to interrogate the notion of queer by calling attention to its US-centric and white ideals and structures (2015; 2018). In particular, he focuses on diasporic and immigrant bodies who are often marginalized, and he examines different ways in which these groups construct and perform cultural identities that either embody US-American queer ideals or challenge them. Chávez notes that even the most important and widely cited critical intercultural communication research has overlooked the importance and relevance of queer studies in critical intercultural communication and argues, ‘the intersections and interplays between the queer and the intercultural thus need to be more explicitly explicated, elucidated, and elaborated’ (2013: 84). Her call for the inclusion of queer studies, alongside Yep’s (2013) arguments for the need for queering and trans-ing in critical intercultural communication, has created a contemporary push to simultaneously queer and decolonize intercultural communication.6 Intersectional methodologies: a critical framework is further enriched by an intersectional methodology, which rejects binary categories and focuses on the spectrum of ‘modes of oppression that structure an individual’s identity’ and on the fact that ‘these ordering principles are mutually reinforcing’ (Anderson & McCormack, 2010: 952). Intersectionality was originally conceptualized by Crenshaw (1989) who critiqued that experiences of women of colour were not adequately represented by the feminists of her time. Most contemporary critical intercultural communication researchers should aim to explore how identity axes such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, ability and religion (among others) intersect through the social and cultural construction of categories to produce specific experiences for oppressed groups, as individuals are often affected by both interconnected and interdependent forms of discrimination (Corus & Saatcioglu, 2015). For example, Ehlers argues racial perceptions and constructions operate ‘within and through the modalities of gender and sexuality, and vice versa, and those categories are constituted through one another’ (2012: 65). As a result, one has to examine the construction of racial identity in its overlaps with gender, sexuality and other identity markers (Downing & Husband, 2005: 34). In their analysis of black masculinity, Jackson and Dangerfield (2002) argue that the intersection of racial and gendered stereotypes produces scripts that are projected onto the black body and lead to black men being portrayed as exotic or strange, violent, uneducated or incompetent, overly sexual, exploitable and innately incapacitated.

6

For example, Goltz et al. (2016); Johnson (2013).

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Multiple identity markers at the micro level (e.g. intersections of gendered and racial marginalizations) intersect with structural factors on the macro level (e.g. poverty) in the production of inequality. For researchers employing an intersectionality perspective, it is crucial to ‘broaden their analytical scope beyond the collected data to become intimately acquainted . . . with the sociohistorical realities of historically oppressed groups’ (Bowleg, 2008: 318). One way to do so is to look beyond one’s home discipline to ‘forgo disciplinary myopia’ (p. 318). Intersectional methodology requires interdisciplinarity beyond intercultural communication studies to include, among others, media studies, history, women’s studies, history, queer studies and critical race theory to provide a robust understanding of the contexts marginalized groups negotiate and to enrich data analysis and interpretation. An intersectional approach poses certain challenges for the researcher, particularly at the stages of data collection, analysis and interpretation. Bowleg argues an intersectional methodology should avoid making use of an additive approach when studying identity, which assumes that ‘social inequality increases with each additional stigmatized identity’ (2008: 314). An additive approach to identity (e.g. British national + activist + gay + AfroCaribbean) separates each identity component and, as a result, conceptualizes them as independent of each other, separate, summative and able to be ranked (Cuadraz & Uttal, 1999). To avoid putting labels into respondents’ minds and having them separate their various identities, researchers should be attentive to, for instance, refraining from posing questions that focus on demographics alone or that ask respondents to separate or rank their identities. Instead, we can follow Bowleg’s suggestion to ask questions that focus on an experience itself (e.g. discrimination) without separating different identities to avoid an additive approach (Bowleg, 2008). It is also important to avoid putting identity markers into participants’ minds. At the beginning of each interview, a first question for participant to complete could be an ‘I am . . .’ statement to describe their identity. If a respondent would state, for instance, ‘I am an activist for marriage equality’, then a researcher can refer to the respondent accordingly throughout the research encounter. Both a feminist and an intersectional methodology requires researchers to acknowledge that one’s data does not stand by itself but only acquires meaning through the researchers’ interpretations (Marecek, 2003). This necessarily raises questions concerning whose voice is reflected in the research report. Sandelowski reminds us that, as qualitative researchers, we run the risk of replacing our participant’s voices with our own rather than giving ‘voice to the voiceless’ (2006: 10). While we aim to embrace participants’ voices and stories by placing them at the centre of analysis, we must be aware that we are sharing their experiences through our own lens

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guided by critical epistemology and feminist and intersectional methodology. It is important to acknowledge that participants’ voices are organized and (re-)arranged by researchers, which means that the research report will not represent the natural flow of conversation throughout interviews. While our own voice will come through in the way the results are written up, themes identified in our data reflect participants’ stories – hence making participants’ voice the focus. It is for this reason that researchers should take on the role of facilitators, to create an environment that is supportive and safe and that allows participants to ‘explore issues with their own vocabulary, their own metaphors, and their own ideas’ (Carspecken, 1996: 155). In a constant process of reflexivity on our own positionality, it was important to allow my participants to use their own language and share their own ideas without imprinting my idea(l)s as a scholar onto them. As ‘subjects in dialogue with others’ (Madison, 2012: 10), a critical methodology allows researchers to include participants’ voices of the student-athlete activists participating in my research. By including direct quotes from participants throughout this report, we untangle our own voices from those of our participants to shift audiences’ focus away from ourselves to our participants as they ‘must be given voice independent of the author’s in order to focus the “seeing” in another direction’ (Hertz, 1997: xiv). By shifting the focus to participants, researchers can follow Benmayor’s call to ‘keep people and politics at the center of our research’ (1991: 173). Indigenous methodologies: current methodological strategies are ‘dominated by Western epistemologies, which have devalued Indigenous ways of knowing and set the grounds for continued marginalization of Indigenous students, communities, cultures, and histories’ (Louie et al., 2017: 16). In Decolonizing Methodologies, Tuhiwai Smith offers twenty-five research endeavours that embody decolonized, indigenous methodological approaches: claiming, testimonies, storytelling, celebrating survival, remembering, indigenizing, intervening, revitalizing, connecting, reading, writing, representing, gendering, envisioning, reframing, restoring, returning, democratizing, networking, naming, protecting, creating, negotiating, discovering and sharing (2012 [1999]: 198). Tuhiwai Smith also highlights the epistemological and ontological bases for indigenous research and how these bases frame the way indigenous researchers view and organize themselves in the world, the questions asked and solutions sought. She calls to indigenous researchers and ‘other researchers committed to producing research knowledge that documents social injustice, that recovers subjugated knowledges, that helps create spaces for the voices of the silenced to be expressed and “listened to,” and that challenge racism, colonialism and oppression’ (p. 198). Studies focused on decolonizing methodologies have highlighted research by or with indigenous communities (Davis & Shpuniarsky, 2010;

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Evans et al., 2009; Lincoln & González y González, 2008; Stanton, 2014). In their article, ‘Unspeakable things: indigenous research and social science’, Coburn et al. note that there is a growing, if uneven recognition that Indigenous peoples can no longer be treated simply as objects of research. This reflects the increasingly significant Indigenous presence in universities and movements of Indigenous resurgence outside of the academy. Yet, if Indigenous peoples are no longer always related to simply as objects of research or for consumption as commodities, they are not equals either. Rather, they are unequal ‘Others’, whose claims are subject to the authoritative adjudication of colonial expertise (2013: para. 13).

Indigenous studies have forged important collaborative and participatory connections. For instance, Vasquez-Fernandez and colleagues (2018) have incorporated indigenous theories and methodologies grounded in intercultural collaboration with the Yine-Yami and Asheninka peoples of the Peruvian Amazon. The researchers, and others (e.g. Chilisa, 2012), note that indigenous and feminist theories and methodologies are closely aligned. Feminist and critical intercultural communication scholar Mendoza recommends ethnoautobiography, ‘an indigenously grounded framework for identity formation’, as a way to decolonize research and pedagogies and to reshape the focus on the role and the place of cultural identity-based research (2018: 71). She suggests the decolonization framework used in EA [ethnoautobiography] allows for decentering of the monopolistic logic and culture of modernity (rooted in possessive individualism, a mode of rationality exclusive of feeling, intuition, and embodied ways of knowing, and the value of efficiencies, aggressive pursuit of material wealth, and private ownership) that leads to disconnection and encapsulation of the self and surfacing of other ways of being in the world (p. 72).

12.3

Concluding Remarks

The need to decolonize intercultural communication research responds to the danger of essentializing culture and cultural identity. This essentialization remains a substantial limitation of much intercultural communication research, which must acknowledge the complexity and diversity of identity, community, lived experience and insight dialogue about cultural exchange, cultural awareness and political change. It must also interrogate the limitations of Western feminist thought, in consideration of other identity characteristics, such as ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, emotional disorders and physical/embodied ability and the political, economic and

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sociocultural contexts of various geographic regions, particularly those constituted as so-called developing nations. We call for a structural, contextual and philosophical shift, away from colonizing neoliberal US-American-centric theoretical lenses and research methodologies. Chawla and Atay argue, With its focus on everyday practices, decolonization can be empowering for individuals and, in our case, academics who might enact this process in their research, in reflecting upon the educations system that reproduces colonial practices, and their own training (2017: 6).

One substantial challenge is that, at present, many institutions of higher education in the United States, UK and Europe are re/entrenching themselves in colonized methodologies. Researchers who resist the return of positivism raise questions ‘concerning the realities of doing anti-colonial research in an institution which is colonial to its core’ (Sylvestre et al., 2018: 752; e.g. also Coombes, Johnson & Howitt, 2014). The alignment of neopositivism and neoliberalism result in a rush to add more lines to one’s curriculum vitae, and it is much more doable to facilitate a survey of students ‘at a major Midwestern university’, get a ‘good N’ and analyse the numbers in a myriad of ways. Informed by Thayer’s important 1983 essay, ‘On “doing” research and “explaining” things’, Gandy argues researchers engage ‘in a form of self-delusion when we equate the growth in the number of books and journals as evidence of greater progress toward “the truth”’ (2003: 2). He argues, ‘the community of scholars gains in status and security by demonstrating its progress in knowing more and more about less and less, and by pursuing that knowledge with a particular methodological apparatus that allows some to envision certain things with a clarity hitherto unavailable to them, and still not attained by those outside their narrow circles’ (p. 2). Decolonizing methodologies through reflexive, collaborative and participatory research, particularly that which requires a deep immersion in a cultural community, all takes time. In the increasingly neoliberal academy, social and behavioural scientific empiricism triumphs. Tuhiwai Smith reminds us of the ‘ways in which scientific research is implicated in the worst excesses of colonialism’ (2012 [1999]: 1). Critiquing reductionist dichotomies requires non-reductionist methodologies to fully explicate the complexity and fluidity of cultural identities and reconstitute the diversity and potential of lived experience and creative practice. Critical intercultural communication research is most worthwhile when scholars want to ‘empower individuals to share their stories, highlight their voices, and minimize the power relationships that often exist between a researcher and the participants in a study’ (Creswell, 2007: 40). This

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research highlights a variety of voices that discuss rich and distinct stories. The value of these stories, and this aligns with one of the core goals of research in the critical tradition, is that they lead to avenues for emancipation (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). More theory-rich critical intercultural communication studies work is needed to connect gender studies, cultural studies and postcolonial studies, and to move beyond academic disciplinary boundaries to focus on transnational economic, cultural, social, geopolitical theories and pedagogical practices. Such work must critique the inherently reductionist and essentializing theoretical and methodological strategies and practices employed in foundational intercultural communication research and present more insightful, contemporary studies that employ complex understandings of gender and power, particularly in transnational contexts.

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Bengali magazine Nara-Naree. Global Media Journal: Indian Edition, 3(1), 1–14. Sylvestre, P., Castleden, H., Martin, D. and McNally, M. (2018). ‘Thank you very much. . . You can leave our community now.’: geographies of responsibility, relational ethics, acts of refusal, and the conflicting requirements of academic localities in indigenous research. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 17(3), 750–79. Thayer, J. (1983). On ‘doing’ research and ‘explaining’ things. Journal of Communication, 33(3), 80–91. Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2005). On tricky ground: researching the native in the age of uncertainty. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, eds., Handbook of Qualitative Research, 5th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 85–107. Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012 [1999]). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed. Vandenberg, H. and Hall, W. (2011). Critical ethnography: extending attention to bias and reinforcement of dominant power relations. Nurse Researcher, 18(3), 25–30. Vasquez-Fernandez, A., Hajjar, R., Shuñaqui Sangama, M., Sebastián Lizardo, R., Pérez Pinedo, M., Innes, J. and Kozak, R. (2018). Co-creating and decolonizing a methodology using Indigenist approaches: alliance with the Asheninka and Yine-Yami peoples of the Peruvian Amazon. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 17(3), 720–49. Willink, K., Gutierrez-Perez, R., Shukri, S. and Stein, L. (2014). Navigating with the stars: critical qualitative methodological constellations for critical intercultural communication research. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 7(4), 289–316. Wilson, S. (2008). Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing. Yep. G. A. (2010). Toward the de-subjugation of racially marked knowledges in communication. Southern Communication Journal, 75(2), 171–5. Yep. (2013). Queering/quaring/kauering/crippin’/transing ‘other bodies’ in intercultural communication. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 6(2), 118–26. Yep, G. A., Lovaas, K. E. and Elia, J. P., eds. (2003). Queer Theory and Communication: From Disciplining Queers to Queering the Discipline(s). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.

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13 Migration in the Digital Social Mediasphere Peter Stockinger

13.1

Preliminary Remarks

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are in 2018 more than 68 million of forcibly displaced people worldwide, of whom about 25 million are refugees (UNHCR, 2018: 2). The main reasons are war, political, religious and other discriminations, poverty, lack of jobs and youth bulge. Not only alt-rights but also neo-nationalists (e.g. the Northern League in Italy, the Rassemblement National – the exFront National – in France, the Fidesz party in Hungary) with strong media and political coverage argue that the so-called developed countries have been (and still are) exposed to a risky influx of immigrants that is about to destroy the economic, social and ‘cultural’ dimensions of Western society (Eide & Nikunen, 2011; Pink & Abram, 2015). Although statistically the majority of displaced persons and refugees (around 85 per cent) is located in the so-called developing countries of the Global South (UNHCR, 2018), one of the most dominant themes is that of the ‘European migrant (or refugee) crisis’ (Crawley et al., 2018; Luft, 2016; Schulze Wessel, 2017). It refers to the increased influx of refugees from Muslimmajority countries trying to join the EU since 2014/2015 across the Mediterranean Sea and overland through southeast Europe, and it finds a tremendous echo in traditional news media as well as in the digital social mediasphere. Even if it is extremely difficult to give exact figures, the number of YouTube videos dealing with the European refugee crisis can be estimated at several tens of thousands, and new videos on this topic are posted almost every day. This quantitatively impressive video production is realized by traditional information media (TV and news channels), NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), associations, political think tanks, religious

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and other charity organizations, political parties and, finally, a diversity of social movements, informal groups and anonymous individuals. In social media in general and on You Tube in particular, we can observe the circulation of video content belonging to traditional audiovisual genres and the production of new video genres. Traditional audiovisual genres which have shaped the history of audiovisual content production during the twentieth century and which we can find also on social media platforms are, for instance, news programmes, reportage and documentaries. Among recent audiovisual genres, we find web micro-movies (movies with a duration from some seconds to a few minutes), web documentaries, direct video recordings of events (‘vox pops’) and especially re-mediatized or remediated videos – a broad category of remixes of already diffused videos coupled with new communication intentions and hence modifying an initial message (e.g. on this specific topic, Eugeni, 2012; Lucke, 2017; Navas, Gallagher & Burrough, 2015; Ruschmeyer, 2012; Thevenin, 2017). On YouTube, these videos are diffused via ‘channels’, which are small, user-generated and managed video portals. They are shared and discussed by local, regional and sometimes global communities of video consumers. In this sense, the digital social mediasphere (here, the YouTube platform) forms an excellent ‘in vivo’ laboratory to observe the production, circulation and processing of cultural (mental and visual) images of the figure of the other. In particular, examining YouTube videos can help us to better understand the diversity and evolution of popular beliefs in a globalized world. These beliefs constitute the ‘commonsense’ (Geertz, 1983) of new types of social group that can no longer be identified with reference to ethnic, national or religious criteria. Instead, they tend to form ‘doxastic communities’, i.e. communities that recognize themselves first and foremost in a set of themes, values, narratives, discourses and iconographies, which they share, use and exploit in their daily lives.

13.2

Goals of a Semiotically Oriented Video Analysis

We understand videos as ‘textual traces’ that express or stage ‘topoï’ or topical fields (Bäumer, 1973). The notion of ‘topos’ stands for meaning models used by people as evidential, commonsense truths and references (Geertz, 1983) for imagining, qualifying, understanding, judging and narrating the other, communicating about and with the other, acting upon the other and interacting with the other. With regard to our research object, a topos hence thematizes visions, ideas, convictions and appreciations of migrants, immigrants or refugees and of the relationship between immigrants and natives, i.e. ‘Homelanders’.

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Figure 13.1 General grid for the description of audiovisual (filmic) data

In particular, we would like to reconstruct the topoï that frame the visions of immigrants in using an interpretive and semiotic reading of videos. This approach refers to a general grid for identifying ‘remarkable’ or ‘critical items’ in a corpus of audiovisual data, because the perceivable linear audiovisual flow contains a series of hotspots, which offer access to the ‘meaning-sphere’ of a video. Major categories of remarkable or critical items are identified in Figure 13.1. They include remarkable audiovisual objects, visual and acoustic shots, syntagmatic (linear) constructions of visual and acoustic objects in the form of edited or unedited (‘pro-filmic’) audiovisual configurations, continued or distributed thematic and narrative sequences as well as features in the staging of the quoted elements (objects, shots, sequences. . .) such as camera angle, camera movement, lighting and dubbing features.

13.3

A Global Commonsense Narrative

Drawing on a corpus of 150 videos on the YouTube platform (Stockinger, 2017), we have identified a field of ten major topoï which belong to a global

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narrative we call the ‘Homelander–Stranger drama for inhabiting and shaping Homeland’. This drama produces an enormous variety of stories diffused by videos in the social mediasphere. Identification and definition of the ten topoï are – in the spirit of Greimas’s narrative grammar (1970) – based on the following series of narrative elements: 1)

2)

3)

4)

Two central thematic actants: the Homelander and the Stranger. The Stranger is embodied by the migrant, immigrant or refugee, while the Homelander is a person or a collective that represents the Homeland. A central space: the Homeland. This territory can be embodied by a continent (Europe, America), a country, a city, a district or a rural area. The Homeland is the territory the Stranger is aiming at. Typical actions and interactions: following the dominant topos, videos deal with specific types of actions. There are videos that deal with unlikely trials and tribulations of the Stranger’s travels, while some show violent confrontations between Homelanders and Strangers, and others focus on the suffering of the excluded Stranger after arriving in the Homeland. Qualifications that hierarchize the various narrative elements: depending on the selected topos, the two main actants and the staged actions are evaluated differently. For example, in the majority of the reconstructed topoï, the Stranger is qualified as ‘infelicitous’, but there is also one topos in which the Stranger appears as ‘destructive agent’.

The Homelander–Stranger drama is a commonsense narrative and indispensable for thematizing the migrant from the most varied points of view. In fact, none of the many, sometimes contradictory stories about migrants could be imagined without this presupposed drama. The next graph (Figure 13.2) lists the ten main topoï we found in our analysis of the 150 videos. Each topos forms the semantic basis for a great diversity of images or models of the migrant that support doxastically motivated ‘mainstream’ attitudes, discourses, narratives and iconographies on YouTube and in the digital and traditional mediasphere. However, before elaborating on the ten topoï in the next chapters, we would like to point out that most of the videos are not ‘from’ migrants but ‘about’ migrants. In a certain sense, they reflect the (‘natural’, doxastically given) self-understanding of the ‘occidental world of today’ in relation to the ‘other’, who from a historical point of view is mostly the colonized other (e.g. from Africa or the Near East). In that sense, it would be interesting to examine critically the worldwide production of videos about migrants in the social and traditional mediasphere as a production that tends to show ideological traces of an old colonialism at work, which – in a new disguise – selects and orchestrates the voices, believes and attitudes that interpret and stage the dramas of today’s world and the fate of millions of people

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1: The infelicitous former Homelander, who was forced to leave his original Homeland. 2: The infelicitous wandering Stranger, who seeks to approach the desired new Homeland.

Profilmic scene:

3: The infelicitous uprooted Stranger, who has a right to hospitality.

The immigrant/ refugee and the European context

4: The infelicitous stigmatized Stranger, who lives excluded and confined in the desired Homeland.

5: The infelicitous trustworthy Stranger, who tries to become a good Homelander. 6: The infelicitous good, productive Stranger, who enriches and strengthens the Homeland .

7: The infelicitous Stranger resembling us, who deserves understanding and benevolence from the Homelander. 8: The destructive Stranger, who assaults the defenceless Homelander and against whom one must stand up. 9: The free Stranger, master of his movements, who seizes the opportunities that the Homeland offers him . 10: Moving and being displaced is a human condition – people are both native and Stranger. Figure 13.2 Family of ten topoï framing the cultural visions of the migration complex (e.g. Beck & Osthuis, 2016; Gabbert, 2010; Rings, 2016; Sampat Patel, 2001).

13.4

Nomads against Their Will

A brief look at Figure 13.2 shows us that the identified topoï are not independent of each other but form structural configurations that maintain manifold interconnections. The first two topoï thematize a common image of the migrant as a person condemned to nomadic existence. The first topos, ‘The infelicitous former Homelander, who was forced to leave his original Homeland’, thematizes and narrates stories of people who leave their home against their will and whose new horizon of meaning consists in the desperate search for a new Homeland. The central message is that we should consider the migrants’ reasons for leaving their home to understand the meaning of that decision. Videos telling the Homelander–Stranger drama in this way tend to illustrate it with the help of stories of families, children or elderly people who are robbed of their homes and possessions

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by war. The previous lives of these people are often visually and verbally portrayed as one that in principle corresponds to that of a ‘normal’ family elsewhere. Examples include animated videos such as ‘Carly, A Refugee Story’ (UNHCR, 1999) or short web reports on the reasons why Syrians leave their country and whether they miss their Homeland, e.g. ‘What Was the Last Straw that Made You Leave Syria?’ (Al Jazeera +, 2015). The second topos, ‘The infelicitous wandering Stranger, who seeks to approach the desired new Homeland’ narrates and stages migrants as subjects who have to reach the desired Homeland, although the routes are extremely dangerous. Typical themes of their ‘erratic journeys’ are particularly dangerous areas (e.g. the desert or the Mediterranean Sea) as well as obstacles designed to impede their arrival in the desired Homeland (e.g. a European country or the United States). This frequently includes reports of harassment or physical violence against them, their desperate attempts to overcome the obstacles, their blank despair and unperturbable hope to escape evil, and their failure to join the Homeland. Typical audiovisual genres staging this topos are reportages produced by mainstream media such as Al Jazeera, Russia Today or The Guardian, web media companies (e.g. VICE News established in 2013) targeting the younger generations and NGOs and intergovernmental organizations such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Particularly impressive video documents are: ‘We Walk Together’ (The Guardian, 2015) relating the walk of thousands of refugees from Budapest to Vienna, the Al Jazeera report ‘African Migrants: What Really Drives Them to Europe’ (Al Jazeera English, 2015) and the Russia Today web documentary ‘Lampedusa: Way to Paradise or Hell for African Migrants?’ (Russia Today, 2014). Particularly dramatic sequences of these creations are reused in diverse and often anonymous remixes, pursuing sometimes completely contrary communication goals with respect to those in the original documents. For example, original sequences staging masses of peaceful and intimidated refugees are reinterpreted as hordes of wild people breaking into Europe, and people crying in deepest despair are reinterpreted as howling and aggressive savages. An example for this is the anti-migrant, Islamophobic and anti-Semite remix ‘With Open Gates: The Invasion of Europe’ which has gone viral in the social mediasphere (Politically Incorrect, 2015). These remixes, as we will see, mostly illustrate the eighth topos, which presents migrants as devastating agents.

13.5

Hope for Humanity and Hospitality

Topoï 3 and 4 focus on images of migrants in need who appeal to Homelanders’ compassion. The third topos, ‘The infelicitous uprooted Stranger, who has a right to hospitality‘, is staged by videos focusing on the arrival of

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migrants in the desired Homeland and their welcoming by an ‘openminded Homelander’. This includes scenes of fraternization between Homelanders and ‘uprooted Strangers’, the welcome of these Strangers in Homelanders’ families and declarations of Strangers’ ‘inalienable rights’ in the Homeland. A typical example is ‘This Italian Village Was Dying . . . Until the Refugees Came’, a short documentary produced by National Geographic staging the reception of Assan Baldé, a refugee from Casamance, by an Italian family in the name of hospitality and Catholic values (National Geographic, 2016). The documentary shows simple and ancestral village life, happy immigrants accomplishing socially useful activities (e.g. repairing old houses) and respectful interactions between immigrants and villagers. These visual themes are reinforced by interviews with key subjects (e.g. immigrants, villagers and the mayor of the village), and voice-over comments create a specific cultural vision of harmony between the Stranger and the Homelander. Another example is the Cable News Network (CNN) reportage ‘Canadian City Welcomes Syrian Immigrants’ (2016) which leads to the conclusion that welcoming refugees from Syria in Calgary constitutes only a minor risk compared to the potential benefit that Calgary could gain from the arrival of Syrian refugees. This reportage establishes a link with the sixth topos that highlights migrants as productive Strangers. ‘The infelicitous stigmatized Stranger, who lives excluded and confined in the desired Homeland’ is the fourth topos, which narrates stories of detention and lockout of the Stranger in and around the desired Homeland. It creates notions of a closed world represented by refugee camps, in which migrants are forced to live, and outlines an emerging parallel society that links up to Goffman’s (1961) and Foucault’s (1966) concepts of ‘asylum’. The secluded worlds of refugee camps become the ‘anti-Homeland’, a dystopian place that produces the ‘forfeited Stranger’ represented by immigrants struck by deception, physical distress, manifestations of insane violence and, finally, atony. Outstanding examples are ‘Life for Eastern Europeans in Post-Brexit Britain’ produced by BBC Newsnight (BBC, 2016) and ‘Detained in Italy: Misery for Migrants and Refugees’ by the United Nations (2015). The first video provides interviews with East European migrants living in the UK after the Brexit referendum and experiencing increasing discrimination and exclusion, while the second is a very hard-hitting documentary on the detention of migrants in special camps.

13.6

On the Value of Migrants

Topoï 5 and 6 focus on the value of migrants for Homelander and Homeland. The fifth topos, ‘The infelicitous trustworthy Stranger, who tries to

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become a good Homelander’, articulates a vision based on the industriousness of migrants and stresses that they should be appreciated because they are proud to become good Homelanders. This links up to the Kantian imperative of the ‘ungesellige Geselligkeit’ (Kant, 1979), i.e. the assertion that we are a community, whether we like it or not. Videos in this category tend to focus on forced migration, the migrants’ hardship after joining the new Homeland and their efforts to become new Homelanders. This usually includes challenges (like the overcoming of the language barrier) as well as fears and desires that migrants face on arrival, while their personal achievements can be interpreted as pledges for their intentions to become ‘good’ trustful Homelanders. An outstanding example is ‘The Memories of a Migrant’, a still image short about the life of Korean immigrant Lee in Australia, produced retrospectively by a member of his family (Lee, 2013). Other examples are interviews with (former) refugees realized by humanitarian and/or higher education institutions such as the Canadian alliance Pathways to Prosperity Partnership, e.g. ‘Life as a Refugee: From Migration to Integration’ (Immigrant Story Bank, 2016), or documentaries on European emigration to the Unites States at the beginning of the twentieth century, e.g. ‘Immigration and Cultural Change’ (Schlessinger Video Productions, 1993). The sixth topos, ‘The infelicitous good, productive Stranger, who enriches and strengthens the Homeland’, narrates visions related to the ‘utility’ of migrants for the Homeland. This topos relies on an axiological separation between ‘constructive Strangers’ and ‘destructive Strangers’. As ‘constructive Strangers’, migrants prove their goodness through hard work and valuable contributions to the prosperity and well-being of the new Homeland, which usually leads to their recognition and reclassification as ‘truly good Homelanders’. Key is the construction of a ‘heritage-scape’ (Garden, 2004) of Homeland that highlights migrant contributions by stressing relevant material objects (e.g. agricultural tools used by migrants) and memory objects (e.g. photos of life in migrant communities, personal objects belonging to migrants). These and similar objects are frequently used in museum collections, exhibitions, books and audiovisual creations to document and narrate the contributions of migrants to the prosperity of the Homeland. Particularly important in all these cases is the tacitly accepted utilitarian value of Strangers for the Homeland, which links up to notions of ‘good cultural diversity’. Examples are video productions celebrating US-American history as an economic success story based on the contributions of millions of migrants with different linguistic, geographic and religious backgrounds, e.g. ‘Immigration and Cultural Change’ (Schlessinger Video Productions, 1993). There are, however, also videos which develop more heterodox positions in celebrating the ‘intrinsic goodness’ of cultural diversity (without utilitarian justification) by drawing on

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the ‘intrinsic right’ to be different and to live that difference such as the ‘road movie’ by Vic Stefanu, ‘Brisbane, Magnificent Cultural Event for Immigration and Diversity’ (Stefanu, 2016) – a montage that shows us a costume parade in Brisbane – an event that for the author stands for an open and beautiful civilization.

13.7

The Other as Self – Or as Destructive, Deadly Alien

The seventh topos, ‘The infelicitous Stranger resembling us, who deserves understanding and benevolence from the Homelander’, promotes visions and values of an all-encompassing human community and an empathetic, inclusive attitude towards its unfortunate members, sisters and brothers in need. Consequently, it focuses on the similarities between all human beings, i.e. characteristics that all humans share, and the moral obligation to help somebody in distress, as well as religiously and philosophically inspired reflections on compassion and pity. A good example is the animation ‘Calais: The Migrants’ Path’ (IOM, 2015). Its basic message is that immigrants and refugees who are forced to live in the camp of Calais in France are people like ‘you and me’. Evidence for this is produced by a montage of a series of sequences, each one organized in three acts: 1) 2) 3)

short written text highlighting similarities (e.g. by phrases such as ‘just like you/us’); visual evidence (showing a bicycle or bread); short written text explaining visuals (‘they want to go to school’ or ‘they have to eat’).

The last sequence of the animation finishes with the affirmation ‘Just like you . . . they deserve dignity and respect’. The eighth topos, ‘The destructive Stranger, who assaults the defenceless Homelander and against whom one must stand up’, focuses on migrants that invade the Homeland with the intention of replacing the native Homelander. Such stories (re)construct the division between the inner world of the Homeland and the outer world, which appears as a terrific, eerie space full of destructive agents against which Homelanders must unite and face with dignity and awareness of their uniqueness. Interestingly enough, the ‘infelicitous Stranger’ theme that runs through the first seven topoï disappears here, which seems to suggest that ‘destructive Strangers’ cannot be infelicitous, and that tends to enhance the binary construct. Examples are: • ‘With Open Gates: The Invasion of Europe’: an amateur remix that, like most others of its kind, compiles violent scenes allegedly caused by

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migrants, and which has gone viral in the digital social mediasphere (Politically Incorrect, 2015). • ‘The Destruction of Great Britain through Immigration’: which develops the idea that Great Britain is – like Ireland and Sweden – at risk of disappearing due to mass immigration (Real Europe, 2016). • ‘The Last Time I saw PARIS: 2016 Scenes from the Apocalypse African Mass Immigration Ruins Streets’: a remix on the invasion and contamination of Paris by ‘hordes’ of immigrants (Nurgle, 2016). These and many other examples prove the existence of a specific political folk culture in the social mediasphere belonging to the far-right (e.g. Albertini & Doucet’s ‘fachosphere’ concept: 2016), which includes the thematic and visual differentiation of: 1) ‘Destructive Strangers’: in the videos produced since 2014, Muslim and sub-Saharan African immigrants appear frequently in this role, especially if Europe is the Homeland, while Latinos and particularly Mexicans tend to take that role in US-American representations of the Homeland. Destructive Strangers are often portrayed as organized hordes and masked people, who defy the police of the Homeland and assault defenceless Homelanders, which reduces them to uncontrollable and terror spreading ‘animated bodies’ without individuality. 2) ‘Assaulted Homelanders’: who tend to be white and defenceless and are often represented by pretty girls or elderly people. Other characteristics include economic prosperity, religious beliefs and adherence to a traditional (folk) lifestyle. 3) The aggression of Strangers against Homelanders: apart from the destruction of goods, recurrent forms of aggression are sexual harassment, assaults against individuals in public places, violent manifestations and especially repeated threats of so-called ethnic replacement, which may include notions of the Islamization of Europe. 4) The ‘true hero’: the leader of Homeland resistance, who appears in two key roles: a) the ‘true expert’ denouncing the destruction of the Homeland and defying the ignorance of the ‘naive Homelander’ as well as the deceitful activities of the ‘traitor’ (frequently represented by leftist intellectuals and mainstream political elites); b) the ‘brave warrior’ combating the destructive Stranger. 5) The Homeland itself: which is frequently defined through cultural references that link up to fabulous historical epochs (depending on the Homeland in question, this could be the foundation of the Roman Empire, the life of Vikings or Teutonic knights or the strength of the Napoleonic army). Most of these references tend to draw on notions of glorious warfare history that may enhance fascist ‘achievements’ and symbols. Overall, the ‘Stand up, menaced Homeland’ folk culture can be understood as the product of different influences, ranging from political activism

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(such as identitarian, neoconservative and white supremacist movements) to video game and TV culture. It is also nurtured by a plethora of so-called experts who are frequently journalists working for highly conservative (web) news channels (such as Fox News or The Alex Jones Channel in the United States) and/or neoconservative think tanks and foundations (like the American Centre for Immigration Studies).

13.8

Freedom and Independence

The representations of migrants in the above discussed eight topoï are, ultimately, all in contrast to the ninth topos, ‘The free Stranger, master of his movements, who seizes the opportunities that the Homeland offers him’. The free Stranger is frequently represented by ’global nomads’, ‘idlers’ (Kannisto, 2016), ‘lifestyle nomads’, ‘backpackers’ or ‘third culture kids’ (Pollock, Van Reken & Pollock, 2001), all of whom seem to leave their home and settle (temporarily) in a new Homeland, because it offers them ‘good opportunities’ to satisfy their desires and interests. The key message of these ‘free’ although not necessarily wealthy migrants is ‘Take your life. It’s yours’. While this topos does not play a substantial role in audiovisual representations of the so-called European refugee crisis, it often nurtures expatriation videos, e.g. on elderly people who want to live in a ‘sunny country’, younger people who want to find themselves, or students who want to gain foreign experience. Examples include ‘Expat Africa: Living in Africa, Careers in Africa, Jobs in Africa’ (Nomad Capitalist, 2013), ‘6 Years of Full Time Van Life for Travelling Digital Nomad Couple’ (Exploring Alternatives, 2018), and ‘How to Choose the Good Country for Expatriation’ (Objectif Eco TV, 2018).

13.9

The ‘Truth’ about Migration

The tenth and last topos, ‘Moving and being displaced is a human condition – people are both Native and Stranger’, highlights visions and values of ‘objective knowledge’, ‘assumed reality’, ‘(scientific or expert) truth’ and ‘moral authority’ propagated by dominant ‘epistemic communities’ (e.g. Haas, 1992 on this concept). The central message is that migration is intrinsic to human history, even though there have always been social movements against people coming from elsewhere. Typical audiovisual genres staging this topos are scholarly and pedagogical work in the form of (animated) courses, historical documentaries and academic conferences with focus on historical, demographic, social and economic themes explaining migration. One central and recurrent scientific theme is the

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pull and push factors with focus on the reasons for people to leave their homes and choose a particular target destination. From a (visual) rhetorical point of view, videos developing this topos draw heavily on scientific experts, archival documents and statistics. From an intertextual point of view, it is noticeable that this topos is regularly used by the other topoï as an epistemic frame of reference (which tends to lead particularly frequently in the Menaced Homeland topos to a fake argument). An outstanding example of video production that focuses on ‘objective knowledge’ construction is the three-minute didactic animation ‘Migration: Why Do People Migrate’ (2015) disseminated by the YouTube channel Geographer Online.

13.10

Concluding Remarks

The findings outlined in this chapter should be understood as a contribution to an archaeology of mediatized content with a focus on topical fields circulating in the social mediasphere. Indeed, social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Flickr and Twitter represent excellent research sources and offer highly relevant corpora of data documenting today’s social imaginary. Studies in the ‘social imaginary’ (or imagination) are interested in what people – outside of mainstream media and political elites – believe and think of events, objects and people that are part of their daily lives. In modern history, identity and alterity have been managed through collectively binding cultural frameworks which shape ‘ethnical’, religious, political and socially stratified communities, all of which are conceived and elaborated on the basis of basic binary distinctions, i.e. between natives and strangers, believers and non-believers, citizens and foreigners, or dominating and dominated groups (e.g. the ‘elite’, ‘privileged’, ‘cultivated’, ‘upper class’, ‘bourgeoisie’ vis-à-vis the ‘labour mass’, ‘lower class’, ‘under-privileged’, ‘proletariat’). On the other hand, social media platforms seem to enhance doxastic communities, i.e. communities of people who feel they belong to a collective of social actors due to shared topoï and commonplace values, and who validate and justify their everyday actions, thoughts and judgements on that basis. They construct personal and informal cultural frameworks by borrowing elements from traditional mainstream culture and reinterpreting and remixing them with other elements from, for example, new popular mass media culture, digital video gaming culture, consumer-brand cultures and especially digital word-of-mouth culture. All this leads to a new landscape of popular cultural diversity, which offers new meaning and resources for a substantial amount of people who no longer

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identify themselves with mainstream culture, which is frequently considered elitist as well as irrelevant in offering solutions to personal problems, needs and desires. Considering the rich and diversified meaningsphere of the discussed ten topoï, I come to the conclusion that this new folk culture: • tends to replace mainstream culture in the daily lives of the people concerned, i.e. mainly younger generations – millennials and postmillennials – and active users of social media platforms; • and creates a rather specific field of intercultural tensions, i.e. of tensions between those who adhere to mainstream culture and those who refer to variants of the new folk culture.

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Nurgle, A. (2016). The Last Time I Saw PARIS: 2016 Scenes from the Apocalypse African Mass Immigration Ruins Streets. Online video clip. https:// youtu.be/TzOrDnp8HKQ (last accessed 4 January 2019). Objectif Eco TV (channel) (2018). Comment choisir le bon pays d’expatriation – les critères à réfléchir! [How to choose the good country for expatriation]. Online video clip. https://youtu.be/_GwWSdmBaWw (last accessed 4 January 2019). Pink, S and Abram, S., eds. (2015). Media, Anthropology and Public Engagement. New York: Berghahn Books. Politically Incorrect Productions (2015). With Open Gates: The Forced Collective Suicide of European Nations. Online video clip, uploaded by E. Borgman. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0hD7IffTJs (last accessed 4 January 2019). Pollock, D. C., Van Reken, R. E. and Pollock, M. V. (2001). Third Culture Kids: Growing Up among Worlds. London: Nicholas Brealey. Real Europe (channel) (2016). The Destruction of Great Britain through Immigration. Online video clip. www.youtube. com/watch?v=9HU8AW3JW0 (last accessed 4 January 2019 – no longer available). Rings, G. (2016). The Other in Contemporary Migrant Cinema: Imagining a New Europe? New York: Routledge. Ruschmeyer, S. (2012). Shifting paradigms in web video: from access to curation. In A. Pethö, ed., Film in the Post-media Age. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 35–56. Russia Today (RT) (2014). Lampedusa: Way to Paradise or Hell for African Migrants? Online video clip. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgpldGzumnk (last accessed 4 January 2019). Sampat Patel N. (2001). Postcolonial Masquerades: Culture and Politics in Literature, Film, Video, and Photography. New York: Routledge. Schlessinger Video Productions (1993). Immigration and Cultural Change. Online video clip. https://youtu.be/zESKxpV73Sw (last accessed 4 January 2019). Schulze Wessel, J. (2017). Krise! Welch Krise? Von der ‘Flüchtlingskrise’ zu der Krise der Europäischen Flüchtlings- und Migrationspolitik, INDES. Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft, 6(2), 61–68. Stefanu, V. (2016). Brisbane, Magnificent Cultural Event for Immigration and Diversity. Online video clip. https://youtu.be/Kom8k5zksaE (last accessed 4 January 2019). Stockinger, P. (2017). Semiotics of textscapes and cultures. Semiotica, 219, 543–61. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2017-0083. Stockinger, P. (2017). Multiple Video Staging of the Figure of Migrant on the You Tube Platform. Working paper, PLIDAM EA 4515. https://hal.inria.fr/PLI DAM/cel-01616908v1 (last accessed 4 January 2019). Thevenin, B. (2017). Remix politics: political remix as an analytic framework for critical media literacy. In B. S. De Abreu, P. Mihailidis, A. Y. L.

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Lee, J. Melki, and J. McDougall, eds., International Handbook of Media Literacy Education. New York: Routledge, pp. 174–92. The Guardian (2015). We Walk Together: A Syrian Refugee Family’s Journey to the Heart of Europe. Online video clip. https://youtu.be/ubGhzVdnhQw (last accessed 4 January 2019). UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (1999). Carly, A Refugee Story. Online video clip. https://youtu.be/oF1HGfg2bSo (last accessed 4 January 2019). UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2018). Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2017. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. United Nations (2015). Detained in Italy: Misery for Migrants and Refugees. Online video clip. https://youtu.be/BWdCysswPho (last accessed 4 January 2019).

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14 Linguistic Politeness Claus Ehrhardt

14.1

Introduction

Some of the common problems in intercultural encounters have to do with politeness. Everyone who is engaged in such communication will find difficulties in interpreting the behaviour of their partners; they might seem to speak too much or too little, too loudly, might get too close to their partners while speaking, or not pay enough attention to them. Likewise it is a quite normal experience that it is not always clear which form of address should be used, if it would be appropriate to thank someone for something, to apologize, to give compliments (and how), or if it is acceptable to kiss a business partner’s wife on the cheek. Handbooks of intercultural communication are full of examples like these. Politeness matters for the practice of intercultural communication. The relevance of this topic is reflected also in scientific approaches to intercultural communication. This chapter will give an outline of the relationships between politeness and intercultural communication. It will start with a first, rather intuitive definition of politeness (Section 14.2). It will then describe the role of contrastive and intercultural approaches in politeness theory (Section 14.3). The fourth section is dedicated to research in intercultural communication (Section 14.4). This part will try to give some answers to questions regarding the role and importance of politeness within this field. This will lead to the description of a kind of common ground between the theory of intercultural communication and the theory of politeness, and to an idea of how the two scientific fields can benefit from each other. Obviously, the possible benefits depend very much on the concept of politeness applied. This will be the subject of Section 14.5, which will give a brief overview about discussions in the theories of politeness and will in particular ask which elements of the discussions can be usefully applied when modelling intercultural competence.

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14.2

Politeness: What We Are Talking About

Just as with intercultural communication, the term ‘politeness’ refers to a social interactive practice on the one hand and to the theoretical modelling of this practice on the other. The practice is reflected not only by scientists, but as well by actors themselves (e.g. Haferland & Paul, 1996: 27); who communicates has an idea about politeness – in other terms, there is a folk theory. Watts et al. (1992: 4) introduced the distinction between politeness1 and politeness2 (in other approaches, first-order vs. second-order politeness). Politeness1 or first-order politeness refers to concepts of politeness rooted in the everyday – or layperson’s – understanding of the phenomenon, while politeness2 or second-order politeness refers to scientific notions, i.e. abstractions made by researchers whose aim is to develop a classification and explanation of politeness. The existence of these at least two very different levels shows immediately that every classification of an utterance as ‘polite’ or ‘impolite’ should make clear if it is based on the speaker’s, the listener’s or an observer’s opinion. For the construction of a definition of politeness, researchers should decide if it is meant to be close to the layperson definition or if it should be based on scientific models. In fact, different linguistic approaches make different choices: theorists like Watts prefer to consider politeness first of all as politeness1 whereas authors like Leech point much more to the explanation of politeness in the context of scientific models of communication by applying established concepts and methods. For any suitable definition of politeness both aspects are relevant: it should not be too different from what normal people understand when they speak about politeness, yet it should fit into scientific models of language and communication so as to be usable in scientific discussions about intracultural and intercultural communication. In everyday discussions, politeness is widely identified with etiquette and good manners. A person is considered to be polite if she or he behaves as handbooks prescribe. A glance over dictionary definitions shows, however, that there is more about politeness1. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines polite as ‘respectful and considerate of other people, cultured and refined’ and introduces some kind of attitude expressed by polite behaviour. An even more differentiated image can be drawn looking at the way speakers of British English use the word ‘polite’. Research into the British National Corpus shows various collocations of the word. Under the 100 words most frequently used together with the adjective ‘polite’ (precisely with the highest log-likelihood values) there are twenty-six nouns. ‘Polite’ is used as an attribute to many communicative events and speech acts, including conversation, smile, applause, letter, tone, response, request, word, talk, and (less frequently) to nouns referring to persons or

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social groups such as society, man, audience, person and people. Adjectives or adverbs used frequently together with ‘polite’ include friendly, charming, helpful, nice, pleasant, distant, calm, perfectly, usual and professional. The high value of those words indicates that they probably show common semantic features with ‘polite’. This superficial analysis confirms that politeness is a rather complex phenomenon and concept. Speakers do not seem to refer primarily to etiquette when they use ‘polite’. The fact that conversations, words, requests, etc. can be more or less polite and that this means something like friendly, charming, etc. produces the impression that politeness is related to communicative sensitivity rather than to the application of prescriptive advice. Aspects like this must be taken into account in any definition. Recent theories of politeness underline the evaluative character of the phenomenon and take this to be a central feature of the politeness1 definition. This is rather common to all scientific approaches developed after the so-called discursive turn of politeness research which was initiated mainly by Eelen (2001) and then deepened and amplified by other authors who assumed that ‘politeness does not reside in particular behaviours or linguistic forms, but rather in evaluations of behaviours and linguistic forms’ (Kádár & Haugh, 2013: 57). Politeness turns out not to be a certain way of formulating a request or an invitation or of using address forms, but rather to reflect the participant’s ideas and evaluations of linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour that might vary in relation to contexts, situations and partners. It can be seen as one resource for the local construction of the sense of speech events in social groups. Politeness1, defined as the application of layperson concepts in conversation in order to evaluate contributions, cannot be ignored in the definition of politeness if the concept is meant to represent the communicative reality. Indeed, it is extremely relevant to the analysis and theory of intercultural communication since it takes us beyond essentialist ideas about fixed cultural patterns and their realization by individuals and permits a grounded analysis of the dynamics of intercultural interaction, of participant’s attitudes and expectations. But is it enough for an appropriate theory? Can a theoretical approach found its object and methods just on considerations about the more or less conscious concepts of interacting persons, of a kind of commonsense theory that in any case remains just a theory – only without the consciousness of this fact and without being grounded on well-established concepts? If a scientific approach aims at a broader view on communication, on the role and relevance of politeness in communication and of its communicative purpose, the reflection should clearly be able to connect it to other concepts and integrate it into a scientific model.

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An intensive discussion of linguistic politeness as a scientific concept started in the 1970s. The pioneers in this development were Lakoff (1973), Leech (1983) and Brownand Levinson (1987). A common feature of these ‘first-wave approaches’ (Culpeper, 2011) is the fact that they are rooted in linguistic pragmatics. All these authors refer to Grice’s model of communication: when individuals communicate they mutually presume each other to be pursuing communicative goals in a rational way. The assumption that one’s partner is engaged in a common enterprise when he or she is communicating has been labelled as the cooperative principle (CP). The maxims can be seen as formulations of means to reach those goals (e.g. Ehrhardt, 2018). Grice did not formulate any theory of politeness; it was the first-wave theorists who added this aspect to the model. Referring to the Gricean model they have anchored politeness theory firmly in more general reflections about the gap between what is said and what is meant. In addition, Brown and Levinson (1987) introduced some concepts from interactional sociology into the discussions. Their connection of politeness with the concept of face (Goffman, 1967) had an enormous impact. Brown and Levinson analysed many speech acts as face-threatening acts that in communication have to be realized in a redressed or mitigated way in order to maintain the interactional order which might be undermined if one of the actors challenges another actor’s face. The authors establish politeness as prophylactic and/or reparatory strategies applied by speakers in order to minimize the potential risk of potentially face-threatening utterances. They make it very clear that politeness is one of the most efficient tools for embedding speech events in social situations. Polite speakers establish, maintain or modify a certain social order between the participants. The work of Brown and Levinson has inspired many discussions. Watts noted, ‘Writing an introduction to politeness is like being in mortal combat with a many-headed hydra: You’ve barely severed one head when a few more grow in its place’ (Watts, 2003: xi). Brown and Levinson’s approach has been criticized by many other authors, but it remains an important landmark in all those later developments. Some researchers take the stance that the model of Brown and Levinson is more a theory of face than of politeness (se e.g. Locher & Watts, 2005: 10). One of the major shortcomings identified is the presumption of universality of the face concept (e.g. Mao, 1994). Bargiela-Chiappini (2003: 1461) and others criticize that Brown and Levinson’s reception of Goffman is quite selective and that they imply an idea of human beings as somehow driven by a kind of persecution complex. The Brown and Levinson model has been criticized as too much focused on the speaker and therefore not able to reflect the essential co-constructedness of politeness (e.g. Kádár & Haugh, 2013: 111) or too static and insensitive to the variation of politeness in relation to context and situation (e.g. Leech, 2014: 5).

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Many alternative proposals have been published. Leech, for example, states a politeness principle similar to the CP: ‘The Principle of Politeness (PP) – analogous to Grice’s CP – is a constraint observed in human communicative behaviour, influencing us to avoid communicative discord or offence, and maintain or enhance communicative concord or comity’ (Leech, 2014: 87). This allows us to see politeness as a kind of communicative default case: not, as postulated by Brown and Levinson, as an additional (and optional) component of some utterances, but – like cooperation – rather as an expectable element of nearly all speech events and as a manifestation of ‘communicative altruism’ (Leech, 2014: 4). Other authors speak of politeness as a part of a ‘conversational contract’ (Fraser, 2001), as a culture-specific pattern or frame (Terkourafi, 2005) or as a part of a general model of emotive interaction (Arndt & Janney, 1985). The most productive framework for recent discussions is the aforementioned discursive approach. Within linguistics, politeness has been addressed from many different points of view and within different theoretical frameworks. Furthermore, it has inspired interdisciplinary research. The concept is far from being clearly defined and uncontroversial. Summarizing this overview, politeness can be roughly defined as a set of assumptions, mutual expectations or maxims held by participants of an interaction regarding the appropriateness of utterances to the social context. The assumptions are applied to evaluate the own behaviour of the speakers and the communicative acts of others. Their main purpose lies in the construction or the maintenance of the social order of the interaction and their application permits the exchange to continue without trouble on the relational level. What is considered to be polite or impolite can vary depending on participants, context and situation; it is not a function of the meaning of words or constructions.

14.3

Contrastive and Intercultural Aspects of Politeness Research

What makes politeness interesting and important in a reflection on the dynamics of intercultural communication is the fact that it constitutes one of the most eminent links between languages, cultures and communication. It is not clear if the word ‘politeness’ can even be easily translated in other languages; many European languages do not use a word related to some kind of refined, polished behaviour, but link the concept rather to courts: the German höflich, Italian cortese or Spanish cortés are just a few examples. Are we really speaking about the same thing in all languages? Obviously, the practices condensed in these words also are different. This

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has been mentioned above. Potential differences on the conceptual level also have to be explored: do the Portuguese ascribe the same characteristics, the same importance, the same function, the same role to what they call cortês as speakers of English do when they think about politeness? All differences between languages are associated with different modes of communication, different expectations and different cultural practices and norms. The reflection on politeness universals and on differences between languages has been an issue in politeness theory from the very beginning of its existence. Brown and Levinson developed their theory comparing data from very different languages such as English, Tzeltal and South Indian Tamil. Contrastive aspects have been the focus of many other researchers in recent decades. They are usually labelled as ‘cross-cultural politeness’ and distinguished from ‘intercultural politeness’. The latter term refers to the analysis of situations in which persons of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds interact. Cross-cultural reflection or the identification, description and analysis of differences between languages is a basic necessity for intercultural communication: Effective communication depends on finding and clarifying sources of ambiguity as well as learning to deal with places where miscommunication might occur. Such clarification is impossible when the communicator does not recognize areas of difference among participants, because he or she will assume common ground and mutual understanding (Scollon, Wong Scollon & Jones, 2012: 275).

Cross-cultural politeness is well documented and analysed. An early and fertile approach has been that of the Cross-Cultural-Speech Act Realization Project initiated in the early 1980s by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (e.g. BlumKulka, House & Kasper, 1989) where discourse completion tasks are applied in order to find differences in patterns of the realization of speech acts. Not only apologies and requests, but also other politeness-sensitive speech acts such as invitation, refusals, complaints or compliments have been focused on. The results of studies in this field therefore also provide an outline of different politeness forms and strategies. The first attempts to identify contrastive aspects of politeness are largely underpinned by the theoretical assumption of the first-wave approaches. More recently a great number of academic work has introduced new elements and methods into the discussion. Held (1995) examined the behaviour of young people from France and Italy in situations where they have to express requests or thanks. Lüger (2001) tackled styles of politeness, while Hickey & Stewart (2005) provided an overview of politeness in Europe. In their introduction, the editors made clear what might be different in the different languages:

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Issues such as the degree to which a given society favours positive or negative politeness, tolerates ‘small-talk’ and phatic exchange, requires routinised formulas, conventional usage of formal and informal pronouns of address, honorifics and personal reference in general, preferences for conventional or non-conventional politeness and . . . the very choice of a particular language itself are amongst the debates which emerge from the wide variety of perspectives in the volume (Hickey & Stewart, 2005: 1).

The contributions in Bargiela-Chiappini & Kádár (2011) apply the results of the discursive turn to cross-cultural matters and Bonacchi (2013) examines the relation between politeness and culture, discussing data regarding German, Italian and Polish speakers. Many recent research products take it for granted that linguistic structures are not inherently polite or impolite and that the quality of politeness is a product of their use in contexts. The research therefore has analysed the complex interaction of contextual factors determining the degree of politeness of utterances. The focus is no longer on isolated speech acts but on more complex speech act sequences or whole discourse environments, frames and contexts, as for example interaction in workplaces, in public offices, on TV shows or in medical contexts. Politeness is widely seen as dynamic, as co-constructed by the participants. House (2005: 21) focuses on five dimensions of cross-cultural differences. They were developed in a comparison between German and English but can be modified and adapted to other languages: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

directness vs. indirectness; orientation towards self vs. orientation towards others; orientation towards content vs. orientation towards addressees; explicitness vs. implicitness; ad hoc formulation vs. verbal routines.

The author summarizes the results of her contrastive approach as follows: From these results, a consistent pattern has emerged: German subjects tend to interact in ways that are more direct, explicit and verbose, more self-referenced and content-oriented; they are also less prone to resort to verbal routines than English speakers (House, 2005: 21).

Differences like this should not be identified with a higher or lower degree of politeness of any one language. English is not more polite than German, native speakers of English just consider other forms and strategies as expectable and polite. These categories clearly reflect cultural values and recall categories used frequently to characterize cultures. They are the result of empiric research but nevertheless share the risks inherent to research on intercultural communication of stereotypical contrasting and

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essentialism. It is not clear how differences like those mentioned by House influence intercultural communication between native speakers of English and of German. The answer to this question is the subject of intercultural politeness research. This field is still a marginal topic in politeness research. Important exceptions are the works of Spencer-Oatey (2000a), Spencer-Oatey & Franklin (2009) and Scollon et al. (2012). The first book indicates in the subtitle that it tackles intercultural communication and politeness, the second contains many explicit references to politeness and develops an approach based on the analysis of authentic data from intercultural encounters, while Scollon et al. dedicate one chapter to interpersonal politeness and another one to face. These books can be considered important bridges between politeness theory and intercultural communication. As to the current state of research, there are more questions than answers. In fact, Spencer-Oatey and Franklin conclude their chapter on rapport management by remarking that: The ideas in this chapter present a number of challenges for intercultural developers and researchers. For example, how can people be helped to nurture the competencies that are needed for effective rapport management in intercultural interaction, and what type of research data is needed to underpin such development activities? (Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2009: 128).

For a better understanding of intercultural communication as well as of politeness theory it would be extremely important to try to find answers to these and further questions. Besides that, Kádár and Haugh (2013: 244) point out that nearly all the studies carried out so far on politeness in intercultural communication have focused on problematic situations in which differences between languages and cultures led to discomfort, offence or even the interruption of the interaction. ‘There has been a much more limited amount of research focusing on how participants may in fact attempt to accommodate to these diverging forms and practices or expectation of the cultural ‘other’ (Kádár & Haugh, 2013: 244). One interesting field for future research could therefore be the question of how participants in intercultural encounters get along in terms of politeness, how they adapt their expectations, linguistic forms and styles to the situation and how localized, specific procedures for the management of personal relations might emerge, and how they are related to differences between languages and cultures or to universal features in the communication of politeness. In other words, how important is politeness for what Scollon et al. (2012) describe as ‘doing intercultural communication’? An answer to these questions requires a clear concept of politeness. After a brief glance at the discussions in the field of intercultural communication and intercultural

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competence, we will see better what is necessary from this point of view for a definition of politeness and how it could be founded.

14.4

Intercultural Communication and Politeness

Intercultural communication is – first of all – communication. Individuals who communicate establish a contact with their partners and enter into a social setting where they will have to find their position in relation to others. Politeness is extremely relevant in this process. Obviously, being polite or simply doing the appropriate things in a given social and cultural setting becomes more difficult the less interactants know or can imagine about the assumptions, expectations, norms and communicative practices of their partners. Consequently, how much emphasis is given to politeness in textbooks and other volumes on intercultural communication varies considerably: books like Bührig and ten Thije (2006) or Holliday, Hyde and Kullmann (2004) do not even refer to politeness in their tables of contents and indexes. A glance at review articles (e.g. Cheng, 2012; Busch & Möller-Kiero, 2016; ten Thije, 2016) confirms that in research on intercultural communication the role and relevance of politeness is not clear; some approaches see it as a central issue while others treat it marginally. Along the same lines, the concept of intercultural competence is underspecified in terms of politeness management. According to Deardorff, it is ’the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes’ (Deardorff, 2006: 248). Fantini gives an overview of the relationship between language, language use, politeness and intercultural competencies. From his point of view, language is an essential part of those competencies and should be treated in a more precise way. Fantini (2012: 271) describes three domains and four dimensions of intercultural competencies: (1) the ability to establish and maintain relationships; (2) the ability to communicate with minimal loss or distortion; (3) the ability to collaborate in order to accomplish something of mutual interest or need. The dimensions: knowledge, (positive) attitudes/affect, skills and awareness. Politeness or pragmatic skills are not mentioned explicitly, but obviously they are indispensable for the ability to establish relationships and constitute part of language skills. Spitzberg and Changnon give an outline of a ‘grammar of Intercultural Competence Conceptualizations’ (Spitzberg & Changnon, 2009: 12). In some models, competencies such as facework competence, interaction skills, pragmatics, sociolinguistic competence or discourse competence are mentioned. An explicit mention of politeness can be found only in a long list of competencies: under ‘skills’ and ‘attentiveness’ we find: ‘Be polite’ (p. 46). From the point of view of politeness theory the ability to communicate efficiently

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could be unfolded in a more precise and appropriate way by taking into account something like politeness competence. Where models and conceptualizations of intercultural communication integrate reflections on politeness, in many cases the reflections stick to the Brown and Levinson model and not to updated thinking on politeness. Scollon et al. identify politeness with facework and consequently understand politeness as a means to protect the self of speakers and listeners from potential infringements. They explicitly speak about ‘such a politeness (or face) system’ (Scollon et al., 2012: 52). This is a reductive view of politeness which, according to recent ideas, is more than protective advice or a more or less prophylactic move to avoid incidents. Moreover, their descriptions of types of face systems (deference face system, solidarity face system and hierarchical face system) and their attribution to cultures is very close to essentialist descriptions of cultures and does not really reflect the complex dynamics of social interaction. Spencer-Oatey conceptualizes face and politeness in a different way. Her ideas are largely received in politeness theory as well as in intercultural communication studies. She avoids using the term ‘politeness’ as it is contaminated by its use in everyday discourse. In order to distinguish between politeness1 concepts and scientific approaches, she refers to ‘rapport management’. Starting from a critical review of Brown and Levinson’s work she arrives at an alternative proposal: I propose instead that rapport management (the management of harmonydisharmony among people) entails three main interconnected components: the management of face, the management of sociality rights and obligations, and the management of interactional goals (Spencer-Oatey, 2000b: 13).

In this framework, face becomes a subcategory of rapport management. This concept accounts for the strong intuition that communication is much more than the exchange of information: if we communicate, we do other things as well, for example we reveal something about ourselves and we construct relationships with our partners. A further point of discussion is whether the expression of self can really be conceived as a subcategory of rapport management and if this is an appropriate way to integrate politeness (rapport management) and face in a model of communication. Certainly it is a possibility to integrate politeness in a model of intercultural competence. Spencer-Oatey’s idea has been explained as follows: We use the term ‘rapport’ to refer to people’s subjective perceptions of (dis) harmony, smoothness–turbulence and warmth–antagonism in interpersonal relations, and we use the term ‘rapport management’ to refer to the ways in which this (dis)harmony is (mis)managed (Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2009,102).

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The authors further figure out some rapport management competencies, which are contextual awareness, interpersonal attentiveness, social information gathering, social attuning, emotion regulation and stylistic flexibility. The list contains two types of competencies; it shows that interactors have to be able to analyse the context of the communication and to modulate their verbal and non-verbal behaviour according to the analysis. This seems to be pretty much the same as what speakers do in intracultural communication. In intercultural settings, there will be only gradual differences as the analysis is much more difficult and the guidelines for the regulation of behaviour will be more precarious. Spencer-Oatey and Franklin’s design focuses on the process of communication and its premises and in this way they avoid ascribing common features to cultures or other groups and theorizing them as given and stable characteristics. In this model, cultures are not distinguished (e.g.) by a more or less hierarchical system of politeness; rather, such (presumptive) features of the cultural context are calculated by individuals and used as prerequisites for the tuning of their communicative acts. The authors apply a pragmatic understanding of communication, conceiving it as a dynamic process based on individual evaluations and the corresponding alignment of actions. This process might be influenced by stereotypical ideas held by the actors, but this is not necessarily and not always the case. Such a grounding of the theory of intercultural communication on the principles of modern pragmatics can in fact offer a bridge between the reflections on intercultural communication on the one hand and politeness theory on the other, and can therefore be a valid possibility to arrive at an appropriate concept of the dynamic process of intercultural communication, including the actor’s ability to adopt their behaviour to the socially structured context. The use of the term ‘rapport management’ however severs the connection of the theory with politeness1 concepts. This connection has been further elaborated on by a field of studies which has been called intercultural pragmatics (e.g. Kecskes, 2012). The basic idea is that pragmatic theories and principles can be easily applied to intercultural communication. One of the basic assumptions is that the construction of the communicative sense of actions is only partly determined by the meaning of words and speech acts – the other factor being a kind of elaboration of hypothesis about intentions and strategies which takes into account former experiences and knowledge about the background of the partner. If we assume that those principles constitute a reasonable ground for the explanation of what it means to communicate, how communication works, how speakers and listeners manage to bridge the gap between what is said and what is meant, then they can be used to explain communication in intercultural encounters as well. The main difference in respect to

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intracultural conversations is the fact that there is less certainty when actors meet people with a different cultural background and consequently attitudes, ways of behaviour, communicative preferences or values, since the hypothesis formulated by interactors will not be very reliable. In the framework of intercultural pragmatics, politeness is one of the most discussed topics. In the issues of the journal Intercultural Pragmatics, for example, politeness-related subjects such as politeness strategies, greetings, courtesy, compliments, requests, forms of address, mitigation, face and power relation or apology are treated with a high frequency. The important role of politeness in intercultural exchanges has been summarized as follows: (Im)politeness comprises interactionally grounded evaluations that occur at the level of individual cognition (what X thinks Y shows what Y thinks of X). At the same time, it also encompasses normative expectations and conventions that are supposed to be shared by others in a particular speech community (what X thinks Y should show Y thinks of X . . .). In sum . . . we can say that (im)politeness is both constituted in interaction in the form of evaluations (micro) and constitutive of interaction in the form of expectations (macro) (Kecskes, 2014: 206).

14.5

Politeness Revisited

In this contribution, it has been argued that a focus on politeness provides a useful method to reach a deeper understanding of intercultural communication. In the course of the reflections on the relationship between the two fields of study and the nature of linking elements, three questions have emerged: 1. 2.

3.

How should the relationship between rapport management, politeness and facework be understood? Is politeness a part of any form of communication and consequently a component of communicative and intercultural competence or can we communicate without being (im)polite? Is politeness universal?

These questions should be addressed in order to describe the role of politeness in (intercultural) communication, to indicate the communicative function of polite behaviour and to integrate politeness into a concept of communication. Recent developments in politeness theory offer some tools that may help us to find answers. First of all, it is significant that Spencer-Oatey’s proposal has found fertile ground in politeness theory. Scholars comment on a ‘relational shift in politeness research’ (Kádár & Haugh, 2013: 50) and see the tendency to distinguish between facework and relationship Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 14:58:37, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.018

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management, ‘relational work’ (Locher & Watts, 2005) or ’relational practice’ (Arundale, 2006). The idea that politeness is an important tool for the social contextualization of communication is becoming more and more crucial. Scholars now take into account the social variability and the close relation between politeness and social groups seen as ’emergent networks’ (Watts, 2003: 153), ‘community of practice’ in the sense of Wenger (1998) or ‘relational networks’ (Kádár & Haugh, 2013: 144). In such groups what is intended to be polite will be co-constructed: ‘we cannot trace politeness as social practice to any single person, but rather to the self-organizing emergent properties of a particular relational network over time’ (Kádár & Haugh, 2013: 79). Some intellectual effort has been dedicated to explaining the difference between relational work and facework in terms of models of communication and in particular of the Gricean framework. A first indication of how to reach this goal can be found in the work of Grice: There are, of course, all sorts of other maxims . . ., such as ‘Be polite’, that are also normally observed by participants in talk exchanges, and these may also generate nonconventional implicatures. The conversational maxims, however, and the conversational implicatures connected with them, are specially connected (I hope) with the particular purposes that talk (and so, talk exchange) is adapted to serve and is primarily employed to serve. I have stated my maxims as if this purpose were a maximally effective exchange of information; this specification is, of course, too narrow, and the scheme needs to be generalized (Grice, 1975: 47).

Other communicative purposes (besides the exchange of information) have been discussed for a long time in linguistics and theories of communication (e.g. Bühler, 1999; Halliday, 1973; Watzlawick, Beavin Bavelas & Jackson, 1967). All models somehow include a distinction between self-presentation and relational function. Based on a Gricean approach, Keller has proposed an exhaustive list of five possible goals of communication: persuasion, representation, image, relation and aesthetics (Keller, 2018: 291). When we communicate, we want our partner to do or think something (persuasion), we want to inform him or her about something (representation), we want to present ourselves (image), construct, modify or maintain a relationship (relation), or say something in a beautiful way (aesthetics). Depending on the context, one or the other purpose is more or less important, but we expect each other to communicate on all these levels and understand messages on all levels. In the tradition of Grice, it is possible to represent the mutual expectation of participants in communicative exchanges as maxims. Maxims explicate what is considered to be the ‘normal’ course of the communication. In the case of relationship management, we can apply the proposal made by Grice: be polite. Politeness would be defined in an analogous way as relevance (e.g. Ehrhardt, 2018). As we expect our partners to say something relevant to the

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topic of the exchange, we expect them to express their attitude towards the relationship. If they believe themselves to be superior, they should formulate their contributions in a certain way; if they aim at a friendly exchange, they are supposed to use other linguistic means. The utterance is considered to be polite if the addressee agrees upon the expressed idea concerning the social relationship between the participants. There is and can be no catalogue of expressions to use in certain situations. Speakers can rely on the fact that listeners will capture some message on the relational level based on their knowledge of conventionalized and standardized means to reach the purpose. But they will always include the context and the concrete addressee in the calculation of how to express what they want to communicate. The same applies to the listener: he or she figures out the intentions of the speakers calculating what he or she said as well as contextual factors. The argument can be summarized as shown in Figure 14.1.

Precondition for the possibility of communication

Means (maxims)

Quantity Quality Relevance

Purposes

Representation and persuasion

Cooperative principle

Manner

Be polite

Relation

Respect face

Image

Say it in a beauti ful way

Aesthetics

Figure 14.1 Cooperative principle

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Politeness is, from this point of view, the central instrument for the organization of relationships. It is, like relevance or sincerity, a default case and a feature of unmarked utterances. In this understanding politeness is universally present in communication. The maxim ‘be polite’ is part of any communication in any culture. There might, however, be great differences between languages and cultures on the level of submaxims.

14.6

Concluding Remarks

The basic assumption of this chapter is that politeness is communicated. And it is communicated in nearly any verbal exchange; participants say and understand something on the level of social relations. They understand each other first of all because they mutually expect each other to give indications about how the concrete relationship is conceived in terms of power distance, personal distance, evaluation of the partner and sympathies. Taking into account the concrete circumstances of the exchange, the knowledge about the partner and the history of the relationship, the cultural background (norms and conventions) and the form of the sentences uttered, the listener can understand the message – and then he can agree or disagree with the manifested attitude. In intercultural contexts with less-known procedures, norms and default expectations, this kind of deduction is much more difficult. Recipients might find very different preferences regarding the organization of relations than in their own cultures and correspondingly very different submaxims. Much empirical work is needed to find out how social relations are constructed in intercultural communication, how much the languages and cultures of the participants influence the dynamics, where problems can be expected and in which ways all these considerations can be applied in intercultural training.

References Arndt, H. and Janney, R. W. (1985). Politeness revisited: cross-modal supportive strategies. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 23(4), 281–300. Arundale, R. B. (2006). Face as relational and interactional: a communication framework for research on face, facework, and politeness. Journal of Politeness Research, 2(2), 193–216. Bargiela-Chiappini, F. (2003). Face and politeness: new (insights) for old (concepts). Journal of Politeness Research, 6(1), 57–82.

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Bargiela-Chiappini, F. and Kádár, D., eds. (2011). Politeness across Cultures. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Blum-Kulka, S., House, J. and Kasper, G., eds. (1989). Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Bonacchi, S. (2013). (Un)Höflichkeit. Eine kulturologische Analyse Deutsch – Italienisch – Polnisch. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bühler, K. (1999). Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache, 3rd ed. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius (UTB). Bührig, K. and ten Thije, J., eds. (2006). Beyond Misunderstanding: Linguistic Analyses of Intercultural Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Busch, D. and Möller-Kiero, J. (2016). Rethinking interculturality will require moral confessions: analysing the debate among convivialists, interculturalists, cosmopolitanists and intercultural communication scholars. Interculture Journal, 15(26), 43–57. Cheng, W. (2012). Speech acts, facework and politeness. In J. Jackson, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication. London: Routledge, pp. 148–63. Culpeper, J. (2011). Politeness and impoliteness. In K. Aijmer and G. Andersen, eds., Sociopragmatics. Vol. 5 of Handbook of Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, pp. 391–436. Deardorff, D. K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241–66. Eelen, G. (2001). A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester, UK: St Jerome Publishing. Ehrhardt, C. (2018). ‘Facework’, Höflichkeit und Beziehungskommunikation. In A. Gärtig, R. Bauer and M. Heinz, eds., Pragmatik, Diskurs, Kommunikation. Festschrift für Gudrun Held zum 65. Geburtstag. Vienna: praesens, pp. 58–72. Fantini, A. F. (2012). Language: an essential component of intercultural communicative competence. In J. Jackson, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication. London: Routledge, pp. 263–78. Fraser, B. (2001). The form and function of politeness in conversation. In K. Brinker, G. Antos and W. Heinemann, et al., eds., Text- und Gesprächslinguistik / Linguistics of Text and Conversation: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 1406–25. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essay on Face-to-Face Behaviour. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds., Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press, pp. 41–58. Haferland, H. and Paul, I. (1996). Eine Theorie der Höflichkeit. Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprachtheorie, 52, 7–60.

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Held, G. (1995). Verbale Höflichkeit: Studien zur linguistischen Theoriebildung und empirische Untersuchung zum Sprachverhalten französischer und italienischer Jugendlicher in Bitt- und Danksituationen. Tübingen: Narr. Hickey, L and Stewart, M., eds. (2005). Politeness in Europe. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Halliday, A. (1973). Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Holliday, A., Hyde, M. and Kullmann, J. (2004). Intercultural Communication: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge. House, J. (2005). Politeness in Germany: politeness in Germany? In L. Hickey and M. Stewart, eds, Politeness in Europe. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 13–28. Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and poetics. In T. A. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language. Cambridge: MA: MIT Press, pp. 350–77. Kecskes, I. (2012). Interculturality and intercultural pragmatics. In J. Jackson, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication. London: Routledge, pp. 67–84. Kecskes, I. (2014). Intercultural Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keller, R. (2018). Zeichentheorie. Eine pragmatische Theorie semiotischen Wissens, 2nd ed. Tübingen: Francke. Lakoff, R. (1973). The logic of politeness; or minding your ps and qs: Papers from the 9th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 292–305. Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Leech, G. (2014). The Pragmatics of Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Locher, Miriam and Watts, R. (2005). Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 9–33. Lüger, H.-H., ed. (2001). Höflichkeitsstile. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Kádár, D. and Haugh, M. (2013). Understanding Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mao, L. R. (1994). Beyond politeness theory: ‘face’ revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics, 21(5), 451–86. Scollon, R., Wong Scollon, S. and Jones, R. H. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach, 3rd ed. Chichester, UK: Wiley & Blackwell. Spencer-Oatey, H., ed. (2000a). Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 2nd ed. London: Continuum. Spencer-Oatey, H., (2000b). Face, impoliteness and rapport. In H. SpencerOatey, ed., Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 2nd ed. London: Continuum, pp. 11–47. Spencer-Oatey, H. and Franklin, P., eds. (2009). Intercultural Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Spitzberg, B. H. and Changnon, G. (2009). Conceptualizing intercultural competence. In D. K. Deardorff, ed., The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 2-52. Terkourafi, M. (2005). Beyond the micro-level in politeness research. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(2), 237–62. Ten Thije, J. D. (2016). Intercultural communication. In L. Jäger, W. Holly, P. Krapp and S. Weber, eds., Sprache - Kultur - Kommunikation / Language Culture - Communication: Ein internationales Handbuch zu Linguistik als Kulturwissenschaft / An International Handbook of Linguistics as a Cultural Discipline. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 587–600. Watts, R. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watzlawick, P., Beavin Bavelas, J. and Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes. New York: Norton & Norton. Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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15 Contemporary Literature and Intercultural Understanding Gesine Lenore Schiewer

15.1

Introduction

Intercultural and multilingual settings have become increasingly important in contemporary literature, and multilingual characters, i.e. characters with different cultural backgrounds, have long been introduced in literature (e.g. Kilchmann, 2012). All this correlates with global migration and multilingual and multicultural living spaces. A good example is Salman Rushdie, a British-Indian writer who lives and writes mainly in London and who has an exceptionally broad knowledge of literature. The texts of such a multilingual and multicultural author are of utmost importance for today’s literary world as well as for intercultural understanding because they tend to be characterized by a particular cultural sensitivity that is reflected in language use. Authors like Rushdie make the world speak in its diversity without subordinating it to one-sided perspectives. I would describe this as ‘poetic alterity’, which is frequently expressed through combinations of multiple languages and different poetic traditions that can facilitate intercultural understanding because they lead and motivate readers to explore diverse languages and cultures. Intercultural literary studies examine the corresponding texts and poetic reflections, while intercultural communication studies concentrate on communication across languages and cultures. Consequently, there is a gap between literary studies and intercultural communication studies. The first examines literary texts without considering intercultural understanding in detail, and the second examines intercultural understanding without necessarily considering literature. Intercultural German studies reduces this gap by integrating both approaches. In the following, I discuss approaches within intercultural German studies that combine literary studies and communication research. This field is

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expanding very quickly in Germany and might inspire similar developments in other countries. Of particular interest is the relationship between intercultural literature and intercultural understanding, with a focus on multilingual semantics and a corresponding communication theory. In line with these approaches, my main question is: how can intercultural communication, dialogue competences and intercultural understanding be trained in working with literary texts? To answer it, I will draw in particular on texts of intercultural authors who were awarded the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize. The Adelbert von Chamisso Literature Prize was awarded from 1985 to 2017 to intercultural authors who write in German. In its focus on intercultural authors, this prize was unique in the international arena. As a literary group of authors, the prizewinners receive great public attention and explicitly regard themselves as mediators of intercultural understanding. These include about eighty internationally recognized authors, such as Ilija Trojanow, Feridun Zaimoglu and Yoko Tawada, who also offer very successful writing workshops in schools, universities and teacher training. My chapter will first present selected research on intercultural communication, language learning and literature. I will then discuss communication theories for the analysis of intercultural literature and the development of adequate concepts of intercultural communication training, before selected literary texts and their potential for intercultural understanding are examined in detail. This will lead to suggestions for applied work in the context of secondary schools, university courses, teacher training and communication training. The chapter will conclude with an outlook on intercultural communication in multilingual and heterogeneous societies.

15.2

Research on Intercultural Communication, Language Learning and Literature

One of the most distinguished scholars in the field of language, communication and literature is Harald Weinrich, the former chair of Romanistic Studies and German as a Foreign Language at the University of Munich. Weinrich’s main points can be summarized as follows: • Language teaching never lasts long enough, regardless of its quality; therefore, the organization of one’s self-learning of the language is of the upmost importance. • Instrumental, functional and pragmatic conditions of language learning and use must be complemented by an awareness of semantic language differences. Language students should develop an awareness of how the same content is expressed in different languages and how an object is accentuated in a different way in another language.

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• The motivation to continue learning languages is generated through literature, art, film and television. This could be summarized as a ‘love affair’ with language. (e.g. Weinrich, 2001) Weinrich’s discussion of the link between language acquisition and literature leads to questions about intercultural communication. In the Germanspeaking world, one of the best known scholars in that field is Jürgen Bolten, who proposes the following basic concept of culture: Cultures do not have clearly definable boundaries, and are by no means homogenous within themselves. Instead, they are defined by dynamic relationships and interactions between people (Bolten, 2017).

In such relationships and interactions, identities have to be negotiated and that includes a negotiation of rules linked to the different cultural backgrounds of the people involved, which could be a substantial challenge with a potential impact on the concept of culture itself: The more complex the negotiation process, the more problematic it is to describe cultures as homogeneous and clearly definable networks. As such, the ‘familiar’ is interwoven with the ‘foreign’, the two constituting merely individual points within a spectrum that ranges across varying degrees of familiarity and unfamiliarity. One talks of an intercultural situation when unfamiliarity and indeterminacy predominate in it. This is because no plausible rules governing conduct and activities are known (Bolten, 2017; for a more comprehensive outline, see Bolten’s Chapter 3 in this handbook).

Therefore, intercultural competence denotes the ability to negotiate rules, taking into account the viewpoints of those partners participating in the interaction (Bolten, 2017). Though intercultural action can certainly result in misunderstandings, it should be regarded first and foremost as an opportunity to discover new things and to tap into unknown potential (Bolten, 2017). There are consequences for Bolton’s design of intercultural teaching and learning. In his view, exercises based on ‘dos & don’ts’ that reduce cultures to national cultures and attempt to explain them, with the help of dimensional models or standardized assumptions, are hardly compatible with the new process-oriented paradigms indicated above. He also rejects simulations of two cultures of contrasting designs in role plays, as this tends to enhance homogenous views of cultures, as well as cultural assimilator exercises that provide monocausal explanations of intercultural misunderstandings. Bolten must also note that, so far, there have been few new types of intercultural learning exercises that take the aforementioned changes into

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account. However, there are already common guidelines with overarching learning objectives including: • to develop a constructive approach to situations involving indeterminacy and uncertainty; • to reflect upon perspectives and act accordingly; • to understand differences not only in terms of their potential for misunderstanding, but also, and above all, with regard to the potential opportunities they offer; • to identify and exploit potential synergies; • to develop an awareness of power asymmetries that may arise – also as a result of different language skills – in intercultural activities; • to understand cultures as networks that offer added value, cannot be clearly delimited from one another, and are potentially open; • to understand cultural developments within their global historical contexts; • to be motivated to engage in intercultural activities, and to motivate others to do likewise (Bolton, 2017). Undoubtedly these are central aspects of intercultural understanding. That is why they have to be mentioned. However, in common intercultural communication research there is still a lack of sufficiently developed concepts that might be able to convincingly integrate these desiderata. Therefore, it is important to deepen the constructivist approaches to language learning based on communication theory and to explore the role of intercultural literature and intercultural literary studies. The latter will be the topic of the next section. It should, however, be mentioned here that I pursue a language and semantics approach, which is different to Neumann’s approach in Chapter 8 of this handbook.

15.3

Intercultural Literature and Communication Theory

15.3.1 Intercultural Literature and Intercultural Literary Studies Contemporary literature is increasingly shaped by multilingual settings and cultural encounters, which is particularly visible in the case of the intercultural authors awarded the Robert Bosch Foundation’s Adelbert von Chamisso Literature Prize throughout the past thirty years (so-called Chamisso authors). The rules for this award emphasized the aesthetics of linguistic and cultural change and of explicit and implicit multilingualism in literary texts. Over the years, this has led to a broad acceptance of intercultural literature as an important component of contemporary literature in German and other languages. These authors have deliberately chosen to use another language, although many are not native speakers

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anyway. This means that they have an extraordinary sensitivity to language and cultural conflicts. Some of them, such as the Bulgarian writer Ilija Trojanow, even intend to write traces of foreign languages into the German language with a lasting effect. The idea is not only to give minorities a fleeting voice but also to make them permanently visible (e.g. Trojanow, 2008: 82). That is why Chamisso writers address aspects of intercultural existence as well as cultural contact and conflict, i.e. these texts often deal with situations that transcend single languages and cultures. Chamisso literature is, therefore, particularly valuable for school curricula, language learning beyond schools and, most importantly, intercultural communication training. This is due in particular to the social relevance of their topics (e.g. individual migration experiences and global migration dimensions, multilingualism, processes of urban development and integration) as well as related linguistic characteristics. There are numerous literary examples in which life and speech are highlighted under cross-linguistic and cross-cultural conditions. In particular, texts by Feridun Zaimoglu, an author of Turkish origin, and Ilija Trojanow are characterized by a conscious multi-ethnic interpretation and hybridization of the German language. Reading texts such as Zaimoglu’s Kanak Sprak (1995), provides insights into another culture, stimulates a willingness to engage in dialogue and, as such, enhances basic intercultural communication skills. Overall, Kanak Sprak highlights the way in which Turkish people can speak in Germany and, at the same time, forms of Turkish self-awareness regarding their possible social roles in Germany. However, explicit and implicit literary thematization of interculturality should not be confused with conflict-free processes of cultural exchange or intercultural harmony. Trojanow’s texts, for example, focus on ‘conflictual clashes between different languages, behaviors and techniques, the mix-ups and distortions at the moment of the clash of cultures’, but they also criticize that this ‘could take place without conflict’: times of ‘lively cultural exchange’ are ‘not necessarily marked by cheerfulness and mutual understanding’ and were often the result of violent upheavals, of ‘war, invasion, enslavement’ (Trojanow & Hoskoté, 2007: 22f.; e.g. also Streim, 2010: 75). Thus, Trojanow builds a bridge from the perspective of linguistic ‘enrichment’. The view of language is linked here with the socio-pragmatic aspects of the conditions for the use of language. A brief interim conclusion to be drawn here is that the creative and associative language and writing styles of many intercultural Chamisso authors form the basis for the development of a stylistically sensitized expression. Thereby, they also sharpen an awareness of the diversity of text types in literature and everyday life, including essays and journalistic writing. In this way, intercultural literature is closely linked to a breadth of different communicative genres.

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From the perspective of intercultural literary studies, this can best be explained by recourse to the tradition of the Prague School. As literary scholar Norbert Mecklenburg (2009) emphasizes in his research, intercultural literature can be aptly described using the principle of ‘deviation’ or ‘alienation’ formulated in the Prague School since the 1920s: unusual things attract attention; consequently, alienated linguistic formulations stimulate pause and reflection. From the point of view of the Chamisso authors, this concern appears relevant again today, because our society appears to be in a situation in which there is a need for a departure from the familiar. Sociologist Andreas Reckwitz (2006: 84) speaks of a ‘hybrid subject’ confronted with different, non-uniform codes, and philosopher and sinologist François Jullien (2002) of ‘a change of place of thinking’ (see also Littler’s Chapter 27 of this volume). Authors such as Trojanow and Zaimoglu, however, refuse to assign simple, immediate functions to their texts. Social opinion, even influence, is not accompanied in their texts by normative language forms but by language that often seems somehow alienated. Such literary texts are not meant to and cannot directly influence social action, but they aim to question social norms while developing conscious attitudes. This results in an interplay of aesthetic and social dimensions, where the textual dynamics are justified and views of the world differentiated. Overall, literary interculturality aims to question one-sided ‘thinking-asusual’ that is often accompanied by one-dimensional forms of language; hence its questioning takes place through the medium of language, e.g. via linguistic alienation. Thus, literary interculturality can become a poetic principle linked to a social commitment on the part of its authors. Research speaks of ‘poetic alterity’: poetic alterity can be understood as a kind of floating relationship between poetics and social engagement evoked by alienated forms of language use. The aim is to suggest an open range of semantic interpretations (e.g. Mecklenburg, 2009: 213–37).

15.3.2 Communication Theory and Intercultural Communication If we want to learn from literature for the purpose of communication, we must look for communication theories that embody these characteristics. The question is, what kind of communication theory and understanding of intercultural communication fits in this case? First of all, an adequate theory must concentrate on the linguistic and multilingual semantic aspects of interaction. It may seem self-evident that communication theory must deal with language and semantics, as well as intercultural communication studies with implicit or explicit multilingualism, but this is not necessarily the case. At this point, a concise overview of communication theory is appropriate, since there are many misunderstandings in this area. Three major directions of communication theory can be distinguished.

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The first direction is shaped by Shannon and Weaver’s highly influential information technology communication model (1949), which unfortunately neglects the subjective meaning of communicative action because it does not record cultural and connotative characteristics. This shortcoming becomes particularly problematic in intercultural vocabulary work and thus generally in intercultural communication A second, cultural-theoretical direction is the poststructuralist orientation. Using the concept of deconstruction introduced by Jacques Derrida, this orientation aims to explicate so-called freely fluctuating meanings. Unfortunately, it neglects the social commitment of communicative action, and cross-cultural exchange is excluded, since basically any fixed reference to meaning is called into question. Without any common point of reference, cross-linguistic and cross-cultural orientation cannot be established. Also, the focal point of this approach is on differences and, therefore, this model suggests the incommensurability – or incomparability – of different cultures. Consequently, I would argue that both approaches should be avoided when it comes to theoretically substantiating and didactically modelling communicative learning processes. Much more convincing appears to be the interpretative direction of cultural theory, because this third option actually focuses on the circumstances of communicating people, including the complexity of their language actions, and, as such, corresponds more to the complexity of language action. Examples of this direction include Gerold Ungeheuer’s anthropological communication theory, which still sets standards today due to its early orientation towards interaction theory and meaning theory (Ungeheuer, 2017). Jens Lönhoff (1992), who continues to develop intercultural communication concepts in Ungeheuer’s tradition, should also be emphasized here, next to Breinig, Gebhardt and Lösch’s work on cultural difference (2002). Overall, for the enhancement of intercultural understanding, it is important that such approaches generally include oral as well as written communication, as only this covers the full range of communicative genres and their media forms. The one-sidedness of the two approaches mentioned above is avoided by considering the way people design their objective life circumstances by means of language, i.e. the denotative meaning as well as the subjective meaning with its cultural dimensions. Thus, both the freedom of language use (e.g. individual, situational or even creative meaning) and the norm and rule orientation of language use ensure that communication is taken into account. The cognitive, emotional and, above all, linguistic-semantic work carried out by all partners involved are accentuated. The focus is on the interactive processes that clarify what is meant by the communication partners in the course of a conversation or the production and reception of a written or spoken text. In other words, it is about the emergent process of the social negotiation of meanings.

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15.4

Literary Didactics and Intercultural Understanding: Selected Texts and Their Potential for Enhancing Intercultural Understanding

In this section, I will discuss how intercultural communication and dialogue skills can be trained in working with literary texts. First of all, it should be emphasized that certain didactic concepts used by the Chamisso authors are already available as publications for language teachers and communication trainers. Particularly noteworthy is Oliver’s volume Lyrisches Schreiben im Unterricht: Vom Wort in die Verdichtung (Lyric writing in teaching: from the word to the condensation) (2013) and the Didactics of Dialogue series edited by Roche and Schiewer since 2017 in collaboration with literary authors. The Andalusian poet José F. A. Oliver, born in 1961, is considered one of the most significant intercultural writers in the German language of any generation. Hence, distinguished literary critic Fritz J. Raddatz declares: ‘We deal with a talent of highest quality, with a poet of entire individual dignity, with a writer of rare earnestness’ (quoted in Oliver, 2018: 11). For Oliver, literature is like a general human disposition or an anthropological fact: ‘I want to claim that every human being has poetics and their gestures in him. The best condition for feeling comfortable with a white sheet of paper. To have the guts’ (Oliver, 2013: 11f.). He focuses in his work on individual vocabulary: The ability to say what the individual experiences, feels and thinks is directly related to the word material at his or her disposal. When it comes to the (German) language, teachers often emphasize the ‘deficit’ in their student’s use of it. In my writing and text workshops I prefer to face the circumstances in an affirmative way: Every apparently ‘poorly’ perceived and as such sanctioned language holds beauty and the quality of adventure. How nice that the expression ‘vocabulary’ also allows other points of view than just the raw quantity of errors. A single word find can be a treasure (Oliver, 2013: 12).

The aim is to develop a refined awareness for the use of language and, in turn, enhance the development of consciousness for oneself or one’s own person: The starting point of my suggestions for students is always the word and the perceptions, their perceptions that accompany the word. Your own word and the other. The alien, the alienated. If the word is subsequently heard, experienced and chosen more carefully, language gives man a simultaneous relationship to the words and a more conscious identity, I hope (Oliver, 2013: 12f.).

The linguistic basis of Oliver’s work concentrates on an advanced sense of connotations, the meanings alongside the surface meaning of the dictionary or the so-called courts of meaning (Bedeutungshöfe in German), which could be described as a semantic space. Oliver starts from the example of the word Tafelsüße, a sugar substitute, and describes his personal

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association: he thinks of a blackboard (Tafel in German) that is closer to him than Tafelspitz, a traditional meat dish that also comes to mind. Since his book describes lyrical writing in school lessons, he asks whether Tafelsüße could be a possible metaphor in the context of writing in class – or, as can be added, for other didactic contexts such as intercultural communication training. He leaves this open at first, but sees it as an option (e.g. Oliver, 2013: 11). This is followed by the following consideration: At least the unconventional connotation [of the blackboard] stands in front of an open door. An approach to the first glimpse of how inspiring courts of meaning are when words unexpectedly combine with the impetuous or self-evident needs and necessities of everyday realities. In my case, ‘breakfast’ and ‘table sugar’ or ‘sugar substitute’ and ‘school’. Whether they are words taken from everyday life, depicted almost one to one, or moved out of them in a seemingly puzzling linguistic way into the distance (Oliver, 2013: 11).

Here, Oliver states the aim of his work in the classroom and other work involving teaching and training: For years I have been trying to encourage students of all types of schools to use language in a subtle and experimental way and therefore I take young people at their word. [. . .] Therefore, my suggestion would be not to ‘retrieve’ the language of each individual in German lessons with simple exercises and methods, but to explore it: From the wor(l)d [w:ort in German] into the sentence. From the record to the summarization. From condensation to verse. From verse to poem, perhaps (Oliver, 2013: 12f.).

According to Oliver, understanding is based on the semantic investigation of language and the language experiment. In his opinion, this is closely linked to the principle of alienation or the foreign word. He expresses this in one of his poems (Oliver, 2018: 138f.): fremdw:ort

foreign wor(l)d

das so leicht nicht sagbar ist und wird

that is not easily say able and will (not) be

aus den angeln gehobene nähe

closeness lifted off its hinges

The principle of alienation can have in common with the foreign word that the supposed ease of language use, i.e. the supposed naturalness and evidence of language, is called into question. The second verse of the poem deals with the principle of alienation: the previously self-evident loses the automatism of the familiar and can therefore be viewed with new eyes. In the following passage, the different dimensions of José F. A. Oliver’s own work in the classroom and of his suggestions to teachers and

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trainers about lyrical writing will be explored. Key questions include: what are the interdisciplinary and social dimensions of his exercises in lyrical writing? What are the implications of the formation of a deepened awareness of connotations and of the ‘courts of meaning’, or semantic spaces? The explanation of these guiding principles demands that we elaborate further at this point and also refer to theoretical questions. If intercultural competence is ultimately about the ability to express oneself in culturally different situations and different thematic contexts (for an in-depth discussion, see Bolten’s Chapter 3 in this handbook), then this requires a developed awareness of semantic ‘detail work’ or ‘precision work’, e.g. great attention to different connotations and ‘courts of meaning’. In discourse analysis and discourse linguistics, one also speaks in this context of the ‘sovereignty of interpretation’ (e.g. Kuße, 2012; Spitzmüller & Warnke, 2011), which is the successful occupation of semantics. The term ‘power’, which is determined by sociology and communication studies among other fields, is also very present in this context – as one also speaks of ‘communication power’ (e.g. Reichertz, 2009). Particularly illuminating examples of this can be found in the context of translation theory and practice, be it in translations or interpreted texts. The decision to call the Basque Euskadi Ta Askatasuna a ‘liberation organization’, an ‘independence organization’ or a ‘terror organization’ goes hand in hand with what is called the exercise of ‘sovereignty of interpretation’ (e.g. Valdeón, 2007). In other words, it is important to recognize and name such sovereignties of interpretation in various situations, in one-on-one conversations (referred to as micro level in sociology) or in teaching conversations (which belong to the sociological meso level), so that one would be able to defend oneself against them by means of semantic differentiation, if necessary, and represent one’s own positions. Unilateral ‘semantic sovereignty of meaning’ and, thus, unilateral sovereignty of world interpretation are to be counteracted by communicative work in the sense of the so-called negotiation of meaning. This is also the basis for models of cultural dialogue that are demanding in terms of communication theory and interculture. Pure information is rarely ‘shifted’, even if common communication models promote this perspective when talking about transmitters and receivers, channels and sources of interference, etc. in a technical style. Rather, it is about making oneself understood, reaching appropriate interpretations by making sure that the understanding of what is meant is correct. On the basis of these theoretical assumptions, an example is now appropriate. The following text is again from Oliver (2018: 120f.):

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buchstabe S

letter S

Solingens messer sind rot sorot/ diesrot beschliffen

Solingen’s1 knives are red sored/ thisred sharpened

känguruhsprung gepeitscht dies siegfriedstemmen die masse historienbeutel vorwärtsruck kopfzerwalzt

kanguruhop whipped such siegfriedakimbo2 the masses chroniclepouch sudden swing forward tossed/ turned in head

Solingens messer sind deutsch gedörfelt/ gestädtet zu meucheln

Solingen’s knives are german by vill/ages/ by ci/ties to assas/sin/ate

dies dunkelste der augen behaust buchstabe S legt klagefeuer/ dein damalsruf gelbstern trampelt den tag zuniederst erbeugtes säumt die nacht zusammengeflicktes lachen speit das künftige in den stuben der republik wird gegen die trauer ermittelt Solingens särge sind rot mondbesichelte heimkehr türkisch nicht nur Solingens särge sind deutsch auch/ besonders/ und

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this darkest of the eyes inha/bite/d letter S sets a lamentblaze/ your backthencry yellowstar stamps the day far down something bent bordering the night pieced up laughter spits the forthcoming in the nation’s snuggeries mourning is indicted Solingen’s coffins are red crescent-shape/d homecoming turkish not only Solingen’s coffins are german as well/ especially/ and

1

Solingen is a German city known as the ‘City of Blades’ since it has long been renowned for the manufacturing of knifes, swords and razors made by renowned companies. It is, less happily, also known for an arson attack carried out on 29 May 1993 by local neo-Nazis on the house of a Turkish family, killing two Turkish women and

2

three Turkish girls. Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s decision not to attend the funeral further escalated the controversy. Siegfried is a mythical character in the thirteenth-century Germanic saga Nibelungenlied (Song of the Nibelungs); the archetypical Germanic hero embodies the ‘German’ secondary virtues such as strength, invincibility, purity and loyalty that were later embraced and abused by Nazi ideology (Oliver, 2018: 278).

The importance of this text for intercultural understanding has several dimensions. First, there is the textual dimension with explicit references to the production of knives and weapons in Germany, to the Germanic tradition of power-related myths, to the widespread rejection of foreigners in the present and their denial, and to the refusal to deal with the subject.

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However, even more important for intercultural understanding is Oliver’s use of language. For example, the third line of the third verse of the English translation, authorized by Oliver, contains a typical feature of his texts. The form ‘to assassinate’ is divided into three parts by slashes, allowing the otherwise implicit semantic quality of ‘sin’ to be explicitly emphasized. This alienation from ‘to assassinate’ means that this characteristic can be made explicitly conscious. A similar example can be found in the second line of the fourth verse. The word ‘inhabited’ is divided into two parts by slashes, whereby the semantic quality of the ‘bite’ can be added. This alienation can be understood as an indication of the aggressive attitude towards foreigners who are not recognized as fellow citizens. Why is this so important for intercultural understanding? The reason is that intercultural understanding cannot be based on norms or rules of right and wrong or on general attitudes of openness and tolerance. Furthermore, intercultural understanding cannot be taught and learned on the basis of general morals or the like. According to Oliver’s didactics of lyrical writing, intercultural understanding can only be based on sensitivity to semantic interpretative sovereignty and semantic power. Moreover, intercultural contacts often go hand in hand with intercultural conflicts, which in turn are often associated with asymmetries between majorities and minorities. Semantic interpretive sovereignty, which is often exercised by majorities, can only be broken by minorities if they are trained to do so. This is possible on the basis of Oliver’s approach. Oliver is interested in the semantics of word formation and shows here a deep sensitivity to the linguistic possibilities of expressing thoughts, desires and emotions. He is convinced that poetry contributes to a broad spectrum of linguistic knowledge and that a pronounced knowledge of language enables the development of personality and identity. Needless to say, communication skills also depend on this.

15.5

Outlook on Intercultural Communication in Multilingual and Heterogeneous Societies

Closely connected with differentiated semantics is the question of the power relations between the relevant actors and elites. Who has the (semantic) decision-making power and how is it enforced communicatively? The power relations and action decisions of the respective elites and the corresponding communication structures require special

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attention within the respective theory. In doing so, such questions as how to deal with the various interests of the parties concerned and how to deal with conflicts without ignoring minorities should be taken into account. Referring to Oliver’s second example, this means that minorities can only speak for themselves if they are able to break through the one-sided interpretive power of the elites. Therefore they need the appropriate linguistic means, as Oliver emphasizes in his didactics. In the text above this refers to those who have been denied respect and apology due to the absence of Chancellor Kohl. Thus the intercultural conflict escalated, which results from the contradictory attitude towards cultural and linguistic minorities in Germany and which increasingly polarizes German society today. To answer the above-mentioned question, we can look to the book Voices of Decline (1993) by Robert Beauregard. He was one of the first to prepare the transfer of communication and discourse theory basics into urban studies. Following Michel Foucault, Beauregard takes into account the relationships between discourse and power relations existing in cities, which have a decisive influence on the respective discourse while also being perpetuated by it. He points out that the often conscious efforts made by those institutions empowered by the discourse to promote their ‘ways of thinking’ and therefore to suffocate the development of alternative representations. Such institutions might indeed engage in propaganda exercises designed to promote and naturalize the discourses that they so rely upon. This act of denying contemplation of alternatives smothers the actual causes of our discontent. It stifles an awareness of how cities might be different. As a result, we are unable to imagine cities where shared prosperity, democratic engagement and social tolerance are the norms and not the exceptions. To allow cities to be the discursive sites for society’s contradictions is to be imprisoned in the cynicism of urban decline (Beauregard, 1993: 324).

Beauregard also refers to the above-mentioned theme of the interpretive power of elites. But his point of view is different: he is concerned with the social point of view and he notes that power asymmetries among strong elites and weak minorities lead to a society developing unfavourably. This is where the themes of conflict between different positions and exclusion come to the fore, referring not only to abstract views and discourses but also to people whose voices are not heard or who cannot articulate themselves at all for various reasons. The aim is, therefore, to counter asymmetries as much as possible by facilitating and training communicative cooperation in the sense of a balanced negotiation of meanings.

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15.6

Conclusion

This chapter focuses on the link between contemporary literature and intercultural understanding. It has been shown that literary texts and genres like lyrical texts play an extremely important role in intercultural understanding. It is not so much a question of the content of the texts in the narrow sense of the word. Much more important for intercultural understanding is the negotiation process at work and this implies the special status of semantic differentiation competence, which can be trained by means of literary texts. Minorities in particular can benefit from this didactic approach as they are enabled to break through the interpretative sovereignty of the elites. This, in turn, benefits not only the individuals themselves but society as a whole.

References Beauregard, R. (1993). Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of U.S. Cities. Cambridge: Blackwell. Bolten, J. (2017). Intercultural teaching and learning: rethinking intercultural learning processes, trans. C. Cave. Magazin Sprache, January. (last accessed 1 October 2018). Breinig, H., Gebhardt, J. and Lösch, K., eds. (2002). Multiculturalism in Contemporary Societies: Perspectives on Difference and Transdifference. Erlangen: Univ.-Bibliothek. Jullien, F. (2002). Der Umweg über China: Ein Ortswechsel des Denkens. Berlin: Merve Verlag. Kilchmann, E. (2012). Mehrsprachigkeit und deutsche Literatur: Zur Einführung. Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germanistik, 3(2), 11–17. Kuße, H. (2012). Kulturwissenschaftliche Linguistik: Eine Einführung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (UTB). Mecklenburg, N. (2009). Das Mädchen aus der Fremde: Germanistik als interkulturelle Literaturwissenschaft, 2nd ed. Munich: iudiucium. Oliver, J. F. A. (2013). Lyrisches Schreiben im Unterricht: Vom Wort in die Verdichtung. Stuttgart: Klett-Kallmeyer. Oliver, J. F. A. (2018). Sandscript: Selected poetry 1987–2018. Trans. Marc James Mueller. Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press. Reckwitz, A. (2006). Das hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bűrgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück. Reichertz, J. (2009). Kommunikationsmacht: Was ist Kommunikation und was vermag sie? Und weshalb vermag sie das? Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Roche, J. and Schiewer, G. L. (2017). Identitäten – Dialoge im Deutschunterricht. Schreiben – Lesen – Lernen – Lehren. Tübingen: Narr.

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Roche, J. and Schiewer, G. L. (2018). Emotionen – Dialoge im Deutschunterricht. Schreiben – Lesen – Lernen – Lehren. Tübingen: Narr. Shannon, C. E. and Weaver, W. (1949). The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Spitzmüller, J. and Warnke, I. H. (2011). Diskurslinguistik: Eine Einführung in Theorien und Methoden der transtextuellen Sprachanalyse. Berlin and Boston, MA: de Gruyter. Streim, G. (2010). Differente Welt oder diverse Welten? Zur historischen Perspektivierung der Globalisierung in Ilija Trojanows Roman Der Weltensammler. In W. Amann, G. Mein and R. Parr, eds., Globalisierung und Gegenwartsliteratur: Konstellationen – Konzepte – Perspektiven. Heidelberg: Synchron, pp. 73–89. Trojanow, I. (2008). Vorlesung: Voran ins Gondwanaland. In F. Zaimoglu and I. Trojanow, eds., Ferne Nähe: Tübinger Poetik-Dozentur 2007. Künzelsau: Swiridoff, pp. 67–94. Trojanow, I. and Hoskoté, R. (2007). Kampfabsage: Kulturen bekämpfen sich nicht – sie fließen zusammen. Munich: Heyne Verlag. Ungeheuer, G. (2017). Kommunikationstheoretische Schriften I: Sprechen, Mitteilen, Verstehen. Münster: Nodus. Valdeón, R. A. (2007). Ideological independence or negative mediation: BBC Mundo and CNN en Español’s (translated) reporting of Madrid’s terrorist attacks. In M. Salama-Carr, ed., Translating and Interpreting Conflict, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 99–118. Waldenfels, B. (1997). Topographie des Fremden: Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Weinrich, H. (2001). Sprache ohne Sprachkultur ist für mich etwas Monströses. Gespräch mit Prof. Dr. Harald Weinrich. Die Zeitschrift für Erwachsenenbildung, October. www.die-bonn.de/zeitschrift/42001/gespraech.htm (last accessed 1 October 2018). Zaimoglu, F. (1995). Kanak Sprak: 24 Mißtöne vom Rande der Gesellschaft. Berlin: Rotbuch.

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16 Enhancing Intercultural Skills through Storytelling Stephan Wolting

‘I’d like to tell my story’, said one of them so young and bold, ‘I’d like to tell my story, before I turn into gold’ (Cohen, 2017: 137)

16.1

Storytelling in Different Cultures – Romoletto and The Noonday Witch

In this chapter I will analyse ‘literary storytelling’ as an important contribution to the knowledge and practice of intercultural skills. We take for granted that storytelling is considered the ‘strongest medium in human history’ and a basic anthropological fact leading to ‘narrative identity’ (Ricoeur, 1983: 45). It is as valid today as it has always been, and it is supposed to be – in its oral tradition – the connecting element of cultures, although every culture creates its own stories. Jahn summarizes the difference between stories and narratives as follows: a) b) c)

narrative: anything that tells or presents a story; story: a sequence of events involving characters; narrator: the teller of the narrative; the person who articulates (‘speaks’) the narrative text. (Jahn, 2017: 11)

Quite important is the difference which Genette emphasizes: story (Fr. histoire), narrative (Fr. discours) and narrating (Fr. recit) (1983: 27), and the implications of mood, voice, order, duration and frequency. Genette’s subject is narrative with particular reference to Proust’s novel À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) and shifting emphasis on ‘narrative

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structures’. In this sense, ‘narration’ is the broader notion and ‘storytelling’ a part of narration (e.g. also Genette, 1983: 27). As a discipline, narratology started – according to Todorov – in 1966 with a special issue on ‘The structural analysis of narrative’ in the French journal Communications, while the term itself ‘was coined three years later, by one of the contributors to that special issue’ (Todorov, 1969: 9; also e.g. Jahn, 2017: 12). Overall, we want to distinguish between ‘natural narratives’ in direct or medial communication of virtual or ‘real’ people, ‘such as occur in everyday conversation to be the most elemental and prototypical instance of storytelling’, and ‘written narratives’, in which ‘neither narrator nor reader can see or hear the other’ (Jahn, 2017: 14) and which could be summarized as ‘literary storytelling’. We can assume that storytelling predates writing, and we should be aware that the first narrations were cultural or collective narrations developed from memory. The earliest evidence of storytelling showed a combination of telling, gestures, bodily expressions, paintings, tattoos, music and the use of natural elements like sand and stones to support the stories. Such stories often included information on social status, on the genealogy of belonging to a family or a tribe, or on historical dates or events (e.g. Homer’s Odyssey). In this chapter I would like to explore how far the individual way of storytelling leads to cultural habits and attitudes, and vice versa. Storytelling is a special social or cultural activity: it shows a way of presenting and sharing stories in order to establish an individual and cultural identity, as well as social values. Stories consist of a plot, characters and a narrative point of view, as we can see in fairy tales or jokes for instance. In one of his famous essays, Umberto Eco tells the joke of Romoletto, a young Roman who refused to be saved by other people because he was waiting for the Lord to save him: it turns out that the Lord tried to save him three times by sending other people (e.g. Eco, 1987: 47). Originally, Eco regarded this as a Catholic joke, but later on he started thinking that it could be a part of an old Greek tragedy, in which the protagonist misses the right moment (kairos). Eco underlined that this joke led him to think about the art of telling jokes and their link to key experiences, including ways of dealing with the dead (e.g. Wolting, 2016: 73–111), in which both form and content matter. This leads to the following questions: 1) 2) 3)

How can a particular culture affect the way of storytelling and the shape of narration? Can we transfer these cultural patterns of storytelling to our own text production? How could we use storytelling to enhance intercultural communication? Are there special ways of telling a story in intercultural encounters?

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While we will not be able to supply final answers to these questions, we can explore the current direction of storytelling research and suggest ways to develop it for intercultural communication. In the light of research on individual and collective formations of identity (for instance, Schacter, 1996: 78), it can be assumed that the significance of storytelling for the enhancement of intercultural skills, knowledge and competences is likely to increase in the future. In this context it is all the more surprising that there is a major gap in research on the connection between cross-cultural and autobiographical narrative competences and, I would add, ways of creative and literary writing. In particular, storytelling in written narratives is – as much as other forms of literature – likely to facilitate ‘the tolerance of ambiguity and the appreciation of form as meaning’ (Kramsch, 2006: 251) and it can improve what Kramsch calls ‘symbolic competence’: ‘What literature can bring to the development of symbolic competence is precisely the sense that human communication is more complex than just saying the right word to the right person in the right manner’ (p. 251). It can furthermore help to explore the ‘symbolic power game of challenging established meanings and redefining the real’ (Kramsch, 2011: 359). Particularly important is the nonfixed meaning of signs: for Kramsch, symbolic competence means the ‘awareness of the symbolic values of words, ability to find the most appropriate subject position, ability to grasp the larger social and historical significance of events and to understand the cultural memories evoked by symbolic systems, ability to perform and create alternative realities by reframing the issues’ (2009: 113). Consequently, Kramsch and Huffmaster suggest ‘to take symbolic action, i.e. to decide which language to use with whom and in which situation, which style to adopt and how to style oneself in order to position oneself and others in the most appropriate way’ (2008: 295f.). Considering the importance of cultural-semiotic competence and the link to cultural memory, I would like to draw attention to the Slavonic legend of the Noonday Witch, recently explored in Julia Franck’s novel Die Mittagsfrau (The Noonday Witch, 2007), which was the winner of the German Booker Prize in 2007. The published English title of the novel is actually The Blind Side of the Heart, but that translation gives rise to a completely different meaning and that might correlate with the fact that the legend of the Noonday Witch, which is about a mother who idly threatens to hand her wayward son over to the phantom menace of the title, but ends up smothering him to death herself, is unknown in the English-speaking world. We can conclude that even in the translation of the title there are cultural-semiotic differences that impose a literary, cultural-symbolic and semiotic reading and analysis of the text.

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279

Storytelling, Memory and Identity: We All Are (Autobiographical) Storytellers and ‘Liars’

Everyone sooner or later invents his story which later becomes his life. (Frisch, 1965: 13)

Drawing on Max Frisch, we can assume that there is a very close connection between concepts of storytelling, ways of commemoration (what we call individual and collective memory) and a sense of personal, or individual, and cultural identity (e.g. Mayer & Wolting, 2016: 19; Schacter, 1996). People are authors and people’s biographies are what make them. There is a very close connection between the creation of a lifestyle and the creation of a literary work, and the author has always been linked very closely to questions of biographical identity. German writer Martin Walser summarized this as follows in his diary: ‘The human being is a writer (better said: a storyteller), and if he isn’t still a writer, he isn’t a human being any longer’ (2014: 157, my translation). Overall, stories have the power to help us to live and to keep alive our memories in our special way and to shape them. Scholars of American creative writing studies, who include Alexander Steele (2003), have pointed out the close connection between autobiographical and creative writing, without focusing too much on the influence of the sentence or a definition of aesthetic taste. Teachers of writing, such as Gary Snyder (2000), have given their students an idea of the creativity, inventiveness and high level of aesthetics with which students or participants of their workshops are able to develop and write stories about their own lives under professional guidance (e.g. Mayer & Wolting, 2016: 12). Considering such developments, it seems surprising that the impact of storytelling on intercultural skills development has not been given more attention. I would suggest that guided storytelling can significantly enhance the tolerance of ambiguity as well as empathy with the other, if it considers the ‘construction of otherness’ as well as latest research on commemoration and memory, the psychology of development, narratology and inter-/transculturality (e.g. Mayer & Wolting, 2016: 13).

16.3

Invented Memories and Stories: Individual and Cultural Memory

This brings us back to the conceptualization of autobiographical memory. Markowitsch (2005), Welzer (2002) and Markowitsch and Welzer (2010) have pointed out that autobiographies, i.e. our constructs of identity, are ‘invented stories’, and as such we could be regarded as unconscious ‘liars’. The famous French child psychologist Jean Piaget explains this as follows:

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One of my oldest memories would . . .have taken place in my second life year. I see the following scene vividly happening exactly in front of me. I was sitting in a pram, which was being pushed by my nanny to the Champs-Elysées, when a guy came and wanted to kidnap me. The leather strap held me back, but the nanny tried to resist the man and to defend me (therefore she got some minor scratches on her face which I remember and ‘see’ until today). A crowd of people was gathering immediately and a policeman with a small pelerine and a white stick came up, whereupon the guy fled in panic. I can see, until today, the whole scene, how it took place close to the metro-station. But when I was fifteen, my parents got a letter from that nanny, in which she informed us about her accession to join the Salvation Army; she was expressing her wish to confess her former mistakes, especially to give back the watch, which she had got for this – including her self-made scratches – completely invented story. As a child I was supposed to have listened to this story, in which my parents believed. In a way of visual memory I did project it into the past. So the story is a memory of a memory, however a wrong one. Many ‘real’ authentic memories are of this kind (1962: 187f.).

This highlights that our own memories are not necessarily true and we cannot rely on them. However, that could be an advantage too, because the fictional dimension gives us considerably more freedom for our own script and text production. Also, if you know you are a liar, try to be a good liar; of course, not in a moral but a literal sense (Wolting, 2015: 47ff.). Storytelling could come in a wide spectrum, from flash fiction and short stories (e.g. Steele, 2003) to self-written poems (e.g. Snyder, 2000). However, key for all text production remains the link between writing and the shaping of individual and cultural identity, which I would like to explore next.

16.4

Shaped Memories: Maybe Esther

Many writers highlight the contradiction between remembering and carrying out research. To give an example: an Ukrainian female writer, Katja Petrowskaja, had a problem with the translation of her strongly autobiographical novel Maybe Ester: A Family Story (2018; Vielleicht Esther in the original German), which she summarized in a public lecture. In particular, she reported problems publishing parts in an American literary magazine because she was requested to delete all the unempirical remarks, replace them with ‘facts’ and avoid writing in associations or memories. She refused to do so, but nevertheless she had conducted research for her novel, which revealed ‘insecurities’ in her own memories. For example, her whole family lived for many years in Sucha Street, number 16 in Warsaw, but her

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mother and nearly all members of the family remembered it as number 14. This is just an example that it cannot be Esther for sure, but ‘maybe Esther’. It also indicates that family narration works as an invention and, moreover, how it links up to the internalization of the earliest family narrations. Furthermore, all this correlates with communicative skills such as rolechanging, self-distance and metacommunication, and it highlights that writing stories can help us to understand ourselves and others better, and to get to know how our memory works (Bichsel, 1997; e.g. also Helmolt, Berkenbusch & Jia, 2013). That could be individual memories, but it could be cultural memories too.

16.5

How to Enhance Intercultural Skills by Storytelling

‘To defend a man means to tell his story’ (Schirach, 2010: 159; my translation). To explore the importance of Schirach’s quote in greater detail, I would like to refer to a recent event, which was discussed in most European newspapers, including The Guardian in the UK: Hungary’s parliament has passed a series of laws that criminalise any individual or group that offers to help an illegal immigrant claim asylum. The legislation restricts the ability of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to act in asylum cases and was passed in defiance of the European Union and human rights groups. Under the law, officially called ‘Stop Soros’, individuals or groups that help illegal migrants gain status to stay in Hungary will be liable to prison terms (The Guardian, 2018).

It should be noted that the ‘Stop Soros’ law actually stops migrants from developing their stories, which should be a human right. The law probably helps to ensure that the monocultural story told by the Hungarian government remains – at least within Hungary – as undisputed as possible. However, in my opinion, it is essential that we let others tell their stories, not only for political purposes, but to help them find their identity – and ours too. Understood in this way, storytelling can lead to a better understanding of the situation of refugees (even if that is not necessarily in everybody’s interest), which means we should listen and help to share such stories, because the cases are entirely individual. Needless to say that the ‘Stop Soros’ law also makes the integration and education of refugeehelpers more difficult, which suppresses even more stories and enhances political othering. In that respect, I would like to suggest and confirm: let us tell our stories to obtain a better understanding of one another. Since these stories also are told by literature and cinema, we have to use hermeneutic and literary methods to read, write and create these stories.

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In German literature, there has been in recent years a strong tendency towards the ‘literature of migration’, which includes texts like Wolfgang Böhmer’s Hesmats Flucht (Hesmat’s Escape, 2008) and Jenny Erpenbeck’s Gehen, Ging, Gegangen (Go, Went, Gone, 2015). The authors of such novels share stories that help us to better understand others and enhance our intercultural skills. This starts with stories from our friend and our girlfriend, our wife, our husband and our children, but it should also include our ‘cultural’ neighbour, as Bichsel argues (1997: 97). In this sense, I would like to conclude this section with two examples of storytelling that might inspire readers to tell their own stories and/or ask students to develop their stories. In both examples, the storyteller becomes an unreliable narrator in the sense of Booth (1961), i.e. a ‘liar’ not in a moral but in a literal sense. The first example is the development of flash fiction (the so-called sixword story), e.g. Hemingway’s famous six-word tale: ‘Baby shoes, for sale never worn’ (for a discussion of its history, see Haglund 2013; O’Toole, 2013). Students might want to write down their own flash fiction and examine in groups how far they are dealing with individual stories or with narratives that have cultural dimensions and, if so, which dimensions. Examples of autobiographical flash fiction for further analysis are: (1) I would have, you never asked; (2) Told to marry rich, married Richard; (3) We’re the family, you gossip about; (4) An optimist, but who worries often; (5) Play, play, play, play, play, play, (6) You learn more from your failures (adapted from Smith, 2015). The second example is the presentation of fragments of a short story, which should then be elaborated: Saturday afternoon she drove to the bakery in the shopping center. After looking through a loose-leaf binder with photographs of cakes taped onto the pages, she ordered chocolate, the child’s favorite. The cake she chose was decorated with a spaceship and launching pad under a sprinkling of white stars, and a planet made of red frosting at the other end. His name, SCOTTY, would be in green letters beneath the planet. The baker, who was an older man with a thick neck, listened without saying anything when she told him the child would be eight years old next Monday. The baker wore a white apron that looked like a smock. Straps cut under his arms, went around in back and then to the front again, where they were secured under his heavy waist. He wiped his hands on his apron as he listened to her. He kept his eyes down on the photographs and let her talk. He let her take her time. He’d just come to work and he’d be there all night, baking, and he was in no real hurry (Carver, 2006 [1983]: 5).

Even in this small fragment students can find many semiotic hints: the baker (the way he is dressed) or the bakery (for instance, the photographs of the cake), the function of the days (Saturday and Monday), the shopping

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centre, the relationship of the child and the mother, the ritual of presenting a cake on a child’s birthday, and the communication pattern between baker and customer. In line with Lakoff’s ideas (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) on how to explore semiotic differences, I would ask students to consider how the story might continue and to write their own story following this pattern, e.g. by setting their own story in a shopping centre, a bakery or on one’s birthday, which might shed light on both individual subjective knowledge and culturally significant collective signs.

16.6

Conclusion: Storytelling and Enhancing Intercultural Skills

If we accept storytelling as ultimately the strongest anthropological medium that we have, we might want to come to the following conclusions: 1) 2)

3)

4)

5)

Storytelling is key to understanding cultural attitudes, customs or habits, which then have to be analysed. We have to detect signals or signs of content matter, and we have to clarify how we can interpret apparently subjective expressions. (Jahn, 2017: 23) It is important to make use of this knowledge for our own text production, which includes finding the biographical signs behind sentences. We should be able to analyse what is written down and read between the lines (for instance, are there deliberately empty gaps?). We have to assess whether there is an intention to cooperate with the reader in typical authorial narrative situations (Genette, 1983; Stanzel, 2001), and if that includes an overt or covert narration (Chatman, 1978). Finally, we have to clarify whether there are particular cultural ways of telling a story in intercultural encounters, and we also have to examine the differences between artistic and autobiographical stories.

References Bichsel, P. (1997). Der Leser. Das Erzählen: Frankfurter Poetikvorlesungen, 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Böhmer, W. (2008). Hesmats Flucht: Eine wahre Geschichte aus Afghanistan. Munich: cbj. Booth, W. C. (1961). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Carver, R. (2006 [1983]). A Small Good Thing, eds. R. Soulard, Jr and K. Souldard. Portland, OR: Scriptor Press. First published in Cathedral, New York: Random House.

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Chatman, S. (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cohen, L. (2017). A bunch of lonesome heroes. In L. Cohen, ed., The Complete A-Z Songbook Guide: All the Songs. New York: Music Sales, p. 137. Eco, U. (1987). Schulen des Lebens: Streichholzbriefe. Die Zeit, 46, 6 November, 73. Erpenbeck, J. (2015). Gehen, Ging, Gegangen. Munich: Knaurs. Franck, J. (2007). Die Mittagsfrau. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. Frisch, M. (1965). Gantenbein, trans. M. Bullock. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Genette, G. (1983). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, reprint. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Haglund, D. (2013). Did Hemmingway really write his famous six-wordstory? Slate, 31 January. https://slate.com/culture/2013/01/for-sale-babyshoes-never-worn-hemingway-probably-did-not-write-the-famous-six-wordstory.html (last accessed 14 April 2013). Helmolt, K. von, Berkenbusch, G. and Jia, W., eds. (2013). Interkulturelle Lernsettings: Konzepte – Formate – Verfahren. Stuttgart: ibidem. Jahn, M. (2017). Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative. Cologne: University of Cologne. Kramsch, C. (2006). From communicative competence to symbolic competence. The Modern Language Journal, 90(2), 249–52. Kramsch, C. (2009). Discourse, the symbolic dimension of intercultural competence. In A. Hu and M. Byram, eds., Interkulturelle Kompetenz und fremdsprachliches Lernen: Modelle, Empirie, Evaluation / Intercultural Competence and Foreign Language Learning: Models, Empiricism, Assessment. Tübingen: Narr, pp. 107–121. Kramsch, C. (2011). The symbolic dimensions of the intercultural. Language Teaching, 44(3), 354–67. Kramsch, C. and Huffmaster, M. (2008). The political promise of translation. Fremdsprachen Lehren und Lernen (FLuL), 37, 283–97. Lappé, A. and Goldman, D. (2007). Shooting War. New York: Grand Central Publishing. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Markowitsch, H. (2005). Das autobiographische Gedächtnis. Stuttgart: KlettCotta. Markowitsch, H. and Welzer, H. (2010). The Development of Autobiographical Memory, trans. D. Emmans. New York: Psychology Press. Mayer, C. H. and Wolting, S. (2016). Purple Jacaranda: Narrations on Transcultural Development. Münster: Waxmann. O’Toole, Garson (2013). For sale, baby shoes, never worn. quoteinvestigator. com, 28 January. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/28/baby-shoes (last accessed 22 February 2019).

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Petrowskaya, K. (2018). Maybe Ester: A Family Story, trans. S. Frisch. New York: Harper Collins. Piaget, J. (1962). Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. New York: Norton & Company. Phelan, J. and Rabinowitz, P. J. (2005). Introduction: tradition and innovation in contemporary narrative theory. In J. Phelan and P. J. Rabinowitz, eds., A Companion to Narrative Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1–16. Ricoeur, P. (1983). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen. Schacter, D. S. (1996). Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind and the Past. New York: Basic Books. Schirach, F. von (2010). Schuld. Munich: Pieper. Smith. L. (2015). I would have, you never asked. In Tedx ColumbusWomen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR1V7lxsOu0 (last accessed 13 September 2019). Snyder, G. (2000). The Gary Snyder Reader: Prose, Poetry, and Translations. New York: Counterpoint. Stanzel, F. K. (2001). Theorie des Erzählens, 7th ed. Götttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. First published 1972. Steele, A. (2003). Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York’s Acclaimed Creative Writing School. Bloomsbury, NY: Gotham Writer´s Workshop. The Guardian (2018). Hungary passes anti-immigrant ‘Stop Soros’ laws. Guardian, 20 June. www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/hungarypasses-anti-immigrant-stop-soros-laws (last accessed 22 February 2019). Todorov, T. (1969). Grammaire du Décameron. The Hague: Mouton. Walser, M. (2014). Schreiben und Leben (Die Tagebücher 1979–1981). Hamburg: Rowohlt. Welzer, H. (2002). Das kommunikative Gedächtnis: Eine Theorie der Erinnerung, Munich: Beck. Wolting, S. (2015). Fiktion und Fremde in Hanns Josef Ortheils Romanen ‘Die Erfindung des Lebens’ und ‘Die Moselreise’. In C. Gansel, M. Joch and M. Wolting, eds., Zwischen Erinnerung und Fremdheit: Entwicklungen in der deutschen und polnischen Literatur nach 1989. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 43–55. Wolting, S. (2016). ‘Unter jedem Grabstein liegt eine Weltgeschichte’ (Heinrich Heine) – Zum Zusammenhang von Tod, Trauer, Kommemorationsmedien und Kultur. Überlegungen zu ‘kultureller Trauerarbeit’ als Perspektive kulturwissenschaftlicher Thanatologie. In A. Bogner, ed., Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache / German Studies, vol. 40. Munich: Iudicium, pp. 73–103.

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17 Cinema as Intercultural Communication Joanne Leal

17.1

Introduction

Cinema is undoubtedly a powerful mode of communication, not least because films speak to their audiences in multiple ways, including via images, language, music and narrative. Its status as a medium that crosses cultural boundaries is not, however, straightforward. Film has been an undeniably transnational enterprise since its inception, ‘a globalized medium even before the term “globalization” came into vogue’ (Desser, 2012: 134), but this does not mean that all films are the product of, engage narratively with, or circulate beyond more than one culture. There are innumerable films, made largely within one cultural context, telling stories that reflect the experiences of, are addressed primarily at, and are consumed largely by dominant groups within that culture. Indeed, as Ezra and Rowden point out ‘most films from the vast majority of the world’s filmproducing countries rarely find audiences (that is audiences rarely find them) outside their own national borders’ (2006: 5). This remains the case even as cinema’s transnational tendencies multiply in our increasingly interconnected world, both in terms of its conditions of production, as these are impacted by global capitalism, and in relation to the stories it tells, as the border-crossing movements of people transform many filmproducing nation states into less homogenous entities than they seemed in the past (for a cogent summary of the consequences of globalization for cinema and particularly the development of a cinematic transnationalism, see Ezra & Rowden, 2006). It is also the case, of course, that some of those films made within one national context, addressing primarily the experiences of a majoritarian cultural group, do circulate well beyond the nation, intervening in other

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cultural contexts as they do so. This is perhaps most obviously so with the many Hollywood films that are distributed around the world with substantial cultural consequences. Associated in often negative ways with globalization, Hollywood – a term which can function ‘as a kind of shorthand for a massively industrial, ideologically reactionary, and stylistically conservative form of “dominant” cinema’ (Shohat & Stam, 1994: 7) – is understood to spread widely the message of the ‘American way of life’, contributing to the homogenization of global existence and the spread of neoliberal ideologies, promoting US economic and political interests at the expense of, amongst other things, cultural heterogeneity. This remains the case, even as Hollywood’s hegemonic role is challenged by other cinemas, emerging in China, Russia, India or Nigeria, for instance, which can equally embody (competing) neo-nationalist perspectives. This kind of transnational activity speaks against rather than for cinema as a mode of intercultural communication because it is neither informed by dynamic definitions of culture nor contributes to a cultural ‘dialogue that intends to cross boundaries’ (Rings, 2016: 10; e.g. also Neumann on the intercultural potential of narrative fiction in Chapter 8 of this volume). A further example of a cinema which appears to promote inflexible notions of cultural identity does, however, point to other possibilities. Late twentieth-century British heritage cinema has been assumed to define a national self-image for home audiences and external consumption that privileges the experiences and histories of one cultural group over others. Its construction of ‘Britishness’ has been read in negative terms as representing a nostalgia for colonial power and class belonging and as a valorization of white, upper-middle-class values in ways that reinforce conservative understandings of cultural belonging and exclusionary notions of social cohesion. In this reading what films such as Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, 1981), A Passage to India (David Lean, 1985) or Howards End (James Ivory, 1992) illustrate is the powerful influence cinematic images can exert on the construction of normative understandings of national, ethnic or cultural belongings and behaviours which delimit intercultural interactions. There are, though, other readings of these films sympathetic to their potentially more progressive intercultural interventions. These understand them as actively critiquing particularly the sexual oppression and racial intolerance of the social worlds they depict, encouraging viewers both at home and abroad to engage critically with any clichéd and oppressive notions of ‘Britishness’ they might represent (for a detailed engagement with competing critical views of the contested notion of British heritage cinema, e.g. Vidal, 2012). Moreover, even British heritage cinema with its apparently clear nation-defining agenda can illustrate the difficulties of defining the ‘national’ when it comes to film. Higson notes of Howards End that ‘this

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“instant national treasure” was produced by an Indian, scripted by a Pole, directed by an American, and funded with British, American and Japanese money’ (1996: 248). Conflicting readings of British heritage cinema suggest that while film can construct rigid and exclusionary forms of national, ethnic or cultural understanding, it can also work to undo them. Thus cinema can be a source of ideological influence, or even a force for political change, not just in the service of the globally hegemonic or those who, more locally, represent majoritarian groups, but also in the interests of less often heard global voices, including those of contemporary transnational communities. What I therefore intend to do here is to consider a variety of ways in which some kinds of film can actively promote intercultural communication, not least by offering representational alternatives to conservative notions of national belonging and exclusionary constructions of what social cohesion should mean. Cinema, with its potential to offer a complex intellectual, emotional and multisensory experience, one which, even in the face of changing modes of spectatorship, is regularly shared with others and is in a possibly unique position to propose alternatives to negative portrayals of national, ethnic or cultural others in current political discourses and other media, such as the popular press.1 Moreover, it can perform important critical work in prompting us to think carefully about our own attitudes towards and potential implication in the oppression of those we categorize as different to ourselves. In the light of my own academic positioning largely within German studies in the UK, I am going to consider these issues mainly within a Western European framework, asking what film can do to promote intercultural sensitivities within contemporary European contexts in which attitudes to the impact of globalization and particularly the transnational movement of people are often ambivalent and sometimes actively hostile, while also acknowledging that only a partial picture of film’s potential as an instrument of intercultural communication can emerge from this circumscribed perspective. I intend to examine in particular three issues: the intercultural impact of watching ‘foreign’ cinema; the possible political effects of films which encourage empathetic responses to transnational tales contained in generically familiar forms; and the critical potential of two kinds of film which use less conventional cinematic means to represent a globalized social world.

1

For an illuminating discussion of the way in which experimental cinema by film-makers with a migrant background engages multiple senses in the service of an intercultural encounter, see Marks (2000). Ezra and Rowden argue that ‘the intimacy and communal dynamic’ of film-viewing means that ‘cinema has a singular capacity to foster bonds of recognition between different groups’ (2006: 4).

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Watching ‘Foreign’ Films

Increased globalization and concurrent technological advances have transformed worldwide film distribution, resulting for many of us in vastly increased access to films made outside our own countries and/or the hegemonic centres of film production, increasing opportunities to engage in intercultural encounters via film. Many of the ‘foreign’ films we view in the cinema, at film festivals, on DVD, or stream on devices might be described as ‘monocultural’ in the sense that their narratives engage with the national or cultural contexts in which they are made. (‘Foreign’ in inverted commas here draws attention to the fact that in the United States and the UK this term has acquired a specific meaning, normally referring to non-English-language films, often those labelled ‘art house’, e.g. Ezra & Rowden, 2006: 2). They can nevertheless perform a significant intercultural function when viewed outside their original context of production. Indeed, their intercultural potential is often understood to relate to the degree to which they can be regarded as representative of their cultural context of origin and thus to provide audiences with a direct, perhaps even ‘authentic’ encounter with a cultural ‘other’, although the example of Howards End should remind us that any notion of cultural ‘authenticity’ can be complicated by multiple factors, including crosscultural forms of authorship and transnational modes of production. While avoiding any oversimplified understanding of the ‘authenticity’ of an encounter in ‘foreign’ film with cultural alterity, Bennett and Marciniak ascribe an important pedagogic function to films which circulate internationally, becoming in the process transnational objects: ‘ideologically interpellated by particular cultures and concepts, we all . . . are trained to acquire and accept certain knowledges as empirical givens’, they argue, continuing that ‘transnational cinematic cultures are uniquely positioned to “undo” such knowledges’ because they demand of us ‘an engagement with various transcultural encounters and thus often imply uncomfortable zones of identification, or disidentification’ (2016: 15). That is, ‘foreign’ films can unsettle our cultural assumptions and challenge us to see our own social worlds in relative terms, facilitating an understanding that every culture is ‘a valid but ultimately arbitrary construct, one of many’ (Crozet & Liddicoat, 1999: 117). This experience is enhanced by a confrontation through film with unfamiliar modes of communication. Not only is it the case, as Bennett notes, that ‘[t]he characters may speak unfamiliar languages’, but the filmic language itself can be experienced as strange: the formal and narrative conventions employed by the filmmakers may be equally unfamiliar to the viewer, making it difficult to identify a narrative logic and anticipate the unfolding of events or to determine which elements of the sound field and image to attend to (Bennett, 2016: 49).

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The confrontation with unfamiliar ways of meaning-making in film requires us to develop what Pegrum calls ‘critical intercultural literacies’ (2008: 137), essential if we are ‘to see [our] own cultural practices in a broader perspective, to learn about and from other cultures, and to negotiate between cultural worlds’, something which, he stresses, ‘can lead to fulfilment on a personal level, and a honing of the understanding and tolerance which is so often lacking in the global arena’ (p. 137). Thus the experience of watching ‘foreign’ film can encourage us to engage critically and creatively with tensions between the culturally familiar and strange as these manifest in film narrative and language. However, we need to remain aware that any intercultural encounter cinema can provide may be limited by the voices we are able to hear, the ways in which these are enabled to speak, and how open we are to listen to them. Cinemas, hegemonic and otherwise, compete with one another, often vying for the attention of audiences at home and abroad, asserting their modes of meaning-making against those of other cultural groups. This raises questions of power and the reality is that many cinemas can struggle to be heard especially if they fail to conform to hegemonic practices, to work, for example, with the classic realist narratives and continuity editing of mainstream Western film,2 or to have the kind of financial backing that allows them to travel, for ‘more heavily financed films tend to cross barriers with greater ease’ (Ezra & Rowden, 2006: 5). Moreover, as Rawle has set out, other factors can mitigate against film audiences’ ability to engage with cultures beyond their own. The view from abroad of another nation’s cinema is likely to remain partial due to a politics of film production and distribution that impacts negatively on cinema’s intercultural communicative potential. What Rawle describes as a form of ‘internalized colonialism’ can lead to the fostering and international marketing of a national film culture that promotes ‘a minimisation of difference, homogenisation and consensus amongst the audience’ (2018: 23), silencing the voices of those viewed as culturally dissident. Equally, even when a national film culture is diverse, only certain kinds of film may achieve international (subtitled) distribution, leading to the distorted view that it represents ‘the whole country’s culture and political zeitgeist’ (Rawle, 2018: 38). A nation invested in international perceptions of its high-cultural capital might, for instance, promote its more ‘avant-garde’ or ‘art house’ cinema at the expense of popular home-grown film.3 2

To give one example from the UK national context, Vidal notes that in the 1980s, while British heritage cinema flourished, ‘[o]ther alternative and oppositional heritages, such as the working-class and Black-British experiences, struggled to surface in documentary and experimental work carried out at the margins of the film industry’ (2012: 14).

3

Supporting Rawle’s argument is the example of 1970s New German Cinema. Produced with state funding and critically acclaimed, particularly abroad, these films were less popular with mainstream audiences in Germany than other kinds of home-grown and imported productions.

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Moreover, even when ‘foreign’ films do find international audiences, how these respond to them can be complex and not necessarily always congruent with the kind of pedagogically enriching intercultural encounter described above. Spectators can, for instance, read ‘foreign’ film through the lens of their own film cultures, potentially inhibiting the intercultural encounter. Rawle notes that Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s City of God (2002) was interpreted by Brazilian critics with regard to Cinema Novo while US critics, promoters and, in all likelihood, audiences viewed it generically as a gangster movie with reference to Hollywood cinematic paradigms (Rawle, 2018: 60f.). This example has, according to Rawle, implications for both cinematic production and spectatorship, demonstrating the need not just for postcolonial figures to write their own narratives, but for those receiving them to read those articulations not simply for their difference or through hegemonic frames of reference (where difference from the norms is the consequence) but to consider how those articulations are formed (Rawle, 2018: 69).

That is, filmically mediated intercultural encounters require not only international access to non-hegemonic film production but also nuanced, critical, open and informed modes of spectatorship. The example of City of God acts as a reminder that, despite the inherent risk of the cultural (mis-)appropriation of ‘foreign’ film when it circulates beyond its context of origin, cinema can, nevertheless, and more positively in intercultural terms, provide a powerful way of speaking back to dominant representational discourses, if audiences are willing and able to hear alternative voices. For further evidence of this we can go back to Stuart Hall’s influential analysis of the ways in which an emergent Caribbean cinema of the 1980s was able to counter those internalized constructions of self and world imposed by colonial discourses. To do so it needed actively to undo the damage done by Western cinema, providing ‘resources of resistant identity, with which to confront the fragmented, pathological ways in which [Caribbean] experience has been constructed within the dominant regimes of cinematic and visual representation of the West’ (1989: 70). In this encounter, as Hall conceives it, Caribbean cinema is valorized as ‘that form of representation which is able to constitute us as new kinds of subject, and thereby enable us to discover who we are’ (1989: 79) and it is precisely the kind of ‘cinematic counter-telling’ (Shohat, 2006: 39) he describes here that has provided a powerful postcolonial momentum for cinema beyond the West, as Shohat reminds us: In the face of Eurocentric historicizing, the Third World and its diasporas in the First World have re-written their own histories, taken control over their own images, spoken in their own voices, reclaiming colonialism and its ramifications in a vast project of remapping and renaming (2006: 39).

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Although she also points out that ‘the First World receives precious little of the vast cultural production of the Third World, and what it does receive is usually mediated by multinational corporations’ (p. 42), so its potential to communicate interculturally with the West remains limited.

17.3

European Transnational Cinema and the Problems of Empathy

An understanding of cinema as a site of resistance to hegemonic ways of viewing the world and as a forum for the construction of new kinds of identity for those whose representation in mainstream media is inadequate, misleading or destructive is often integral to those modes of European film-making that can be described as transnational in the sense that they are narratively concerned with the experience of border-crossing subjects. Such films often reflect the globalized reality of contemporary filmmaking with cast, crew, production and finance all coming from multiple national, even supranational sources. More significant, though, in relation to their intercultural communicative potential is the fact that they can raise complex questions about national, ethnic and cultural belonging in ways which actively encourage viewers to query normative understandings of these concepts. Cinema with transnational subject matter shifts the locus of the intercultural encounter. It is no longer (only) produced extra-filmically via an audience’s engagement with a narrative and/or language experienced as ‘foreign’, rather it (also) takes place within a cinematic space shaped by a concern with the complexity of contemporary transcultural ways of being. This kind of cinema can engage its viewers in a number of ways and I will focus on three of these here with a view to illuminating its potential as a mode of intercultural communication. I will look first at the kinds of film which tell cross-cultural stories, often within conventional generic forms such as the thriller or melodrama, using a filmic language familiar enough not to trouble audience comprehension. Lykidis has noted of such films, including Lilja 4-ever (Lukas Moodysson, 2002) and In this World (Michael Winterbottom, 2002), that they ‘often feature young protagonists’, mobilizing ‘mechanisms of identification inherent in classical narrative storytelling to counter both the social marginality and vilification of immigrants in European society’, while they also ‘often highlight the courage and determination of immigrants who face hardships unimaginable to the average European citizen’ (2016: 60). As an example, we could look more closely at Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things (2002), another film mentioned in this context by Lykidis. Set in

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London, it is identified by its director as a politically inflected thriller-cumromance – ‘I like using popular forms. Its politics are built into it, you can’t take them out’ (Shoard, 2002) – and it focuses primarily on the stories of Okwe, a Nigerian doctor and illegal immigrant, and Senay, a Turkish Muslim asylum seeker, encouraging audience identification with them.4 Both suffer extreme exploitation, including in Senay’s case sexual abuse, and are coercively caught up in organ trafficking (the plot line which provides the thriller elements). Their bravery, ingenuity and moral integrity allow them, however, to triumph over their oppressors, finding love in the process. With its high production values, the film provides an immersive cinematic experience, one likely to lead spectators to root for protagonists who are clearly marked as representative of forced migrants more generally and to feel anger at the abuse they so unfairly suffer. This film, and others like it, can make visible the often unseen lives of the marginalized and oppressed while sensitizing viewers to their experiences and they are worth watching for this reason alone. There remains a danger nonetheless that they encourage what Marciniak and Bennett have described as a ‘“consumerist” emotionality’ (2016: 21); or, to couch this in slightly different terms, that they promote the kind of spectatorship that Bertolt Brecht would have labelled ‘culinary’ (Brecht, 1963). That is, they provide an experience of satisfaction – possibly self-satisfaction – by allowing us to take pleasure in our suitably empathetic responses to the suffering of others without troubling us to think about our own implication in the issues they raise or, by extension, without offering an impetus for the kind of personal or political transformation that might impact on a reality beyond the film. (For an illuminating discussion of further ideological problems in European films whose sympathetic representations of migrant others ‘tend to collapse rather than explain the differences between immigrants and dominant groups’, see Lykidis, 2016: 60f.)

17.4

Constructing the Critically Aware Viewer

Potentially more active political responses are encouraged by the second kind of transnational cinema I would like to consider: films which raise consciousness of the potential benefits and dangers of the intercultural encounter by constructing critically aware viewers who, rather than immersing themselves in the cinematic experience, are prompted to

4

Gibson notes that Frears’s films of the 1980s such as My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) and Prick Up Your Ears (1987) were all ‘critiques of Thatcherite Britain’ and, as such, have been understood to offer a take on national belonging diametrically opposed to that provided by British heritage cinema (2006: 698), one aimed, as Dirty Pretty Things is, at promoting inclusive notions of national belonging.

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reflect on issues of causality and consequence in relation to stories of border-crossing and social inclusion and exclusion. I will focus briefly on two examples. One, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1974 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, predates our immediately contemporary experience of globalization but remains paradigmatic in the way it embodies the successes and failures of much of European cinema’s attempts to represent the experience of the migrant other; the second film, Fatih Akin’s more recent take on the transnational movement of people, The Edge of Heaven (2007), references Fassbinder’s cinema and could be read as a response to the earlier film. Fear Eats the Soul offers a critically celebrated representation of the consequences of racial prejudice and social exclusion as they impact on the so-called Gastarbeiter, migrant workers invited to Germany in the post-war period to plug a gap in the domestic labour market. It stages a cross-cultural encounter between Ali, a 30-something Moroccan, and Emmi, a much older German cleaning lady, who begin a relationship motivated largely by mutual loneliness. The couple experience intensely hostile responses to their happiness on the part of almost everyone in their working-class district of Munich, including hateful racist diatribes directed at Ali. As a consequence, both characters must confront the limits of their own tolerance of ‘otherness’ and of being ‘othered’. What they experience in the face of social exclusion is a strong desire to reconnect with the groups with which they had previously identified even at the cost of ‘othering’ each other. This is particularly the case for Emmi, who had been more firmly anchored in her social world and had therefore more to lose, but Ali too is willing to align himself with his fellow workers at her expense when her age becomes a source of amusement to them. With its tale of love across a social, and here racial divide, Fear Eats the Soul represents a partial remake of Douglas Sirk’s 1955 All That Heaven Allows. Fassbinder’s homage to classic melodrama allows him to harness the genre’s empathetic potential while also working with Brechtian alienation effects to encourage audiences to retain a critical distance to the characters’ actions with the aim of uncovering the underlying social causes of their exclusionary behaviours (for a detailed account of the film’s Brechtian strategies and their effects, see Rings, 2017). On the one hand, the film does this very effectively – we understand clearly that the hateful behaviours of the working-class characters are rooted in their sense of economic precarity and fear of social exclusion – but there remains a question of at whose expense this causal analysis is performed. In their reading of Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor (2007), ‘a critically successful portrait of a melancholic, widowed American academic who is reanimated by a chance encounter with an immigrant couple’, Marciniak and Bennett comment on the film’s ‘use’ of the foreign nationals it represents,

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arguing that ‘it raises the question of the usability of foreignness and the variety of ways in which the “foreign body” is put to work as a privileged object of scrutiny, mobilizing interpretive frameworks and producing knowledge, understanding, and profit’ (2016: 2). Analyses of Fear Eats the Soul often observe that Ali as a character lacks agency and is represented as the object of the camera’s desiring and often objectifying gaze. Patterson, for instance, argues that limiting what Ali says and instead allowing his ‘body to “speak” for him . . . comes close to fetishizing and objectifying the Moroccan’s physicality in a way that is just as disturbing as is rendering him mute’ (1999: 57). In this sense the film risks undermining its political aims by indulging in what Bennett, in another context, has described as ‘a depoliticized, exoticizing fetishization of otherness’ (2016: 48) and to this critique could be added that the film ‘uses’ Ali’s foreignness in ways that are possibly exploitative. His racial otherness, which might be understood to stand in generically for multiple other kinds of otherness in the film, is pressed into the service of a Marxist-inflected analysis of economic evils rather than being allowed to exist in its own right with the risk that its significance, and that of the abuse he suffers because of it, is neglected. These problems are largely overcome in Akin’s The Edge of Heaven which explicitly interacts with Fassbinder’s cinema, not least through its casting of iconic Fassbinderian actress Hanna Schygulla, but also in its use of Brechtian techniques to create space for audience reflection. Most obviously these take the form of the intertitles that give away the endings of each of the film’s first two parts, relieving tension and allowing spectators to focus not simply on what occurs but more importantly on why it happens as it does. A more dramatically Brechtian effect is provided when Hanna Schygulla as Susannah mourns the death of her daughter in a Turkish hotel room, an elliptical sequence filmed by a static camera positioned high up in the corner of the room in a way that allows us to experience her intense pain while remaining critically cognisant of the complex emotions underlying her response to the loss of her daughter. Despite these moments, though, and despite an intricate narrative structure which focuses on the intertwined fates of six characters of German, Turkish and Turkish-German origin, the film generally works more conventionally with familiar film language to construct empathetic responses to its often moving narrative of loss and its impact on understandings of self and other, in which characters are asked to consider their sense of national belonging and cultural locatedness and the privileges, or lack of them, these markers of identity confer. In the process, The Edge of Heaven offers a thoughtful and balanced alternative to the less conciliatory scenarios of both Fear Eats the Soul and Dirty Pretty Things, not least by representing positively the post-migrant identity of Nejat Aksu, a professor of German, who apparently experiences no conflict between his background as the son of a Turkish labour migrant

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and his confident sense of locatedness within the European middle classes, while at the same time it maintains a focus on less edifying aspects of the transnational experience, including the economic and sexual exploitation of migrant workers and the potential inequities of the German asylum system. The differences it manifests to the other films considered so far might result at least in part from the fact that its Turkish-German director shares a migrant background with his central character, reminding us, as Stuart Hall’s analysis of Caribbean cinema has already done, that in considering film’s potential as a medium of intercultural communication we must pay attention not just to what is spoken but also who speaks.

17.5

Michael Haneke’s Communicative Acts

Who speaks, and perhaps more significantly, who fails to do so, is also a vital question posed by the films of Michael Haneke most obviously concerned with (post-)migrant experience. Code Unknown (2000) and Hidden (2005), both set largely in Paris, engage with the often intense pressures and extreme inequities of life in multicultural contexts and they offer, I would suggest, a third possible cinematic approach to transnational subject matter, one which explicitly implicates audiences in a failure of communication across divides of gender, age, class and wealth, race and ethnicity, and at the same time interrogates the ethics of image-making in the service of an exploration of the relationship between self and other. These films demonstrate that while the consequences of communication failure are felt most acutely by those (post-)migrant subjects whose voices carry least weight within multi-ethnic spaces, its causes are to be found in the behaviours of the white European middle classes, the hegemonic social group to which both Haneke and his implied audiences belong.5 What both films demonstrate is not simply that the privileges associated with belonging to the dominant group in a multicultural space are maintained at the expense of less fortunate others but also that this happens without active acknowledgement on the part of those who stand to benefit most. It is to this generally unarticulated inequity that the films give critical voice. Both share characteristics with the other films considered here. In a fashion not dissimilar to The Edge of Heaven, Code Unknown narrates three inconclusively intertwined sets of stories, in this case involving Parisian actress Anne and her war photographer boyfriend Georges; Amadou, a young man of African heritage and his family; and Maria, a Romanian woman who finances life at home by begging in France. Code Unknown 5

Lykidis reads these as examples of contemporary films ‘with white, bourgeois protagonists’ which ‘ethically implicate the audience in the misdeeds and misperceptions of their lead characters’ (2017: 66).

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utilizes the modernist strategies of counter-cinema, particularly the long take, to unsettle its spectators and to encourage them to make sense of how cinema uses its images to elicit certain kinds of response from them. Hidden, on the other hand, works within the genre conventions of the thriller to tell the unresolved tale of the terrorization of a French couple, Anne and Georges again, their names implying their representative bourgeois status, by means of surveillance tapes and childlike drawings of violent acts. Georges assumes that behind this harassment must be Majid, the son of Algerians presumed killed during the massacres in Paris in 1961. While Georges reluctantly admits that as a child he lied to his parents about Majid to stop them from adopting him, thus condemning him to an impoverished existence, only the unfounded guilt he projects onto Majid implies that he might feel guilt himself and at no point does he acknowledge a need for atonement. A failure of communication with both self and other manifests precisely in this refusal on the part of hegemonic subjects like Georges to speak the truth of the wrongs they perpetrate or witness. Anne in Code Unknown likewise refuses to admit the possibility that a child is being abused in a neighbouring apartment. Its consequences are revealed in the damage done to those whose attempts to articulate injustice are ignored: Amadou is arrested by police officers who refuse his offer to explain a dispute and, shockingly, Majid slits his throat in what could be understood as a protest against Georges’s defensive refusal to hear him.6 It is also embodied in the characters’ use of multiple languages and the barriers to communication across cultural divides these produce (a barrier reproduced in Code Unknown for viewers not proficient in sign language in the unsubtitled scenes of the deaf children). The films have in common their representation of the refusal of the Georges and Anne characters to confront their implication either in structural forms of oppression such as the institutional racism and exclusionary practices relating to migrant workers seen in Code Unknown or to acknowledge their personal responsibility for the plight of less privileged others as is the case in Hidden. Like Fassbinder and Akin, Haneke harnesses the power of familiar filmic strategies to create structures of identification between these characters and spectators who are similarly culturally located, only to undermine such identifications via strategies of distantiation and disidentification in ways that reveal not only the characters’ implication but potentially our own in the oppressive practices in which they engage. What makes these films stand out from the others I have considered is that this

6

See Stoehr (2010) for a detailed discussion of failures of communication in the film. Some critics suggest that this act of the silencing of a minority ethnic character extends to the film itself insofar as it fails to give Majid psychological depth, using his story only to shed light on Georges’s past. See Lykidis (2016) and Rawle (2018), both of whom cite Gilroy’s (2007) review of the film.

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process includes a critique of the way in which cinematic practices themselves, if left unchallenged, have the potential to oppress or produce oppressive responses. Haneke uses a number of strategies to draw this to our attention. An example from Code Unknown is provided by the metro sequence in which a young man references his own experience of racial discrimination even as he harasses Anne, leaving spectators to feel not only, as Wheatley notes, ‘both fear on Anne’s part and guilt for their complicity in the viewing situation (paralleled onscreen by the diegetic spectators who look on but do not act)’ (2009: 123), but potentially also the desire to impose reductive meaning on a sequence whose victimizer/victimized dynamics defy easy interpretation. While in Hidden surveillance footage with no identifiable origin is used to make us aware of an authorial position, that is, of the existence of a subject who has the power to speak on (here) his own behalf and, more problematically, also on behalf of others. This is a subject position which more conventional cinema, invested in the seeming objectivity of its images, attempts to conceal. These strategies prompt us to pay attention to the ethical implications of the construction and interpretation of cinematic images on the part of film-makers and on our own as spectators. In characteristically forthright terms, Haneke has claimed that ‘[r]efusing to communicate is a terrorist act that triggers violence’ (interview with Michael Haneke, Kino DVD release of Time of the Wolf, 2003, cited in Stoehr, 2010: 479). His films provide evidence to support this contention but might themselves be considered communicative acts in the service of a de-escalation of violent social conflict via a probing of its causes and consequences. They also make clear, though, as do the others considered here, that opportunities to communicate are not evenly shared. Rather, these map onto wider inequalities in the distribution of privilege and power with which his films engage, including the power to construct and construe cinematic images.

17.6

Conclusion

Film as an instrument of (cross-)cultural communication can serve different masters. It can, actively participate in the global homogenization of culture, acting in the interests of dominant cultural groups and the political ideologies that serve their needs at the expense of those who struggle to get their voices, cinematic or otherwise, heard, as the example of hegemonic cinemas such as Hollywood can show. It is also the case, though, that dialogue between different kinds of cinematic language is possible and cultural scripts can be rewritten through filmic narratives,

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such as those produced by Fassbinder, Akin and Haneke. I have focused here on only a small part of this process, that is, on what various kinds of European transnational cinema can contribute to an undoing of potentially harmful representations of national, ethnic and cultural others. Cinematic images have powerful and often unlooked-for effects, though, and even those films that attempt thoughtful and critical interventions into discourses of cultural otherness can repeat patterns of oppression or encourage audience complacency about their own intercultural sensitivity. Perhaps, therefore, the most significant contribution to intercultural understanding is made by film when it interrogates its own and its audiences’ complicity in cultural othering and exclusionary practices, as Haneke’s cinema attempts to do, encouraging us to recognize the ethical responsibility we must take for the images of others we produce and the practices these encourage.

References Akin, F. (2007). The Edge of Heaven (original German: Auf der anderen Seite). Germany, Turkey and Italy: Anka Film. Bennett, B. (2016). Ignorance and inequality: teaching with transnational cinema. In K. Marciniak and B. Bennett, eds, Teaching Transnational Cinema. Politics and Pedagogy. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 39–58. Brecht, B. (1963). Anmerkungen zur Oper ‘Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1930). In B. Brecht, ed., Schriften zum Theater 2 1918–1933. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, pp. 109–26. Crozet, C. and Liddicoat, A. J. (1999). The challenge of intercultural language teaching: engaging with culture in the classroom. In J. Lo Bianco, A. J. Liddicoat and C. Crozet, eds., Striving for the Third Place: Intercultural Competence through Language Education. Melbourne: Language Australia, pp. 113–25. Desser, D. (2012). Teaching Japanese cinema. In L. Fischer and P. Petro, eds, Teaching Film. New York: Modern Language Association of America, pp. 134–44. Ezra, E. and Rowden, T. (2006). General introduction: what is transnational cinema? In E. Ezra and T. Rowden, eds., Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–12. Fassbinder, R. W. (1974). Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (original German: Angst essen Seele auf). West Germany: Filmverlag der Autoren. Frears, S. (2002). Dirty Pretty Things. UK: BBC. Gibson, S. (2006). Border politics and hospitable spaces in Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things. Third Text, 20(6), 693–701. Gilroy, P. (2007). Shooting crabs in a barrel. Screen, 48(2), 233–5.

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Hall, S. (1989). Cultural identity and cinematic representation. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, 36, 68–81. Haneke, M. (2000). Code Unknown (original French: Code inconnu: Récit incomplete de divers voyages). France, Austria and Romania: Arte France Cinéma. Haneke, M. (2005). Hidden (original French: Caché). France, Austria and Germany and Italy: Les Films du Losange, Higson, A. (1996). The heritage film and British cinema. In A. Higson, ed., Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema. Bloomsbury: London and New York, pp. 232–48. Higson, A. (2006). The limiting imagination of national cinema. In E. Ezra and T. Rowden, eds., Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 15–25. Hudson, H. (1981). Chariots of Fire. UK: Twentieth Century Fox. Ivory, J. (1992). Howards End. UK, Japan and USA: Merchant Ivory Productions. Lean, D. (1985). A Passage to India. UK and USA: EMI Films. Lykidis, A. (2016). A pedagogy of humility: teaching European films about immigration. In K. Marciniak and B. Bennett, eds, Teaching Transnational Cinema. Politics and Pedagogy. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 59–77. Marciniak, K. and Bennett, B. (2016). Introduction: teaching transnational cinema; politics and pedagogy. In K. Marciniak and B. Bennett, eds, Teaching Transnational Cinema. Politics and Pedagogy. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–35. Marks, L. U. (2000). The Skin of Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Durham and London: Duke University Press. McCarthy, T. (2007). The Visitor. USA: Groundswell Productions. Meirelles, F. and Lund, K. (2002). City of God. Brazil and France: O2 Filmes. Moodysson, L. (2002). Lilja 4-ever. Sweden and Denmark: Film i Väst. Patterson, S. F. (1999). Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and the expropriation of a national ‘Heim’. Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, 18 (3), 46–57. Pegrum, M. (2008). Film, cultural and identity: critical intercultural literacies for the language classroom. Language and Intercultural Communication, 8(2), 136–54. Rawle, S. (2018). Transnational Cinema: An Introduction. London: Palgrave. Rings, G. (2016). The Other in Contemporary Migrant Cinema: Imagining a New Europe? Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge. Rings, G. (2017). Transkulturelle Ansätze im Neuen Deutschen Film. Zur Grenzauflösung in Fassbinders ‘Angst essen Seele auf’ (1974). In Ö. Alkin, ed., Deutsch-Türkische Filmkultur im Migrationskontext. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 45–72. Shoard, C. (2002). Call me a sentimental idiot. Sunday Telegraph, 3 December. www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3586590/Call-me-a-sentimental-idiot .html (last accessed 22 August 2018).

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Shohat, E. (2006). Post-third worldist culture: gender, nation, and the cinema. In E. Ezra and T. Rowden, eds., Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 39–56. Shohat, E. and Stam, R. (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Routledge. Sirk, D. (1955). All That Heaven Allows. USA: Universal International Pictures. Stoehr, K. L. (2010). Haneke’s secession: perspectivism and anti-nihilism in Code Unknown and Caché. In R. Grundmann, ed., A Companion to Michael Haneke, Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 477–94. Vidal, B. (2012). Heritage Film: Nation, Genre and Representation. London and New York: Wallflower. Wheatley, C. (2009). Michael Haneke’s Cinema: The Ethic of the Image. New York and Oxford: Berghahn. Winterbottom, M. (2002). In This World. UK: The Film Consortium.

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18 Intercultural Memory and Violence in Jewish Literature Verena Dolle

18.1

Introduction

In a handbook on intercultural communication, intercultural memory constitutes an important if not fundamental and decisive part. This is because intercultural communication, understood as ‘verbal and nonverbal interaction with members from other cultures’ (Neumann, in Chapter 8 of this volume), is directly related to the cultural memory of the respective groups involved as it shapes or underlies their collective communication patterns, consciously and unconsciously (e.g. Drzewiecka in Chapter 9 of this volume). Thus, it is an influential factor in the success of intercultural communication. In order to acquire ‘the ability to comprehend and respect the values, beliefs and habits of . . . cultural others’ (Neumann, Chapter 8 of this volume), it is essential to take the diachronic dimension of cultural relations into account, which always include power hierarchies. Of particular importance are ‘a community’s lived and inherited history’ with its ‘rhetorical and ideological framing of the past as shared memory’ and a ‘differential access to power in intercultural relations’, which includes ‘the ability to control both material and symbolic resources’ (Drzewiecka, Ehrenhaus & Owen, 2016: 199). Furthermore, contemporary scholars have to accept blurred cultural boundaries, interdependence and transcultural phenomena in cultural exchange (Rings, 2018 [2016]: 10–11; see also Antor, 2010: 12; Delanoy, 2006: 239) and, consequently also, in the development and dissemination of cultural memory. All this is very much in line with contemporary notions of interculturality (e.g. Delanoy, 2006: 239), which leads to the use of the term ‘intercultural memory’ in this chapter. However,

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transcultural research has often elaborated more explicitly on questions of interconnectedness (e.g. Rings 2017; 2018 [2016]), which are key to my study of collective memory and will therefore be quoted quite frequently. The first example in this regard is Moses and Rothberg’s notion of ‘transcultural memory’ (2014: 29). Admittedly, their concept of ‘interculturality’ (used for ‘encounters between distinct traditions that otherwise bear no relation to one another’, p. 29) recalls Welsch’s far too simplistic categorization of the 1990s (1999: 196–97), which has already been challenged very convincingly (e.g. Rings, 2017: 46–47). However, Moses and Rothberg’s discussion of collective memory as the expression of closer ‘comparative’ relations is highly convincing (Moses & Rothberg, 2014: 29), and so is their use of the plural (‘memories’) to reflect the heterogeneous character. Collective memories are in this sense not only interpolated by other cultures but (which) incorporate within them an archive about their relations in the past, whether stories of victory and exultation, defeat and humiliation, or relative coexistence, if with an emphatic sense of hierarchy (p. 29).

The decisive points here are ‘archive’, ‘hierarchy’ and ‘stories’. According to Moses and Rothberg, ‘the relations in the past’ between cultures may have been multifaceted, i.e. violent, peaceful or coexistent, but there is in any case undoubtedly an archived memory of them, consisting of narratives, as these relations are important for the sense of collective identity, and there is also the question of hierarchy in the past (with an impact through to the present). Thus, intercultural memories are part of cultural memories that different groups develop as ‘entangled’ (Randeria, 2009), i.e. they are both shared (e.g. about the same historical event) and divided (controversial or conflicting). In the analysis of processes of intercultural communication it would be too short-sighted to overlook, firstly, the historical dimension in relations between members of different cultures, and, secondly, to concentrate on the cultural memory of one group only, conceived as container (e.g. Rings, 2018 [2016]: 9), as every cultural memory is deeply formed by, or, as Moses and Rothberg put it, ‘shot through with’ entangled memories (2014: 29). To name just a few examples: the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 is remembered by the Israeli governmental narrative (Katriel, 2016; Moses & Rothberg, 2014) as the realization of a long-term utopian vision of the Holy Land (‘Eretz Israel’), with the tendency to erase and obliterate every hint of Palestinian culture and heritage. However, Palestinians tend to remember it as nakba – the catastrophe – and view it as an aggressive colonial act, i.e. the two groups ‘narrate their recent past in completely incommensurable terms’ (Katriel, 2016: 266). Critical voices go as far as to

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speak of ‘memoricide’ (Pappé, 2006) of the Palestinian version and stress that as long as there is no shared memory, exchange and acceptance of both versions of this event or process, there is no fructiferous basis for further cooperation between the two groups. Another example is the so-called discovery and conquest of America in the sixteenth century, which in the Spanish quincentenary in 1992 was commemorated by the Spanish government as a triumph of Spanish civilization, while it was highly questioned in South America, not only by indigenous and Afro-descendent communities but also by Criollo Spanish Americans who have described it as one of the worst cases of genocides in world history (Blanco Muñoz et al., 1992; Nogueira, 1990). As an important asset in the process of improving communication between members of different groups, the competing and sometimes absolutely opposite master narratives of transcultural memories have been addressed in different ways, for example by non-governmental organizations bringing together members of different cultures and their respective master narratives to do memory work (Davis, 2016; Katriel, 2016). Such activities aim to overcome binary approaches and improve empathy with and vision of the Other, deepen the awareness of the perspective of the Other and steer against static (pre-)conceptions (Davis, 2016; Jackson, Chapter 20 of this volume). Another way of exploring collective memories is by literature, which plays an important role in the formation of cultural memory related to specific group identities (Assmann, 2006; Erll, 2011: 144–71). Written texts, both fictional and non-fictional, and rituals, monuments and symbols become part of an (inter)cultural, diachronic and dynamic memory (dynamic because certain texts as well as public holidays that commemorate a specific historical event may be popular for a certain time and then fall into oblivion). A community can refer to it even when witnesses of the time, who formed the ‘communicative memory’ (transmitted over three generations), have died (Assmann, 2006: 23–28). In particular with literary work it is worth asking who had (and perhaps still has) the ‘ability to control the substance, circulation, and dominance of narratives that constitute memory’ and ‘to distort, suppress, and even eradicate competing counternarratives’ (Drzewiecka et al., 2016: 199), which means also exploring in how far that work presents competing (counter-)narratives to a hegemonic master narrative, e.g. on genocides, dictatorship crimes, migration politics and national identity. Whether more referential or more fictional, literature is an aesthetic world of its own, made up of words, with subjective voices and a narrative instance that frames the past and shapes the perception of world and the Other. Literature is characterized by fictionality, poeticity and

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non-pragmatization, i.e. it does not have a referential claim to tell the ‘truth’ about what really happened and is basically unlimited in its inventions and devices. Nevertheless, it stands in relation with and reflects on the surrounding ‘lifeworld’, its rules, norms and laws (on the role and specificity of literature, see Neumann & Nünning, 2011, and Neumann in Chapter 8 of this volume). By offering subjective views on the world and history to the reader through narrative instance and perspective, using focalization and narrative techniques such as polyphony in a Bakhtinian sense (Bakhtin, 2010), narrative fiction may present competing world views of characters that allow the breakage with monocultural views (Rings, 2018 [2016]: 8). By these means, literature takes a position concerning representation (see Neumann in this volume) and may question traditional models of thinking and perception and encourage readers to adopt openmindedness and form their own opinions. All this includes more factual texts, such as autobiographies, as well as hybrids that blur the lines between factuality and fictionality even further (e.g. autobiographical novels). Overall, literary works are extremely important as archives of intercultural memories, because individuals may be narrating their personal identity search in relation to different cultural group identities, which raises questions of belonging or non-belonging and mechanics of exclusion and inclusion, as well as the different values and beliefs conveyed in multi-ethnic societies. Consequently, literature can highlight, exaggerate, distort or re-narrate, and in so doing shed new light on issues relevant to intercultural memories, identities and relations. I will explore this further by drawing on intercultural memory and violence in Jewish literature. According to Frakes, Jewish literature can be defined as: (1) works written by Jews on Jewish themes in any language; (2) works of a literary character written by Jews in Hebrew or Yiddish or other recognized languages, whatever the theme; (3) literary works written by writers who were essentially Jewish writers, whatever the theme and whatever the language (2007: 84).

As Jewish literature is clearly a very wide area of study, this chapter focuses on Latin American Jewish literature for the following reasons: the history of Jewish communities in many different regions of the world has for a long time been characterized by alternating phases of (relative) tolerance and coexistence with other religious (and ruling) groups and relative or absolute non-tolerance and violence, including expulsion, i.e. forced migration, persecution and pogroms. Persecution culminated in the Shoah in the twentieth century, when the Nazis tried to systematically eliminate

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Jews in Europe in concentration and death camps, killing more than six million and causing the flight and migration of approximately half a million. The uncertainty as to whether Jews are able to stay in a certain place for a long time, leads to a position ‘per se’ between different languages and different belongings, and especially between a sense of belonging to the host community and loyalty to the diasporic community. However, since the foundation of Israel in 1948, and the introduction of the Law of Return (in 1950) to welcome all Jews across the world (Ran, 2009: 25), individual decisions to stay in other countries were at least theoretically free decisions.1 Jewish history in Latin America can be traced back to 1492 when – after the conquest of Granada – the so-called Catholic kings, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragón, expelled all non-Christian groups from the Iberian Peninsula unless they converted to the Christian faith. This led to a Sepharad (‘Spain’ in Hebrew) diaspora in the Mediterranean and to Crypto-Judaism in Portugal and Brazil (Cánovas, 2011: 23–25). More migrated to Latin America in the second half of the nineteenth century from quite heterogeneous communities, including Sephardic (Ladinospeaking) and Arab-speaking Jews, but also so-called Oriental Jews (from Syria) and Ashkenazi Jews. By the end of the nineteenth century, a considerable number of the latter started migrating from Eastern Europe amid an increasing number of pogroms on the one hand and Argentine immigration politics that were (relatively) propitious to white Europeans on the other hand (Cánovas, 2011: 26). Ashkenazi migration was supported by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), founded by German Jew Baron Maurice de Hirsch in 1891, who launched a settlement project in Argentina (as well as in Brazil and Canada). Between 1891 and 1896, about 20,000 migrants arrived in Argentina (Feierstein, 2006 [1993]), which was then discussed as the new Zion (Feierstein, 2010: 7). In the first half of the twentieth century, as a result of persecution by Tsarist Russia, violence of the Russian Revolution, breakdown of the Ottoman Empire (Cánovas, 2011: 26f.) and persecution by the Nazis, the Jewish population in Latin America grew further, but has remained a minority in each country.2 Questions of belonging and a home between assimilation and the preservation of own traditions continue. This and the search for the best possible reactions to anti-Semitic (and anti-Judaic) attitudes and

1

Of the 650,000 migrants to Israel up to 1953, only about 500 per year came from Argentina, 150 from Brazil, and 40 from Mexico (e.g. Della Pergola, 2011: 320).

2

Of half a million Jews who succeeded in escaping during the Nazi regime, only 92,351 migrated to Latin America (e.g. Cánovas, 2011: 28; Gleizer, 2011: 145). Since the twentieth century, Argentina has had the largest Jewish community in Latin America followed by Brazil and Mexico: 4.7% of the total population of Argentina, 0.5% (Brazil) and 0.4% (Mexico) (Della Pergola, 2011: 314–17).

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resentments have been the subject of much discussion by Jewish Latin American writers. In exemplary readings, this chapter focuses now on milestones in Jewish Latin American literature written not in Yiddish but in the official national language and thus directed at a wider public in the three main ‘host’ countries, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil: Gerchunoff’s Los gauchos judíos (2015 [2000]; originally 1910/1936, Argentina), Glantz’s Las genealogías (2006 [1981], Mexico) and Kucinski’s K. (2011, Brazil). These texts address Jewish integration in Latin American nations as well as the role of the Holocaust for survivors and their descendants and are, as such, part of the memory of Jewish minorities in twentieth-century Latin America. At the same time, they are deeply entangled with memories and narratives of majority populations and give voice and visibility to competing narratives on relevant topics in the interaction between Jewish and national cultures.

18.2

Jewish–Argentine Encounters and Integration in Gerchunoff’s The Jewish Gauchos

The Jewish Gauchos (Los gauchos judíos) by the Russian-born Argentinian Ashkenazi Jew Alberto Gerchunoff (1884–1950), published in 1910, is the first book in Spanish to explore the situation of Jewish people in modern Latin America. Gerchunoff, who came with his parents in 1889 to Moisés Ville, the first colony founded by Hirsch’s JCA in Argentina, wanted to improve the nationwide visibility of Ashkenazi Jews with exemplary stories that outline the difficulties of adaptation but also highlight the will to stay and be part of the nation. The twenty-four stories in this collection, told through a heterodiegetic narrative lens, describe in a fictional way (with clear autobiographical allusions) memories of encounters between Jews and gauchos on the pampas of Entre Ríos between 1890 and 1910. First published in instalments in 1908 in the biggest national newspaper, La Nación, for whom Gerchunoff worked as journalist, the stories when collected in The Jewish Gauchos were a great success upon publication in 1910, the year of the centennial of Argentina’s independence. A second edition was published in 1936, with two stories added (Aizenberg, 2015 [2000]: 9–11). The stories were published in Spanish and Yiddish at around the same time, the former aiming to introduce the wider Argentine public to Jewish life, rites and customs and the latter to be read by the local Jewish community. Thus one version was conceived for an external, non-Jewish reader, the other for an internal public of which Gerchunoff was a member (Feierstein, 2010: 12f.). By the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, thinly populated Argentina was experiencing a large inflow of

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immigrants,3 which caused some controversy and led to a situation whereby attitudes towards the newcomers were being discussed by politicians and the media, at a time when a sense of national identity was still being constructed (Aizenberg, 2015 [2000]: 20f.). In this context, the gaucho, previously a marginalized figure from the pampa, became a national symbol of identification through urban theatre (Huberman, 2011: 2). By 1910 the ‘gaucho’ was so popular that Gerchunoff tried to incorporate the Jewish minority into this national symbol of collective identity by showing that the gaucho and the Jewish foreigner were not ‘mutually exclusive constructs’ (Huberman, 2011: 2) but have the potential to fuse. He did this at a time when Jewish immigration was peaking (reaching 13,000 in 1906) and heterogeneity was increasingly perceived as a menace. Wider discussions were taking place focusing on how to obtain Argentine cultural homogeneity and questions were raised within the public arena about the Jewish will to assimilate (e.g. a survey on cultural orientation was carried out in Jewish schools in Entre Ríos in 1908, and in January 1910 Jewish schools in Buenos Aires were temporarily closed; Avni, Klich & Zadoff, 2007: 429f.). The cultural encounters that take place in Gerchunoff’s stories are by no means one-dimensional or euphemistic: some highlight cultural controversies and the experience of uncontrolled, affective violence (e.g. one Rabbi is murdered by a gaucho for no apparent reason, apart from having annoyed him – an allusion to Gerchunoff’s father who suffered the same fate; Gerchunoff, 2015 [2000], 82), while others show respect and mutual understanding. This culminates in ‘The Poet’, which proposes common ground for Jewish and Argentine gaucho identity to be found especially in their marginalized (even nomadic) position and their penchant to tell stories: Rabí Favel Duglach had the soul of a poet. Jewish and gaucho traditions had fused together in the spirit of this thin, pale Jew, who was as moved by the epic paeans to gaucho valour as he was by the biblical stories that he told his faithful audience. ‘I’m a Jewish gaucho’, Rabí Favel liked to explain. And he was. He glorified the nomadic gaucho in his direct, rough-hewn idiom (pp. 119f.; see also ‘The Visit’: 100f.).

Furthermore, The Jewish Gauchos stresses the Jewish characters’ positive attitude and gratitude towards Argentina: in the first edition (1910), the book is meticulously framed by an introductory paratext, a sort of epigraph, with a strong confession to Argentina as a land of freedom, which

3

The census of 1895 shows 6,085 Jews, of which 64% lived in Entre Ríos. In 1914, 2,358,000 of a total Argentine population of 7,885,000, i.e. 33%, were immigrants (Avni, Klich & Zadoff, 2007: 430).

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ends with the quotation of the first line of the national anthem. The last story ‘The Anthem’ narrates the first, clumsy attempts of the newly arrived settlers to participate in the commemoration of Argentine independence despite their reduced knowledge of language and the country’s history (Gerchunoff, 2015 [2000]: 39, 148). Overall, it does not present Argentina as another temporal place to stay suspended in eternal Jewish nomadic life, but rather as a ‘Promised Land’, i.e. the beginning of the end of diaspora (p. 148; see also Goldberg, 2011: 750). As such, it could be regarded as a counter-narrative to the mainstream opinions (or fears) of the day that Jewish people were not willing to adapt to life in Argentina. However, in the second edition of the book (1936), this uplifting end is replaced by the considerably more sceptical ‘The Silver Candelabra’, a tale about a Jewish immigrant whose home is burgled and whose precious titlegiving candelabra is stolen on the day of the Sabbath while saying his prayers. Noticing the thief, who does not belong to the Jewish community (‘a stranger’; Gerchunoff, 2015 [2000]: 161), the protagonist considers whether to interrupt his prayers and disobey the Sabbath ritual or obey it and let the candelabra be stolen (p. 162). Opting for the latter, he earns harsh criticism from his wife. This complex story deals with disrespect for the culturally and religiously different Other based on material reasons (Aizenberg, 2015 [2000]: 32; Feierstein, 2010: 17) and can be seen as a critical remark addressed to the hegemonic Christian society in Argentina: whereas the newly arrived migrants demonstrate their will to be part of the receiving community, e.g. in ‘The Anthem’, the latter does not seem to pay the same respect to the Other. The stories also reveal Jewish cultural memory of former belonging and its loss, i.e. Sepharad origins and the expulsion from Spain in 1492. They thus express entangled memories common to both groups, Argentine Criollos and Jews, evoking a history of migration from the Peninsula for the ancestors of the Criollos and themselves. This can be seen as another asset to underpin Jewish migrants’ ‘suitability’ to contribute to a new CriolloJewish community. Common belonging is highlighted by references to both Sepharad Jewish philosophers and Cervantes, one of the canonical Spanish Golden Age authors (e.g. in ‘The old Colonist’: 139f ),4 but also through language use, e.g. when Golden Age-era expressions are used through which the Jewish author presents himself as an expert in the majority language (Gerchunoff, 2015 [2000]: 96; see also Aizenberg, 2015 [2000]: 24–30; Feierstein, 2010: 14). Gerchunoff’s expertise in Golden Age Spanish literature is particularly highlighted in ‘Camacho’s Wedding Feast’ (2015 [2000]: 89–96), which 4

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) may have been a New Christian, i.e. a converted Jew (e.g. Fine, 2008), but given the lack of sources about his life, there is no conclusive evidence of this hypothesis.

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rewrites an episode narrated in the second part of Don Quixote. For readers familiar with the novel, the title clarifies the denouement from the very start: the groom will not marry the bride. However, Gerchunoff gives it a different touch. While in Cervantes, the difference between the disdained groom and the one who is ultimately chosen is a difference of class, in Gerchunoff’s version it is a social and ethnic difference, as the Jewish bride promised to the son of a rich Jewish compatriot runs off with an Argentine gaucho, thus alluding to the hybridization in the interaction of cultures. As Doris Sommer (1993) points out, encounters and conflicts between different groups (relating to ethnic, religious and political topics) are often represented metonymically in literature by emotional and affective relations between their members. In this respect, the ending (happy, tragic, closed, open) is of utmost importance because it gives different options for the future and hints for the next generation that will create a new society in which former differences will be overcome. At the end of Gerchunoff’s short story, the bride – the member of a minority – becomes part of the powerful majority, which could be seen as reaffirmation of the hegemonic society. Whereas Jewish communities feature in Argentine literature relatively early thanks to Gerchunoff, who tries to inscribe them as parts of an imagined national community still under construction in 1910 (Aizenberg, 2015 [2000]: 22), literary visibility of Jewish minorities in Brazil and Mexico started much later in the twentieth century and took different paths. This is due to the ‘suppression of linguistic and cultural otherness’ in Brazil (Foster, 2009: xiv), especially during the regime of Getúlio Vargas, and strong cultural nationalism in Mexico idealizing ‘mestizo’ identity particularly after the Mexican Revolution (Foster, 2009: xviii, n. 1). Only after 1968 – a year marked by protests against the authoritarian Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI), the Tlatelolco massacre and the beginning of Mexican civil society – did minority voices slowly gain ground in Mexico, and that includes Jewish minority voices.

18.3

Jewish Self and Cuban Other in Glantz’s The Family Tree

Margo Glantz’s autobiographical text The Family Tree (Las genealogías) is one of the first Mexican books in Spanish on Jewish identity and one of the most famous – honoured with many awards and now in its fourth edition. In it Glantz, an academic, essayist, critic and writer born in Mexico City in 1930, explores her own identity, formed by Jewish Ashkenazim and Mexican (Christian and indigenous) influences. The text is a collection of recorded interviews with her parents (Glantz, 2006 [1981]: 21), brought together in seventy-four untitled chapters and accompanied by roughly twenty family

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photos representing different generations. Glantz describes her family’s migration from Ukraine to Mexico in 1925 and the process of adapting to their new country (p. 81). This communicative memory presents often competing versions from father and mother, shared between the generations of her family, transcribed into text and inserted into cultural memory. Overall, it becomes clear from Glantz’s narrative that European Jewish immigrants were not as welcome and well treated as the Mexican state often declared, thus offering a counter-narrative to national and even Jewish Mexican memory.5 This becomes particularly evident in the impressive two-fold narration (by the autodiegetic narrator and the father himself ) of the anti-Semitic attack the father suffered at the beginning of 1939 (p. 112–15). A crucial point is the contingency and arbitrariness of global migration efforts to a certain destination (Dolle, 2012: 169f.) and their correlation with different concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’. In the Mexican post-Revolutionary discourse propagated by the PRI, which governed Mexico from the 1920s until 2000 and then again from 2012 to 2018, ‘national identity’ was constructed as ‘mestizo identity’ (Fuentes, 1997). In Glantz’s reflection on her origin and identity (with a sometimes enthusiastic self-positioning when referring to Mexico as the ‘Promised Land’; e.g. Dolle, 2004: 158), it becomes clear that Mexico was only the third option for her parents after the United States, which seemed inaccessible due to hostile immigration laws and heavy border controls, and Cuba, the first harbour they actually entered on the other side of the Atlantic. The father’s version is that he and his wife became frightened by the climate and the blackness of Cuba’s inhabitants: It was so hot . . . the night was so black, and the blacks were so black, with their shining eyes and their white teeth, so white that I got afraid. What a heat! Incredible! We decided to go to Mexico to see if the climate there was normal and because it was closer to the US (?). In Russia, the summer was hot and short, the winter white, long, as white as the teeth of the blacks (Glantz, 2006 [1981]: 80).6

The mother, however, stresses that they only followed the majority of other emigrants (p. 82), which leads to the coexistence of two competing 5

Cánovas points out that the reception of Republican refugees from Spain was less restricted than that of Jewish refugees (2011: 37). Gleizer highlights the dynamics in memory work stressing that despite the fact that Mexico was one of the most restrictive Latin American countries during the Nazi regime, it enjoyed the image of a country with open doors not only in national discourse but also in the Jewish community as a sort of retrospective wishful thinking (e.g. 2011: 145).

6

The original reads: ‘Hacía tanto calor . . ., la noche estaba tan negra, y los negros eran tan negros, con los ojos brillantes y los dientes blancos, tan blancos que me asusté. ¡Qué calor! ¡Una barbaridad! Decidimos irnos a México para ver si allí el clima era normal y también porque estaba más cerca de los Estados Unidos (?). En Rusia el verano era caliente y corto, el invierno blanco, largo, tan blanco como los dientes de los negros’. Translations from Glantz are my own. See also Dolle, 2004: 157; 2012: 169f.). The question mark in brackets is in the original text; the I-narrator appears to be questioning her parent’s argumentation that Mexico is closer to the United States than Cuba.

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versions regarding the family’s migration to Mexico, even if the I-narrator, the daughter, seems to follow the more poetic explanation of her father concluding: ‘That frightened Manicheism was the reason for my nationality’ (‘Ese maniqueísmo espantado fue la causa de mi nacionalidad’, p. 81; see also Dolle, 2004: 159). Overall, the father’s spontaneous, somewhat naïve and reductive description of black Cubans makes evident how decisive fear can be in the perception of the Other. The episode can be contrasted with the Otherization the father himself experienced in the anti-Semitic attack. Nevertheless, these binarisms are expressions of identity performance, staged throughout the text, as I have shown elsewhere (e.g. Dolle, 2012: 173–75). This becomes visible in the Inarrator’s conception of her own identity as performative, and it is highlighted by the photos that accompany the text. These photos, especially those of her parents dressed up for a carnival, bring into question any essentialist concept of identity and proposes a dynamical concept instead (Dolle, 2012: 170–2). From the father’s description of the Cubans, it also becomes clear that essentialist concepts of nation, national identity and nationalism are misleading because these concepts are always exposed to contingency and hazard. The black/white construct might be taken as a subversive allusion to the master narrative of the mestizo ideal propagated by the PRI, which is based on binary constructs. At the same time, the whole passage is so emotive, so rhetorically striking that it makes readers think about their own essentialist thinking and the need for open-mindedness.

18.4

From Holocaust to Mass Murder in Contemporary Brazil in Kucinski’s K.

One of the most important topics in Jewish literature after 1945 is the Holocaust, the central question being how to present and memorialize the traumatic experience of the Shoah. The annihilation of more than six million Jews by the Nazis has obtained the status of an absolute event that serves as an ultimate reference for every collective memory of sufferance and, as Moses and Rothberg (2014: 29) have pointed out, it is used as the analogue of various narratives of suffering (in Western literature). At the same time, these narratives are competing, sometimes even controversial counter-narratives. In Jewish Latin American literature, the memory of the Holocaust appears interwoven with traumatic experiences of violence and persecution during Latin American dictatorships leading to entangled memories. An especially intriguing case is the 2011 novel K. by the Brazilian Bernardo Kucinski. A descendant of Ashkenazi Jews who had migrated from Poland

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in 1935, Kucinski was born in São Paulo in 1937. He worked as a journalist and political scientist, and later became a political adviser to President Lula da Silva between 2002 and 2006. Contrary to the usually very limited readership of Jewish Brazilian literature, his novel received immediate nationwide attention and was awarded several prestigious prices (Figueiredo, 2016: 59). This success was probably in part due to the fact that Kucinski had publicly and directly addressed the lack of symbolic, political and juridical justice in the aftermath of crimes committed during the Brazilian dictatorship of 1964–85, a topic intensely discussed in the first decade of the twenty-first century.7 The novel pulls together a twentieth-century transatlantic history of violence against Jews and underlying processes of Otherization,8 which includes pogroms in Poland, the protagonist’s fight for Jewish rights and memories of the Holocaust, such as the bureaucratic treatment of corpses by the Nazis, as well as the impact of the Brazilian dictatorship, especially its practice of enforced disappearance, and the ongoing suppression of memory by democratic governments since the 1980s. K. is an autobiographical novel based on Bernardo Kucinski’s family history with focus on his father’s search for his sister Ana Rosa, who disappeared in 1974 and was most likely murdered by the regime (Figueiredo, 2016: 60). The title refers thus to the surname of its protagonist, but also to Kafka’s characters, who are confronted with the dehumanization of invisible bureaucratic powers. In particular, in his search for his daughter, the Jewish father in K. approaches in vain several religious and governmental institutions to help him reconstruct her leftist political life and final destiny. The novel highlights clashing, incommensurable narratives of the past and a very special (Brazilian) memoryscape. Through variable internal and external focalization the text presents not only the point of view of leftist victims and their parents but the mindsets of different groups deeply marked by Otherization and its fatal consequences. The perpetrators expose an interwoven net of suppression, fear, military obedience and ideologically hardened front lines. In this world, the political enemy is no longer seen as a human being or fellow citizen but as a

7

The first truth commission in Brazil was installed in 2011 and presented its final report in 2014, recommending a juridical processing that has still not taken place.

8

The analysis in this section is based on a paper I presented in 2014 in the presence of Kucinski himself (Dolle, 2014). Michel Laub’s novel Diary of the Fall (Diário da queda, 2013 [2011]) is a psychological journey into a crucial issue of Jewish identity: the meaning of Auschwitz for later generations as a form transgenerational trauma. A 40-year-old Brazilian of Ashkenazim descent reflects on the motives behind a violent impulsive act he had committed against a non-Jewish classmate at the age of 13, which, due to his consequent exclusion from his peer group, had negatively affected his life right up to the moment of narration. The autodiegetic narrator becomes aware of the fact that his behaviour and reactions are part of a transgenerational family trauma of suffering, annihilation, impotence and defence, i.e. the legacy of the Holocaust (see also Heineberg, 2016).

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(dehumanized) object without legal rights, an object (or ‘fresh meat’, e.g. Kucinski, 2011: 67) that has to be fought and annihilated on behalf of the doctrine of national security – a phenomenon typical of the authoritarian right-wing regimes in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina of the 1970s and 1980s. However, Otherization is also a feature of Jewish authorities: when the rabbis categorize the disappeared daughter as a communist and terrorist, rather than a missing Jew, they succumb to the hegemonic tale of governmental discourse. Furthermore, in their preference for binary thinking, the rabbis argue that there is no anti-Semitism and therefore no support for the father (pp. 79–84). By contrast, the father presents his daughter in a multifaceted way as a human being and exposes the attitude of the Jewish authorities as reflective of simplistic mindsets and a deliberate strategy of evading and remaining passive (Dolle, 2014; Figueiredo, 2016: 65f.). A direct link between Holocaust crimes and those committed under the authoritarian military regime in Brazil is established when the protagonist highlights the possibility of remembering a disappeared person in a burial ceremony for Holocaust victims (Kucinski, 2011: 81), which restores dignity to the victim of the dictatorship and provides closure to surviving relatives. However, the rabbis insist on the incomparability of the Holocaust, and, therefore, on the need to treat the disappeared differently: ‘The Holocaust is one and unique, the absolute evil. K. agreed with that but objected that for him the tragedy of his daughter was the continuation of the Holocaust’.9 Kucinski questions here – just like Laub and other younger Brazilian Jewish writers – the legacy of the Holocaust as untouchable, because this fixation on the past marginalizes other, more contemporary processes of hierarchization, exclusion and Otherization. At the same time, this is an attempt to help establish an identity that is not marked exclusively by the legacy of the Holocaust (see Waldman, 2004; for similar trends in Europe, Ibler, 2014), and Kucinski highlights that key features of a successful identity search in Jewish literature must include heterogeneous intersectional thinking and concepts of human dignity and respect for both enemies and victims.

18.5

Conclusion

Developing intercultural memory, understood as ‘entangled’ memories, means becoming aware of the different, sometimes ‘incommensurable’ or

9

‘O holocausto é um e único, o mal absoluto. Com isso K. concordou mas retrucou que para ele a tragédia da filha era continuação do holocausto’ (Kucinski, 2011: 81). Translations from Kucinski are my own.

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‘clashing narratives’ (Katriel, 2016: 266) of historical events relevant to the development of group identities. In this sense, Jewish Latin American literature in the twentieth century highlights different minority perspectives: Gerchunoff explores the potential for the integration of Ashkenazi Jews within an imagined Argentine community that deserves to be renegotiated. Glantz exposes the contingency of supposedly essentialist identities and subverts the dominant national discourse on the Mexican mestizo identity. Kucinski questions the master narrative of the reckless political enemy to be fought at all costs and examines the strategies of Otherization that took place during the Brazilian dictatorship. Ultimately these three texts, from different periods and national contexts, invite the reader to reflect upon the impact of master narratives that exclude the Other, be it a Jew or anybody else.

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19 Intercultural Communication in Social Work Practice Antonio López Peláez and Emilio José Gómez Ciriano

19.1

Introduction

In a globalized world being interculturally competent is key to facilitate day-to day interactions (Deardorff, 2009). It is also essential for enabling meaningful coexistence, which highlights the importance of cooperation and conflict resolution in societies that gradually but inexorably move from diversity to ‘superdiversity’ (Geldof, 2016: 15). One of the causes for enhanced diversity is the increase of migratory flows, but there is also a diversity linked to life processes (for example, ageing) which produces an inter- and intra-generational heterogeneity (Scharlach & Hoshino, 2012). Both processes complement one another as the transformation of care and professional profiles of caregivers in aged societies shows. Elderly persons cared for by foreign doctors, social workers or caregivers is just one example of this correlation. In such cases, training in intercultural competencies becomes a key element for understanding and communicating with each other, but also for developing personal and successful trajectories in an environment characterized by growing diversity (Manning, Baruth & Lee, 2017). Respect for diversity is an essential part of the identity of social work as a helping profession, as is recognized by bodies such as the International Federation of Social Workers and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IFSW & IASSW, 2014). As highlighted by the Global Agenda for social work and social development developed by the IFSW, IASSW and ICSW (International Council on Social Welfare), it is necessary to implement formative programmes for social workers in which competencies to intervene in complex situations demanding respect for diversity could be fully developed (Lombard, 2015; Nikku & Pulla, 2014). Development of intercultural competencies should thus be a key objective in social work

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studies (Di Rosa, 2017). Strengthening the intercultural sensitivity of social workers is a basic requirement for a successful professional practice (Álvarez Pérez, Fernández-Borrero & Vázquez-Aguado, 2014). Becoming culturally competent in social work practice is therefore a fundamental prerequisite for all wishing to successfully interact in society and this is the reason why so-called multicultural social work has been developed as a new specialization in social work (Sue, Rasheed & Rasheed, 2016). The presence of interculturalism in the field of social work encompasses both academia and professional social intervention. In both cases, it would be possible to distinguish between intercultural content and intercultural skills. The first relates predominantly to materials taught in subjects, explained to students in their placements but also present in reports and studies, while the latter relates to attitudes, behaviours, ways of expressing, listening, observing, waiting, thinking and intervening. Appropriate content and skills are ultimately essential in order to improve communication, facilitate group work and help manage conflicts. As the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission (DG EAC) states in the document Developing Future Skills in Higher Education although efforts have been pursued in academia to define learning outcomes focused on developing social and civic competencies (in which intercultural skills are included), these efforts have been less widespread than for employment-oriented skills. However, ‘there instinctively appears to be a strong overlap between the interpersonal, social and intercultural skills seen as important for active citizenship and the skills set needed for successful professional careers’ (European Commission, 2016: 1). In this chapter, we will analyse the characteristics and evolution of intercultural communication in social work, focusing on three aspects: the different theoretical frameworks that address intercultural communication, the presence of interculturalism in undergraduate and graduate studies in social work and, last but not least, a series of recommendations to social workers.

19.2

Theoretical Frameworks Addressing Social Work and Intercultural Communication: Thinking About Theory and Practice

Intercultural communication and intercultural competence are closely related dimensions that have been the subject of different definitions within a broad semantic field that includes similar terms, such as ‘intercultural communicative competence’ (Byram, 1997), global competencies, multicultural competencies, global communication, etc. From an

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overarching perspective, it may be noted that ‘what all of these terms have in common is that they all include an element of intercultural understanding. That is, in order to be successful, you need to have the ability to understand someone who is not like you’ (Visser, 2017: 33). In this chapter, we will draw on new notions of ‘intercultural competence’, which are discussed in greater detail by Bolten in Chapter 3 of this handbook, and which are key to understanding others, living together and developing common projects. In such a context, it is not enough to describe the characteristics of the other, or to theorize about differences. It is much more a matter of moving from thought to action and of building relationships, common processes in which we are able to interact, overcoming the misunderstandings derived from our socialization and our culture. From our perspective, a new syndrome is on the rise: ‘relational illiteracy’, defined as the absence of basic relational skills that allow adequate social interaction, positive integration with the environment, and help confront and solve problems and opportunities (López Peláez, 2015: 172). In a context defined by super-diversity and individualism, the behavioural patterns of previous generations run the risk of getting lost. In a different society, characterized by technological innovation and the growing diversity of the population, it is necessary to develop relational skills, and, among them, intercultural competence. Nevertheless, ‘throughout our professional experience in the field of social intervention, we have found an increasingly larger number of people lacking basic relational skills’ (López Peláez & Segado Sánchez-Cabezudo, 2013: 281). Developing intercultural competence involves thinking, behaving and communicating appropriately. This triad of thought, behaviour and communication forms the basis of intercultural competence in social work. Drawing on key research on intercultural communication in social work and support professions (Cournoyer, 2008), we propose to organize the most relevant debates around four main ideas: 1) Intercultural communication is based on the ability to move from an initial point, where we cannot visualize difference, to a point of arrival where we are able to go beyond our own way of thinking and recognize others as such, establishing processes of communication and interaction in which all subjects are visible and can relate to each other while pursuing common objectives. In this process, the capacity for attention plays a fundamental role, since our attention is socially constructed. In this context, the ability to interact is based on what we have learned to highlight, as opposed to what is hidden. However, it is not merely an individual process: ‘we actually notice and ignore things not only as individuals but also jointly, as parts of collectives. As exemplified by the way various problems are collectively ignored, it thus also helps reveal our collective blind spots’

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(Zerubavel, 2015: 10). This process, which is social in essence, implies that social workers must develop an alternative process, in which they learn to look and highlight what is hidden and in which the other is revealed through a discourse and actions that were previously invisible to us (according to our socially constructed way of knowing). As Cohen-Emerique puts it: The other, through its difference, plays the role of revealing what I am. This perspective goes against the usual approach: to explain one’s relationship and communication difficulties by the cultural difference of the other without taking into account that it is always relative to oneself (2015: 153).

2) We need to be intentional about developing learner’s intercultural competence. Such development can occur through ‘adequate preparation, substantive intercultural interactions, and relationship building’ (Deardorff, 2009: xiii), and there is already extensive empirical experience of the learning processes, skills, competencies and knowledge needed to develop intercultural communication. From a constructivist perspective, Bennett proposed the developmental model of intercultural sensitivity, a model that has led to numerous quantitative studies on this subject and that allows us to analyse the various phases of the process of developing intercultural sensitivity. Bennett differentiates six consecutive phases: denial, defence, minimization, acceptance, adaptation and integration. Throughout these six phases, the initial ethnocentric starting point is progressively abandoned while advancing towards a model of making difference visible or, in other words, towards an ethno-relativist model, which allows for a greater integration of all persons in a heterogeneous environment (e.g. Bennett, 2004; see also Bennett’s comments in Chapter 32 of this handbook). This model is particularly interesting for social work because it is dynamic. Through it, people with a certain level of intercultural sensitivity motivate themselves to be able to understand the differences between cultures and thus successfully resolve their interactions. Of particular interest to our field is also Chen and Starosta’s (2000) scale of intercultural sensitivity based on five factors: interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, interaction confidence, interaction enjoyment and interaction attentiveness. According to the authors, people with intercultural sensitivity are not only more empathetic and attentive, but also enjoy greater self-esteem, are more effective in intercultural relations and demonstrate a more positive attitude towards intercultural communication. 3) Given the highly heterogeneous nature of societies (linked to the origins of their members, their biographical context, labour and family diversity, etc.), intercultural competence is ‘a lifelong process’ (Deardorff,

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2009: xiii), which means that social work professionals have to engage in continuous training and capacity-building that has yet to be developed. In this aspect, the role of universities as privileged actors in continuous training is particularly important. It is no coincidence that the appropriateness of implementing intercultural academic training and of developing intervention programmes that promote a level of intercultural sensitivity aimed at the coexistence of cultures is highlighted to an ever greater extent (Bhawuk & Breslin, 1992; Vaccarino & Li, 2018). 4) Mediation is closely related to communicative practices and the recognition of the other. The art of mediating, of acting as agents who find themselves in the midst of other agents with their own identity, oriented towards achieving communication, agreement and a common project (even if it is a project based on the divergence of reasonably assumed trajectories, as happens in the case of the rupture of a couple), constitutes a hallmark of social work. Our discipline (and profession) is a profession of assistance, which focuses on research into social problems and the social intervention methods and techniques that empower individuals, groups and communities to meet the challenges of their life context. Mediation can be defined thus as the ability to modulate the interaction between individuals, groups and communities, both within them (within a group or community and with different individuals, groups and communities), with the aim of reaching agreements, establishing protocols for action, resolving conflicts and, specifically, empowering citizens to face the future with increased and improved skills in this field. Carlos Giménez, a professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid and one of the main experts in intercultural mediation defines it as: A modality of intervention by third parties in and on social situations of significant multiculturalism, oriented towards achieving the recognition of the other and the rapprochement of the parties, communication or mutual understanding, learning and development of coexistence, the regulation of conflicts and the institutional adaptation between ethnoculturally different social or institutional actors (Giménez, 1997: 154).

The formation of intercultural competencies is also key in the process of building new models of citizenship that should balance official acknowledgement of multicultural reality (as in the case of super-diverse societies) granted by legislation and implemented at policy level, with the promotion of interculturalism at the grassroots level (at the level of intervention in schools, markets, libraries, healthcare centres) (Gómez Ciriano, 2007: 197; Gómez Ciriano & Fuchs, 2005: 17). In this context it should be highlighted that from the outset, a particularly fruitful area for mediation has been the family environment, which has become more and more diverse in its multiple dimensions (Crippen & Brew, 2007). Nowadays it is not possible to conceive of a unique type of

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family, as families are more and more heterogeneous in terms of cultural, religious and geographical belongings, and this heterogeneity entails different cosmovisions and values related to aspects like the use of money and the conception of living spaces, or of family roles and responsibilities (Del Fresno, 2011). This complexity adds to the that derived from different family constructs: nuclear families (whether same-sex or heterosexual), single-parent families, childless families, stepfamilies, extended families, etc., which also means different relations between their members as well as the possibility of developing innovative ways of managing emergent realities, such as the effect on minors of serial monogamy (Hadfield, Ungar & Nixon, 2018) or more ‘classical realities’ such as: the consequences of parental ruptures on minors or families where children live with their parents till they are adults; mothers becoming mediators between adults in cases of conflict; the presence of unaccompanied minors and how they manage grief and separation from their relatives or family; the processes of family reunification; the discussions and debates related to parenthood and ways of being parent that entail ethical and juridical aspects (e.g. surrogate motherhood, foster care) which can affect family stability. All these elements reveal the importance of maintaining an intercultural perspective whilst working with families (López Peláez & Segado Sánchez-Cabezudo, 2013). As professionals, social workers aim to strengthen the skills of families to face and resolve their problems in a diverse and multicultural context (Boss, Bryant & Mancini, 2017). For example, in the case of family ruptures if they eventually occur, the social worker’s objective is to strengthen both members of the couple so that the separation is as harmless as possible, at the psychological as well as relational (especially in relation to children) and economic levels. As Haynes (1987) points out, the resources and skills of our discipline can be used to lessen pain and frustration, and to empower abilities that address the problem and manage conflict, both in the phase of marriage dissolution and for the new project that follows. However, the scope of the intervention with families through mediation does not extend merely to the relations between spouses: processes of minors at risk, foster care, adoption procedures and family reunification are situations that require in-depth knowledge of the reality in which the social worker intervenes, and that reality increasingly includes cultural dimensions. Intercultural mediation is consequently a complex and specialized task. The existence of professional profiles trained in mediation to develop appropriate interventions becomes a necessity rather than a mere option, while the response from the academic sphere becomes an urgent need that transcends ‘specialization’ in order to delve deeply into the training curricula of undergraduate studies, as will be elaborated in the following section.

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Social Work and Intercultural Communication: Perspectives on University Training

The incorporation of intercultural competencies in higher education is a strategic element which is manifest in numerous documents of the DG EAC. Specifically, the earlier mentioned report Developing Future Skills in Higher Education distinguishes a type of competencies called indistinctly ‘soft’, ‘generic’ or so-called twenty-first-century skills from traditional, ‘transferable skills’, and draws attention to how, initially, the development of competencies has focused almost exclusively on those that could be oriented towards the labour market (called thus transferable skills) whilst skills related to social and civic competencies were left aside. Amongst these ‘twenty-firstcentury skills’ are ‘social skills’: interpersonal communication, teamwork, conflict management and resolution, and intercultural understanding. These skills are important for ‘social and civic competence’ as well as, for a successful integration into the labour market (European Commission, 2016: 3). In the United States, the ETS (Educational Testing Service) report ‘Assessing intercultural competence in higher education: existing research and future directions’ supports these claims by stating that ‘increasing internationalization in higher education institutions alone demands that university students develop international competence in order to interact successfully with diverse peers and professors and maximize their collegiate experience’ (Griffith et al., 2016: 12). Also, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, in its value rubric of ‘intercultural knowledge and competence’ considers that ‘the call to integrate intercultural competence into the heart of education is an imperative born of seeing ourselves a part of a world community’ (VALUE Institute, 2019), and classifies intercultural competence as an essential result of higher education. If higher education institutions intend to retain their relevance, they must address the challenges of internationalization, so that their graduates are able to stand out in the global work environment. That includes the ‘development of intercultural competencies’ (Griffith et al., 2016: 12). In this sense, it is important to analyse to what extent intercultural communication and mediation are explicit within the content of degree courses in social work, which would provide ‘transferable’ competencies based on theoretical and practical knowledge; and the extent to which those other intercultural competencies summarized by the European Commission as ‘new’, ‘soft’ or ‘twenty-firstcentury’ competencies are actually embedded in all degree courses. It is noteworthy that since the very starting point of the Bologna Process, there has been an important effort in defining learning outcomes that include not only employment-oriented outcomes but skills such as intercultural communication, teamwork or problem-solving, which are more civic-oriented.

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The presence of explicit intercultural content in social work degrees remains however residual and is limited to the ‘corner of peculiarities and optional courses’ (Van Ewijk, 2010: 138) and for this reason, intercultural social work should claim its rightful position on the basis of an adequate assessment of the diversity of contemporary societies, the analysis of good practices in multicultural environments, and professional experience in the field of social interventions carried out by social workers. This is essential to make interculturalism more explicit and explainable and develop its content in degree courses. The process, however, does not end here, because better communication should also be pursued between those who carry out social intervention in the field (practitioners) and those who explore the conceptual base (scholars in intercultural communication and related fields), so that practitioners can enrich their experiences through the deepening of theoretical knowledge and in turn enrich and transform that theoretical knowledge from implicit to explicit. On the other side, social services should be prepared to develop much broader organizational cultures by involving workers from different backgrounds and promoting ways for their own workers to engage in international social work (Van Ewijk, 2010). In the case of Spain, the lack of intercultural content in social work studies is the rule rather than the exception. The white paper on the degree in social work produced by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA, 2004) does not even include the expression ‘intercultural mediation’ and references to interculturalism are scarce and generic. Even though it is stated that one of the areas of intervention of social workers is that of reception and integration services for immigrants and refugees, there is no reference to intercultural mediation within the new areas of intervention defined in the document. However, family and community mediation does appear therein. Not mentioning mediation amongst the skills and contents to be delivered in social work studies in Spain is, clearly, a problem that ought to be addressed since ‘the need to live together and relate to each other in cultural diversity settings must be accompanied by a training offer in skills aimed at future professionals (as well as current) service providers, in order to develop intercultural competence’ (Vázquez Aguado, Fernández Borrero & Álvarez Pérez, 2014: 308).

19.4

Social Work and Intercultural Communication: Good Practices in the Field

Intercultural communication becomes even more relevant when referring to international social work, an important area of professional specialization for social workers (Healy, 2008; Ronnau, 1994). In a supportive

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profession, such as social work, the training of current and future professionals in intercultural competencies is a priority and a pending challenge because it provides three major benefits: it improves the intercultural competence of users-citizens (Fong, 2009), it contributes to diluting present and future cognitive ethnocentrisms that may eventually turn into prejudices and stereotypes and, finally, it helps to prevent conflicts and racist attitudes and promote anti-racist practice in social work (Bhatti-Sinclair, 2011: 105). From this perspective, we present below some cases that we consider good practice in the Spanish context. We chose the Spanish case because of its peculiarity. No other country in Europe received from 2000 to 2010 such a big inflow of migrant people (Abel & Sander, 2014) and this reality had a direct effect on the social services system. In particular, social workers had to adapt their routines and update their competence to attend to these new neighbours (Fernández-Borrero, Vázquez-Aguado & Álvarez-Pérez, 2016), in a society that was becoming more and more complex.1 At the same time, a new framework of integration was developed that differed slightly from the traditional integration models of the time (French republican model, Dutch or British multicultural models, German ‘guest worker’ model) by making more allowances to migrants in the irregular situation. As a result, one of the most relevant responses provided to face the increasing diversity was the implementation and deployment of intercultural mediation resources at the very core of the social services systems. Mediation was provided primarily by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in form of welcoming and translation services and was then progressively extended throughout social services networks in the communities (regions) as their personnel became specialized in intercultural skills and knowledge (which included mediation and communication). Caritas Spain and the Federacion Andalucia Acoge produced the first materials on language and culture learning aimed at immigrants and issued the first periodicals focused on intercultural issues. For example, the magazine Entre culturas was published four times a year from 1994 to 2005 and included a special section on interculturalism which was avidly read by professionals and students. In the academic arena, Comillas Pontifical University and the Autonomous University of Madrid were the first universities (as early as 1994) to offer specialized courses aimed at professionals working with migrants. Many officers from the Spanish administration enrolled in postgraduate

1

When social services began to expand at the beginning of the 1980s, the migration rate was less than 0.5% of the population whilst in 2011 it reached 11.3%. In 2017, 9.82% of the population residing in Spain were foreigners (National Statistics Institute, 2018).

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studies at Comillas, while the main objective of the Autonomous University of Madrid was the creation of a group of specialists in intercultural mediation who could help meet migrants’ specific needs not only in the field of social services but also in education, health or community work. With a focus on asylum seekers and refugees, the Institute for Human Rights at the Carlos III University of Madrid, working in close cooperation with the aid agency the Spanish Commission for Refugees (known as CEAR), offered a specialized course with annually updated content in legal, administrative and translation issues. Later on, the Autonomous Community of Madrid (Madrid Region) would establish the first school of intercultural mediation. Lecturers at this school were academics as well as practitioners, all experts in intercultural mediation at different stages (schools, communities, health care, families, etc). After two years of training, participants (all of whom were required to hold a university degree) received a certificate accrediting their expertise in the field. In 2008 the school was renamed School of Professionals for Integration and Cooperation (known in Spanish by the acronym EPIC), backed by the King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. Participants could get up to sixty ECTS credits, which enabled them to enrol on a master’s degree and begin doctorate studies. From the predominantly practical point of view there are three other examples worth considering: 1) The municipal-level Social and Intercultural Mediation Service in Madrid (known in Spanish as SEMSI, Servicio de Mediación Social Intercultural):2 the SEMSI was created in 1997 as a result of an agreement between the school of intercultural mediation at the Autonomous University of Madrid and the local social services of the City Council. The intention was to implement a mediation service in the twenty-one districts of the capital with professionals who had been trained at the school for intercultural mediation so that all theoretical contents, all practical exercises on conflict resolution and negotiation abilities learned at SEMSI could be put in practice at the grassroots level. These professionals worked at the very core of social services centres in the districts of Madrid, providing support to other professionals, but they also intervened wherever and whenever their presence was required: in streets, parks, schools, markets. Their main task was to mediate in situations of cultural clash and for conflict prevention (Giménez, 2005). Mediators were as familiar to neighbours as the police officer, the librarian, the GP or the primary school teacher. Many mediators were

2

Although this service ended in 2008, it is still an example of how it is possible to address intercultural issues in a professional way and how this intervention was absolutely crucial in moments in which the risk of major cultural conflict was real (for example, after the 2004 Madrid bombings).

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invited to deliver speeches at schools, health centres, associations or companies. Their actions in the aftermath of the terrorist attack of 11 March 2004, which led to forty-nine casualties of foreign origin, earned them the gold medal of the Madrid City Council. However, in spite of having been a pioneering programme in Europe adopted by numerous institutions (in Spain many regions and municipalities developed similar programmes), and having received awards on several occasions, this agency was terminated in 2008 and was substituted by the service of mediators in parks and public spaces, with less budget and stability and a lower professional profile. 2) The Sant Pere de Ribes Mediation and Civic Coexistence Centre in Barcelona: another noteworthy example is the centre for mediation and civic coexistence in Sant Pere de Ribes, a province of Barcelona (Heikkila et al., 2011: 109). In addition to the local police, the centre is staffed by officials from the Citizen Service Office and the Department of Urban Planning and Social Services. This centre, which has been recognized as a good citizenship practice by the United Nations, develops a unique experience in conflict management that paves the way for negotiation in the event of conflicting interests between two or more parties. Key is the creation of a space for attention to the person that fosters the preservation of the dignity and prestige of those involved, who exercises control over the resolution of their dispute and allows for the intervention of a mediator if the parties so require. The link between academic social work and social intervention materializes in the training courses offered by the University of Barcelona via its master’s degree in conflict management, resolution and mediation. 3) Obra Social La Caixa and its priority in matters of poverty and social action: this organization is probably the main promoter of intercultural social projects in the country through its ‘interculturality and social action’ priority within the framework of its Poverty and Social Action project. It aims to fill the gap left by public administrations after the cutbacks produced in times of crisis, paradoxically going as far as to finance them (Gómez Ciriano, 2012: 140). Its support programme for intercultural mediation and communication includes four major projects. The first focuses on intercultural community mediation and aims to generate a model of social intervention that can be applied to different localities, promote intercultural citizen coexistence, and improve the living conditions of the entire population. It covers thirty-nine intervention localities in thirty-one municipalities, and more than half a million people have participated in it. The second is an intercultural competencies training course for healthcare professionals, which aims to provide them with sufficient knowledge to enable a level of cognitive competence in the different areas related to intercultural interaction. It is worth highlighting

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that the professional profiles which the course addresses do not include social workers in health centres, although they are a key target profile. The third is a programme that aims to support the network of social health mediators in the Catalan health system through continuous training via specific courses, having managed to carry out more than 90,000 mediations over a period of eight years. The fourth is a call for proposals for the financing of projects that promote intercultural citizen coexistence and social development, and that promote equal opportunities for all people, in order to facilitate a society of greater fairness and cohesion. The projects are to be developed in the framework of five main lines of action: • intercultural citizen coexistence, social participation and community strengthening; • mediation and management of cultural diversity; • success in school and family involvement in the educational process; • promotion of healthy habits and prevention of addictions; • prevention of different forms of violence. SEMSI, the Sant Pere de Ribes Mediation and Civic Coexistence Centre, and Obra Social La Caixa reflect the spectrum of social work interventions in Spain. They share a somewhat constructivist theoretical approach (linked to Bennett’s theories), and establish an intervention process that evolves from the invisibility of the other to the visibility and integration of the different through shared experiences and projects. Mediation as a strategy to confront conflicts is an integral part of these projects, which aim to react to the changes that immigration has brought in historical terms: Spain has become a host country for mass migration, when thirty years ago it was a country of emigrants. From the perspective of training social work students in intercultural competence, we have previously pointed out certain deficiencies in regulated programmes at universities, a challenge that must be overcome, for example by introducing practical training in the field in the fourth year of social work degrees. In the three case studies we have described, social workers face a superdiverse environment. When the students of social work degrees carry out their professional practices in these institutions, or in others, they have to incorporate intercultural competencies. A way forward to promote the incorporation of these competencies could be to establish within the practicum a specific section on intercultural competencies to shape the practical training of social work students. In this context, what social workers are already doing in their day-to-day professional activity could become a learning environment for students in practice, which enhances the acquisition of intercultural skills.

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Conclusions: Recommendations for Social Workers

In societies in which super-diversity is an emerging reality, intercultural communication is not an option but a necessity, and that is of particular importance for social work practice. However, the acquisition of habits, competencies and knowledge that enable intercultural communication should not be taken for granted. Instead, it is key to develop appropriate education and training as well as the political will to facilitate social work across cultural boundaries. In this chapter we have introduced our working definition of intercultural competence, we have reflected on the obstacles to achieving that competence and we have discussed the possibilities that exist at both the academic and practitioner level. Considering the new challenges associated with superdiversity and the gaps in intercultural education within social work studies outlined above, we would like to propose three recommendations to enhance intercultural skills and communicative practices in the profession: 1) In care professions, it would be desirable to raise awareness of the importance of multiculturalism and the necessary training in cultural sensitivity to improve interventions. For this purpose, it is essential to develop culturally sensitive programmes in academia and social intervention that must include the identification of possible prejudices, stereotypes and generalizations, as well as conflict management. This requires the sustained commitment of political, academic and professional will. 2) In university training, it would be desirable to follow the European Commission’s directives relating to skills development in higher education, in which the training of ‘new’ competencies plays a major role (European Commission, 2016) so that the marginalized role of intercultural content can be successively overcome (Van Ewijk, 2010) in a European space that is increasingly super-diverse (Geldof, 2016). In this framework, it is necessary to readjust and transform the curricula so that these contents and competencies are given the prevalence they deserve. 3) With regard to lifelong learning and continuous formation it would be important to consider that super-diversity is the future of our societies. In a context shaped by the coexistence of multiple ethnicities, aged communities, technological change and different identitarian belongings, the adaptation of universities, social services and NGOs to this emerging reality is imperative for the development of new competencies in social work.

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20 Intercultural Education in Study Abroad Contexts Jane Jackson

20.1

Introduction

It is not unusual for higher education administrators to assume that students who participate in a study abroad programme will become more interculturally competent, global-minded, and proficient in a second language (L2). Students themselves may expect to diversify their social network and become fluent speakers of their L2 if that language is widely spoken in the host country. Despite the expectations of immersion and personal transformation, study abroad researchers have found that a myriad of internal elements (e.g. agency, motivation, intercultural attitudes) and external factors (e.g. host receptivity, access to local communities of practice) can bring about divergent learning curves (Jackson, 2012; 2018a; Kinginger, 2009; 2013; Paige & Vande Berg, 2012). Without some form of pedagogical intervention, study abroad students may neither experience gains in language proficiency and intercultural competence nor become more global-minded (Jackson & Oguro, 2018; Paige & Vande Berg, 2012). Consequently, many study abroad scholars now recommend research-driven, theory-based intercultural interventions in study abroad programmes at all stages: pre-sojourn, sojourn, and re-entry (Jackson, 2018a; Jackson & Oguro, 2018; Vande Berg, Paige & Lou, 2012). This chapter begins by reviewing evolving conceptions of culture and interculturality, and their impact on intercultural education. Developments in intercultural communication theories and research are also bringing about changes in the ways in which intercultural educators intervene in study abroad programmes. As the measurement of student learning is often a central feature in intercultural interventions, contemporary intercultural assessment tools and methods are discussed in this chapter. Examples of

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intercultural mediation at various phases of the study abroad cycle are presented and the chapter concludes with suggestions for further advances.

20.2

Shifting Conceptions of Culture and Interculturality

Conceptions of culture and interculturality have evolved over time. In the early period of intercultural training, instructors employed definitions of culture that drew attention to various dimensions (e.g. norms, values, world views) that influenced people’s actions (e.g. patterns of behaviour in cultural groups) (Komisarof & Zhu, 2016). While there is still not a common understanding of culture (Deardorff, 2009; Spencer-Oatey, 2012), intercultural educators are increasingly eschewing static, unitary notions and embracing critical perspectives that recognize the dynamic, sometimes contradictory, facets of this complex construct (e.g. Dasli & Díaz, 2017; Dervin, 2016; Dervin & Gross, 2016; Piller, 2017). Today, there is more recognition of the need to explicitly define what is meant by culture and intercultural competence before designing and implementing an intercultural education programme. Drawing on the findings of research that has scrutinized the developmental nature of intercultural learning, more attention is being paid to the affective (e.g. emotional), behavioural (e.g. verbal), and cognitive (e.g. critical thinking) dimensions (Dervin, 2016; Jackson, 2015; 2017a; Marginson & Sawir, 2011). This has resulted in a shift away from the transmission of cultural knowledge to a more holistic, learner-centred pedagogy that places an emphasis on critical reflection and meaningful intercultural engagement (Dervin, 2016; Jackson & Oguro, 2018). Contemporary critical intercultural researchers are raising awareness of the mindset, strategies, and communication skills that can enhance intercultural relationships, in addition to external elements (e.g. host receptivity, power imbalances) that can hamper or enhance intercultural interactions (e.g. Dervin & Layne, 2013; Jackson, 2018a). Through theorydriven interventions, critical intercultural educators aim to help students enhance their ability to critically reflect on their intercultural experience and set goals for the enhancement of future intercultural encounters (Dasli & Díaz, 2017; Dervin, 2017; Liddicoat, 2017).

20.3

Assessment and Evaluation in Study Abroad Contexts

Assessment is another important element in intercultural interventions in study abroad contexts (Deardorff, 2015; Jackson, 2018a; Saunders, Hogan &

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Olson, 2015). In addition to providing useful information about the intercultural awareness and sensitivity of student sojourners, assessment can offer direction for pedagogical interventions by measuring the effectiveness of intercultural material and activities (Salisbury, 2015; Savicki & Brewer, 2015a). Assessment should play a role in needs analysis, the setting of learning goals, the shaping of the syllabus, materials development, the selection or design of learning activities, instructional and assessment strategies, and curriculum revision (Savicki & Brewer, 2015b). Contemporary study abroad educators are able to draw on a range of intercultural competence assessment tools, depending on their context and needs (e.g. the ‘Global Mindedness Scale’, the ‘Intercultural Development Inventory’, the ‘Intercultural Sensitivity Scale’, to name a few) (see Fantini, 2009; 2012 for a review of tools). Today, there is more recognition of the importance of understanding the conception of culture and intercultural competence that underpin these instruments to determine if they fit with the philosophy underpinning the intervention. There is also more awareness of the need for professionals to validate instruments (e.g. measure content and construct validity and reliability) (Deardorff, 2015; Salisbury, 2015; Savicki & Brewer, 2015a). As the number and variety of instruments has mushroomed (e.g. psychometric tests, questionnaires, protocols), there is growing recognition of the need to clearly define learning aims before implementing a pedagogical intervention and assessment scheme (Deardorff, 2015; Jackson, 2018a). Further, more intercultural educators now understand the importance of employing a variety of means and materials (e.g. the analysis of intercultural reflections journals, portfolio assessment) to document and measure the intercultural learning of student sojourners throughout the study abroad cycle rather than rely on a single measure or only collect pre- and post-intervention data (Deardorff, 2015; Saunders et al., 2015). While quantitative measures are still sought after in many institutions of higher education, qualitative and mixed-method data are becoming more valued as administrators and study abroad educators better comprehend how data of this nature can offer valuable insight into learning processes and guide programme revisions (Bleistein & Wong, 2015; Jackson, 2018a).

20.4

Intercultural Interventions throughout the Study Abroad Cycle

As more institutions of higher education appreciate the benefits of intercultural interventions in study abroad, we are witnessing growth in the diversity of schemes that seek to deepen the intercultural learning and engagement of student sojourners (Jackson & Oguro, 2018; Lou, Vande Berg

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& Paige, 2012). While some are limited to pre-sojourn preparation, others are implemented while the students are abroad. A smaller number strive to extend the intercultural learning of study abroad returnees. In some contexts, there are comprehensive intercultural education programmes that cover all stages of the study abroad cycle. Advances in theory-building, research, pedagogy, assessment, and communications technology are facilitating the offering of innovative intercultural interventions in study abroad contexts in many parts of the world.

20.4.1 Pre-sojourn Preparation Much has been written about the challenges border-crossers may encounter in an unfamiliar environment, and the strategies that can help them to manage adjustment woes (e.g. Furnham, 2015; Kim, 2012). Drawing on this material, intercultural educators are designing a variety of pre-sojourn interventions (e.g. Bennett, 2009; Hepple, 2018; Vande Berg et al., 2012). Before reviewing some of the many options, it must be acknowledged that most institutions of higher education are still sending students abroad with little or no preparation despite the mounting evidence that points to the need for intercultural interventions. Pre-sojourn interventions (e.g. workshops, intercultural communication courses) are being designed to underscore the benefits of setting realistic sojourn goals, discuss possible adjustment issues, and review language and culture learning strategies that could be used to maximize stays abroad (Bathurst & La Brack, 2012). A carefully sequenced, intercultural intervention during the pre-sojourn phase can provide students with a frame of reference to help them process their intercultural experience and more quickly feel at ease in the new environment. Pertinent characteristics of the study abroad programme (e.g. sojourn aims, duration, housing, language component) should be factored into the process of designing a pre-sojourn intervention. Detailed profiles of the participants, including an assessment of their degree of intercultural competence, can help to shape the intervention plan (Almarza, Martinez & Llavador, 2015; Harsch & Poehner, 2016). A grasp of the participants’ language and intercultural attitudes, motivation, readiness for intercultural learning, and sojourn aims can guide the design of the syllabus and help to determine the selection and sequencing of materials and activities (Jackson, 2018b; Paige, 2013; 2015b). Following the principles of experiential learning and notions of learner-centred teaching, seasoned intercultural educators build on the participants’ (inter)cultural knowledge and previous international experience (Jackson, 2018a; 2018b; Jackson & Oguro, 2018; Passarelli & Kolb, 2012). This phase should help students hone a reflective, critical mindset to facilitate the processing of intercultural

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experience in a metacognitive way (by ‘thinking about thinking’) (Penman & Ratz, 2015). Experienced intercultural educators also note that it is important to consider expected learning outcomes when designing and selecting modes of assessment for intercultural interventions, If the pre-sojourn orientation is for a group of students who will study in the same host country, intercultural educators may encourage the participants to gather culture-specific information (e.g. sociopragmatic norms of politeness, local vocabulary). Students may be prompted to acquire some understanding of the geography, history and religion(s) of the host country, as well as the linguistic and sociopolitical context. Critical theorists point out the need for facilitators to raise awareness of diversity within cultures and draw attention to the potentially harmful effects of Otherization and essentialism (Dervin, 2012; Holliday, 2011; 2012; Jackson, 2018a; Sorrells, 2015). Prior to a sojourn, intercultural educators may raise students’ awareness of the subtle ways in which their primary socialization may have influenced their language and intercultural attitudes, behaviour, values and identities. This reflective process can bring to light negative emotions and stereotypes that merit attention. With heightened self-awareness, participants will be in a better position to consider how their own attitudes, preconceptions and behaviours (e.g. communication styles) may impact how intercultural encounters unfold. Many seasoned intercultural educators recommend that the pre-sojourn phase familiarize students with language and culture learning strategies that could help them manage intercultural transitions more effectively. With this in mind, a number of innovative techniques and resources have been developed for study abroad students (e.g. Bennett, 2015; Deardorff & Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017; Jackson & Oguro, 2018). Experiential learning activities, such as ethnographic interviews with international students on their home campus, are encouraging students to gain intercultural experience and reflect on the challenges of intercultural adjustment before they travel abroad (Bosley, 2018; Jackson, 2016; Passarelli & Kolb, 2012). In some pre-sojourn interventions, students are prompted to discuss and analyse sojourner accounts (e.g. blog posts, diary entries, interview excerpts), critical incidents (e.g. brief scenarios that illustrate intercultural miscommunication) or cases (e.g. problem-based narratives that illustrate intercultural situations) that are situated in study abroad contexts. Intercultural educators who facilitate these activities maintain that they can reduce anxiety, foster a positive mindset and enhance the willingness of the students to communicate with individuals who have a different linguistic and cultural background. Intercultural educators also recognize that study abroad returnees can be a valuable resource in the pre-sojourn phase, especially if these individuals

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have enhanced their intercultural competence and taken an active role in the host environment. With enthusiasm and a positive mindset, the returnees can encourage the students who are about to embark on their own study abroad adventure. Drawing on their international experience, the returnees could review some of the strategies that they found helpful to cope with acculturative stress and develop meaningful intercultural relationships (e.g. participation in orientations and social activities organized by their hosts). The returnees could encourage the setting of realistic goals and inspire newcomers to diversify their social networks to make the most of their stay in the host environment.

20.4.2 The Sojourn While in the host country, study abroad students receive varying degrees of support, depending on the nature, length and format of their programme, as well as available funding and staff expertise. In most study abroad programmes there are no intercultural interventions and students are expected to adjust and become immersed in their new surroundings. As administrators and educators in institutions of higher education become more aware of the research that points to the benefits of intercultural interventions, this is changing. We are seeing more growth in the number and diversity of pedagogical interventions that are designed to enhance intercultural learning and engagement. Intercultural education is now being incorporated into the curriculum of some faculty-led study abroad programmes. Instructors from both home and host institutions may work together to promote intercultural learning in the host country. Compulsory or optional intercultural education courses or workshops may be offered to newcomers, which may include contact with local students. Students who are taking part in an international exchange programme may sign up for intercultural communication courses in the host institution or, when available, join an online intercultural transitions course hosted by their home institution (e.g. Jackson, 2017a; 2017b; 2018b). They may also be able to meet with counsellors who offer support for international students (Arthur, 2004). Many host institutions now offer orientations, intercultural social activities, and/or ‘buddy’ programmes that link international students with local students/ partners to help ease the adjustment of newcomers. Some host environments may offer little or no support to newcomers or the new arrivals themselves may chose not to take part in any of the events organized by their hosts. Contemporary intercultural educators who work with study abroad students while they are in the host country are devising a range of tasks to promote critical reflection, dialogue and self-analysis (e.g. the writing of a

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diary, journal, wiki log, or blog) (Jackson & Oguro, 2018; Passarelli & Kolb, 2012). The act of reflecting on and writing about one’s international experiences can provide an emotional release (Ochs & Capps, 2001) and intercultural educators who work with student sojourners contend that it can help newcomers cope with the ups and downs that are a natural part of the adjustment process (Brewer & Moore, 2015; Savicki, 2015). When students think and write about their intercultural experiences, they can become more sensitive to their intercultural attitudes and positioning in the new environment. With the guidance of a skilled intercultural educator, they can become more aware of their reactions to cultural difference and the ways in which they approach and interact with individuals who have a different linguistic and cultural background. This reflective process can help them to learn from disappointing intercultural interactions as well as ones they consider having been more successful. As they ‘unpack’ their real-world experience through writing and discussion they can enhance their metacognitive awareness and assume more responsibility for their own intercultural actions. To deepen language and (inter)cultural awareness, during the sojourn intercultural educators may encourage students to keep and periodically review blogs, diaries, e-journals or visual accounts of their international learning (e.g. audio or video recordings, hypermedia weblogs). This process can lead to new insights (e.g. awareness of a negative attitude, the benefits of an open mindset) and raise awareness of potential growth in intercultural competence. As the students deepen their intercultural knowledge and experience, they may be prompted to reconsider what led to intercultural conflict situations (e.g. using a direct style of communication in a context where indirectness is the norm) and other not-so-successful intercultural interactions. Accordingly, a growing number of interculturalists (e.g. Dasli & Díaz, 2017; Dervin, 2017; Jackson & Oguro, 2018) recommend that critical reflection be an integral dimension in intercultural education. While students are in the host environment, study abroad facilitators or mentors can encourage students to critically reflect on their past, current and future intercultural interactions, and consider the role that their own attitudes and actions may play. In regular debriefing sessions, intercultural educators in the host environment may host discussions that deal with issues that the students raise (e.g. positioning, unfamiliar ‘cultures of learning’ or other ways of being, discriminatory practices). As the topics may be sensitive, facilitators must create a safe, respectful environment. Research suggests that sojourners can benefit from sharing sessions if the intercultural educator is empathetic, practises active listening and encourages the open expression of ideas and experiences. In these sessions, students may be encouraged to revisit their pre-sojourn goals and consider what they can realistically accomplish in the rest of their stay.

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If students in faculty-led programmes have received sufficient presojourn preparation, they may carry out small-scale ethnographic projects in the host environment. Through sustained contact in a cultural setting, they can gain exposure to different world views and authentic communication styles and speech genres (Jackson, 2018a). They may investigate cultural practices in the host environment that have attracted their attention. As they conduct their research, they can learn to systematically observe, listen, interpret, and analyse the behaviour and discourse of their ‘informants’. Ethnographic projects can provide students with a purpose for intercultural interactions and inspire more in-depth and meaningful dialogue (Jackson, 2006; 2017a). Advocates of this approach maintain that projects of this nature have the potential to deepen students’ awareness of social and cultural elements in the host environment, while enhancing their intercultural competence. In addition to ethnography, intercultural educators have devised other modes of experiential learning (e.g. weekly tasks that require intercultural interactions, informal interviews with hosts) to encourage students to become more engaged in the host environment (Jackson & Oguro, 2018; Passarelli & Kolb, 2012). Many study abroad researchers have discovered that without these interventions, one cannot assume that language and intercultural learning will occur. Without adequate support and encouragement, student sojourners may not take advantage of affordances in the host community and may end up spending nearly all of their free time with co-nationals, contrary to their pre-sojourn aspirations. Many intercultural educators also suggest that study abroad students should spend some time preparing for their return to their home country (Kartoshkina, 2015; La Brack, 2015). Learner-centred debriefing sessions (face-to-face or online) may motivate them to revisit their pre-sojourn goals and take stock of their (inter)cultural development and personal growth. The participants may also be encouraged to process their emotions about leaving and to consider appropriate ways to say good-bye to their hosts. Students may be encouraged to think about how they might sustain their intercultural ties and extend their intercultural learning once they are back home.

20.4.3 Re-entry Within the context of study abroad, most intercultural interventions take place in the pre-sojourn and sojourn phases; however, research on the postsojourn phase has found that returnees may experience re-entry woes as they readjust to their life in their home country (e.g. identity misalignments, reverse culture shock) (Bathurst & La Brack, 2012; La Brack, 2015; Szkudlarek, 2010). There is now more understanding of the potential

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benefits of re-entry schemes (e.g. intercultural transition courses, re-entry workshops, study abroad alumni conferences) to deepen and extend the intercultural learning of study abroad returnees (Jackson, 2015; 2017a; Jackson & Oguro, 2018). Even if the study abroad period has lasted only a few weeks or months, returnees may experience some readjustment issues, especially if they have developed a broader world view, diversified their social network, and become more invested in mastering their L2 (Furnham, 2015; Jackson, 2015; Savicki, 2015). Much to their surprise, some students may find that their re-entry is more turbulent than their adjustment to the host environment; they may find themselves ill-prepared to deal with the identity confusion and malaise that can arise once they are back on home soil. A skilful intercultural educator could help them to make sense of their emotions and experiences. With more awareness of the need for re-entry interventions, intercultural educators are developing innovative programmes that provide an opportunity for returnees to share their experiences and critically reflect on their international learning and re-entry. Facilitators may raise awareness of identityrelated issues and design activities (e.g. reflective writing tasks, small group discussions) that encourage returnees to reflect on ways to apply their intercultural communication skills in their current life and future career. The returnees may also be encouraged to take more advantage of opportunities in their home environment to engage in intercultural interactions, nurture their ‘global self’ and diversify their social network. Again, at this stage, the lifelong nature of intercultural competence development can be re-emphasized.

20.4.4 Online Intercultural Interventions Developments in information and communications technology (e.g. the Internet, social media, Skype, WeChat), have expanded possibilities for pedagogical interventions at all stages of the study abroad cycle (Coleman & Chafer, 2010; Donatelli, 2010; Jackson & Oguro, 2018). For example, intercultural educators are now offering blended courses (e.g. hosting online forums as well as face-to-face intercultural communication classes for students who will study abroad) or designing fully online intercultural interventions for student sojourners (e.g. Jackson, 2018b). Some interventions target a small number of students in a single course or programme, while others are designed with a mass audience in mind (e.g. a MOOC, or Massive Open Online Course, intercultural communication course for study abroad students in many institutions or regions). Intercultural transitions courses typically make use of e-learning platforms (e.g. Blackboard, Moodle), although some educators or research teams have opted to develop dedicated websites to support the intercultural learning of study abroad students (e.g. Rhodes, 2011).

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20.4.5

Comprehensive Interventions that Target all Phases of the Study Abroad Cycle In addition to the websites mentioned above, a number of schemes encompass all phases of the study abroad cycle from pre-sojourn to re-entry. In the United States, for example, the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota created the Maximizing Study Abroad guidebooks for students, language instructors and programme professionals to promote the effective use of language and culture learning strategies in study abroad contexts (see http://carla.umn.edu/maxsa).

20.5

Conclusion and Future Directions

Within the context of study abroad, this chapter has reviewed some of the exciting developments that have taken place in intercultural pedagogy in the past few decades, but there is still much more work to be done to optimize the potential of sojourn learning. While well-meaning, some study abroad programmes still unintentionally promote Otherization and essentialism. Instead of propelling students to a higher level of intercultural sensitivity, they focus so much on culture difference that pre-existing stereotypes and an ethnocentric mindset are reinforced. Accordingly, contemporary critical interculturalists increasingly recommend that pedagogical interventions transcend traditional conceptions of culture that are bounded by the nation state (Holliday, 2011; 2018) and instead raise awareness of the complexity and diversity within cultures and the cultivation of multiple identities (e.g. Dervin, 2016; Komisarof & Zhu, 2016; Jackson & Oguro, 2018). Following some of the pedagogical approaches that were reviewed in this chapter, intercultural educators can encourage students to push past ‘them versus us’ discourse and acquire a more critical awareness of themselves and their positioning in the world. For this to happen, it is important for educators to have a solid understanding of interculturality and advances in research-based, theorydriven pedagogy. To achieve the intercultural aims of internationalization much remains to be done to further the intercultural development of study abroad students. The promotion of intercultural awareness, empathy and globalmindedness are challenging goals but essential to make the most of international educational experience and ready students for the interconnected world in which we live. Finally, just as systematic research should inform practice, it is also important for systematic reviews of pedagogical interventions to be carried out and shared publicly to provide direction for the enhancement of intercultural teaching and learning in study abroad contexts.

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21 Intercultural Communication in the Courtroom The Doctrine of Public Policy Bertil Cottier 21.1

Introduction

At first glance, this contribution may seem odd in a book dedicated to issues of intercultural communication. Indeed, the doctrine of ordre public (in English-speaking countries also referred to as ‘reservation of public policy’) is an intrinsically legal notion that might repel an audience of social scientists. Moreover, this doctrine pertains to one of the most intricate and technical branches of law: private international law (PIL). Hence, a couple of preliminary clarifications are indispensable. The main goal of PIL is to determine which national law is applicable to a dispute which, due to its cross-border character, involves a plurality of legal jurisdictions, as for example the divorce in France of two spouses (one of them being German and the other Mexican) who got married in Amsterdam, are legally domiciled in Egypt, but spend their summer holidays on the Côte d’Azur. As several legal systems cannot govern the same dispute without creating uncertainty and inconsistency, rules have been established with the aim of ascertaining which legal system will prevail. Turning to our example, specific PIL provisions govern the law applicable to divorce and will determine whether the couple’s matrimonial union will be dissolved according to French, German, Mexican, Egyptian or Dutch law. PIL rules (or conflict of laws rules, as they are often called) are sometimes to be found in international treaties (like the Convention of 24 October 1956 on the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations towards Children or the Convention of 14 March 1978 on the Law Applicable to Matrimonial Property Regimes), more frequently in specific national statutes (like the Belgian Private International Law Code of 2004 or the Japanese Private International Law Act of 2006); in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions, however, most PIL rules are of a jurisprudential nature, having been created by courts

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when they resolve concrete cases (Morris, McClean & Ruiz Abou-Nigm, 2016: 71ff ). Conflict of laws rules are deemed neutral in the sense that they do not select applicable laws on the basis of any kind of assessment of their merits (Gaudemet-Tallon, 2005: 183). Their substance as well as their cultural, economic, religious or political contexts are totally irrelevant (Carballo Piñeiro & Kramer, 2014: 111; Schwander, 2000: 675). In other words, what matters is not to give precedence to the best law – the more so since all laws are assumed equivalent (Lequette, 2017: 368) – but to the law to which the dispute has the most significant relationship. Thus, the modus operandi of conflict of laws rules is merely mechanical as they consider objective (predominantly geographical) connecting factors, such as the country of habitual residence of the parties, or the nationality of the victim, or the place where the damage occurred. The consequence of this content-blind method of determining the applicable law is that the judge will sometimes be confronted with foreign norms, the substance of which is in striking contrast to the domestic norm she or he is familiar with. In our example, article 309 of the French Civil Code, which determines the law applicable to divorce, will command the French judge to divorce the spouses according to Egyptian law (and not French law) since they are domiciled in Egypt and since neither of them holds French citizenship. Needless to say, the Egyptian divorce regime, which is based on Islamic law, is at profound variance with the French one; in particular, the former allows for the unilateral repudiation of the wife (talaq), which the latter strictly prohibits in the name of gender equality. That a French judge has to bow for divorce by repudiation might shock in a country which gave birth to human rights more than two centuries ago. It is here that the doctrine of ordre public comes in. Functioning as a ‘safety valve’ (Xiao & Huo, 2005: 653), this doctrine impedes the unacceptable result of the valueneutral conflict of laws rule; hence, the debatable foreign norm will be disregarded (and in our case, the French divorce legal regime will substitute the Egyptian one). The present chapter does not aspire to analyse from a dogmatic point of view the doctrine of ordre public – a significant body of literature in that respect already exists. At the risk of oversimplification, its goal is simply to draw the attention of readers, who may not be familiar with legal proceedings, to an institution that aims to stop the ‘import’ of foreign customs and traditions incompatible with fundamental domestic values. Since the doctrine of ordre public marks a red line for tolerance for cross-culturalism, a deeper knowledge of its scope, impact and evolution is key for intercultural competences. The more so as international social or personal relations intensify (e.g. intercultural marriages, free movement of workers, immigration, family reunification), and, consequently, judges are increasingly

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confronted with strange and/or controversial foreign legal institutions like Iranian temporary marriage (siggeh1), American punitive damages2 or the Israeli divorce-by-husband’s-permission (get3).

21.2

A Powerful but Cautiously Used Tool

The wide scope of the reservation of ordre public should be underlined straightaway. A judge may invoke this reservation not only to refuse to apply unacceptable foreign rules but also to refuse to recognize a status which, though having been rightfully acquired abroad, is incompatible with the fundamental rights which his country protects. Classical cases of non-recognition by European tribunals involve, for example, the refusal to give any legal effect to proxy marriages, forced marriages or child marriages (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014: 22ff.); in all three cases the matrimony is deemed inexistent with the consequence, for instance, that both ‘spouses’ can ‘remarry’ right away without risking being charged with bigamy. Having said that, one should bear in mind that judges, when they call upon ordre public, are always careful to respect the sovereignty of states; thus, they refrain from lecturing foreign legislators or recklessly rebuking unfamiliar institutions (Bensedik, 2014). In fact, what will be rejected is not the controversial law as such, but the shocking result it might trigger if applied to the concrete dispute which is to be settled (Gebauer, 2007). Such a pragmatic approach is even commanded by Belgian law; article 21 of the Belgian PIL Code expressly states that: ‘In determining incompatibility with public policy, special consideration is given to the degree in which the situation is connected with the Belgian legal order and to the significance of the consequences produced by the application of the foreign law.’4 The consequence of this cautious attitude is that a controversial foreign institution might nonetheless be recognized if, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, the outcome seems satisfactory. Therefore, tribunals have recognized repudiations where the breakdown of the marriage has proved undisputable, either because the wife had previously consented to put an end to marital life or the spouses had lived separately for years (Bucher, 1993: 28; de la Rosa, 2015b: 150). Such a strict case-by-case approach denotes a strong reluctance by courts to engage in elaborating 1

Siggeh is a (renewable) contract of marriage for a defined duration. It is only licit under Shi’a Islamic law.

2

Punitive damages are arbitrary damages awarded to the plaintiff in addition to traditional compensatory damages. Their purpose is to deter the defendant from engaging in damaging behaviour again.

3

Get is a divorce document that, according to Jewish matrimonial law, must be given to the wife by the husband; if not handed over, the wife cannot remarry.

4

English translation by C. Clijmans and P. Torremans, Department of Private International Law, University of Ghent.

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systematic policies of exclusion of unacceptable institutions (e.g. no per se rejection of polygamy). Thus prejudice or discrimination against ethnicities or religions may be avoided, at least to a certain extent (e.g. below 7). In addition, legal scholars unanimously stress that the ordre public reservation should remain a corrective measure of last resort (Bucher, 1993: 22; Gaudemet-Tallon, 2005: 408; Gebauer, 2007 at 6). In other words, a green light for foreign institutions should be the leading principle, a red light the exception. Hence judges are not supposed to censure foreign institutions for the mere reason that they diverge from analogous domestic institutions, look exotic or because they do not match their own social views. Least of all should they engage in a chauvinistic preference for domestic law. What should be blocked are institutions which are in strong opposition to the core values of the nation. As Benjamin Cardozo, a former Justice of the US Supreme Court, once stated: ‘The courts are not free to refuse to enforce a foreign right at the pleasure of the judges, to suit the individual notion of expediency or fairness. They do not close their doors unless help would violate some fundamental principle of justice, some prevalent conception of good morals, some deeprooted tradition of the common weal’ (cited by Davis, 2015: 52).

21.3

A Vague Notion

Though the doctrine of ordre public dates back to the Middle Ages and though it has been thoroughly commented upon by generations of scholars over the centuries (see Völker, 1998: 33ff.), it still remains largely amorphous. Hence, even the most recent PIL statutes enshrine public policy without any guidance regarding how and to what extent this reservation should be applied. Emblematic of such elusiveness is the Swiss Federal Act on Private International Law of 1987, a piece of legislation yet considered a model with regard to systematicity, accuracy and comprehensiveness (it contains two hundred narrowly detailed articles!). Despite its renowned formal and substantial qualities, this statute deals with ordre public in a contrastingly minimal way: ‘The application of provisions of foreign law shall be precluded if it would produce a result which is incompatible with Swiss public policy’5 (article 15). International instruments are by no means more precise, even if they occasionally mitigate the technical rigidity of the doctrine of ordre public by providing safeguards against inequitable situations, as, for instance, article 22 of the Hague Convention on Parental Responsibility and Protection of Children which specifies that: ‘The application of the law designated by the provisions of this Chapter can be refused only if this application would be manifestly contrary to public policy, taking into account the best interests of 5

Private translation of the official text by Umbricht Attorneys, Zurich.

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the child.’ What is more, no administrative instructions defining how the reservation of ordre public has to be implemented are to be found, though routinely ministries of justice, of home affairs or of immigration send out guidelines or explanatory circulars on specific PIL issues. Thus left with a vast margin of appreciation to construe the notion of ordre public, courts have nevertheless made little effort to delineate its boundaries. Most frequently they limit themselves to broad references to ‘essential moral standards’, ‘basic rights’, ‘sense of justice’ or ‘the essence of the nation’. Not to mention that centuries ago unacceptable foreign rules were depicted by (nowadays politically incorrect) expressions such as ‘repugnant’, ‘odious’, ‘pernicious and detestable’, ‘barbarous’ or ’incompatible with civilized nations’. To put it briefly: ‘The reservation of public policy in conflict of laws is a necessary one but no attempt to define the limits of that reservation has ever succeeded’ (Morris, 2016: 73).

21.4

A Dynamic Notion

The seemingly insurmountable vagueness of the notion of ordre public is also due to the inherently dynamic nature of a reservation, the content of which is supposed to mirror essential contemporary communal values. As society changes, so does the ambit of the exception of ordre public. In the past, this exception was extensively used by courts of traditionalist European countries to ignore divorces obtained in more progressive European countries, or to refuse to recognize as legitimate children born out of wedlock originating from states where legal differences between legitimate and illegitimate children had already been abolished. As divorce is now granted all over the world (with the sole exception of the Philippines), judges are confronted with new divisive institutions, among which are single-parent adoption, surrogate motherhood, post-death marriage or same-sex marriage (for a comprehensive discussion of the last of these, see Davis, 2015). Just as there is no uniform measure of ordre public for all times, there is also no uniform measure for all countries (Xiao & Huo, 2005: 653). Being sovereign, each state has developed its own specific approach to this indeterminate reservation, depending on its own sociopolitical fundaments (Bucher, 1993: 24). Thus an American judicial award of punitive damages in a civil case of breach of contract will be rejected in Italy or in Germany (where noncompensatory damages are viewed as a discreditable vestige of ancient times when penal law was a private matter), may be recognized in France as long as the sum awarded is not disproportionate or excessive, or will be enforced without restriction in Spain or England (West, 2012: 776ff.). In short, there is no universal notion of ordre public. This is particularly true for family law (e.g. marriage, divorce and filiation), since this domain is deeply rooted in the

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moral, ethical and religious values of each state (Fresnedo de Aguirre, 2016: 258; Fulchiron, 2010: 618; Gannagé, 2013: 285). There is even no uniform regional notion of ordre public. The European Union, which strives to constitute a uniform area of justice, nonetheless refrains from imposing full internal recognition to decisions taken by courts of member states. Hence, most EU legislation aiming at unifying PIL standards permit judges of member states to invoke contrariety to domestic public policy in order to veto an unacceptable decision originating from another member state (Bonomi, 2017: 35). Even within the class of the apparently very homogeneous Islamic countries, mutual acceptance of legal institutions cannot be taken for granted. Bearing witness to this observation, a court in Tunis recently denied recognition and enforcement to an Egyptian repudiation on the grounds that divorce was triggered by the unilateral will of the husband and thus contravened Tunisian ordre public which protects the equality of spouses (Lequette, 2017: 363).

21.5

Ordre Public and Legal Pluralism

Though the reservation of ordre public is typically used in the context of international disputes, it has also proved relevant, yet with a weaker impact, in countries where various legal systems coexist, as in federal states or in countries where indigenous communities or First Nations enjoy autonomy in civil matters. Specifically, a court of a federate state may invoke contrariety to public policy in order to refuse to recognize a contentious institution which originates from a sister state. Still this remains more theory than practice, since deference to internal legal diversity is commanded by nearly all federal constitutions (for instance, according to article IV(1) of the US Constitution, federate states have to give ‘full faith and credit’ to the decisions of sister states). Exceptions are only permitted where differences reflect diametrically opposed social values (Pollack, 2015: 68). Accordingly, courts in northern US states have objected in the past to the sale of slave contracts concluded in southern states; on similar grounds, courts of conservative US states refuse today to give legal effect to same-sex marriages contracted in liberal sister states (Wardle, 2008). Furthermore, in disputes involving the application of tribal law by regular US state courts, controversial indigenous institutions pertaining to family law or contract law are submitted to a public policy test and may be deprived of legal effect in cases of very strong incompatibility with national values (Gardina, 2010: 31; Gover, 1980: 381). Similarly, during colonial times, exotic customary institutions were very rarely blocked by judges of the colonial power. In sum, it is easier to reject a foreign law than

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a law which, though debatable, formally belongs to the same national legal order (Lagarde, 2010: 524).

21.6

Religious, Social and Political Influences

The plasticity of the concept of ordre public has led to diverging interpretations according to the political, social and religious thoughts which prevail locally. Broadly, three different approaches can be observed. In the few remaining socialist legal systems the reservation of public policy has acquired a political dimension. In the People’s Republic of China, judges are required to deny legal effect to foreign rules which ‘harm sociopublic interests’ (Xiao & Huo, 2005: 677). This apparently vague notion encompasses in particular ‘foreign institutions which deviate from the socialist road, which menace the people’s democratic dictatorship or the leadership of the Communist Party, which are contrary to the principles of Marxism-Leninism or Mao Zedong thought, or which are detrimental to the unity of the State and the solidarity of the various nationalities’ (p. 677). In Islamic states, where law is still profoundly intertwined with religion,6 ordre public is chiefly interpreted in the light of the values incorporated in the (divine, thus irrefutable) Sharia law (Berger, 2002: 570ff.; Gannagé, 2013: 284).7 Thus, for instance, foreign adoptions will not be recognized as this institution of Roman origin is categorically banned by the Quran (Aldeeb & Bonomi, 1999: 252). For similar reasons, marriages between Muslim women and non-Muslim men or same-sex matrimonial unions are rejected (Berger, 2002: 573; Bensedik, 2014 at 2). Likewise, the ban on bigamy which is common to all European countries will not be enforced by courts of Islamic states since the husband’s right to polygamous marriage is an essential institution of the Sharia and thus this ban violates Islamic public policy (Berger, 2002: 574f.). Extensively invoked in Islamic states, ordre public has developed from a mere technical instrument to a protective tool used to secure the prevalence of the Sharia institutions over any incompatible foreign institution (Gannagé, 2013: 295ff.).8 This is most so in the field of family and inheritance law, where the influence of religion is considerable, and less so in the field of commercial law, where secular rules deriving from European and American business law tend more and more to prevail. Finally, it should be mentioned that occasionally the reservation of 6

To the point that most of the constitutions of Muslim states expressly acknowledge the primacy of Islamic religious law over civil rules.

7

Islamic law (fiqh) is predominantly based on the Sharia, which is a collection of rules deriving from the religious

8

At least, each time a Muslim is a party to the dispute. When the dispute involves non-Muslim parties only, Islamic states

precepts of the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet (sunnah). do not see any problem in applying foreign law.

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public policy has been invoked to veto judgments originating from Western countries and applying Egyptian or Moroccan divorce law for the simple reason that the judges were not of Muslim faith, and thus considered inept to implement Islamic rules properly (Gannagé, 2013: 302f.). In Western countries, the secularization of public life was achieved long ago. Consequently, ordre public has long been disconnected from any religious commandments. The benchmark has now decisively shifted towards the individual fundamental rights protected by national constitutions and by the various international instruments dedicated to human rights, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the UN in 1966 and, at a regional level, the 1953 European Convention on Human Rights or the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights (Bonomi, 2017: 34; Kiestra, 2013: 168ff.; Kokott, 1998: 92ff.). These instruments list basic legal guarantees which stand for the core values that public authorities should not compromise. Among them, the principles of equality and dignity of human beings, the prohibition of gender, racial or religious discrimination, freedom of creed and freedom of marriage are key ingredients of the Western notion of ordre public (Fresnedo de Aguirre, 2016: 381). Hence, courts have above all disregarded foreign institutions which privilege male heirs over female heirs, which violate the equality of spouses, which discriminate against illegitimate children or which favour members of a specific religion; similarly, judicial decisions based on unfair or arbitrary trial proceedings (e.g. biased judges, no right for the defendant to be heard or denial of the assistance of an attorney) have been rejected. The more so as the European Court of Human Rights has, since in the landmark Pellegrini decision,9 commanded tribunals to reject foreign decisions which are contrary to the fundamental rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. To underscore this strong link between human rights and ordre public, the German Parliament supplemented in 1986 the provision on public policy with an explicit reference to fundamental rights (article 6 of the Introductory Act to the German Civil Code).

21.7

An Unparalleled Challenge: Mass Immigration from Islamic States

Since the second half of the last century, Europe (and to a lesser extent North America) has been confronted with a growing influx of foreigners originating from Islamic states, in particular from North Africa (in the EU alone, their number today exceeds 20 million). This large wave of immigration has given rise to severe clashes between the legal systems of the countries of 9

Pellegrini v. Italy, 20 July 2001.

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origin of the immigrants and the legal systems of their countries of residence: most of the immigrants want the family status which they have acquired abroad to be recognized in their new country of residence or insist on the right to marry, divorce, raise their children and inherit in accordance with the compulsory commandments of their Muslim faith. Consequently, the number of conflicts of laws disputes has risen drastically. Still, these disputes are not only more frequent but also more intense, as they involve two profoundly diverging and apparently irreconcilable legal systems: one which is secular and reflects respect for individual human rights, and one which incorporates immutable and compelling religious precepts dating back to the seventh century AD. Yet, PIL was developed in Europe at times when cross-border family relations were sporadic, when relevant legal regimes, though exhibiting sometimes strong substantial differences, were predominantly based on Roman law and when legal scholars shared common Christian values (Gannagé, 2013: 321ff.). Hence, tolerance towards culturally alien institutions was easier and ordre public was rarely called upon. Nowadays it is just the opposite and several courts have responded to the unprecedented challenge of large-scale immigration of Muslim foreigners with a blanket dismissal of polygamy, of repudiation, of impediments to succession based on gender or religion,10 or of the father’s exclusive child custody rights (Lagarde, 2010: 524). By abruptly closing the door to Islamic law they transform, nolens volens, the reservation of ordre public from a last resort instrument to a standard tool aimed at securing the full dominance of Western way of life. Not all judges have consented to embark on a path of absolute disregard for Islamic institutions. Keeping firmly to their traditional pragmatic caseby-case approach, many courts still examine carefully all the aspects of the dispute to make sure that the reservation of ordre public, if invoked, does not worsen the conditions of the parties to the dispute (Tonolo, 2017: 194). For instance, while no polygamous marriages are celebrated in European countries, polygamous marriages originally celebrated in Islamic states are recognized and enforced if there is a risk that the additional wives would be left without resources (not to speak of their children who might then be considered illegitimate) and/or to avoid discontinuity in family status – the same woman being considered married in one country, and single in another (Fulchiron, 2010: 627). Accordingly, French courts have allowed the second wife of a polygamous Muslim, whose union had been celebrated abroad, to make a claim in France for alimony in one case, to get a share of his succession in another (Lagarde, 2010: 531). Greater tolerance of Islamic 10

According to Islamic law, non-Muslims do not inherit from Muslims, and the share of a woman amounts to half the share of a man.

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institutions is also recommended by scholars; in 2005 the Institute of International Law (an organization of leading academics dealing with PIL) adopted a resolution called ‘Cultural differences and ordre public in family private international law’ proclaiming that ‘Public policy should not be invoked against the applicable foreign law on the sole ground that this law is religious’ (para. 2) and that ‘States should not invoke public policy against the recognition of polygamous unions celebrated in a State allowing polygamy’ (para. 3). Such indulgence towards Islamic institutions exasperated right-wing politicians. Claiming that the cultural identity of the nation was in danger, they took legislative steps to instruct judges to stop compromising and to reject systematically all Muslim family law institutions. Consequently, some countries (Belgium, France and Spain are the most noteworthy) have modified their PIL rules in order to give automatic preference to domestic law over foreign law in matters of marriage, divorce and filiation; technically speaking, the connecting factor is now the law of the residence of the parties and no more the law of their nationality (de la Rosa, 2015b: 149). In 2010 the US state of Oklahoma took a more radical stance and decided to deliberately target Muslim institutions. According to an amendment accepted by more than 70 per cent of the voters, local judges were expressly forbidden to apply Sharia law (Parry, 2012).11 However, this provocative ban (popularly called the ‘Save our State amendment’) was struck down three years later by a US federal judge for singling out a religion (thus being discriminatory and unconstitutional). In the same populist vein, a Swiss deputy proposed in 2017 to complete the ordre public provision of the national PIL Act with a general prohibition to apply Sharia law or recognize judgments based on Sharia law. This controversial bill was ultimately turned down by the parliament on the grounds that a whole legal system cannot be discarded as such.12 Equally worried about alleged excessive deference to discriminatory Islamic institutions, the European Union recently reacted in response, but in a less confrontational manner and for divorce and legal separation disputes only. Article 10 of the Council Regulation 1259/2010 orders courts to automatically revert to domestic law if the normally applicable foreign rules do not provide for the dissolution of the marriage on equal terms.13 Though targeted, neither Islamic law nor, more specifically, repudiation, are expressly mentioned by this provision. 11

Article VII(1) of the Constitution of Oklahoma: ‘The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia Law’.

12 13

Bill 17.488 (Zanetti). For example, article 10 states: ‘Where the law applicable pursuant to Article 5 or Article 8 makes no provision for divorce or does not grant one of the spouses equal access to divorce or legal separation on grounds of their sex, the law of the forum shall apply’.

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21.8

Conclusion

With the current considerable intensification of cross-border relations, and the advent of societies displaying contrasting ethnic, social and religious diversity, classical international private law, based on neutral conflict of laws rules, ultimately mitigated by discretionary use of the reservation of ordre public, is called into question. More and more scholars doubt that this centuries-old ‘machinery’, developed to solve occasional conflicts between legal systems essentially based on common values, still has the ability to respond to the novel challenge of multiculturalism in such sensitive areas as international family matters (Carballo Piñeiro & Kramer, 2014: 111; Gannagé, 2013: 481ff.). As Nishitani has rightly pointed out, today the crucial question is ‘how best to accommodate cultural diversity and pluralism while upholding social order and fundamental values in the recipient society’ (2014: 134). This challenge is even more difficult to overcome since it opposes two principles which both benefit from full-fledged constitutional protection: equality and non-discrimination on the one hand, respect for cultural differences on the other. The former is a must of all constitutions and does not need further presentation. The latter, which in its larger conception includes diversity of family structures and interpersonal relations, is a relative newcomer and is only to be found in the most recent fundamental instruments, such as the 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union14 or, more specifically, the 2001 UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. Though non-binding, the UNESCO resolution proclaims that ‘cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature. In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations’ (article 1). Specifically, the challenge is to find the right balance between these two opposing principles in cross-cultural disputes of family and inheritance law. Proposals hereto are not lacking, but more or less all of them are one-sided: either they resolutely tilt towards full tolerance for differences, for example by allowing individuals to choose freely the applicable law to their international family relations (as suggested by Nashimi, 2014: 141), or they lean excessively on the side of rejection of differences by blanketly vetoing the import of any foreign institution (as in the general prohibition of courts to apply foreign, international and religious law newly introduced by several US states15).

14

For example, article 22 states: ‘The Union shall respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity‘. Interestingly, the next provision (article 23) enshrines gender equality.

15

More precisely Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota and Tennessee.

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But these proposals have a more substantial flaw: they tackle the dilemma in an abstract way. In such intimate issues as marriage, divorce and filiation, the precise equilibrium searched for cannot be defined once and for all by legislatures; it has to be found, rather, on a case-by-case basis. And that is where the ordre public reservation still retains all its value, as it is the only method which requires in-depth analysis of the multiple facets (societal as well as personal) of a specific dispute, thus confronting general principles with the intricacy of real life. To reconcile cultural diversity with fundamental rights in a specific case is a difficult micro-political assignment which judges cannot fulfil without guidance. But what is needed is not abstract guidance in form of rules – they are too often nothing more than the abrupt and populist reactions of parliaments – but practical guidance, i.e. solution-oriented assistance related directly to the dispute to be settled. This straightforward guidance could be profitably given through an institutionalized dialogue between lawyers and experts of intercultural communication. More concretely, I suggest that interdisciplinary commissions – modelled on the ethical committees which deal with delicate health issues like termination of life support – should be established with the task of giving preliminary nonbinding advice on a case whenever the judge is tempted to invoke public policy to veto a controversial foreign institution. So revamped, ordre public would no more be, to paraphrase Winston Churchill’s famous statement about democracy, the worst solution, except for all the others, but the best one.

References Aldeeb, S. and Bonomi, A., eds. (1999). Le droit musulman de la famille et des successions à l’épreuve des ordres juridiques occidentaux. Zurich: Schulthess. Berger, M. (2002). Conflicts law and public policy in Egyptian family law: Islamic law through the backdoor. The American Journal of Comparative Law, 50, 555–94. Bensedik, M. (2014). Quelques précisions sur l’ordre public en droit international privé. Village de la Justice. www.village-justice.com/articles/Quel ques-precisions-sur-ordre,17449.html (last accessed 1 August 2018). Bonomi, A. (2017). Diritto internazionale privato e diritto comparato: una coppia inseparabile. In I. Petrelli, G. P. Romano and T. Rossi, eds., Tui Memores: La dimension culturelle du droit international privé. Geneva and Zurich: Schulthess, pp. 27–46. Bucher, A. (1993). L’ordre public et le but social des lois en droit international privé. Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, 239, 9–116.

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Carballo Piñeiro, L. and Kramer, X. (2014). The role of private international law in contemporary society: global governance as a challenge. Erasmus Law Review, 7, 109–12. Davis, S. (2015). Conflicts of Law and the Mutual Recognition of Same-Sex Unions in the EU. PhD thesis, University of Reading. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2014). Addressing Forced Marriage in the EU: Legal Provisions and Promising Practices. Vienna: FRA. Fresnedo de Aguirre, C. (2016). The incidence of human rights when determining public policy principles in international civil and family law matters. Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, 379, 73–396. Fulchiron, H. (2010). The French family judge encounters cultural pluralism. In M.-C. Foblets, ed., Cultural Diversity and the Law: State Responses from Around the World. Brussels: Bruylant, pp. 613–33. Gannagé, L. (2013). Les méthodes du droit international privé à l’épreuve du conflit des cultures. Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, 357, 233–490. Gardina, J. (2010). Federal preemption: a roadmap for the application of tribal law in state courts. American Indian Law Review, 35(1), 1–37. Gaudemet-Tallon, H. (2005). The pluralism in private international law: richness and weakness (The tightrope walker and the rainbow). Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, 312, 9–488. Gebauer, M. (2007). Ordre public (public policy). In R. Wolfrum, ed., Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://opil.ouplaw.com (last accessed 12 August 2018). Gover, K. (1980). Conflicts of law and the Indian reservation: solutions to problems in Indian civil jurisdiction. American Journal of Indian Law, 8(2), 361–85. Kiestra, L. R. (2013). The Impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on Private International Law. PhD thesis, Amsterdam Center for International Law. http://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.395313 (last accessed 12 August 2018). Kokott, J. (1998). Grund- und Menschenrechte als Inhalt eines internationalen ordre public. In: D. Coester-Waltjen, ed., Die Wirkungskraft der Grundrechte bei Fällen mit Auslandsbezug. Heidelberg: C. F. Müller, pp. 71–114. Lagarde, P. (2010). Reference to public order (‘ordre public’) in French private international law. In M.-C. Foblets, ed., Cultural Diversity and the Law: State Responses from around the World. Brussels: Bruylant, pp. 521–46. Lequette, Y. (2017). Les mutations du droit international privé: vers un changement de paradigme. Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, 387, 9–644. Morris, J., McClean, D. and Ruiz Abou-Nigm, V. (2016). The Conflict of Laws, 9th ed. London: Sweet and Maxwell.

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Nishitani, Y. (2014). Global citizens and family relations. Erasmus Law Review, 7, 131–46. Parry, J. (2012). Oklahoma’s save our state amendment and the conflict of laws. Oklahoma Law Review, 65, 1–39. Pollack, S. (2015). Full faith and conflict of law: the peculiar legacy of legal federalism. SSRN, 2 March. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2571934. De la Rosa, G. E. (2015a). Cultural diversity and European private international law. Journal of Civil & Legal Sciences, 4, 149. De la Rosa, G. E. (2015b). Cultural diversity, European public policy exception and family law of Muslim countries. Beijing Law Review, 6, 147–58. Schwander, I. (2000). Wie kann nationales IPR zu vermehrt internationaler Optik gelangen. In J. Basedow, I. Meier, A. K. Schnyder, T. Einhorn and D. Girsberger, eds., Private Law in the International Arena – Liber Amicorum Kurt Siehr. The Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press, pp. 673–84. Tonolo, S. (2017). Religious values and conflict of laws. In I. Petrelli, G. P. Romano and T. Rossi, eds., Tui Memores: La dimension culturelle du droit international privé. Geneva and Zurich: Schulthess, pp. 187–214. Völker, C. (1998). Zur Dogmatik des ordre public. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Wardle, L. (2008). From slavery to same-sex marriage: comity versus public policy in inter-jurisdictional recognition of controversial domestic relations. Brigham Young University Law Review, 8(6), 1856–925. Xiao, Y. and Huo Z. (2005). Ordre Public in China’s private international law. The American Journal of Comparative Law, 53, 653–77.

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22 Intercultural Communication in the Context of the Hypermobility of the School Population in and out of Europe Emmanuelle le Pichon-Vorstman 22.1

Introduction

The topic of mobility in education is linguistically as well as culturally highly sensitive, as it touches upon social exclusion, segregation and discrimination. In today’s society, increased mobility has blurred previously existing linguistic and cultural borders, particularly in the educational context. In the 1980s in Europe, in Canada and in the United States, researchers in education had already worked intensively on the topic of integration of migrant students. However, the current flux of migration is different both in respect of the greater number of migrants as well as to the increased heterogeneity of their country of provenance. Schools across many Western countries have experienced a dramatic rise in numbers of newcomer students. In addition, in contrast to earlier migration patterns, the present population of migrants is extremely diverse and the group is not well defined (European Commission, 2013). This inherent heterogeneity has forced academic scholars from different disciplines to reconsider their perspectives about education, taking into account this new situation. This chapter focuses on one specific category of migrants: refugee students. On the basis of an ethnographic study of this group, it will show how intercultural communication has imposed itself as a requirement with regard to the integration of these students in schools. Incited by an increasing appeal for support from many schools, several groups have developed

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intercultural school kits and diversity trainings (also see Jackson, Chapter 20 of this volume). Integration support centres have flourished. These initiatives all claim to address the needs of schools and education staff regarding refugee students, often by offering a range of materials on intercultural ‘issues’. Documents from ministries of education around the world endorse social inclusion and propose local mediation between the refugee families and the schools. These efforts are both necessary and laudable. However, the question here is whether they are sufficiently informed on what is required to achieve optimal integration and social inclusion of refugee students in the local school (and social) environment. Refugee students (including those who seek asylum and those with a refugee status) have a universal right to be schooled. However, schools face a number of challenges related to their integration. The first and possibly most obvious challenge is related to a discrepancy in the language(s) of the students and those of the host country. The most widely adopted strategy across different countries in this regard has been to support the learning of the school language, while discouraging or even banning the student’s own language in the school setting (e.g. Cummins, 2001). The second challenge faced by the school system relates to the migrant students’ life experiences prior to their start in the new school. For refugee students, these experiences may include traumatic events or circumstances such as exile, poverty, war and abandonment. Thirdly, from the point of view of academic trajectory, refugee students have a high likelihood of periodic interruptions in their prior school attendance as well as participation in several different school (language) settings. These experiences may also cause delay in the acquisition of learning skills as well as of basic knowledge of literacies (including reading, writing and numeracy). These differences between the population of the host schools and the newly arrived refugee students pose a challenge to school systems around the world (Herzog-Punzenberger, le Pichon & Siarova, 2017). From North America to Europe, school systems struggle to address these issues, as well as the tendency towards segregation that often ensues. These circumstances have urged researchers in education to reconsider the educational strategies in place in the context of fast-changing needs of both educators and this novel student population. This chapter first examines the question of social segregation from legal, ethnolinguistic and intercultural points of view. Subsequent sections in the chapter will provide the reader with a succinct overview of current research in intercultural communication in education, adopting a multidisciplinary perspective and describing the various methodological approaches to intercultural communication. In the last section of this chapter, the theoretical and conceptual perspectives are reviewed depending on their relevancy to the assessment of intercultural communication in education.

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Key Concepts in Education

22.2.1 Refugees: A Distinctive Category in Education To leave one’s own country and to seek asylum is not a light decision; the reality is that many people are compelled to flee their country because they face discrimination, persecution or even death. Oftentimes, asylum seekers leave everything behind, risk their lives during the journey and are likely to be in poor health and in a situation of material poverty upon arrival in the host country. Considering the high vulnerability of this population, international and national legislations are called into existence to protect this population. As a consequence of this legislation, once people have applied to receive refugee status and until that decision is made, they are considered asylum seekers, which entitles them to a number of rights including the right not to be sent back to their country of origin, also called ‘prohibition of refoulement’ (UN Refugee Agency, 1977). In 2015 and 2016, 1.2 million individuals applied for asylum in Europe, and 700,000 in 2017, compared to 214,000 per year before 2014. Importantly, 30 per cent of this population were minors and of this subset around 20 per cent were younger than 14 years old. In 2015 the number of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the European Union quadrupled (Werkwijzervluchtelingen, 2017). Thus, not only is the population of asylum seekers increasing, but the proportion of refugee minors within this population appears to be increasing as well. The latter has important consequences for education.

22.2.2 Education as a Right Independent of national laws and regulation, education is a right and most countries have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989). This convention states that minors should receive appropriate protection independently of their legal status (article 22). In particular, the education should ‘respect the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values’ (articles 28 and 29). It is thus a duty of educational authorities to support each student’s language, cultural identity and values. Additionally, within the European Union, every minor should have access to education in the host country and, when refugee status is granted, under the same conditions as nationals. However, despite these regulations, countries vary significantly in their application, leading to substantial variability as to the extent to which students are respected and even supported in their cultural identity, language(s) and values (Christi & Sidhu, 2006). The use of the concept of culture is not neutral and, as will be outlined in the next paragraphs, if not used within a clear intercultural framework, may add to the exclusion of these populations (e.g. Dervin, 2018).

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22.3

Current Research from a Multidisciplinary Perspective

22.3.1 Mobility before Arrival in the Host Country Intercultural communication is at the heart of the concept of mobility (Coste & Simon, 2009). Indeed, mobility implies reciprocal communication between people across borders and cultures. The concept of culture refers here to shared norms held in a particular group. This can be illustrated by the following example. Imagine a family menaced by the war in Syria. As a consequence, the family may have fled to one of the border countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Greece or Egypt and settled there in a refugee camp. Then, after several months or years, members of the same family may have obtained a visa to join a country farther away such as Germany, France, Italy, Sweden or Canada, while some other members may have stayed, for example, in Egypt. Others may have tried to escape by boat and then, by foot, flee to a safer country perhaps crossing different countries along their way. Oftentimes, a family like in this example will stay in one place long enough that children will have had the chance to learn a language or even may have been schooled in a mobile school setting, for instance in a refugee camp. Upon arrival in what will be their host country, the children will enter a new school. They are typical refugee students as they come with multiple life experiences, some of which may have been traumatic, and various experiences of schooling in different educational settings in an interrupted trajectory. From the host country’s perspective and in light of a normative view on school development, it is all too easy to consider the academic profiles of these students as deficient. An alternative, more positive view on the mobility of these students holds that they often bring a dynamic plurilingualism enriched by intercultural experiences (Cummins, 2015; Freeman, 2008).

22.3.2 Mobility after Arrival in the Host Country If the often complex and prolonged trajectories preceding the arrival of refugees is often ignored, the continued mobility after arrival in the host country is an even more frequently overlooked aspect of the migration trajectory. Mobility of refugee families often does not stop upon arrival in the host country as is already apparent in the term ‘“first” host countries’. Even within these first host countries, such as Greece or Turkey, refugees are likely to be frequently displaced from one camp to another before they move to their destination country. In some of these countries, minor students may be held in detention until their situation is regularized (Canada, United States, Australia). Once arrived in countries where refugees intend to settle, refugee families often continue to be forced to move after their arrival, sometimes even after long periods of preliminary settlement.

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These displacements continuously force the students to cross multiple borders between continents, countries, regions, villages, schools and classrooms. These multiple transitional experiences form an inherent part of the (multi)cultural identity of refugee children. Hence the breadth of mobility extends far beyond the simple displacement from one country of origin to a new country of settlement, exposing refugee children to numerous situations of interculturality. Understanding this hypermobility is crucial for the concept of intercultural communication (e.g. Coste & Simon, 2009). From a practical educational perspective, issues related to the integration of refugee students are complex to resolve. How does one support schooling despite the differences in languages and curricula? In which language(s) should they be schooled, and, according to which curriculum? These issues are highly intercultural (e.g. also Beacco et al., 2010) and failing to address them enhances the risk of social exclusion, as we will see in the next paragraphs.

22.4

Approaches to Education of Refugees

While eventually the implementation of answers to these questions may depend on local contexts, the answer itself touches upon fundamental human rights, e.g. the right to access education ‘under the same conditions as nationals and to be supported in one’s own languages and cultural values’ (articles 28 and 29). The logical inference of this is straightforward: these students, just like any student, have the legal right to be educated in all countries (with the notable exceptions of the United States and Somalia who have not ratified this convention). However, even when these values are universally accepted, important social and practical challenges remain. These issues will be discussed in the next sections.

22.4.1 The Organization of the Schooling In most countries of the world, expatriate students are guaranteed continuous education in their own language and/or in a language of economic and political power. This is somewhat in contrast with the conditions of integration of refugee students into mainstream education. Even though integration policies and practices vary considerably between countries and within countries, as discussed in the previous section, several common features are evident. Such policies often focus exclusively on the target language, of which the proficiency estimation will largely influence the school in which the student will be mainstreamed. This is based on the assumption that the local school culture is embedded into a monolingual and monocultural context. Any academic potential that may only be

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revealed when using a language the student is proficient in is thus ignored. This assimilative approach to education serves a conservative model of cultural diversity (Nylund, 2006). An additional consequence is that the integration into mainstream education is often delayed as the students are first required to learn the target school language. The drawback of this language assimilation approach has been discussed by Auger (2014) who states that linguistic skills are confused with academic skills. Too much focus on the acquisition of the target language as a condition to enter mainstream schooling, a strategy based on a deficiency perspective of refugee students, can have unanticipated and unintended consequences as a result of which refugee students are de facto disadvantaged and segregated. Countries are more and more conscious of the biases created by this deficit approach to learning, and most have recently introduced more integrative strategies. For instance, in Sweden, since January 2016, students can be partly educated in introductory and partly in mainstream classes, with special educational support in the latter. Other countries have introduced limits to the time that the students may spend in introductory/ language classes. For instance, the city of Berlin (Germany) has imposed a limit of one year in the introductory class. During that year, students also already participate in mainstream courses in which the language is not the main objective. The goals are to provide opportunities for interaction with peers and decrease the likelihood of segregation. In Ontario (Canada), students are required to take a gradually increasing number of mainstream courses, at a grade level that is most adequate to their educational level and career goals. In Finland, the educational system has introduced reform that targets the direct integration of refugee students within the mainstream classroom to avoid any form of segregation. These examples illustrate relatively recently introduced policies highlighting a gradual shift from a main focus on target language acquisition (i.e. to resolve a deficit) towards stimulating optimal integration (i.e. leveraging already existing academic potential).

22.4.2 Language Policies The present structure of the schooling is often built on ethnocentric language and culture ideologies, in the sense that they capitalize on a rapid assimilation of the school language, norms and curriculum knowledge. In several countries, this paradigm is changing into more inclusive policies with regard to the language of schooling. These policies are manifested by the inclusion of languages other than the host country language in the curriculum used to teach refugee students. However, in the context of refugee education, it is interesting to note that the extent to which the

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students are expected to stay in the host country significantly influences inclusive language policies. The so-called first-host countries or countries of emigration, where migrant students are expected to stay only temporarily, are more inclined to offer education in another language than the school language (for instance, English in Greece), while in host countries, also called countries of immigration, where students are expected to ask for asylum, rapid language assimilation is still seen as a first target. The option of multilingual education is rarely taken into serious consideration. However, here again the situation appears to be slowly changing. Countries and sites differ in the extent to which they support the languages of the students. Examples of these more individualized approaches to intercultural communication in education include: (1) providing extra courses during out-of-school hours and (2) allowing and supporting the students during school hours to use their own languages, for instance, to boost the learning of the school language (translanguaging strategies). 1)

2)

extra courses during out-of-school hours There have been diverse initiatives in Europe to support refugee students in their own languages after school. For instance, in the Netherlands, this strategy was sponsored by the government. This policy ended in 2004 when the government abolished the funding. The claim was that the practice was inefficient: the students were considered as being segregated in after-school programmes and an increased performance in academic subjects could not be proved. during school hours In recent years, translanguaging strategies or the flexible use of multiple languages to legitimize all linguistic resources are finding their ways into the classrooms as a result of various projects on in-service teacher continuous education; this time within school hours does not focus on one language exclusively but on all languages present in the classroom. (Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García, 2009)

This shift in pedagogy is particularly interesting with regard to the concept of inclusion compared to the concept of integration mentioned in previous paragraphs. In fact, plurilingual strategies may foster inclusion in both the educational and the broader social environment provided that they favour the inclusion of all individuals and not only one or two refugee students. The underlying principle is that inclusive strategies should address differences as an enrichment of the entire school community (Nøhr & Vinders, 2017) and therefore, benefit every member of the community. It is very challenging to include each linguistic and cultural repertoire of each student given the rich multilingual and multicultural school context that the arrival of refugees creates. But very challenging does not equal impossible and it all starts with awareness. It is thus a tremendous challenge for

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experts in intercultural communication to determine and address the principles underlying the used concepts in education i.e. integration, inclusion, plurilingualism (e.g. Freeman, 2008), and to display this knowledge through practitioner channels such as continued professional learning.

22.5

Theoretical and Conceptual Perspectives

22.5.1 Teacher Education Clearly, the complexity of the new sociocultural context that appeared with the intense mobility of refugee students in education is often underestimated. Therefore, unsurprisingly, a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed that, in 2010, up to 95 per cent of teachers did not feel competent to support asylum seekers and refugee students (OECD, 2015). Before the so-called refugee crisis, many countries did not offer specific trainings for teachers to teach these students, and if they existed, they were often modest in content and voluntary. Pre-service and in-service teacher education has increasingly become a topic of great concern among schools and policymakers in recent years. One aspect, which has been recognized from early on, is the need for expertise in second language acquisition. One programme that seeks to address this issue was established in France in 2004. While not specifically destined to the education of refugees, its content is highly relevant to this target population as it encompasses the knowledge of the main methods of teaching a second language. In Norway and Austria, second language classes have been added to pre-service teacher education. Additionally, Austria has introduced mobile teams who intervene in schools to support students. Although these skills and practices are crucial, they are not sufficient in light of the heterogeneity of the new classrooms detailed in this chapter. Differences in levels of literacy, languages, command of the school language (the paradigm of ‘language as a problem’), socioeconomic situations, and possibly health issues add to the complexity of the schooling of the students all together. Therefore, additional components must be included to the formation of prospective teachers.

22.5.2 The Intercultural Competence of Teachers In a number of countries, intercultural skills have been added to the training of teachers of refugee students. Intercultural skills and competence have been defined as ‘the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes” (Deardorff, 2006: 255). Therefore, numerous tools have been created around the acquisition of linguistic and cultural knowledge for intercultural contact.

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22.5.2.1 Essentialist Approaches to Intercultural Communication The creation of adequate tools is not trivial as any flaw may lead to the opposite of the intended effects, i.e. segregation and exclusion as opposed to integration and inclusion, One example is an approach focused on cultural differences, an essentialist approach which delineates ‘them’ or the ‘other’ from ‘us’ (e.g. Cole & Meadows, 2013; Hummelstedt-Djedou, Zillacus & Holm, 2018). This approach aims to improve the intercultural skills of teachers but may contribute, unintentionally, to stereotypes about cultures. These are also called out-group stereotypes and can package students into predefined identities preventing them from developing different group belongings. This example illustrates the caveats of falling into an essentialist approach to education and ignoring a host of scholarly literature cautioning against such an emphasis on ‘cultural differences’ (McLaren, 1994; Nylund, 2006). Strategies based on the essentialist perspective can be placed in opposition to multicultural models of cultural diversity. By and large, these models are the basis of liberal approaches. 22.5.2.2 Multicultural Models of Cultural Diversity In a number of countries, the advice of teachers in the orientation of their students to different types of secondary schools is decisive, and if teachers base their evaluation on the school knowledge that their students lack (the first one being an academic command of the school language), refugee students are more likely to be oriented towards the more technical tracks of education, with lower intellectual requirements. In some places, policymakers have become aware of these biases and have developed a more liberal approach to education. The goal is to provide teachers with intercultural competence, essentially by stimulating their awareness of their own system of beliefs and values as opposed to those of their students. In this model, each culture has its own value and therefore should be respected. A reflection on one’s own beliefs and attitudes is undeniably an essential aspect of intercultural competence. It should be emphasized that in the context of teacher education, one’s own beliefs and attitudes, basically the building block of intercultural competence, are not always part of the curriculum for teachers, including for those who will be in charge of welcoming refugee students (Auger, 2008). 22.5.2.3 Critical Interculturalism The question of intercultural competence of teachers is as important as it is delicate to address. Recently, Dervin and Hahl have emphasized the importance of a ‘critical ability to question the implicit and explicit assumptions behind cultural claims and the power dynamics that they may be concealing’ (2015: 98). This relates to the broader concept of social justice; which, applied in this context, implies a careful evaluation of existing or potential

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inequalities (Dervin, 2016; Gorski, 2016). In fact, when listening to school stakeholders, one notices that they are concerned with questions that are locally situated such as: how do react to behaviours we do not understand? How do we gain a more comprehensive view of the students’ needs and ambitions when we do not share a common language and culture? How do we arrange meetings with families and communicate messages from the school?1 It is exactly when confronted with these challenges that the aforementioned paradigm of ‘language as a problem’ becomes an obstacle to possible solutions. This can be overcome when teachers are invited to see the students and their families as not simply different from themselves (the essentialist or liberal approaches) but as students with unequal opportunities (critical interculturalism). The next step in this process is the adaptation of a progressive view of multilingualism that considers the students’ linguistic and cultural experiences as an asset and an opportunity for learning. Following this line of reasoning, a new wave of methods is spreading. The commonality of these methods is that they are founded on a conscious reflection about the histories, religious and social experiences, and language biographies of each individual student. This approach is reflected in a number of pedagogical initiatives like ‘Let’s compare our languages’ (Auger, 2008), Cummins’s work on identity texts (e.g. Cummins & Early, 2011), Prasad’s work on language biographies (e.g. Prasad, 2016) or the introduction of the languages of students within the classroom to support learning and social inclusion, also called translanguaging practices (e.g. Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García, 2009). In contrast with earlier pedagogical interventions, these initiatives are happening within the classroom. However, to be really inclusive, intercultural communication should reach beyond the classroom’s walls. In fact, various studies in different domains have shown the benefits of a strong engagement of, for instance, parents or of an older sibling in the education of the children (Peña, 2000; Young & Hélot, 2008).

22.5.3 Intercultural Mediation in Intercultural Communication As the awareness of the possible traumatization caused by war and violence experiences is emerging, schools and policymakers are increasingly aware of the necessity to collaborate closely with relatives, communities, mental healthcare services and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In recent years, national and international pedagogical projects have joined efforts to develop programmes and offer more resources to address the social and 1

These examples were collected as part of the EDINA project www.edinaplatform.eu of which the author of this chapter was the principal investigator.

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cultural paradigm in the schooling of refugee students. Intercultural mediators or language and cultural brokers are asked upon to negotiate the meaning of exchanges, to support people in understanding the new target society, and to help people to understand each other and/or to prevent potential conflicts. This mediation has taken various forms involving people with different functions in different places. In the following paragraph, three groups of intercultural mediators will be outlined: the parents and families, the students themselves, and settlement workers or volunteers.

22.5.3.1 Parental Involvement Peña identifies a number of advantages related to parental involvement: an increased overall relationship of the school with the community, greater academic success, greater efficiency in teaching, an increased interest in and support of school programmes, a more positive relationship between teachers and parents, and improved communication between parents and children (Peña, 2000). However, Schneider and Arnot (2018) suggests that parental involvement in schools is often limited due to a lack of opportunities to be involved, a difficulty in understanding educative jargon and a lack of a common language which hampers communication. Additional factors may include a cultural custom to keep respectful distance between school and home, and, incidentally, intimidation by educational workers. In the light of this knowledge, numerous pedagogical projects have attempted to encourage stronger partnerships between parents and schools. However, enhanced parent involvement requires time and trust (in both directions) to overcome existing stereotypical assumptions about group, cultural and national identities. To overcome these challenges students are sometimes used as language brokers and intercultural mediators, an approach that is often not recognized as a strategy. 22.5.3.2 The Students as Intercultural Mediators Many schools enhance communication by asking the students themselves to act as translators. Examples of such strategies have been found in the communication within the classroom, for instance, to welcome a new student who does not speak the school language, to negotiate the meaning of academic content (e.g. le Pichon, Baauw & Dekker, 2018; Little et al., 2014) or to communicate with the families. Prokopiou, Cline and Crafter (2013) studied the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy by asking parents and children to evaluate it and concluded that, without being totally positive or negative, the involvement of the children as linguistic and cultural brokers should be carefully prepared. These evaluations underscore that it is important that teachers are sufficiently interculturally competent to prepare the students to play this role.

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22.5.3.3 Settlement Workers The involvement of competent members of a language community is also an important opportunity. In fact, more and more countries are experimenting in this direction. The shared languages and experiences of fellow or former refugees may make them particularly skilled at facilitating communication between the host community and newly arrived refugees. For instance, recently stakeholders in Sweden have identified a number of teachers among refugees. Thus the Swedish government has introduced a rapid complementary education programme based on local language and local educational norms to prepare these refugees to become teachers in Sweden (Economou & Hajer, 2019; Lärarförbundet, 2016). In Ontario, the government employs settlement workers recruited among former refugees to foster the integration of newly arrived refugees. Their goal is mainly to meet the settlement-related needs of refugee families individually and to facilitate family participation in a wide range of services (Park, Katsiaficas & McHugh, 2018). In Ontario and elsewhere, numerous NGOs are also employing community members to fulfil these roles. The positive outcomes of such partnerships show that intercultural competence can be developed in cooperation with competent community members. Interestingly, by introducing intercultural mediators or cultural brokers from the refugee communities, host societies acknowledge the potentially rich resources former refugees represent for the integration of newly arrived refugee students in education. From an intercultural point of view, this approach contributes to the gradual change of perspective, from the ‘language and culture as a problem’ paradigm to a recognition of the richness of cultural and linguistic diversity.

22.6

Conclusion

The widespread mobility and often complex trajectories before and after arrival in the host country that characterizes the refugee population require highly flexible and adaptable educational strategies. In the years since the so-called refugee crisis in Europe, great effort has been made to meet the needs of refugee students, to support their language and academic education and to train teachers in intercultural communication. However, there is still room for improvement. In fact, the organization of the education of these students also depends on the value attributed to the students’ repertoire, since the perceived value of the students’ languages and life experiences is deeply rooted in our ideological and political beliefs. The individual backgrounds of these students in a vulnerable situation is still perceived as problematic. This is, in essence, a reflection of the essentialist approach. From the early 2000s, a gradual change towards a more liberal

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model has been introduced, which acknowledges the importance of individual experiences and perspectives. More recently, tentatively emerging in several places, is an awareness of the fact that the diverse cultural and linguistic repertoire of refugees not only represents a challenge, but also an opportunity. Several host countries are starting to adopt strategies which take into account both the student’s dynamic individual repertoire of languages as well as their multiplicity of intercultural experiences. The revised perspective that is emerging can be characterized by a shift from educational strategies based on a category of students (migrants) towards approaches based on individual needs (e.g. Auger, 2014; Bunar, 2017; Prasad, 2018). This way, the ultimate aim of intercultural training becomes to promote an education that takes the individual into account with a consideration for their particular biographical backgrounds and plurilingual repertoires. This implicates a profound change of pedagogy. At present, schools too often largely ignore how to exploit this potentially rich pool of resources on which education and future careers could be scaffolded. In order to fully access this cultural capital, several aspects in the realm of education require attention. In particular, the areas identified in this chapter point to the necessity to address: (1) the mobility of refugee students and the organization of optimal continuity in the educational trajectories; and (2) the potential segregation and the danger of social exclusion of this vulnerable group of students. In order to tackle these two fundamental issues and to support schools’ collaboration with relatives of the students and community members, existing stereotypes and assimilative ideologies need to be left behind, while at the same time the intercultural competence of teachers and school stakeholders needs to be enhanced. Schools, endorsed by municipalities and governments, are seeking new ways of teaching and alternative paths of language planning. Explicit antidiscrimination, integrative and inclusive policies are strengthened by fostering partnership with parents and community members. They act as negotiators and may support the abandonment of the binarity (them against us) in intercultural communication to the benefit of inclusive approaches that recast the school as a new community composed of members, all with different skills and needs. However, these relatively new strategies and programmes have not been validated yet (e.g. Deardorff, 2015). This task remains to be done.

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23 Culture and Management Marie-Thérèse Claes

23.1

Introduction

When thinking about the link between culture and management, some names will immediately pop up: Hofstede, Trompenaars, the GLOBE project. In other words, the positivist approaches to cultures. These theories and frameworks have had such success that if someone would mention that they have studied intercultural or cross-cultural management, and would not recognize Hofstede’s name, people would not believe them. However, since the 1980s, the study of understanding and working with different cultures has seen a tremendous evolution, so much so that now the positivist theories look like but a first step in understanding cultural differences. This chapter will examine the impact of positivist theories in intercultural management, and propose three further positions that hold a scientific view of culture, making a distinction between emic and etic approaches. While etic approaches such as the positivist and critical views analyse and compare cultures based on predefined, comparable constructs and models, emic approaches are emergent, trying to understand members’ meanings. Morris et al. (1999) speaks of the ‘outside perspective’, when researchers attempt to describe differences across cultures in terms of a general, external standard, and the ‘inside perspective’ of ethnographers, who strive to describe a particular culture in its own terms. The interpretive and postmodern views are examples of emic approaches. In this chapter, I will move from the positivist approach to the interpretive view, and follow up with the postmodern and critical approaches.

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23.2

The Positivist Views

Positivist theories, which use cultural ‘dimensions’ such as collectivist versus individualist, high power distance, versus low power distance, high uncertainty avoidance versus low uncertainty avoidance, and so on (e.g. Hofstede, 1980; 2001; House et al., 2004; Trompenaars, 1993) and put cultures on a continuum from high to low, with numbers, are the most familiar way to approach intercultural management. They have been extremely popular in intercultural management studies as well as among international business trainers and expatriation trainers. The fact that positivist theories have numbers has facilitated the understanding of cultural differences. If, for example, the Chinese have a high score on power distance, we must take into account that in a Chinese organization, bosses as well as employees will respect hierarchy. These approaches are mostly based on the variations in value orientations identified by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck in 1961. They distinguished six basic cultural orientations: human nature (good/bad/a mix; changeable or not), relation to nature (dominant/harmony/dominated), relation with others (individualist/collectivist/hierarchical), aim of human activity (to do/to become/to be), time orientation (future/present/past), space orientation (private/mixed/public). The positive approach is simple and straightforward, and intuitively acceptable. It explains a lot of the behaviours one can notice as being different from one’s own culture, and it helps to explain differences in communication, such as addressing someone with more or less respect because they are higher or lower in hierarchy, or even older or younger than the speaker. Thus it also helps to understand the differences in communication styles as described by E. T. Hall (1959; 1976), another early researcher on culture, as for instance the important difference between high-context and low-context cultures, or implicit and explicit communication in his book Silent Language (1959): members of collectivist cultures, which are at the same time mostly hierarchical, have learned to understand each other without uttering the words that might destroy the harmony in the group or make another person lose face. They will communicate in an indirect way, and will expect the interlocutor to understand the message because of the hidden codes. If they do not agree they will not say so, but use silences or subtle body language to make the interlocutor understand that they should think again. Face is an extremely important aspect of collectivist societies, and great efforts will be made not to make someone lose face. If your manager does not agree with your proposal, he or she might say: ‘That is very interesting, thank you’, and will add: ‘What do you think of this other idea?’ A clear message that your idea was not good. People from a low-context culture will usually find it confusing. They need to learn how to interpret silences and hesitations or nervous giggles. In lowcontext cultures, people use language as the sole code of communication, and

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words have a specific meaning: ‘yes’ means ‘yes’, ‘nine o’clock’ means ‘nine o’clock’. They will say ‘no’ if they do not agree, and may come over as very aggressive, rude or undiplomatic to people who communicate in a more implicit way. In high-context cultures, the context, i.e. the situation, the previous relationship, or the respect due will give the meaning: ‘yes’ may mean ‘yes’, or ‘maybe’, or ‘no’, according to the context, the way it is said, and the hidden codes of face-saving and face-giving. The positivist approach, especially Hofstede’s seminal work, was a huge step forward in understanding and studying cultural differences in communication and in work-related situations. Etic studies allow us to compare a large number of countries’ scores on the same dimension, and they helped create the concept of ‘cultural distance’ as a ‘function of differences in values and communication styles that are rooted in culture (demographic or organizational)’ (Lojeski & Reilly, 2014: 665). However, research results for the different dimensions may vary significantly between studies, depending on the items measured or the definitions of the concepts. Moreover, Fang (2012), basing his perspective on the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang, posits that paradoxical values coexist in any culture. All cultures share the same set of values but differ in how each culture expresses these values at a given time. For example, people in lowcontext cultures can also ‘read between the lines’ and ‘understand without words’ in certain situations and in very close relationships. Since the 1980s, the study of understanding and working with different cultures has seen a tremendous evolution, so much so that now the positivist theories look like but a first step in understanding cultural differences. In our textbook (Gehrke & Claes, 2014), the first theoretical chapter goes further, adding three more approaches to the positivist one, and enabling students and trainers to avoid using only the positivist approach, which has sometimes been described as ‘sophisticated stereotyping’. It may seem obvious that I would have in mind the notion of hierarchy when doing business with Chinese companies, which would help me prepare and have something to start with, but that I might meet Chinese companies or people who would be different from my expectations. The dimensions are a tool, but to be used with care: with a tool you could build a house, but you could also kill somebody. So let us have a look at the other three levels of analysing a culture: the interpretive approach, the postmodern approach and the critical approach (Romani, Promecz & Bell, 2014).

23.3

The Interpretive Approach

The interpretive or interpretative approach does what it says: it looks at the way words will be interpreted differently by different people. This approach

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aims to understand their cultural reality and act accordingly, consistently with what makes sense to them. It is an emic approach whereby we are not interested in comparing cultures but in understanding how people’s sensemaking explains their actions. The inspirations for this approach are Garfinkel (1967) and Geertz (1993 [1973]). Although there are variations between individuals, social groups or genders in possible ways of making sense of situations, interpretive research claims that through socialization in groups, individuals develop similar frames of interpretation, similar interpretations of symbols. D’Iribarne (1989) refers to these patterns as ‘frames of meaning’ or meaning systems. Within their groups, people refer to similar meanings and values when talking about a concept. We need to look at the meaning of the words we are all using. Through work with word association, we discover that words have different semantic fields in different languages: a ‘leader’ is not the same thing in different cultures. Claes (1992) cites an early word association study by Takahara (1974) with three groups of people (Japanese, US Americans and French) and four stimulus words (friendship, work, marriage and foreigner) which found, for example, that the three groups demonstrated some overlap in their understanding of the meaning of the word ‘marriage’ in their own language, but also some huge differences: the strongest associations for the US Americans were ‘love, understanding, helping each other, trust’; for the Japanese, ‘trust, compromise, restraints, hardship, end of life’; and for the French, ‘love, passion, mutual fulfilment, encouraging each other, sexuality’. This means that if three business people met for a meeting and talked about ‘marriage’, they could be talking about three different concepts. Of course, they would be speaking English, the international lingua franca, but we know that we use our native meanings when speaking a foreign language, unless we are early bilinguals. It is obvious that we cannot learn the meaning of all words in all languages, but being aware of potential differences is essential. Let’s consider the understanding of words in business situations, such as ‘contract’ or ‘deadline’ for example. In Western cultures, the word ‘contract’ usually means a detailed and legal document where not one word can be changed at any time. In Asian cultures, a contract can be changed at any time if the situation changes. A notorious example (Norenzayan, Choi & Nisbett, 1999) is the case between Japan and Australia in 1976–7, which lead to great bitterness in Japan. In 1974 Japanese refiners had signed a long-term contract to buy Australian sugar. This was a hard time for Japan, as the price of the oil that it needed to import had quadrupled, with a huge impact on the economy. When the world price of sugar fell, Japan realized it would pay US$160 above the world market price for five years and asked to renegotiate the price. To the Japanese, this was to both parties’ benefit and was required in order to maintain a good relationship. However, for the Australians, the price was the price, and they did not agree to renegotiate the contract.

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Similarly, ‘deadline’ may have a very different meaning for people from different cultures: does it mean ‘finish on time or you are “dead”’ as in Anglo-Saxon cultures, or does it mean ‘we will try, but we are already thinking of extensions’ as in Latin cultures? It is obvious that the differences in meaning can lead to misunderstandings, lack of trust and even conflict. A Vietnamese company clashed with an American software company because the Vietnamese understood they had ‘acquired’ a data conversion software, whereas in the American company’s understanding the Vietnamese had bought the right to ‘use’ the data conversion system once, not to ‘own’ it. Business people, because they want to be successful, find themselves spending quite a lot of time ‘negotiating meaning’, asking for clarification about what their partners mean when they use a word, and trying to establishing common ground (Holden, 2002). Normally, they want to and need to make sure they are talking about the same thing in order to be successful and avoid misunderstandings and mishaps. Meaning systems are shared, but they are also dynamic. Their content can be reinterpreted and adapted to new situations.

23.4

The Postmodern Approach

The postmodern approach departs from the modern, positivist view of science as an accumulation of knowledge. Language is a key element in the postmodern approach – how it constructs reality on a social level, and how reality is constantly in the making, but also linked to power. This view shows that the way we talk about cultural differences is not neutral but reproduces power inequalities. If interpretive views approach language with a certain kind of respect, postmodern researchers see language as a means of changing meanings and hence local realities. They reject what they see as metanarratives, such as positivist views, which privilege one story and one voice, that of the ‘modern’ world that talks about ‘cultural others’ vis-à-vis Western literature, approaches and values (Ailon, 2008; Fang, 2003). They argue that culture is not stable but emerging in interactions, in contexts. Out of a specific cross-cultural encounter, a new microculture is created that is specific to that particular relationship. Language is important, more specifically the way we use it when we talk about ourselves or about others. One example is what we call the ‘fundamental attribution error’. If for instance a Brazilian arrives late to meet us, we will think or even say, ‘he is Brazilian’, as if the nationality explains the behaviour. But did we look at the context? Are we not stereotyping automatically? Maybe there is a very simple explanation for his lateness in this case. When I am late, I will find a good excuse to explain my being late: the traffic, the rain, or other circumstances. I will have an

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explanation, whereas for someone else I will have a stereotype. We attribute their behaviour to different causes. If Thai employees do not express their ideas in a meeting, we attribute this behaviour to their culture, whereas if Danes do not talk, we ask ourselves why, and think something must be wrong. In both cases, we do not know why employees behave in a certain way, but we are using our stereotypes to judge the situation, without asking ourselves the same questions in both situations. Sometimes it is good to deconstruct the situation, and try not to link behaviour to culture, in order to understand what is really going on. Deconstruction is based on Derrida’s (1967) argument that a text can be interpreted differently by the author and the reader. This would mean, for example, that managers do not have monopoly over what a job description means or should mean to employees. Derrida also explains how dichotomies (rich–poor, men–women, true–false) have an impact on our interpretations. When we discuss McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, which distinguishes between two management positions believing that workers are lazy or motivated, we automatically interpret ‘workers’ as blue-collar workers in the dichotomy blue-collar workers and white-collar workers, and implicitly say that white-collar workers are not lazy.

23.5

The Critical Approach

The fourth approach consists of ‘critical’ and ‘postcolonial’ perspectives. These looks at the power dynamics and structures in a given situation, where the winners impose their view. Both suggest that all knowledge is produced in situations of unequal relations of power. As with the postmodern view, they pay attention to the societal and structural elements that create knowledge and the reality we know: knowledge is linked to those who have power, rather than the result of a neutral and objective research process. The distinction is that postmodern research is less concerned with structures and more with the creation of meaning. Postcolonial and critical studies highlight power imbalances that may look like cultural differences, and demonstrate that using positivist and interpretive analyses is not enough. They aim to change societal structures and not just observe them. The postcolonial view is based on Edward Said’s book Orientalism (1978) which showed that the West constructed something called the ‘Orient’ as an object of investigation through classifications and simplifications, developing a scientific expertise that served to impose its political and military order. Dichotomies create an evaluative discourse about the other, such as the opposition between the ‘rational’, ‘modern’, ‘democratic’ West and the ‘emotional’, ‘traditional’, and ‘nepotic’ East. The same kind of bipolar dichotomies can be identified in cultural dimensions such as ‘neutral-affective’ or Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 14:48:01, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.028

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‘universalism-particularism’ (Trompenaars, 1993), which conceal oppositions between ‘rational-emotional’ and ‘discipline-nepotism’. Postcolonial researchers have studied this concept of ‘the Other’ and ‘othering’ (Fanon, 1967; Jackson & Moshin, 2010). We ‘otherize’ when we compare cultures, putting ‘the Other’ in opposition to our own culture, empowering ‘us’ at the disadvantage of ‘them’. Critical intercultural communication research (Nakayama & Halualani, 2010) looks at the role of power and context in the communication between groups. It insists on the historical, institutional and political forces that play a role in the communication. Some meanings will prevail over others. Power relations can be historical, societal or personal, and they determine who talks, who takes decisions, and who has no say. ‘The common element threaded throughout these dimensions is power, the constraining force by which dominant structures, groups and individuals are able to gain position and achieve their aims and interests over the will of others’ (Halualani, 2014). Hsin-I Cheng (2008) cites the example of an intercultural communication workshop she held for a Taiwanese factory (in the electronics industry) located at the US–Mexico border, where she was called in to address the problematic cross-cultural communication between Taiwanese (management) and Mexican (workers). She realized the problem was not just due to the lack of cultural knowledge, but also to the differences in hierarchy and gender as well as to historical and political inequality between the groups, and the imbalance in economic status and attainable social positions. ‘Hsin-I Cheng shows how Taiwanese managers are exerting strong control on young female Mexican online operators, on their work, on their bodies. In turn, these employees develop strategies of resistance. These power relationships are linked to how each group perceives the cultural other, the kind of cultural training they welcome and the management tools they are willing to adopt’ (Romani and Claes, 2014: 128). In any meeting, we can identify power positions and relations, and clearly identify leaders and followers. Again, the context is very important, and power relations can endure or change with the context. Just as colonial powers used to impose their home language, beliefs and customs on occupied territories, company headquarters ‘exercises its power by introducing a common corporate language and imposing it on the global subsidiary network in an attempt to reduce internal language diversity. Hence, a mandated language which is expressed in standardized company speak, defines the power position of headquarters’ (Logemann & Piekkari, 2015: 37)

23.6

The Role of Language

Reading about the four theories on culture, we cannot fail to notice that language plays an essential role in striving to understand cultures. The Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Texas Libraries, on 19 Feb 2020 at 14:48:01, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555067.028

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link between language and culture has been a point of discussion ever since Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf’s hypothesis of linguistic relativity (Pütz & Verspoor, 2000). Sapir based his ethnographic study of Aboriginal American languages on von Humboldt’s (1836; 1999: 20) idea that ‘The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world’. The hypothesis of linguistic relativity posits that what is expressed in a language and how it is expressed are linked to sociocultural differences, and that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ world view or cognition. In other words, because of the language we speak we have a certain world view that would be different from the world view of speakers of another language. In 2010 Deutscher published his book Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour Your World in which he argues that our mother tongue does indeed affect how we think and, just as important, how we perceive the world. Deutscher finds that a weaker version of linguistic theory holds for colour terms, spatial relation and grammatical gender. A study by Athanasopoulos et al. (2015) on bilinguals confirms cultural relativity in spatial terms. They show that bilinguals can view the world in different ways depending on the specific language they are operating in. They categorize motion events according to the grammatical constraints of the language in which they operate. Showing a video clip of a women walking towards a car to monolingual German speakers and to monolingual English speakers led to interesting observations. The English speaker would look at the woman and describe the action by saying that the women ‘is walking’, whereas the German speaker would describe the action but also the goal of the action, because in German the structure of the sentence needs the verb with the preposition indicating where the person is going: ‘sie geht zum Auto’. Based on their experiments, Athanasopoulos et al. conclude that language effects on cognition are context-bound and transient, revealing unprecedented levels of malleability in human cognition. Speakers of more than one language have learned that different languages consist of different words that cannot always be translated exactly and do not always have the same meaning as we have seen in the paragraph on the interpretive approach. But also the structure is different, which makes us think in a different way as well. One needs to learn another language in order to be able to understand cultures. What is seen as polite or formal or informal use of the language varies considerably between languages, and is not limited to the different ways of saying ‘you’. In Vietnam when you meet a person, you should perceive him or her as a member of your family, and address them accordingly. The name of a person elder than you should be preceded by the correct pronoun to avoid being considered as rude or impolite:

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(elder brother) males a little older than you (elder sister) females a little older than you (younger brother or sister) young females and males younger than you (grandfather) males much older than your parents (grandmother) females much older than your parents (uncle or auntie) females and males a bit older than your parents (grandchildren or niece/nephew) male or female young enough to be your children or grandchildren

Even in English with only one word for ‘you’, language use such as the choice of words can be more or less formal and polite. One can start a presentation by saying ‘ladies and gentlemen’ or ‘hi guys’. We all have emotions, but how much of these emotions we are allowed to express in public is prescribed by social conventions. In some cultures, laughing loudly will be accepted, whereas in other cultures people are supposed to laugh silently. Smiling at strangers is natural in India, but not in Russia where smiling at people you don’t know is seen as idiotic. The rituals of bereavement following death include ‘wailing women’ and hiring professionals to wail loudly in several cultures, as in China. In Essex, England, there is a service called Rent-A-Mourner. The way a language sounds, the intonation, reflects the degree of expressiveness that is allowed in a language. When I hear Arabs talking together, I sometimes get the impression they are fighting, but my Japanese colleagues have the same reaction when I am speaking French with a friend. English is less expressive as a language, which may have led to the expression of ‘a stiff upper lip’ that is used when talking about British selfrestraint in the expression of emotion. The example of the stiff upper lip shows the importance of non-verbal behaviour and the way we interpret it. Some behaviours, like pointing with your foot or showing the sole of your foot, may be interpreted as rude in some cultures. In the context of business, others, such as using your left hand to hand over a document, may be understood as your signalling the end of the negotiation. We have many cases of business people and politicians being described in the press as lacking respect because they kept one hand in their pocket while shaking hands with the president of an Asian country, or because they were photographed talking to a foreign president with their feet on their desk, or because they crossed their legs which made them point their foot at their business partner. Even gestures don’t have the same meaning in different cultures: making an OK sign by joining the thumb and index finger into a circular shape means zero or no good in Russia, coins in Japan, and is considered an obscene gesture in Argentina. There is no such thing as universal sign language, and you may be insulting without realizing it.

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23.7

Conclusion

Using the four approaches, instead of only the positivist one, can help us to gain a deeper understanding of behaviours and situations in international contexts. The positivist theory can be defined as etic since the dimensions are a given and behaviours will be interpreted and explained according to one of the dimensions. How often have we had the problem of explaining a certain behaviour using a positivist approach, and then been obliged to squeeze it rather artificially into one of the dimensions? Nowadays we are more interested in emic approaches whereby knowledge about cultures emerges from the culture itself, its meanings and interpretations. We see the importance of stories to illustrate one or several aspects of a culture, the way we comprehend sayings and proverbs. These are good indicators of the values and world view of a culture. At the same time, the philosophy of the yin and yang helps us to understand that we are collectivists and individualists at the same time, that we are respectful to different degrees, all according to the context (e.g. Fang, 2014). We are all able to understand that someone does not agree with something or someone from their body language, even if the person says ‘yes’. Of course, in some cultures this art has been refined over generations and is strongly embedded in the culture, to the extent that the Japanese say that one should be able to understand ‘with the belly’; that is, without words (Claes, 2001). Not only do words not have the same meaning in different languages, their connotation or emotional charge may be different too. The word ‘control’ has a negative connotation in some languages but not so much in others; the same goes for the word ‘old’, which is interpreted as ‘grey, slow, retired’ in most European cultures, but associated with ‘wisdom, experience, respect’ in Asian cultures. In management, knowledge about one’s own and other people’s cultures is a key element. The positivist approach can help us start in the sense that it gives us an indication of what we might expect in international encounters. But increasingly, what is expected in business is a greater sophistication in our knowledge and behaviour (Romani & Claes, 2014). The central point is that we want to be successful and in order to achieve that goal, we must talk and behave in such way that our partners realize that we know about their culture, that we pay attention, that we are interested in their culture. A simple rule for business people interacting with others from a different culture is ‘listen, learn and love’; accept that we need to learn and show that we are really listening in order to learn, but also show that we appreciate their culture, that we are curious about it, that we are happy to be there and interact with them.

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House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W. and Gupta, V., eds. (2004). Culture, Leadership and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hsin-I Cheng (2008). Space making: Chinese transnationalism on the U.S.Mexican borderlands. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 1(3), 244–63. Jackson, R. L. and Moshin, J. (2010). Identity and difference: race and the necessity of the discriminating subject. In T. K. Nakayama and R. T. Halualani, eds., The Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 348–63. Kluckhohn, F. and Strodtbeck, C. (1961). Variations in Value Orientations. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Logemann, M. and R. Piekkari (2015). Localize or local lies? The power of language and translation in the multinational corporation. Critical Perspectives on International Business, 11(1), 30–53. Lojeski, K. S. and Reilly, R. R. (2008). Understanding effective e-collaboration through virtual distance. In N. Kock, ed., Encyclopedia of E-Collaboration, London: IGI. www.igi-global.com/chapter/understandingeffective-collaboration-through-virtual/12495 (last accessed 4 November 2018). Morris, M. W. Leung, K., Ames, D. and Licke, B. (1999). Views from inside and outside: integrating emic and etic insights about culture and justice judgment. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 781–96. Nakayama, T. K. and Halualani, R. T., eds. (2010). The Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Norenzayan, A., Choi, I. and Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Eastern and Western perceptions of causality for social behaviour: lay theories about personalities and situations. In D. A. Prentice and D. T. Miller, eds., Cultural Divides. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 239–77. Pütz, M. and Verspoor, M., eds. (2000). Explorations in Linguistic Relativity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Romani, L. and Claes, M.-T. (2014). Why critical intercultural communication studies are to be taken seriously in cross-cultural management research? International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 14(1), 127–32. Romani, L., Promecz, H. and Bell, R. (2014). There is nothing so practical as four good theories. In B. Gehrke and M.-T. Claes, eds., Global Leadership Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. London: Palgrave, pp. 13–47. Takahara, N. (1974). Semantic concepts of marriage, ‘work’, ‘friendship’ and ‘foreigner’ in three cultures. In J. C. Condon and M. Saito, eds., Intercultural Encounters with Japan. Tokyo: Simul, pp. 43–61. Trompenaars, F. (1993). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business. London: Nicholas Brealey.

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Von Humboldt, W. (1836). Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts. Berlin: F. Dümmler. Von Humboldt, W. (1999). On Language: On the Diversity of Human Language Construction and its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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24 Language and Othering in Contemporary Europe Anne Ife

24.1

Introduction

The modern era of large-scale migration has had a major impact on Western Europe, where increased prosperity plus the possibility of free movement have attracted increasing numbers of economic migrants and refugees from war zones, culminating in the so-called migrant crisis of 2015. Although in many instances people from diverse backgrounds and cultures are today living harmoniously together, there are increasing signs of resentment towards migrants in Europe. Evidence of this are the policies of a growing number of right-wing nationalist parties in several European countries. The resentment has been further fuelled by terrorist atrocities perpetrated by people of migrant origin, leading to suspicion that incoming migrant populations are being infiltrated by people of malign intent. In European discourse relating to migrants it is noticeable that language has begun to feature prominently as a focus for ‘othering’, contrasting with the 1970s and 1980s when discourse focused more on tolerance and mutual understanding as multicultural policies were pursued. Host societies and incoming groups were encouraged to engage with each other, learn each other’s languages and respect each other’s cultural values and traditions. Maintenance of heritage languages and cultures was often supported in official discourse. Now the discourse is different and the leaders of both Britain and Germany have publicly expressed the view that multiculturalism has failed largely because migrant populations have, in their view, not adopted the national language and culture of their new country. Following similar remarks made by the German chancellor Angela Merkel a few months

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earlier,1 the British prime minister, David Cameron, in a speech to the 2011 Munich Security Conference, spoke of multiculturalism having ‘encouraged different cultures to lead separate lives’ and made various proposals for strategy review including the need for ‘making sure that immigrants speak the language of their new home and ensuring that people are educated in the elements of a common culture and curriculum’ (Cameron, 2011). Language has also come to be seen as a potential gatekeeper to control migrants, with a number of European countries introducing language testing as a requirement for applications for citizenship (Extra & Spotti, 2009; van Avermaet, 2009; van Oers, 2013). At the same time, right-wing politicians and popular media have highlighted language issues in their campaigns to have migration reduced. Using media and documented sources and relevant research findings, this chapter provides evidence of linguistic othering, assesses its causes and motivations, and its impact on intercultural relations. It focuses specifically on the case of the United Kingdom, where language issues featured prominently in political and media discourse relating to migrant communities during the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union, and assesses the role that language played and why language issues should have assumed such dimensions in this particular case.

24.2

Linguistic Diversity in Europe

Europe as a multilingual area is the least linguistically diverse in global terms, representing only four per cent of the world’s languages (Simons & Fennig, 2017). It is, however, home to major languages strongly associated with the identity of one or more European nation states, as well as many regional languages and dialects, some with significant numbers of speakers. As a result of migration there are now also substantial communities of settled speakers of other languages, such as North African varieties of Arabic in France, Turkish in Germany or Gujarati, Hindi/Urdu and Bengali in the UK (Juaristi, Reagan & Tonkin, 2008: 49). Mobility within the EU has introduced additional complexity into the language mix with Polish, for instance, currently the second most widely spoken language in England, according to the UK Census of 2011 (Booth, 2013). Linguistic diversity is thus a challenge for intercultural communication between the citizens of Europe. The EU officially celebrates diversity while legislating forcefully for the national languages to retain their power and 1

In a speech delivered to the youth wing of the CDU in Potsdam on 17 October 2010, Merkel had said that Germany’s attempts to create a multicultural society had ‘utterly failed’.

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authority by granting official status to the language of any new member state. Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union encourages respect for cultural, religious and linguistic diversity (European Union, 2012), and to ensure that Europeans can communicate with each other the EU advocates that all Europeans should learn two EU languages in addition to their mother tongue.2 In practice, recent studies of linguistic proficiency show that few EU citizens achieve this target. The EU’s Eurobarometer survey (European Commission, 2012) shows that only 25 per cent of Europeans can hold a conversation in two foreign languages and only 54 per cent of all Europeans are reportedly able to speak one language in addition to their own, usually English. In several countries a significant proportion of the population is unable to speak any foreign language, namely Hungary (65 per cent), Italy (62 per cent), the UK and Portugal (61 per cent in each), and Ireland (60 per cent), a factor which may well influence attitudes towards speakers of other languages. The Eurobarometer study focuses on major European languages. The languages spoken by Europe’s significant populations of ‘other-language’ speakers are mentioned only in the introduction which acknowledges the ‘many non-indigenous languages spoken by migrant communities’ and commits the EU to ‘safeguarding this linguistic diversity and promoting knowledge of languages, for reasons of cultural identity and social integration and cohesion’ (European Commission, 2012: 2). In practice, nonindigenous languages do not figure in EU policies and it is significant that the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Council of Europe, 1992), endorsed by the EU, specifically excludes non-indigenous languages from its statements on language rights.

24.3

Language as a Human Right

The latter half of the twentieth century saw a proliferation of official declarations and charters on human rights in which language rights figure increasingly prominently (such as the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966; the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 1992; and PEN International’s Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, 1998). The gospel preached in all is one of tolerance and mutual respect for linguistic and cultural diversity. Increasingly, such instruments called on authorities to implement active policies, a stance taken on moral and ethical grounds that has been persuasively critiqued by Bruthiaux (2009) who stresses the financial 2

See http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/multilingualism_en.

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impracticality of some of the stipulations. Implementing language policies that protect and promote the language rights of minorities requires substantial investment of resources in education, the media and social services, for example. But, as others have argued, the benefits in terms of reduced social and economic deprivation for minority groups, better social equality, reduced divisiveness and improved self-image for minority group members – and arguably a better chance of good intercultural interaction – are ultimately reaped by society as a whole (Piller, 2016: 161–3). Financial arguments aside, implementing policies in favour of linguistic rights requires willingness and vision from authorities who are usually speakers of dominant languages. Some societies have enacted policies to enable their indigenous regional and minority languages to see an encouraging growth in support and improved status and in some cases signs of regeneration (May, 2005: 326). Quite another matter are non-indigenous languages brought by migrants: often major languages in themselves, they become minorized within their new environment and present challenges in relation to linguistic rights (Nic Craith, 2006: 159–65). They tend to be excluded from the elite areas of administration, politics, education and the economy, and speakers are ‘limited in their language use to specific domains, usually solely private and/or low status, and . . . thus left with the choice of renouncing their social ambitions, assimilating, or resisting in order to gain greater access to the public realm’ (May, 2005: 322–3). At the same time, migrants are understandably keen to maintain links with their home culture which raises the question of how far their heritage language and culture should be officially supported and how this might be done without compromising the need for migrants to integrate via the language and culture of the receiving society.

24.4

Implementing Language Rights

Faced with growing migrant populations, the more liberal political climate of the latter part of the twentieth century led countries like Britain, Germany and the Netherlands to espouse multicultural policies aimed at promoting social harmony. Mutual awareness of the cultures and languages of both incomers and indigenous populations was encouraged, and to varying degrees the maintenance of exogenous heritage languages and cultures was supported, though largely unfunded. In the UK the trend towards a policy of multiculturalism marked an attempt to move away from the racist oratory of the 1960s which targeted black migrants. Successive reports recommended strategies for making education in England more inclusive, including a significant government

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report, the Swann Report (Department of Education and Sciences [DES], 1985) which specifically promoted the value of linguistic diversity. Acknowledging the role that language can play in the othering of people from different cultures, Swann noted that it was ‘a powerful lesson to those people who claim that Britain is already a just and pluralist society to find how readily “not speaking English” or “not speaking English properly” seems to be taken to indicate that an individual is inadequate and in some way inferior’ (DES, 1985: 386). The report acknowledged the role of schools in ‘imparting a broader understanding of our multilingual society to all pupils’ and suggested that, where numbers warranted, heritage languages could be even be taught within the curriculum (p. 406). However, this apparently positive policy ultimately had little impact and was undermined by subsequent policy changes that worked against language learning in general, to the extent that foreign language learning in the UK is now in decline in the second decade of the twenty-first century (British Academy, 2013: 59–60). In reality, heritage languages are left to the communities themselves to support in after-school classes, and there is little sign of the state valuing positively the resource that lies in migrants’ heritage languages which ‘add cultural richness to society, and . . . are also in a position to make a significant economic contribution’ (Nuffield Foundation, 2000: 36). Instead the focus has shifted to the need for those of migrant origin to speak English. Elsewhere in Europe the attention paid to immigrant languages has been patchy at best and ‘the learning and certainly the teaching of IM [immigrant minority] languages are often seen by speakers of dominant languages and by policy makers as obstacles to integration’ (Extra & Gorter, 2001: 3; see also Nic Craith, 2006: 147). Even before the huge increase in migration flows, the public discourse in Europe was laced with the language of exclusion: ‘IM groups are often referred to as foreigners (étrangers, Ausländer) and as being in need of integration. . . . it is common practice to refer to IM groups in terms of non-national residents and to their languages in terms of non-territorial, non-regional, non-indigenous, or non-European languages’ (Extra & Gorter, 2001: 4, original emphasis). In education various approaches were taken to accommodate young speakers of migrant languages. Where not simply immersed in school in an unfamiliar language, they were assigned classroom helpers or taught in separate streams with the host country language taught as a subject, until they could be integrated into mainstream classes. Some were even taught in special needs classes for indigenous pupils (Convey, 1998: 113). The result for these pupils was often stigmatization and disadvantaged language development, and the attitude of the authorities and teaching staff towards heritage languages was often negative (Extra & Gorter, 2001: 29).

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Rather than valuing and nurturing heritage languages, which would have socially beneficial effects (Piller, 2016: 128–9), far more money and energy was devoted to developing methods for teaching and testing the national language as a second language, a pattern evident around Europe (Extra & Gorter, 2001: 29). Even where early indications appeared generous and enlightened towards language maintenance, as in Sweden, resources became diverted towards teaching Swedish as a second language as antiimmigrant feeling increased, especially as Swedish itself was considered under threat from English (Boyd, 2001: 187). However, the strategies employed did not always achieve the desired outcomes in terms of assimilation to homogenizing norms. Often young people of migrant background emerging from school systems around Europe have developed their own hybrid ways of speaking. France’s struggles to assert ‘proper French’ in the face of the maligned languages and dialects of the deprived areas of the banlieus are well known and there are still ‘uptight schoolteachers and ingratiating social workers who earnestly encourage parents to “speak French at home” with their children, using cheap psychobabble in support of their arguments’ (Hatzfeld, 2013: 3). Other countries, too, denigrate the hybrid languages of the young from migrant backgrounds. Wiese reports negative attitudes in Germany to the Kietzdeutsch of multi-ethnic urban neighbourhoods, where reference to such speakers frequently correlates with terms connected with a poor, undereducated, uncultured and potentially aggressive underclass (Wiese, 2015:19). As Wiese concludes, ‘Language seems to be one of the final hide-outs where openly racist remarks are still socially acceptable in modern society, and as such, it is a very powerful domain for the construction of social out-groups’ (p. 23). Similar attitudes are reported by Milani (2010) who analyses media debates over the use of a variety of Swedish associated with young people of migrant origin. Milani attacks the discourses that ‘subtly reproduce a negative image of a group of people (“our new Swedes” and “multi-ethnic lads”) at the same time as they performatively bring into existence an equally negatively-laden construct of their linguistic practices (blattesvenska)’ (p. 136). Such hybrid forms of language were in the past denigrated as ‘semilingualism’ (Singleton & Ryan, 2004: 203–4). But Hinnenkamp, in a study of adolescents of Turkish background in Germany, demonstrates that the phenomenon of ‘speaking mixed [sic]’ is a sophisticated blending and adaptation of two language codes into a third, hybrid one that represents ‘an expression of a particular identity within the migratory process’ (Hinnenkamp, 2003: 23). As such it is a we-code enabling youngsters of migrant origin to communicate easily and identify with each other. It is also a

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concept that has latterly been afforded academic recognition and respectability through the notion of ‘translanguaging’ (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017: 903–4).

24.5

Language Testing

Such academic insights do not, however, deflect the increasingly insistent demands of European authorities for whom good language knowledge and an awareness of cultural values have become key to ensuring and maintaining national cohesion and national identity in dealing with large numbers of newcomers seeking to make a home in a new country (Hogan-Brun, MarMolinero & Stevenson, 2009; van Oers, Ersbøll & Kostakopoulou, 2010). Germany, for one, has in the twenty-first century reviewed its immigration policies and worked towards a policy of integration of migrants with at its heart the notion of language proficiency. Intending long-term migrants are required to achieve good proficiency in German and take orientation courses to learn about core German values (Möllering, 2010: 149). Similar requirements apply before arrival to those hoping to join spouses, effectively acting as a control on immigration (Stevenson & Schanze, 2009: 98). The Netherlands was originally renowned, some say erroneously (e.g. Slade, 2010: 128–9), for its liberal policies towards its migrant population. But since the mid-1990s it too has developed increasingly stringent integration policies requiring migrants, and those seeking family reunion, to ‘have a knowledge of the Dutch language and to know and accept Dutch norms and values’ (Extra & Spotti, 2009: 87; van Oers et al., 2010: 62). In the UK a language requirement has existed since 1981 for anyone applying for citizenship. The British Nationality Act stipulated, vaguely, that applicants should have ‘sufficient knowledge of the English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic language’ (Blackledge, 2009: 72). But, as Blackledge (2004) shows, race riots in the United Kingdom in 2001 led to a chain of discourses which, by a process of ‘commonsense’ argumentation, blamed young Asians who, allegedly, had insufficient command of English to be properly integrated and thus became disruptive. Consequently, ‘understanding English is iconically linked with good race relations, even at the highest level of government’ (Blackledge, 2004: 89, original emphasis). Subsequently, applicants and their spouses were additionally asked to demonstrate knowledge about life in the United Kingdom and a range of measures was introduced, partly as a response to the 2001 riots and partly in response to terrorist attacks in London in 2005, to encourage integration and the acceptance of ‘shared, common, unifying British values’ (Blackledge, 2009: 77). The new measures again included an emphasis on the English language. Prime Minister Tony Blair declared in a speech setting out the policy that, ‘We

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should share a common language. Equal opportunity for all groups requires that they be conversant in that common language’ (p. 78). In all these countries the official discourse emphasizes that the new processes are intended to benefit migrants by ensuring their ability to participate fully in their adopted country. However, in both Germany and the Netherlands, the increased demands and requirement to integrate have resulted in fewer naturalizations in both countries implying that ‘the obligation to integrate constitutes a threat rather than an expansion of their possibilities’ (van Oers et al., 2010: 102). In all three countries the tests have become progressively harder and can involve substantial expenditure and thus disadvantage poorer and less well educated migrants. As such they ‘operate as a mechanism of selection and exclusion’ (p. 103).

24.6

The Social Impact of Migration Policies

The tension between official discourse and the underlying negative message is evident. As Extra and Spotti say, ‘The call for integration is in sharp contrast with the language of exclusion’ (2009: 63). In underlining the need to conform by adopting the accepted monolingual habitus of the receiving country, migrants are signposted as outsiders by virtue of the languages they speak. When the message comes from voices of authority and is widely publicized in media outlets it inevitably reinforces prejudices already prevalent in society and nowadays the message is often ‘more on what migrants purportedly lack as potential citizens than on what they might contribute to a genuinely more diverse and “modern” conception of citizenship’ (Stevenson & Schanze, 2009: 103). The impact of such discourse became abundantly clear in the period preceding the UK’s referendum on EU membership in 2016. The type of rhetoric seen above was already becoming widespread in the UK throughout the early part of the twenty-first century. Not only Prime Minister Blair, but also David Cameron, then Leader of the Opposition, repeatedly claimed that poor English was a barrier to integration that needed to be torn down. In a speech in 2007 Cameron criticized the translation of public documents and signs into other languages which he claimed was removing any incentive for people to learn English and participate fully in national life, thus creating resentment and suspicion.3 Around the same time, the chairman of a government Commission on Integration and Community Cohesion claimed that in a poll of public opinion ‘60 percent of people thought that not speaking English was a barrier to making a real contribution to this country’, the implication being that the government 3

Cameron’s speech was titled ‘Bringing down the barriers to cohesion’ and was delivered to local residents of Birmingham on 29 January.

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should ‘make sure that both new migrants and those who still rely on their heritage languages can speak English’ (cited by Blackledge 2009: 102).4 Although initially language tests were aimed at non-EU migrants, during the referendum campaign the scope of public discourse in the UK widened to include people from the EU. There had long been anti-EU feeling in some sectors of British society and especially in the more right-wing sectors of the governing Conservative Party. Indeed the referendum was called in part as a way of finally quieting the divisive anti-EU sentiment within the party – a ploy which notoriously failed, not least because anti-EU feeling was also rife among some sectors of the British population, urged on by the popular press and figures like Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and principal proponent of the ‘Leave’ campaign. A research study based on all print, digital and online news services during the ten-week period of the official referendum campaign up to June 2016 (Moore & Ramsay, 2017) shows how the focus on migration increased disproportionately during the campaign, tripling to become the second most discussed topic after the economy and becoming the most frequent front-page item in the media (p. 65). Migration was held responsible for multiple issues (p. 90) among which language featured strongly, both as a problem in itself and in the way in which migrants were portrayed. With the already prevailing ‘commonsense discourse’ linking language with migration issues, David Cameron, by now prime minister, linked English overtly with racial issues in an article in The Times (Cameron, 2016). Beginning with a show of liberal concern for the plight of Muslim women subject to ‘an alarming picture of forced gender segregation, discrimination and social isolation from mainstream British life’ he quickly turns to the theme of ‘passive tolerance’ whereby ‘people subscribe to the flawed idea of separate development’. His solution invokes terrorism and inadequate English as he paints a vivid scenario of a young boy of Pakistani background growing up in Bradford, a northern city with a large immigrant population: ‘His mum can’t speak English and rarely leaves the home, so he finds it hard to communicate with her, and she doesn’t understand what is happening in his life’ (Cameron, 2016). This, Cameron suggests, ignoring the fact that the boy can doubtless communicate with his mother in the home language, leaves him in a vacuum struggling with the teenage search for values, and ‘When that happens, the extremist narrative gives him something – however ridiculous – to believe in’ (Cameron, 2016). From the teenager lured into terrorism Cameron moves on to men who perpetuate backward attitudes and stop their partners integrating. His response is that ‘We must also make more progress on English language. It is at the 4

Singh, D. (2007). Not Speaking English Is the Single Biggest Barrier to Successful Integration. London: Commission on Integration and Community Cohesion.

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heart of solving this . . . someone can move here with very basic English and there’s no requirement to improve it over time. We will change that. We will now say: if you don’t improve your fluency, that could affect your ability to stay in the UK’ (Cameron, 2016). The tone thus becomes more threatening. While apparently concerned with the best interests of women disempowered by their menfolk, or with youngsters deprived of an education in British cultural values, ultimately language is made the bogeyman for a range of social ills based on flawed assumptions and becomes a stick with which to beat the outsider. When apparently rational views come from those in power, it is only a short step from being taken up by those with less laudable motives. The discourse on English from both prime ministers and from within parliament was picked up, largely but not exclusively, by the more sensationalist popular press. In 2015, when the debate over whether the UK should leave the EU was boiling up, a headline in the Daily Mail proclaimed: ‘Speak English to get a job in public sector!’ (Daily Mail, 2015). The article reported on the new Immigration Bill before parliament which would require people working in public-facing jobs to have a minimum level in English or be moved to alternative employment. The bill prompted members of parliament to see this as recognition that migration from the EU was out of control, the newspaper citing one Conservative MP as saying: ‘Non-EU migrants already have to pass English tests. It’s our membership of the EU and free movement rules that means we have to let in people who can’t.’ (Daily Mail, 2015). Cases involving linguistic incompetence among migrant workers already received prominence in newspaper reports, the most notorious being that of a German doctor, of Nigerian origin, who gave an inaccurate dose to a patient who subsequently died. The headline in the Daily Telegraph read: ‘German doctor who killed patient “avoided English test”’ (Gammell, 2010). In subsequent years this same case continued to reverberate in newspaper reports including one headlined ‘Doctors from the EU to face language tests for the first time in 30 years to improve patient safety’ (Daily Mail Online, 2014). This article reported General Medical Council changes to ensure linguistic competence in all doctors working in the NHS, but further cited the fact that ‘In 2008 German Dr Daniel Urbani killed Cambridge patient David Gray when he confused two drugs and gave him 10 times the recommended dose of diamorphine’ (Daily Mail Online, 2014). The question of language standards among doctors was also raised by Nigel Farage, claiming to represent a wider consensus, when he ‘said the poor English language skills of some GPs was “something that people out there are talking about” despite all NHS doctors having to pass a language test’ (Williams, 2015). The paper reported that he had on live television asked ‘Don’t we want to live in a country where we speak the same language? And

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isn’t it scandalous that we are not training enough nurses and doctors in our own country?’ (Williams, 2015). The Guardian article offered a more balanced perspective but the words originally spoken on mainstream television were more likely to be influential among those of similar persuasion. If migrants being linguistically ill-equipped to carry out the work for which they were employed was one recurring theme, another was the notion that British schools are being filled with children unable to speak English, to the detriment of native children. There have been many reports, not always negative, of the wide range of languages spoken in British classrooms but in recent times the tone of these became more critical. The Daily Telegraph, responding to published government statistics, ran the headline: ‘More than 300 different languages spoken in British schools, report says’, but added a negative sub-headline ‘with English-speaking pupils becoming a minority in hundreds of classrooms’ (Espinoza, 2015). The article stressed emotively that in some schools pupils with English as a first language were now a minority, and ‘Schools where foreign languages have overtaken English are spread across the land’ (Espinoza, 2015). One person interviewed reportedly said, ‘This is a great country in which to be at school if English is your second language’ (Espinoza, 2015). An even more critical response to these statistics was published by the Daily Express (2015) in an article which the newspaper was later forced to retract after the Independent Press Standards Organisation found its central claims to be inaccurate. As the paper was forced to acknowledge: ‘The front page article reported that English “is starting to die out” in schools. It also reported that there are some schools where English-speaking pupils are “becoming a minority”; where English is “hardly heard at all”; and where “foreign languages have overtaken English”. . . . It also inaccurately suggested that in some schools, lessons are not taught in English’ (Daily Express, 2015). While forced to display this apology prominently, the paper defended itself by saying that ‘the article was not misleading when read as a whole’ (Daily Express, 2015). In spite of the apology the damage was doubtless already done. One of the main proponents of the need to leave the EU was the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, whose self-confessed motivation in politics was to achieve this end. As pressure built to hold a referendum his speeches focused heavily on immigration and its negative impact on British society, frequently citing language issues. In a widely reported speech in 2014, playing on public emotions, he declared that ‘this country in a short space of time has frankly become unrecognizable. Whether it is the impact on local schools and hospitals, whether it is the fact in many parts of England you don’t hear English spoken any more. This is not the kind of community we want to leave to our children and grandchildren’ (Sparrow, 2014). In a subsequent press conference, covered widely in the media, Farage cited a

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recent experience on a commuter train in London, when ‘it was not until we got past Grove Park that I could hear English being audibly spoken in the carriage. . . . Does that make me feel slightly awkward? Yes it does’ (Sparrow, 2014). As to why he objected to people speaking in foreign languages, he replied, again claiming to be the voice of the people: ‘I don’t understand them . . . I don’t feel very comfortable in that situation and I don’t think the majority of British people do (Sparrow, 2014). Views like these were reflected in the reported comments of ordinary people, published later in the referendum campaign, often linked to more damaging innuendo. The Daily Mail, for instance, featured a report about a small mining town in the East Midlands where, it said, ‘Close your eyes and listen to the voices and Shirebook . . . might be Poznan or Lodz’ (Tweedie, 2016). The language issue was then overtly linked to the criminality of one individual, but by implication to the Polish community in general, with a headline which read, ‘A rapist protected by police and the neglected mining town in the East Midlands that has turned into Little Poland’ (Tweedie, 2016). The story focused on the fact that the Polish identity of a rapist had not been revealed by the police and commented that, ‘In the past two years almost 400 foreigners either living or visiting Britain have been identified as being convicted sex offenders in their home countries’ (Tweedie, 2016).

24.7

Conclusion

Although it is widely accepted that migration issues had a major impact on the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, we cannot know how far language itself influenced the outcome. The topic was prevalent in sectors of the press that supported the ‘Leave’ campaign, including many of the widely read tabloids, with EU migration blurred confusingly with immigration in general. Language deficit was also a topic on the lips of anti-EU politicians like Farage, with fervent support among the sections of the electorate. Moreover, the superficially more rational discourse of government leaders sent a similar message: language is a problem and unless we make people speak English we shall have a continuing terrorist threat from non-integrated outsiders. Though not illegal, the type of discourse seen here is an insidious and alienating way of emphasizing the difference of others. Challenging such discourse is not easy, especially in the UK, an island nation perhaps less accustomed to contact with other languages than some European nations and with little confidence about learning other languages, which are widely perceived to be difficult. It speaks the world’s current lingua franca and is now used to having others make the effort to communicate. Ideally the UK would have an education system that develops a respect for and an interest

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and capability in other languages. Yet ironically, while demanding better English skills from migrants, recent government policies have made language learning optional for school pupils after the age of fourteen, leading to a decline in take-up (British Academy, 2013: 59–60). Moreover, successive UK governments have failed to capitalize on the resident language resource within its migrant communities. As the British Academy argues, much greater use could be made of heritage languages, whether by teaching them at school level or by specifically recruiting other-language speakers to the workforce, thus increasing the self-esteem of migrants and respect for them in the wider community. The UK is not alone in seeing language deficit as the root of a major social problem nor in seeing testing as an apparent solution. To underestimate the complexity of the issues would be naïve, but this is a falsely seductive analysis. Language knowledge (Piller, 2016: 161–3) is certainly vital for accessing employment, healthcare and numerous other aspects of daily life, and is essential to help migrants integrate in their new communities. But threats and exclusion are hardly the answer. Better surely to put in place easily accessible and subsidized language classes to help achieve the desired targets, and to make them available at times when migrants can attend. Hogan-Brun (2017: 82–4) cites examples from around Europe of support and access to free tuition offered to migrants to enable them to integrate and contribute to society. She also cites grassroots initiatives to facilitate communication and respect within multicultural societies (p. 61–2) which might give cautious reason for optimism. Yet at present the multiculturalism of the 1980s and 1990s is being overwhelmed by the philosophy of ‘one nation, one language’ on which modern European nation states were founded. The contemporary tenor of public discourse on language represents a major challenge for social relations in Western Europe and, regrettably, it is hard to foresee any imminent change in the current political climate.

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Boyd, S. (2001). Immigrant languages in Sweden. In G. Extra and D. Gorter, eds., The Other Languages of Europe. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 177–92. British Academy (2013). Lost for Words. London: British Academy. Bruthiaux, P. (2009). Language rights in historical and contemporary perspective. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 30(1), 73–85. Cameron, D. (2011). Speech to Munich Security Conference. UK Government Web Archive. www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-at-munichsecurity-conference (last accessed 17 September 2019). Cameron, D. (2016). We won’t let women be second class citizens. The Times, 18 January. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2017) Minority languages and sustainable translanguaging: threat or opportunity? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(10), 901–2. Convey, F. (1998). Teaching the mother tongue in France. In W. Tulasiewicz and A. Adams, eds, Teaching the Mother Tongue in Europe. London: Cassell, pp. 101–22. Council of Europe (1992). European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/ conventions/treaty/148 (last accessed 1 February 2019). Daily Express (2015). IPSO complaint upheld: English in schools. Daily Express, 17 December. www.express.co.uk/news/clarifications-corrections/627051/ IPSO-complaint-upheld-English-in-schools (last accessed 6 March 2019). Daily Mail (2015). Speak English to get a job in public sector! Daily Mail, 18 September. Daily Mail Online (2014). Doctors from the EU to face language tests for the first time in 30 years to improve patient safety. Daily Mail, 26 February. Department of Education and Sciences (DES) (1985). Education for All: Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups (Swann Report). Cmnd. 9453. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Espinoza, J. (2015). More than 300 different languages spoken in British schools, report says. Daily Telegraph, 24 July. www.telegraph.co.uk/educa tion/educationnews/11761250/More-than-300-different-languages-spokenin-British-schools-report-says.html (last accessed 6 March 2019). European Commission (2012). Europeans and their languages. Eurobarometer, 386, June. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_ en.pdf (last accessed 6 March 2019). European Union (2012). Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Official Journal of the European Union, 26 October, 326/393. Extra, G. and Gorter, D. eds. (2001). The Other Languages of Europe. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Extra, G. and Spotti, M. (2009). Language, migration and citizenship: a case study on testing regimes in the Netherlands. In G, Hogan-Brun, C. Mar-Molinero and P. Stevenson, eds., Discourses on Language and Integration. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 61–82.

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Extra, G., Van Avermaet, P. and Spotti, M., eds. (2009). Advances in Sociolinguistics: Language Testing, Migration and Citizenship: Cross-National Perspectives on Integration Regimes. London: Continuum. Gammell, C. (2010). German doctor who killed patient ‘avoided English test’, Daily Telegraph, 22 January. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/ 7045267/German-doctor-who-killed-patient-avoided-English-test.html (last accessed 6 March 2019). Hatzfeld, M. (2013). Babblings from France or Babel in the Île-de-France. Transversal Texts, January. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0513/1358283853/en (last accessed 6 March 2019). Hinnenkamp, V. (2003). Mixed language varieties of migrant adolescents and the discourse of hybridity. In J. N. Jorgensen, ed., Bilingualism and Social Relations: Turkish Speakers in North Western Europe. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 12–41. Hogan-Brun, G. (2017). Linguanomics: What Is the Market Potential of Multilingualism? London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Hogan-Brun, G., Mar-Molinero, C. and Stevenson, P., eds. (2009). Discourses on Language and Integration: Critical Perspectives on Language Testing Regimes in Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Juaristi, P., Reagan, T. and Tonkin, H. (2008). Language diversity in the European Union: an overview. In X. Arzoz, ed., Respecting Linguistic Diversity in the European Union. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 47–72. May, S. (2005). Language rights: moving the debate forward. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 319–47. Milani, T. (2010). What’s in a name? Language ideology and social differentiation in a Swedish print-mediated debate. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 14(1), 116–42. Möllering, M. (2010). The changing scope of German citizenship: from ‘guest worker’ to citizen? In C. Slade and M. Möllering, eds., From Migrant to Citizen: Testing Language, Testing Culture. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 145–63. Moore, M. and Ramsay, G. (2017). UK Media Coverage of the 2016 EU Referendum Campaign. London: Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power. www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/CMCP/UK-media-coverage-ofthe-2016-EU-Referendum-campaign.pdf (last accessed 6 March 2019). Nic Craith, M. (2006). Europe and the Politics of Language. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Nuffield Foundation (2000). Languages: The Next Generation: The Final Report and Recommendations of The Nuffield Languages Inquiry. London: The Nuffield Foundation. PEN International (1998). Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya. https://culturalrights.net/descargas/drets_culturals 389.pdf (last accessed 6 March 2019).

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Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Simons, G. F. and Fennig, C. D., eds. (2017). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 20th ed. Dallas, TX: SIL International. www.ethnologue.com (last accessed 6 March 2019). Singleton, D. and Ryan, L. (2004). Language Acquisition: The Age Factor. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Slade, C. (2010). Civic integration in the Netherlands. In C. Slade and M. Möllering, From Migrant to Citizen: Testing Language, Testing Culture. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125–44. Sparrow, A. (2014). Nigel Farage: parts of Britain are ‘like a foreign land’. The Guardian, 28 February. www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/28/ nigel-farage-ukip-immigration-speech (last accessed 6 March 2019). Stevenson, P. and Schanze, L. (2009). Language, migration and citizenship in Germany: discourses on integration and belonging. In G. Extra, M. Spotti and P. van Avermaet, eds., Language Testing, Migration and Citizenship: Crossnational Perspectives on Integration Regimes. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 87–106. Tweedie, N. (2016). A rapist protected by police and the neglected mining town in the East Midlands that has turned into Little Poland. Daily Mail Online, 6 May. United Nations (1966). International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Geneva: Office of the High Commissioner. United Nations (1992). Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. Geneva: Office of the High Commissioner. Van Avermaet, P. (2009). Fortress Europe? Language policy regimes for immigration and citizenship. In G. Hogan-Brun, C. Mar-Molinero and P. Stevenson, eds., Discourses on Language and Integration Critical Perspectives on Language Testing Regimes in Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 15–44. Van Oers, R. (2013). Deserving Citizenship: Citizenship Tests in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Leiden: Brill. Van Oers, R., Ersbøll, E. and Kostakopoulou, T. (2010). A Re-definition of Belonging? Language and Integration Tests in Europe. Leiden: Brill. Wiese, H. (2015). ‘This migrants’ babble is not a German dialect!’: the interaction of standard language ideology and ‘us’/‘them’ dichotomies in the public discourse on a multiethnolect. Language in Society, 44(3), 341–68. Williams, R. (2015). Farage v the facts: the truth about foreign doctors. The Guardian, 4 January. www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/06/nigelfarage-doctors-uk-dont-speak-good-english (last accessed 6 March 2019).

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25 Black British Writing Benjamin Zephaniah’s Didactic Poetics Deirdre Osborne

She’s illegal, so deport her Said the Empire that brought her She died, Nobody killed her And she never killed herself Zephaniah (1996)1

25.1

Introduction

In this single, singeing sentence spanning five lines, from his poem ‘The Death of Joy Gardner’, Zephaniah captures the ongoing consequences of Britain’s violent imperial past and its continuing adverse repercussions for certain groups in contemporary British society. The author elucidates an epic subject – the deportation of those individuals categorized as unwanted by the state – in Britain’s long history of expulsion of people from its shores.2 In the light of such a catastrophic legacy of non-intercultural communication around which his poem is formed, what might be the prospects for Black British poetics as a resource for, and a means of, contemporary intercultural communication? 1

Amnesty International report her death as follows: ‘On 28 July 1993 a 40-year-old Jamaican woman was arrested by police and immigration authorities for removal from the United Kingdom. Having been bound and gagged by the police, Joy Gardner collapsed, fell into a coma and was pronounced dead four days later.’ (Amnesty International, 1995: 2).

2

This trajectory spans the Edict of Expulsion of Jews in 1290 (e.g. Mundill, 1998), the warrants applied for (but never carried out) to expel ‘Blackamoors’ in 1596 and 1601 (e.g. Kaufmann, 2008), the transportation of religious dissenters and criminals to America (1717–76), then to Australia (1787–1868) (e.g. Ekirch, 1987), the Aliens Restriction Act in 1914 (e.g. Bashford & McAdam, 2014), and the forcible deportation of Chinese sailors from Liverpool (1946–7), (e.g. Heaver, 2017).

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In general, poetry as a medium always facilitates intercultural communication through its stylized and intensely artificial use of language. Interculturality in this respect consists of the degrees of awareness of and cultural competence in the myriad of literary and performance traditions framing any poet’s work, as well as the scope of any poet’s and reader’s experiential reference points (inflected by the spectrum of class, ethnicity, generation, sex-gender and nationality categories) that shape linguistic encounters between readers, listeners and a poet’s poems. These situating elements might suggest intercultural contact is possible (Reichl, 2002), in the contact zone proposed by Pratt (1991),3 but does that mean intercultural communication takes place, and if so, on whose and under what terms? To explore the potential reach of this question, this chapter draws upon the idea of ‘poetry as its own vindicating force’ (Heaney, 1988: 92) and at the same time recognizes: the powerful, self-fashioning capabilities of the art of poetry as counterstance and counterbalance – both to prevailing social norms that devalue and oppress certain groups of people based upon race and sex-gender categories, and to prevailing aesthetic traditions which denote inclusion or exclusion within the British literary compass and its markers of artistic merit (Osborne, 2010: 230).

Without diminishing any poet’s artistic virtuosity and imaginative verve, and bearing in mind that poetic techniques can engender affect, this chapter explores selections from Zephaniah’s 1990s poetry, published in three collections: City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996) and School’s Out: Poems Not For School (1997). It examines what I term Zephaniah’s ‘Didactic Poetics’, in poems that flip the history of empire to expose the imperial underbelly and present a challenge to what has remained pedagogically consolidated by the British education system and its curriculum. The concept of Didactic Poetics in relation to intercultural communication is: ‘instructive’, in teaching the reader how to read, listen and (re-)contemplate culture from minoritized perspectives; and ‘consequentialist’, speaking to a collective experience of the consequences of the British Empire’s aftermath and the vast inequalities caused by its legacy. Zephaniah’s Didactic Poetics can be viewed in terms of Spivak’s call to deconstruct the dominant cultural processes that denote knowledge value through ‘reversing, displacing, and seizing the apparatus of value-coding’ itself (1990: 228) to aim to build coalitions of resistance and understanding (Lugones, 2007). Such actions are necessary to produce and

3

Pratt defines contact zones as being, ‘social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today’ (1991: 34).

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value the cultural knowledge that stems from beyond dominant structures, to form new relationships with their representational grammars. However, as Bauman and Briggs caution, ‘to claim that researchers must choose [emphasis added] among analyses of poetic patterns, social interaction, or larger social and cultural contexts is to reify each of these elements and to forestall an adequate analysis of any’ (1990: 69). To avoid this endpoint, a pluriversal rather than universal approach is requisite for exploring the role of intersecting contexts in relation to poetic aesthetics (Glissant, 1983). Black British poetry provides a distinctly aesthetic vehicle for catalysing intercultural communication, where the awareness of ‘contexts’ is crucial in order to appreciate not only the range of referents and allusions, but also as an examination of poetry itself as a conduit for expression. A range of contexts can inform this pluriversal approach, clustered by what Malinowski terms the ‘context of cultural reality’ (1935: 22), and ‘the context of situation’ (p. 214); and Bauman, the ‘context of communicative system’, the ‘institutional context’ and the ‘individual context’ (1984 [1977]: 30). The combination of contexts and responsiveness to diasporic aesthetics, as perceived through a lens of colonial consequentiality, creates the possibilities for intercultural communication to take place. While intercultural communication might imply the possible recalibration of literary and social perspectives, a distinction should be made between understanding cultures and the kind of cultural knowledge required for competency in this process. Volkmann points to the work of Bredella to posit ‘that insurmountable differences exist in theoretical discussions of how members of a majority read or understand texts written by a member of a minority’ (2008: 249). Similarly, Bauman and Briggs follow Heidegger (1971) to highlight how ‘Western theories of language and poetics in turn presuppose Western metaphysics’ and that for ‘marginalized groups on the periphery of industrial capitalism, performances are often overtly concerned with deconstructing dominant ideologies and expressive forms’ (Bauman & Briggs, 1990: 66). To apply this thinking to Zephaniah’s spoken-word and performance poetry, it must first be acknowledged that post-war migratory sensibilities injected Anglophone poetry with innovative alternatives for rendering language on and off the page. The post-war pioneer generations re-set the terms of engagement for English: orally, aurally, visually and grammatically, and through live performances established an arena for politicized poetics that British-born poets such as Zephaniah were able to evolve into a diasporically attuned, multiracially resonant, Black British poetics. Thus, as Eldridge argues, through poetry, Black Britishness was performed into being (Eldridge, 1997). This chapter firstly acknowledges the contexts of intercultural communication that contour Zephaniah’s Didactic Poetics as derived from these

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post-war Caribbean-heritage legacies, and the residues of colonial education that are apparent in British education today. It then offers analyses of his ‘school poems’, and finally considers the factors affecting longevity and legitimation that indicate the degree to which permeation and traction within British culture and its institutions is an outcome of intercultural communication through Black British poetics.

25.2

The Context of Cultural Reality: Post-War Inheritances

In the post–World War II period, the mass migration of people from the former colonies of the British Empire brought a sizeable number of writers and performers to the UK, from the Caribbean region, South-east Asia and the continent of Africa. This migration forever changed the ethnic and cultural demographics of Britain’s predominantly white Caucasian population. Their creative work also altered Anglophone literature, refreshing and enriching vocabularies, techniques and representational ranges, to expose readers to distinctive vernaculars and experiences. For poetry in particular, the post-war generations refashioned expectations of which sounds and rhythms of language could be heard in the live contexts of spoken-word and performance poetry – arenas primarily evolved by these post-war Caribbean-heritage poets. To a more limited degree did this poetic influence filter through to mainstream British theatre, which, due to its specific institutional history and racialized processes of commissioning, casting and production, did not regularly stage black British writers’ work until the late-twentieth into the early twenty-first centuries.4 The post-war émigrés who had received a colonial education in their birth nations were also sensitive to the power differentials of an anticolonial heritage and the decolonizing momentum experienced from within these former colonies – energies that were brought into Britain and represented in their writing and performance. Although believing they were British (together with their Caribbean regional, and national affiliations), within Britain these multiple identities were reductively viewed by the hostile surrounding society as ‘coloured’ or ‘black’. This generation set the parameters of cultural change – even from a frequently marginalized position in relation to Britain’s institutions (arts, publishing,

4

Poetic theatre, dramatic-poetics and poetic dramas testify to the generic crossings by Black British writers where the role of poetry is integral to performance in the theatre. Many dramatists are also poets (e.g. Kay Chiaroscuro, 1986; SuAndi The Story of M., 2017 [2002]; Sissay Something Dark, 2008 [2004]; Ellams The Black T-Shirt Collection, 2012; Kené Misty, 2018; Makoha The Dark, 2018).

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education, media, archives, museums). In particular, the post-war Caribbean writers (the largest émigré demographic) challenged establishment and popular cultural competencies. Their creative work and political and critical activism problematized what comprises national literature, and who was missing from the circles that offer and designate cultural legitimation and longevity. Being raised and educated in a system where the critical and aesthetic principles that are taught disregard or diminish the significance or even existence of multiple racial and ethnic heritages engenders a shift in understanding of self. To survive and thrive within such a system is an experience of looking outwards as well as understanding the degree of internalization that occurs with, as Stuart Hall famously observes, ‘the power to make us see and experience ourselves as “Other”’ (Hall, 1990: 225). This simultaneous insider–outsider dynamic is precisely what Hall charts as being the result of regimes of representation formed under imperial rule. It is one thing to position a subject or set of peoples as the Other of a dominant discourse. It is quite another thing to subject them to that ‘knowledge’, not only as a matter of imposed will and domination, by the power of inner compulsion and subjective con-formation to the norm (Hall, 1990: 226).

The consequences for contemporary culture and society of this representational regime form the backbone of Zephaniah’s 1990s poetry wherein education is clearly a primary conduit for the proliferation of this process. The same concern is expressed by the African American Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison when she refers to the linguistic loss and cultural nullification that white-dominant education systems can wreak upon black children’s expressive development – where one communicative form of language is valued over another according to racialized cultural hierarchies. It’s terrible to think that a child with five different tenses comes to school to be faced with books that are less than his own language. And then to be told things about his language, which is him, that are sometimes permanently damaging . . . This is a really cruel fallout of racism (Morrison, 1981).

As a result, Morrison evolves a method of recuperation from inside oppression: ‘I know the standard English. I want to use it to help restore the other language, the lingua franca’ (1981). Morrison’s mission resonates with Zephaniah’s poetics, where a similarly restorative pedagogical undertaking is detectable. Furthermore, as shall be explored, Zephaniah might be described as a ‘situationist’, in operating from both détournement and recuperation positions.

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As Spivak reminds us, ‘distinguishing between Africa and Asia in terms of kinship to Europe is an old story’ (1990: 199). Black British poetic traditions have emerged from alternative schools of performance and writing that evolved outside the narrowness of mainstream educational curriculum and the constraints of the white canon. In Zephaniah’s didactic poems, the speaker, who is positioned as black (gender not determined) does not need to learn to be British. The speaker knows the history, effects and affect of imperial rule from enslavement to colonization and beyond. Zephaniah’s personae teach the reader the realities and the consequences of imperial British history through his poetic acts of decolonizing the imaginary (Gruzinski’s concept). His work places comprehension beyond the notion of one grand totality to present what decoloniality, as a programmatic critique, might look and sound like in poetry. The school poems can be seen to exemplify the dialogic praxis of Freire’s ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ (2005 [1970]), in firstly identifying the ‘banking process’ of education as the depositing of knowledge into minds that are deemed to be empty or ignorant. His approach is in harmony with Freire’s argument that ‘knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other’ (2005 [1970]: 72). In this vein, Zephaniah works to free his readers from inhibitions towards their potential creative power. His poetic works assume a transformative, interactive and creative encounter between the teacher and student, where roles are reversible, and where poetry furthermore opens up an opportunity for both groups to learn.

25.3

The Context of Situation: From Colonial to British Education

The lingua franca of British imperial rule was standard English and the colonial education system was the cornerstone of the post-war migratory generations’ experiences of Britain. Education systems in Britain – and abroad in British colonies – aimed to reinforce the might of the empire and to valorize Britain (and specifically England) over any indigenous cultural heritage of the countries that had been colonized. An example of the extent of the educational patriotism as it was perceived through a British child’s eyes is captured in Wingfield-Stratford’s 1939 recollection of the 1890s, in those empire conscious days there was no doubt or room for doubt . . . and loving your country meant shouting, and going all out, and, at need, dying, for that empire on which, as we were constantly reminded, the sun never set (1939: x).

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Challenging such propaganda was part of the anti-colonialist struggles for independent nation states. As eminent pioneer-generation poet James Berry describes it: There was nothing to express our [bold in original] experience and background. We learnt a lot about English kings and queens. We were being drilled and prepared all the time to acknowledge that we were British, and the African/Caribbean aspects were kept out of sight all the time (quoted in Hoyles & Hoyles, 2003: 29).

The post-war settler generation was also mindful of such effects upon their children’s lives, children increasingly born in Britain and educated in a system that ignored (or even denigrated the value of ) the plethora of Commonwealth heritages. Hoyle and Hoyle describe these indigene generations as facing [s]imilar cultural issues, but most had a different educational experience. They never even got as far as studying Keats and Wordsworth, for in Britain children with Caribbean backgrounds have often suffered low expectations, ridicule and discrimination because of their language and culture (Hoyles & Hoyles, 2003: 29).

Second-generation children bore the brunt of the narrowness of expectations and the racism of school experiences, which were factors in the low achievements of many black children throughout the 1960s to 1980s. As adults this generation named and tackled the discrimination and disenfranchisement, refusing the subjection of second-class citizenship with which their parents had been encumbered. Furthermore, Hardcastle and Yandell (2018) report how even in late-twentieth century Britain, the classroom environment and pedagogical limitations of teachers – who remained a predominantly white group – continued to disadvantage black British pupils as part of a minoritized group. In 1979, the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups was instituted to look into the causes of underachievement. The committee, concluded that the main problems were low teacher expectations and racial prejudice among white teachers and society as a whole (p. 568).

Evidence of cultural code-switching was inherent in many school pupils’ lives as a point of understanding the disjuncture between degrees of acceptance and approval. This involved a degree of intercultural communication. As D. Keith Peacock observes: In the school situation, influenced by their peers and by popular culture, partly also to survive outside the home or for acceptance on an individual level within an ethnic majority peer group, young people may cross cultural borders and adapt to the dominant society without necessarily

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completely abandoning the values of their immigrant culture, to construct what Stuart Hall (1992) has described as ‘new ethnicities’ (2010: 52).

Peacock importantly notes that an aspect of ‘cultural translation’ was ‘not only from the minority to the majority’ but also from one generation to another, so that parental generations too, could learn ‘something about what their children were facing outside the home and what familial, individual and inter-personal tensions multiculturalism could produce’ (p. 54). The landmark pamphlet written by Bernard Coard titled How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System: The Scandal of a Black Child in Schools in Britain (1971) published by New Beacon Books,5 sets out the full extent of the neglect and disenfranchisement of black children in the 1970s British education system. Coard notes, ‘This book is dedicated to my parents and all Black parents who value their children’s education and opportunities in life above all else’ (1971, n.p.). The publication catalysed the supplementary schools system and added a vital politicized scholarly voice to grassroots and anti-racist community actions. More than three decades later, Richardson’s collection (2005) of perspectives in the form of poems, essays, memoirs and manifestos testify to the power and clarity of Coard’s polemical legacy, but also that the urgency in challenging policymaking remains current. Among the contributors to Richardson’s edited book is Zephaniah who, more than any other British poet, has produced a series of poems throughout his career from school pupils’ standpoints, where pupils are addressees and auditors.

25.4

Context of Communicative System: Didactic Poetics

While poetry has always been a fixture on the school curriculum from primary education onwards through reading, hearing, performing and creatively writing it, poetry about the experience of school and education is also a compelling topic. There are many white-authored examples such as those written from the perspective of the teacher, for instance, Lawrence’s three poems anthologized under ‘The School Master’ (1913). In ‘A Snowy Day’ the teacher persona’s responsibility for educating his pupils ‘is more than I can bear’ (lix) and in ‘Afternoon in School – The Last Lesson’ (lx), the persona sits demoralized, exhausted and wishing for the end of the school

5

Established by John LaRose and Sarah White in 1966, New Beacon Books is ‘the UK’s first black publisher, specialist bookshop and international book distributor’ (www.newbeaconbooks.com/new-beacon-books-1).

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day. In ‘The Best of School’ the classroom serves as the threshold between pessimism and enlightenment, and the teacher/speaker’s thoughts close the poem with a more optimistically nurturing thought of reciprocity rather than pointlessness, ‘they twine/ My life with other leaves, my time/ Is hidden in theirs, their thrills are mine.’ (lxiii). Later in literary history Armitage’s ‘The Shout’ (2005) ruminates over the divergent paths taken by individuals from the school grounds to adult life. Whereas McGough’s ‘First Day at School’ (1996) oscillates its focalization between the adult appraisal of the architecture, school’s function and effect, and the disorientation and vulnerability of the young child deposited in such an environment. These three white male writers by virtue of their class origins and geographical regionalism diverge from ivory tower notions of Oxbridge-dominant elitist poetry traditions. However, while their work celebrates working-class perspectives in a world where public school elitist education leads to power and cultural prominence, it has also been canonized in various periods of literary history and regularly included on educational curricula. Notably, Armitage has been Oxford University’s Professor of Poetry since being elected in 2015 – in contrast to Zephaniah who, in 1989 was not. Zephaniah is variously recorded as being born in ‘Black River, Jamaica, in 1958 . . . came to England with his family when he was two years old’ (Volkmann, 2008: 252), to being born in Birmingham to a Barbadian father and a Jamaican mother (Doumerc, 2005: 193). His official website states, ‘Dr Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah was born and raised in Birmingham, England [emphasis added]. He cannot remember a time when he has not creating poetry but this had nothing to do with school where poetry meant very little to him’ (Zephaniah, 2019). Zephaniah’s own school experience was one of being stereotyped, and excluded both for being black and also, in having non-diagnosed dyslexia, he struggled with reading and writing. He recalls how he evolved his poetry from these experiences and through remaining faithful to his need for authentic expression amid the pigeonholing. ‘I wrote a lot of my poems phonetically: “wid luv” for “with love.” People didn’t think they were dyslexic poems, they just thought I wrote phonetically’ (quoted in Rourke, 2016: 212). He notes how naming his condition was transformative: At 21 I went to an adult education class in London to learn to read and write. The teacher told me, “You are dyslexic,” and I was like, “Do I need an operation?” She explained to me what it meant and I suddenly thought, “Ah, I get it. I thought I was going crazy.” Having a word for it was great (Quoted in Rourke, 2016: 211).

As a subject of a poem, school in Zephaniah’s work becomes a vehicle to transport a speaker’s ideas about the consequences of school experiences as well as forming an alternative playground for ideas about the values

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projected in education systems and the influence this exerts on forming young people’s futures. These poems unswervingly contest the narrowness of the curriculum, explore the consequences of ignoring the multiple cultural heritages that a multi-ethnic population brings to the classroom, and represent poetically, the effects of restricted views of history upon a young person’s sense of themselves in the world. In ‘Lesson Number Wan’ (School’s Out) he constructs a memorable poem referencing the situation facing many children of Caribbean origin in the British school system that echoes Morrison’s comment earlier in the chapter. Sands-O’Connor argues that this ‘first poem is in a West Indian form of English, suggesting that racism is only a problem for black British, but the drive for racial harmony includes all British’ (2008: n.p). ‘Lesson Number Wan’ uses Jamaican patois and destandardized spelling and grammar to superimpose the reductive notions of blackness as interchangeable with negativity. ‘Me English waz African/ Me British waz Black/ Me name waz problem child.’ (3) The use of ‘waz’ and the position of reassessment and transformation it offers appears frequently in Zephaniah’s work. In his ‘iconoclastic video’ (Ambikaipaker, 2015: 342), Rong Radio (Zephaniah, 2007) ‘waz’ catalyses a revising standpoint, one of reflexive self-critique that also implicates the poem’s speaker in discrimination, a result of the ‘propa propaganda’ (echoing the title and content of his 1996 anthology) – ‘I waz beginning to believe dat all Moslems were terrorist’ (Rong Radio). This in turn recycles the earlier disembodied lines regarding the power of internalization, ‘I waz beginning to believe dat all black men were bad men’ which engenders an individual nihilism, ‘I waz beginning to not trust me, in fact I wanted to arrest me’ (Rong Radio). He teases apart the notion of nation and language as entwined in ‘Lesson Number Wan’ by rejecting the white canon, and ends the poem with a three-line stanza and his oft-used anaphora technique that pulses out a question (two without a question mark) and activates the performativity of this work as read aloud: How English I am How English is me history, How English is Irish? (School’s Out, 4) As Ireland was (problematically) considered England’s early colony, Zephaniah links the speaker’s rejection of a short-term history of post-war black people’s presence to a 400-year-trajectory in the imperial enterprise in what he terms ‘dis long strong song’ (4). What emerges in Zephaniah’s decolonizing dynamic is the provincializing of British imperialism, so that it seems narrow, mean and destructive in comparison with the resilience, adaptive qualities and vast scope of the suppressed histories and heritages.

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Fernyhough argues that as ‘we internalize dialogue, we internalize other people’ (2017: 98). The question of assimilation of poetic voice is one that figures in speaking and reading Zephaniah’s school poems. Reading the flow of another person’s thoughts (as created by the poet) requires rendering these thoughts through one’s own inner voice or aloud, in one’s own accent, even while following the soundings that the poet’s often phonetic phraseology sets out. This enunciation process is simultaneously defamiliarizing and revelatory. It can unlock how to perceive something in a particular sociocultural context (school, family, community, friendship group). It can open up what Dingwall-Jones refers to as ‘the extent to which we cannot fully understand’ (2018: 51) and it can also vocally extend the limits of accent and all the hierarchies associated with English as spoken through the poetic medium. While Zephaniah uses an explanatory register at times to establish an alternative understanding of who and what experts are, this encourages the deconstruction of accepted ways of thinking. He scrutinizes the word ‘poet’ as being consigned any particular provenance. Throughout his school poems, he parodies its limits which, given the traditional reputation for elitism that poetry in English school curriculum has had, is a liberationist manoeuvre. As he observes, ‘You had people doing the rhymes and toasting. But none of them called themselves poets because of the associations. It was later on we reclaimed the word’ (quoted in Hoyles & Hoyles, 2003: 32). Zephaniah’s speaker points at or comments upon the process of the fashioned work, its metatheatrical and historical determiners, and instructs and reminds audiences (and readers) how stereotypes, racism and a lack of opportunities frame work by a Black British poet. Such metanarrative devices, ‘which comment upon the narrator, the narrating, and the narrative both as message and as code’ (Babcock, quoted in Bauman, 1984 [1977]: 67) convey a suggestion of a merging of author-authority and yet also keeps the author as the controlling authority in the poem’s enunciation. ‘Introductory Chat’ (School’s Out) opens with a democratization of poetry for all with a reasoned pointing out of, ‘The problem is/ There are too many poetry experts,/ Most of the poetry experts don’t write poetry’ (1) that charts the course between the artist and the critic, creative agency and critical authority. The interlocutors and auditor/audiences here are young people, outside the theoretical processes where, as Mignolo argues, ‘The de-colonial shift . . . is a project of de-linking while post-colonial criticism and theory is a project of scholarly transformation within the academy’ (2007: 452). The speaker also demonstrates a self-awareness of how poetry as a medium is implicated in perpetuating the same cultural exclusion zones that institutions maintain. ‘Introductory Chat’ exhibits its decolonizing breadth as ‘pluriversal’ rather than universal, not only in its versification but also through entwinement with its socially imaginative reach. Zephaniah’s project is to liberate the enjoyment of readers and listeners from the

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constraints of expert judgement by naming it as an interference, ‘poetry experts make it their business to tell you/ What kind of poems you should like,/ Not me./ I know what I like’ (2). Although the reflex can be to explain the thematic content, Zephaniah’s persuasive rhetorical tone allows room too for a ruminating poetic voice, which sets out a manifesto of style, ideas and articulation as a consistent strand in his poetry. The speaker proclaims, ‘Poems in “School’s Out” should be read out’ – as rhythmically reinforced by the repetition of the stressed ‘out’. This is an extroverted poetics, not an interior experience. Zephaniah switches meanings in playing with binary pairs and opposites, inversions of standard syntax so that the reader appreciates that poetic discrimination works positively, ‘By now you should overstand I / Here are the poems dat are bad for you’ (2). The appeal is to those marginalized in processes of evaluation, ‘The rejects/ My favourites’ (2) to produce a motivational prospect for any young reader who has felt sidelined by the poetry canon, or cultural and educational mainstream. Zephaniah’s school poems offer a vision and recognition of a wider reality than that which is projected by the school system and metatextually, in the daily social environment of late-twentieth century Britain. In ‘Black Whole’ from City Psalms (with its aural polysemy of ‘hole’ and association of a black hole as the outer limits of human scientific knowledge), Zephaniah’s persona alerts the reader to the negation processes involved in the use of ‘non’ to mark off those people and populations who are not white European males. The pointing to the gaps in white cultural comprehension to where, ‘I an I live’ (37) undoes the familiar measuring of distance from the projected standard or norm that is created through the labelling of outsiders as ‘you’. ‘Black Whole’ is an ode to minority groups and the assertion of agency to name oneself, ‘I am whole / No Non’ (37). Its closing line infers the diminishment of the West to ‘Non-Westerners/ Are North, South an East’ (37) – that is, covering far more geopolitical territory.

25.5

Individual Context: Collective Endeavour

While John J. Gumperz has referred to a ‘shared grammatical knowledge’ in relation to the ‘differences in communicative style that characterize our modern culturally diverse societies’ (1982: 172), the ways in which ‘grammatical knowledge’ is achieved is rarely through an equivalence of intercultural valuing. In an idiosyncratic typographical parody ‘According To My Mood’ (City Psalms 25), the persona exudes capriciousness in seemingly randomly capitalizing and adding punctuation symbols throughout the poem that defy standard, printed, grammatical rules for expression. The persona claims ‘poetic licence’ with a play on its homophone, ‘license’ to

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assert the writer’s right to form language as fits the purpose of the imaginative act of creating a poem. This echoes Stein’s delight in diagramming sentences as being a radical act of releasing individuals from the oppression of grammar and punctuation and the compounds in which society might fence them (Stein, 1935). Zephaniah’s persona has no qualms or insecurities about the spelling, punctuation and grammar revolution he renders with the keyboard, ‘I put my commers where I like,,((()).’ However, the poem does finish on a meek note, as the lower-case letters and question marks lose the power and punch of what has preceded them, ‘don’t question me????’ (25), which introduces a jarring note, suggesting self-doubt also contours the flamboyance and exuberance of his radical usage. This is antiauthoritarian, and self-authorizing. For a person with dyslexia, punctuational play delivers a jouissance of the unique encounters with letters and words that is experienced – rather than a bafflement or sense of failure to comprehend language markers and their usage. Zephaniah’s acutely empathic understandings of oppressed and persecuted identities is strikingly conveyed through ironic and wry registers. There are no self-heroics. His vision is of a collective project for the reassessment and scrutiny of beliefs and standpoints. A recurring motif in Zephaniah’s work is one that foregrounds the fears of infiltration that underpin imperial history at the European epicentre (even as these nations aggressively invaded countries across the globe), and how such fear remains a contemporary political and ideologically driven issue. This is no better represented than in Zephaniah’s haunting and unsparing eulogy to Joy Gardner. With its disturbing transhistoric relevance, the poem’s content resonates beyond the twenty-five years since Gardner’s tragic death to comprise a timeless tribute to all people facing illegal immigrant status and attendant hostilities from within the countries to which they have often fled for sanctuary. These countries, Zephaniah reminds readers, had in previous periods of history been responsible for the dispossession and exploitation of colonized populations and resources. As Craps and Buelen note, relaying or giving witness to an individual’s experience of trauma can detract from ‘the transformation of a wounding, political, social, and economic system’ (2008: 4). Not only does Zephaniah’s poem respond to the particular tragedy of 28 July 1993, but his poetic record prophetically questions whether permanence, belonging, and valuing can ever be wholly possible for certain ethnic groups when retraumatizing constitutes an ever-present lived possibility. The erasure of Windrush generation citizenship that was recently globally condemned6

6

Guardian reporter Amelia Gentleman first exposed the deportations in 2017 and was awarded Journalist of the Year 2018 for unfolding the history of damning revelations concerning Home Office and immigration policies towards now elderly post-war Caribbean-origin migrants.

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(although a long-standing policy that predates these fresh revelations) is a telling and compelling link to Gardner’s fate. The rhythmic grimness of the first stanza’s threading of ‘her’ keeps the reader aware of the desensitized viewpoint of the immigration officers: ‘They put a leather belt around her/ 13 feet of tape and bound her’ (11) – where all actions are wholly out of proportion to any semblance of humaneness – to echo the treatment of Gardner’s Jamaican ancestors, denied humanity and free will on British plantations. In terms of such a culpable past, Zephaniah’s reminder, ‘She’s illegal, so deport her / Said the Empire that brought her’ (12) underscores the refusal of the inheritors of the former empire’s power systems to accept the consequences of its rule. While not strictly about school, this poem is one that places itself in defiance of the kind of history that has been taught on the curriculum in perpetuity that has valorized British feats and associated these with advancing civilization.

25.6

Institutional Context

While the majority of Zephaniah’s education poems are very much products of a late-twentieth century context, they link directly into the salient question of today, ‘Why is my curriculum white?’ which corresponds with interrogating the imbalance of curricula still dominated by white male writers from school to college to university contexts. Although changing provisions have begun to emerge in secondary school qualifications,7 in the MA in Black British Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, counterfactual historians and empire apologists such as Niall Ferguson (1997; 2003; 2011) and Andrew Roberts (2006) exemplify the imperial amnesia that still exerts remarkable intellectual and popular influence and appeal. Through employing rationalizing rhetoric these writers persist in claiming credibility for a non-consequentialist or unevenly weighted standpoint towards the deeds of Britain’s Empire.8 The question to be posed in closing the chapter thus concerns ‘permeation’ and ‘embedding’ – does intercultural communication actually 7

For example, the new Migration History module for the OCR Examination Board’s GCSE in History and the EdExcel Examination Board’s A-level English Literature curriculum, ‘Contemporary Black British Literature’.

8

For example, Roberts argues that massacres and forced internments were pre-emptive strategies for preventing further deaths through revolts against imperial rule, while Ferguson applauds the globalizing advantages of colonialism which Colley (2003) identifies as a strategy of stacking the deck by his selective emphasis on imperial perspectives. Gopal terms his work ‘the bizarre apparition of benevolent empire . . . steered towards the conclusion that colonialism was not such a bad thing and that something of a celebration is in order?’ (2006: 30) and Mishra decries Ferguson as one of the ‘neo-imperialist cheerleaders’ whose ‘narcissistic history . . . can only retard a useful understanding of the world to day’ (2012: 2) Walter Rodney’s landmark challenge to imperial history How Europe Undeveloped Africa (1978) set the course for subsequent work published in Britain. For further robust contestations to counterfactual histories, see e.g. Gilroy (2004; 2005), Sen (2006), Howe (2006), Tassei (2007) and Olusoga (2016).

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change either side of the cultural crossover points it promises, or do the same hierarchies of value remain fundamental? There are two aspects to consider in addressing this – canonicity and institutions – and how education interfaces with both. Roger D. Sell draws upon David Damrosch’s argument to identify that ‘the old canonical classics can continue to attract a disproportionate amount of attention, becoming a “hypercanon” against which the new authors belonging to previously small literatures are mustered into a “countercanon” that is merely the hypercanon’s shadow’ (Sell, 2012: 203). Through reclaiming ‘the shadow that is companion to this whiteness’, Morrison’s landmark reconfiguration of American literary history, foregrounds the presence of African Americans to provide an exemplary and salutary foundation for intercultural communication (Morrison, 1993 [1990]: 33). To juxtapose the two ‘shadows’ articulated by both Morrison and Sell, one a recalibration of the canon, the other a fortification of it, indicates the cultural antechamber reserved for minoritized writers. Black British writers like Zephaniah denaturalize the caste of cultural conventions they inherit (through being raised and educated in Britain) in order to develop new circuitries in their poetic rewiring of the English language. Zephaniah’s position as ‘one of the most popular and publicly visible performance poets in Britain’ (quoted in Ambikaipaker, 2015: 341), with seventeen honorary doctorates and currently Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Brunel University, UK, suggests a mainstream security – but this has been hard won. In 1987 The Sun tabloid newspaper reacted to Zephaniah’s application to become a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University with racist tropes of hypersexualized, predatory black masculinity, and insinuations of illicit drugs, dreadlocks and danger as a cocktail for the institution’s destruction (McKenzie, 1987). While deliberately offensive to Zephaniah and black writers, there was no apology issued until 2016, that is, twenty-nine years later (Sun Apologies, 2016). In an Irish Times interview with Katie Donovan, Zephaniah reflects upon his Oxbridge intersections. He was disappointed that his nomination for the Oxford position was unsuccessful. A similar nomination in Cambridge also fell through: ‘They couldn’t face the controversy. One Cambridge don said that it was alright me performing at the university, but the idea of me sleeping there wasn’t on. It was hurtful at the time. But my career has gone uphill anyway’ (Donovan 1996).

Since that period, in 2011 and 2012 the Benjamin Zephaniah Poetry Competition was held at Cambridge. However, this prize does not have appeared to have developed traction in the institution, with no awards in subsequent years. The degree of permeation of black writers and scholars to the citadels of British university humanities remains one that occurs on very specific terms. Although Zephaniah’s poems are regularly studied,

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viewed in performance live and online, receive national and international acclaim as well as (some) scholarly attention, his work exists within a legacy beset by sociopolitical and cultural disregard and disappearance. All three anthologies discussed in this chapter are out of print and difficult to obtain. A metanarrative of socio-historical circumstances still contours prospects for intercultural communication. Intercultural communication theories imply that a dialogical space can be formed where the non-dominant speaking position makes its resistance felt so that the dominantly positioned listener or reader can understand the insurgency. It is an illusory coalition as the complex understanding is unachievable if ‘there is no way out of coloniality from within modern categories of thought’ (Veronelli, 2016: 405). Zephaniah’s poetic speakers rewrite the assumed relations between who teaches and informs and who learns. It becomes relational (as Glissant’s 1983 model theorizes), to desystematize, destabilize and decentre fixed origins and structures, denying the exact reproduction or absolutes that coloniality imposes, and opens up multi-perceptual opportunities for engaging in complex communication and reorientation. Interculturality suggests degrees of interrelatedness. The works of Zephaniah place a stylistic emphasis upon language as an acoustic medium, delivering palpable aural and oral challenges to any containment by imposed ‘standard(s of ) English’. An intercultural proficiency is demanded to derive the fullest appreciation of his experiential innovations in the reach of his poeticized subjects. His Didactic Poetics is a means of teaching the reader and listener new or unexpected ways of understanding the linguistic play, the verbal flexibilities and the resulting canonical counter-fashioning to which this activity leads.

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Bauman, R. and Briggs, C. L. (1990): Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology, 19, 59–88. Coard, B. (1971). How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System: The Scandal of a Black Child in Schools in Britain. London: New Beacon Books. Coard, B. (2005). How the West Indian child is made educationally subnormal in the British school system: the scandal of a black child in schools in Britain. In I. B. Richardson, ed., Tell It Like It Is: How Our Schools Fail Black Children. London: Trentham Books, pp. 27–53. Colley, L. (2003). Into the belly of the beast. The Guardian, 18 January. www .theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/18/featuresreviews.guardianreview5 (last accessed 19 July 2018). Craps, S. and Buelens, G. (2008). Introduction: postcolonial trauma novels. Studies in the Novel, 40(1&2), 1–10. Dingwall-Jones, C. (2018), Mental illness between subject and object: radical empathy and shared subjectivity in two contemporary performances. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 38, 48–61. Donovan, K. (1996). From prison to poetry. The Irish Times, 3 October. www .irishtimes.com/culture/from-prison-to-poetry-1.92004 (last accessed 19 July 2018). Doumerc, E. (2005). Benjamin Zephaniah: the black British griot. In K. Sesay, ed., Write Black, Write British: From Postcolonial to Black British Literature. Hertford, UK: Hansib, pp. 193–205. Ekirch, A. R. (1987). Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718–1775. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eldridge, Michael. (1997). The rise and fall of black Britain. Transition, 74, 32–43. Ellams, I. (2012). Black T-Shirt Collection. London: Oberon Books. Ferguson, N., ed. (1997). Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals. London: Papermac. Ferguson, N., (2003). Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. London: Allen Lane. Ferguson, N., (2011). Civilisation: The West and the Rest. London: Penguin Press. Fernyhough, C. (2017). The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves. London: Profile Books and Wellcome Collection. Freire, P. (2005 [1970]). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th anniversary edition, trans. M. M. Ramos. New York and London: Continuum. Gentleman, A. (2017). ‘I can’t eat or sleep’: the woman threatened with deportation after 50 years in Britain. The Guardian, 28 November. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/28/i-cant-eat-or-sleep-the-grand mother-threatened-with-deportation-after-50-years-in-britain (last accessed 9 January 2019).

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26 Cultural Encounters in Contemporary Latin American Cinema Intersections of Transnationality Sarah Barrow 26.1

Introduction

Over the last two decades, and especially since the turn of the millennium which coincided with several proactive film policy initiatives, transnationalism has become a concept that engages increasingly with understandings of the intersections of people, institutions, services, goods or ideas across borders of nation states. Moreover, it has been widely studied as formed of a system of relations, assimilations and exchanges that have the capacity to establish new creative and critical relationships. Within this context, this essay sets out to provide a broader and deeper understanding of contemporary Latin American cinema from the perspective of the transnational and connectivity. In doing so, it draws on some of the most important and relevant works by a range of scholars of Latin American cinemas and includes three case studies of significant films through which to address some of the terms and issues that are raised by these notions of transnational cinematographic connectivity. It asks to what extent these concepts help us identify more clearly the distinctive features of cultural encounter and identity as found in many films from this region, and what this might tell us about their relative success on the global market. Films have been chosen for their focus on ‘local’ matters and instances of cultural encounter such that we might therefore test the relationship between the local and the global as part of this broader picture of transnational connectivity. As Terry Rowden and Elizabeth Ezra wrote in the introduction to their seminal reader on the topic of the transnational in film in 2006, ‘the concept of transnationalism enables us to better understand the changing ways in which the contemporary world is being imagined by an increasing

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number of filmmakers across genres as a global system rather than as a collection of more or less autonomous nations’ (2006: 1). Often but not always co-productions (as are the examples included in this essay), such films acknowledge this global system in one way or another, often expressed through interactions between characters from different countries. In 2009 Mette Hjort argued for an even deeper understanding of transnationalism with regard to cinema, suggesting that the term itself was at risk of becoming shorthand for ‘a series of assumptions about the networked and globalized realities that are those of a contemporary situation’ (2009: 13). She argued for both a scalar model, that is to say a categorization of films and film-makers as more or less ‘transnational’, and for distinctions to be drawn between films that are marked and unmarked in terms of their transnationality, taking account of the degree to which they intentionally foreground – or mark out – transnational ways of thinking. For Dina Iordanova, approaching cinema from the perspective of the transnational, as teacher or researcher, is a political commitment: she is vehement that ‘contemporary cinema’s way of being is transnational – from how it is conceived to how it travels, from how it is made to how it is seen’ (2016: 2). She argues that ‘we can choose to look at films in the complexity of this context . . . to suspend the close scrutiny of film as text for the sake of bringing in awareness of the multiple other dimensions of film culture’ (p. 2). Moreover, she proposes that: One can choose to position the film transnationally by embracing the diverse and complex knowledge of the environment – how film is produced, how it circulates, how it is received in different places. In that, exploring the setting of global film piracy or the festival circuit, and showing how a fluctuating context redefines the way in which cinema is received is as much a part of the transnational film studies agenda as it is the scrutiny of a specific ‘transnational’ film (p. 2).

Nevertheless, the connectivity between the national and the transnational remains crucial: in the launch issue of the influential journal Transnational Cinemas, Will Higbee and Song Hwee Lim contend that ‘the national continues to exert the force of its presence even within transnational film-making practices’ (2010: 10). What interested them most at that point was the relationship between the two terms in a range of contexts, and the readings of all three of the films included here as case studies aim to demonstrate the productivity which emerges when this connectivity is taken into account as opposed to pitting one against the other. As Deborah Shaw and Armida de la Garza noted in their editorial to that first issue, ‘[s]cholars are embracing the challenges of the opening up of borders within academia and within film-making, and are, at the same time, casting an historical eye back to the transnational practices that have

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often characterized film-making in both textual and industrial terms’ (2010: 3). As Marvin D’Lugo, Ana Lopez and Laura Podalsky note in the introduction to their comprehensive companion to Latin American cinema, ‘arguments about the medium’s national and/or transnational tendencies that recognize cinema as local(ized) practice and/or as an art and industry that connects across broader territories’ (2018: 3) have tended to dominate scholarship about cinema from this region since the year 2000. They suggest, however, that further attempts should be made to understand and acknowledge that links established between films and a particular territory tend to make assumptions about audience behaviours. They hark back to Benedict Anderson’s significant work of 1983 when emphasizing the need to consider diversity from all perspectives, asking how cinema’s various modes of address might ‘encourage the formation of imagined communities, whether class-based, nation-based, or transnational’ (p. 3). Luisela Alvaray, in one of her most recent essays on the transnational and networks of film finance, gives examples that demonstrate ‘the intricate networks of creative, institutional, and commercial connections webbing the Latin American film industries’ (2018: 253). Indeed, Deborah Shaw has argued that we attempt to understand the transnational as a term applicable to contemporary global cinema with respect to at least fifteen different ‘inter-connecting and overlapping’ categories which include: transnational modes of production, distribution and exhibition; transnational modes of narration; exilic and diasporic film-making; transnational influences; transnational critical approaches; transnational viewing practices; transregional/ transcommunity films; transnational stars; transnational directors; transnational collaborative networks (2013: 52). While an increasingly significant number of Latin American films have enjoyed an unprecedented level of critical and commercial success in the global film market since the mid-1990s and have been marked as transnational due to the mixed provenance of their capital and creative talent, these were followed by several significant films by some of the same directors that have been usefully labelled as ‘deterritorialized’ (Tierney, 2018). Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu is one such film-maker to have adopted this approach, at around the same time as did his fellow Mexicans Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro. Together they have been dubbed the ‘three amigos’ by several commentators, as encapsulated in the incisive study of the influential trio by Deborah Shaw (2015). Other examples of film-makers who have embraced the local and the transnational as mutually interdependent and who have also negotiated the deterritorialized spaces that Tierney describes via both their films and their industrial practices include the Brazilians Fernando Meirelles and Walter Salles, the Peruvian Claudia Llosa and the Chilean Andrés Wood, amongst

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many others. Moreover, as the discussions below set out, their work does not shy away from exploring the difficult and complex nuances of cultural encounter from a range of perspectives; indeed, it makes a significant virtue of intersectionality and confrontation as distinctive features of transnationality for Latin American cinemas. Their films are both personal and commercial, generating expectation amongst their audiences (including ‘fans’ and critics) through the perspectives of auteurism and genre. They transcend limits and boundaries that are both spatial and non-spatial while at the same time remaining faithful to the need for local stories to reach global screens. What also seems to mark them out is that they have produced films that have connected with global audiences and have thereby taken many Latin American nations beyond the concept of ‘small cinemas’ as first proposed by Mette Hjort in 2005 and developed by David MartinJones in 2009. As such, with self-assured works that might delight, entertain or provoke distaste amongst their spectators, they have provided the type of self-esteem, appreciation and certainty that Dina Iordanova highlighted in 2014 as being essential to the well-being and flourishing of a national or regional film industry.

26.2

Breaking Boundaries: Alejandro González Iñárritu and Amores Perros

Amores Perros (González Iñárritu, 2000) offers a discomforting portrayal of social inequality, urban violence and the fragility of the human condition, offering a distinctive perspective on ‘a new moral and cultural landscape of spiritual desolation rooted in the modern megalopolis’ (D’Lugo, 2003: 224). The debut feature film of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu opens with a frantic car chase and brutal crash that connects three narratives about contemporary Mexican society. The tripartite narrative structure highlights the intricacies of everyday life that are both absolutely local but also resonate more broadly in their sense of the ordinary. This is a film about pain, love and redemption, a complex, fascinating and contradictory mosaic. It is also about the uneven development and overcrowded landscape of Mexico City, with depictions of the convergence of extreme wealth and poverty that epitomized a country which until a few weeks after the film’s international release had been languishing under the lengthy rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The film adopts dogfighting as a metaphor for human violence, fractured relationships and broken communication with each of the three sections of the narrative revolving around the connection or disconnections between the various dogs and their owners. Although dogs are associated in many parts of the world with the qualities of loyalty and devotion, Iñárritu

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weaves in stories of infidelity and deceit, thereby drawing attention to the ferocity of a more savage perspective on contemporary urban life and disrupting the connection that many Western audiences would expect to have with these canine characters (Kantaris, 2003: 186–7). These dogs mirror to a large extent the psyche of the central protagonists and their fates within the film, and in so doing also disrupt the standard approach to developing audience identification with and sympathy for at least one or more of the protagonists. In several situations it seems that the owners are just as helpless as their animals to influence change and just as difficult for both audiences and fellow protagonists to connect with. For example, Octavio (Gael García Bernal), like his brother’s fighter dog Cofi, is portrayed at first as quite a kind if naïve and immature young man who becomes someone capable of seeking violent revenge on his own brother. Here, Octavio’s lack of social standing, opportunity and poor quality of life lead him to seek advancement through illegal means, with his aggression intensifying as he and Cofi fall deeper into the world of dogfighting. Meanwhile, another dog – Richie – owned by the glamorous Spanish supermodel protagonist of the second section, Valeria (Goya Toledo), is attractive and affectionate (like his owner). After Richie becomes trapped under the floorboards, his plight appears to reflect Valeria’s own increasingly intense feelings of helplessness, loneliness and loss of standing (professionally and personally) as a result of the traffic accident that leads to the loss of one of her legs. Likewise, El Chivo (Emilio Echevarría), the main character of the third segment, looks after abandoned stray dogs that appear to be just as estranged from society as he has become. Regardless of the type of relationship that emerges, the theme of human–animal connectivity and symbiosis is a crucial element of this film and one that seems to have connected it with audiences worldwide. The messages appear to revolve around the impossibility of communication across class, race, generation and gender boundaries within this specific Mexican urban context that translates effectively (if pessimistically) to many other cities across the world. More broadly, Amores Perros also interrogates what it means to be Mexican on a thematic level by reflecting on the effects of cultural modernity in a specific Latin American society. By portraying the tensions that persist for millions of Mexicans such as rigid social structures and lack of political agency for most, Iñárritu represents contemporary Mexico as being in a phase of political and cultural depression, where many citizens have become disempowered, lost faith in authority and, in their struggle to take control of their futures, end up enacting violence on those closest to them. This is perhaps most apparent in the representation of family, with the film’s most malicious acts (adultery, physical violence, even planned assassination) being carried out by kin on each other. Besides offering a critical treatment of issues such as teenage pregnancy, absent father figures and

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domestic violence, the dissolution of the family unit throughout signifies a crisis of national identity. As de la Garza has suggested, ‘The family, often drawn upon as a metaphor for the nation in nationalist discourses, is under siege in the film by both the poor and the rich’ (2006: 152). Moreover, the film depicts a country formally bound to tradition and heritage amidst a period of rapid cultural change; the outcome of which is a society ‘characterized by the continuous juxtapositions between the modern and primitive, between a glamorous world of televisual images and the leitmotifs of animalistic violence’ (D’Lugo, 2003: 224). Iñárritu’s blend of avant-garde techniques (use of multiple film-stocks, disjointed narrative, extreme close-ups) with more commercial and internationally appealing elements (rapid editing style, contemporary soundtrack, themes of sex and violence) highlights the complexities of Mexico’s cinematic identity. Amores Perros is a deliberately commercial endeavour made with artistic innovation (Tierney, 2009: 101) that embodies the contradictions and disconnections of contemporary urban life in Mexico at the end of the century (D’Lugo, 2003: 222).

26.3

Feminism on the Global Stage: Claudia Llosa and The Milk of Sorrow

Peruvian Claudia Llosa’s second feature (2009) portrays a significant period in the life of Fausta (Magaly Solier), a young woman whose family has moved from the Andes to Manchay, one of the shanty towns on the outskirts of Lima. Fausta grieves for the loss of her mother, Perpetua (Bárbara Lazón), who dies in the story’s opening sequences. However, Fausta is already grief-stricken before this loss, her emotions paralysed and her interest in life diminished as a result of being born during the turmoil which saw conflict between the Peruvian military and the terrorist group Shining Path. The film’s Spanish title – La teta asustada, ‘the frightened teat’ – refers to a syndrome in which Andean mothers who suffered from physical violation during the unrest gave birth to children believed to be without a soul. The syndrome suggests that the horror of rape and torture was conveyed to foetuses in the womb and then to infants through mother’s milk contaminated by trauma and shock. Thus Fausta, whose father was executed and mother was raped, lives as a young adult with the consequences of the violence enacted on her parents. The Milk of Sorrow was funded through an international co-production model, primarily with Spanish support, but is set in and around specific locales of Lima, navigating spaces that, like Amores Perros, draw attention to the convergences of poverty and privilege. Aesthetically it is a beautiful film, drawing inspiration from cinematographers who prefer to emphasize

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the effect of landscape and physical environment on their characters. Nevertheless, despite winning the prestigious Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2009 and other recognition across the festival circuit, the film failed to win the main prize at the Lima Latin American Film Festival, giving rise to speculation about its failure to connect fully with local audiences who were perhaps more likely to be offended by the portrayal of difficult cultural encounters between Quechua and Hispanic Peruvians on screen and not so won over by its painterly aesthetics. The director has suggested that the film is meant to be more about the legacy and collective trauma of the civil war experienced in Peru than about the socio-politics of the day. Hence, she uses the young woman’s body as a site for articulating that trauma and her decision to use her body in a way that she thinks will protect her from further trauma is in itself a site of intense cultural encounter. In his thoughtful analysis, Ryan Prout suggests that the film ‘extends ideas about the body and its ailments to determine two categories of people and to locate them on either side of a boundary defined by attitudes to knowledge rendered adversarial and incompatible’ (2010). For example, when Fausta is forced to visit the doctor as her body starts to reject the foreign object she has placed inside herself for protection, he clearly does not understand her actions. He represents the progress, modernity and empirical science of urban Peru (and probably most spectators), while Fausta and her uncle’s worlds are guided by the myths and superstitions of their Quechua culture. The release of Llosa’s film provoked controversy and exposed disconnections and tensions between the different parts of Peruvian society and culture. Although its international acclaim was a source of considerable national pride as a sign of a more mature film industry, for some viewers (local and global), the film’s focus on issues of migration and racial difference was unsettling in its apparent perpetuation of old stereotypes of underdevelopment and barbarism. Many Peruvian spectators were angry that a Hispanic director of a privileged background would dare to portray a sensitive aspect of their culture in such a bold way, and yet others have suggested that a more liberating feminist reading is possible. The film concludes with Fausta, as an indigenous woman, having made the decision to overcome her difficulties and assumed the responsibility to take care of her mother’s body herself. She lifts herself out of a state of torpidity and seems at peace with herself in the final scene. As a talented storyteller, Llosa uses symbols that defy easy interpretation and yet which have somehow enabled audiences from different cultures to understand the significance of the range of encounters that underlie the power of her work. The potato, for example, is at first a self-inflicted reminder of the oppression and violence inflicted on her parents, but it also – as a natural organism that comes back to life and bears fruit –

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becomes a sign of recovery as the narrative progresses. It is Noé (Efraín Solís), the gardener she befriends and eventually learns to trust, who warns Fausta that ‘The potato is a plant that seldom flowers’. And yet this potato flowers at the end, once removed from her body, planted in a pot and nurtured back to life. It thus becomes a culturally accessible symbol of trauma (a method of blocking the body to prevent the kind of violent abuse that was commonly enacted upon indigenous woman caught in the crossfire of the Shining Path–Peruvian military conflict) and of recovery and rebirth. Moreover, in the way it becomes the focus of the hesitant and nervous conversation between Fausta and Noé, one might argue that it also becomes a sign of visual communication itself. Llosa’s film has been highly praised by many reviewers and critics for its aesthetic qualities for picking out the beauty of the everyday activities of Fausta’s family as well as the suggestive imagery of trauma. Carolina Rueda, for example, writes about the evocative and hypnotic potential of the visual images in this film and their relevance towards critical interpretation (2015: 455). Often the beauty of the cinematography jars with the downbeat nature of the narrative, and yet the force of the message of the film seems strengthened by such an approach. Fausta’s exhausting daily struggle becomes embedded into panoramic views that appear to force the spectator to question the way they look at such landscapes. As Rueda suggests, the framing of the semi-completed brick constructions that make up the urban settlement where the protagonist and her family reside ‘emphasizes the precarious and abject life condition of the immigrant communities within this liminal urban space of Lima’ (2015: 455). In addition to its success on the international festival circuit, The Milk of Sorrow was a box office smash hit in Peru on its release, beating Slumdog Millionaire in ticket sales during its first week in Lima (Vecchio, 2010). It was also shown, with Llosa in attendance, in several rural areas of Peru where its open-air community screenings became the sites and occasions of significant celebration. However, judging even from the recordings of these events on the DVD special features, it is clear that such celebration focused on the very existence of an award-winning film, rather than on the subject matter that proved controversial and uncomfortable for many indigenous viewers. To highlight this further, it should be noted that the film was not shown via the new network of micro-cinemas that had been developed by the Chaski Group to allow for cinema viewing and engagement throughout the Andes. According to its coordinator, Stefan Kaspar, this was for three reasons, as he remarked in an interview with the author of this chapter: Claudia was not able to convince the commercial distributor to allow it; she was not able to convince the Spanish producer to allow it several months after its commercial release; and third but not least and most

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decisive: because the popular spectators who attend the micro-cinemas did not like the film (Kaspar, 2013).

Although the film with its focus on themes of intracultural encounter found it hard to connect with local audiences, the ‘festival’ critics (local and global) were largely impressed with the film’s aesthetic qualities as well as its approach to the portrayal of complex themes, focusing on its handling of trauma at an individual level and the degree to which this translated effectively for an international audience. Although Nick James, the editor of Sight and Sound, made only the briefest reference to Llosa’s winning film in his article on the Berlin festival in April 2009 because he had left the event before her film was screened, eighteen months later she was named (and pictured) as one of the ‘Nine Kings and Queens’ of contemporary Latin American cinema in an article by Argentine critic and festival director Sergio Wolf in the September 2010 edition of the same publication (Wolf, 2010: 17). Meanwhile, French critic Charles-Stéphane Roy praised the strength of her image-making and referred to her film as ‘the bright hope of Peruvian cinema’ in his review for Séquences (2009). Overall, The Milk of Sorrow seems to have pleased the global festival viewers and critics more than audiences across Peru. And yet its impact on Peruvian cinema should not be underplayed, for it served to place a spotlight on the possibility for creating high-quality cinema in a country that has hitherto dismissed its capacity to do so. Controversially, it reminds its viewers of the tensions and terror that resulted from two decades of political conflict in Peru, and – like Amores Perros – points to the difficulties of communication across boundaries of race, class, gender and generation. It suggests that recovery from the trauma of the Shining Path conflict and its aftermath is difficult, and that at the individual and collective level greater efforts need to be made in the Peruvian context to overcome the significant boundaries between Quechua and Hispanic communities. The healing qualities of plants (e.g. the potato metaphor) and the nurturing qualities of the gardener Noé signal some alternative ways, outside state intervention, in which such communication that is portrayed as being fundamental to human well-being might be restored.

26.4

Connecting through Memories of Violence: Andrés Wood and Machuca

With a backdrop of the turbulent months leading up to General Augusto Pinochet’s violent coup on 11 September 1973, the narrative of Andrés Wood’s Machuca (2004) takes place just as the controversial leadership of Salvador Allende, the first socialist president democratically elected in a

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Latin American country, was coming under fire from the nation’s military leaders. The film’s historical events are witnessed by child protagonists Gonzalo (Matías Quer), Pedro (Ariel Mateluna) and Silvana (Manuela Martelli) whose encounters serve to a large extent as a microcosm for the many cultural boundaries of race, class, gender and political affiliation that affected much of the Chilean population at that time. The children meet as a result of a socialist initiative within Gonzalo’s private school that offers scholarships to students from poor backgrounds to attend. The film follows Gonzalo as he negotiates life between his middle-class and mostly rightwing family and his two new friends, and much of the film plays out amongst their families and the urban districts of Santiago. The disconnectivity of their lives are emphasized via scenes that show Gonzalo’s family enjoying a wealthy lifestyle, cross-cutting to Pedro and Silvana who help their uncle eek out a living from selling memorabilia to the opposing political factions demonstrating on the streets. The film shows how the new connections made through this unusual friendship amidst a period of intense political conflict and social unrest are life-changing on several levels. When Machuca opened to nationwide box office success and critical acclaim in Chile during 2004, it quickly brought attention to the potential for Latin American cinema to produce films that were politically committed, with strong characters and storylines that enabled audiences to connect with their messages even if the specific detail of their local context was not well known. Its sensitive treatment of Chile’s political history at a time when discussion of the country’s military dictatorship (1973–90) remained deeply uncomfortable for local audiences brought to a global audience a fresh perspective of a topical issue (that is to say, a specific political conflict) by endowing it with perennial themes such as friendship and coming of age that, as Mette Hjort puts it, brings into focus subject matter that ‘resonates across historical and cultural boundaries’ (2000: 106) such as, in this case, socially constructed boundaries of class, ethnicity and race that resulted in conflict and trauma at a national level. Machuca’s examination of this significant clash of cultures is part of an important political film-making tradition in Chile including one that crossed borders through the exile of many of its key players for an extended period as a result of politically motivated conflict. Although Chilean filmmakers such as Miguel Littin, Raúl Ruiz and Helvio Soto were at the forefront of an expansion of radical cinema across the continent in the 1960s and 1970s (the New Latin American Cinema movement), their work was curtailed by a military regime that not only expelled left-wing filmmakers but also removed all trace of the nation’s cinema through the destruction of important film archives. Machuca was the first major release from Chile to explore the military coup and to suggest how a nation may

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see itself and its past. This perspective was controversial for many; Machuca provoked fierce public and critical debate about the relevance the problems depicted in the film have for contemporary Chilean society. Moreover, the film is conscious of Chilean society’s difficulty of acknowledging the coup and its circumstances and of understanding how they continue to hold contemporary relevance. Machuca addresses these issues in part through its commitment to authenticity and its basis on real events. The film’s director was of a similar age to Gonzalo during 1973 and his own school participated in the social initiative of introducing boys from the lower classes. Throughout the film, the attention to detail in the audio and visual recreation of 1970s Chile – from the careful reproduction of costume, props and music to the graffiti on walls, newspaper headlines and political slogans on placards – provides rich and vivid detail that brings an important era to life and connects historical events with contemporary spectators. It also eschews objectivity by adopting a child’s eye perspective which becomes a device for drawing attention to the challenge of understanding events as they unfold, using the children as central characters to explore wider social and political issues and setting up a comparison between the children’s innocence and youth with the adult oppressor and the abuse of power. When the coup does take place, these child characters have no appreciation of the political nuances at a national, regional and global level. They connect with each other by transcending the cultural boundaries of class and race that divide many of those around them, including their own families. As Miriam Ross has noted, indications about overcoming difference through the culture of games and storytelling pervade the film and are part of what enabled it to connect with global audiences despite its historical, national and political specificity (2014: 323). The development of the friendship between the two boys from such markedly different backgrounds is highlighted at moments such as when they are shown excitedly reading the latest edition of their favourite comic book. The focus remains on personal moments for this trio of friends that frame and punctuate the narrative, such as the abrupt entry of soldiers into the school at the beginning of the film, Padre McEnroe’s symbolic rejection of the new regime by devouring the sacred host, and the shocking scene of Silvana’s death that forces Gonzalo into realizing the impossibility of the friendship and is framed as a numbing and premature moment of his coming of age.

26.5

Conclusion

What this chapter has set out to emphasize is the importance of the concepts of cultural encounter and human connectivity within the broader

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arena of transnationalism with regard to the cinema of Latin America. The three chosen films exemplify many from the region that were made in the first decade of the twenty-first century when the effects of new cinema legislation across several nations along with multinational funding initiatives from public and private sources began to bear fruit in terms of supporting the production of films that succeeded in connecting scenes of locally specific issues with global audiences. Historical and political events have been brought to the screen in ways that may have lost some of the nuance and commitment of their more radical and less well financed predecessors, but which have created new connections with global spectators. Questions continue to be debated as a result of this new transnationalism that speak to ongoing postcolonial concerns regarding the sorts of images of the south that dominate in these films, which tend to focus on poverty, misery and violence sometimes glossed over and made more palatable with action stories and sentimentality, with all three films chosen for analysis focusing on revealing the trajectories and motivations of its characters ‘in crisis’ as a result of specific historical moments of political conflict. Nevertheless, as Paul Julian Smith notes in the conclusion to his essay on transnational models in Latin American film, even if directors from the region ‘seem no longer to believe that political commitment or aesthetic autonomy inevitably win out over entertainment and commerce, this need not mean that new forms of power do not exist and cannot be examined in their works’ (2012: 74). The suggestion Smith made that seems even more relevant at the end of the second decade of this century, is that at a time when we see national borders closing and economic circumstances become more precarious again, we should move away from being concerned primarily with economic and geographic approaches to the transnational. Instead we should pay more attention to the cultural affinities that are created by such films with their capacity to promote new connections and conversations in the form of the most productive transcultural exchanges of ideas. The Milk of Sorrow, for example, shows how small acts of kindness can lead to profound change and personal recovery; Amores Perros, with its trio of bleak storylines, rejects violence as a solution and signals the possibility for more authentic forms of communication; and while Machuca ends in tragedy at the personal and the national level, hope for future change resides in the courageous connections and friendships that cross racial and political boundaries.

References Alvaray, L. (2018). Transnational networks of financing and distribution: International co-productions. In M. D’Lugo, A. Lopez and L. Podalsky,

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eds., The Routledge Companion to Latin American Cinema. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 251–78. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. D’Lugo, M. (2003). Amores perros/Love’s a Bitch. In A. Elena and M. Díaz López, eds., The Cinema of Latin America. London: Wallflower Press, pp. 221–9. D’Lugo, M., Lopez. A. and Podalsky, L., eds. (2018). The Routledge Companion to Latin American Cinema. Oxford: Routledge. De La Garza, A. (2006). Mexico on Film: National Identity & International Relations. Bury St Edmunds, UK: Arena Books. Ezra, E. and Rowden, T., eds. (2006). Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. London: Routledge. González Iñárritu, A. (2000). Amores perros. Mexico: Altavista Films and Zeta Film. Higbee, W. and Song Hwee L. (2010). Concepts of transnational cinema: towards a critical transnationalism in film studies. Transnational Cinemas, 1(1), 7–21. Hjort, M. (2005). Small Nation, Global Cinema: The New Danish Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hjort, M. (2009). On the plurality of cinematic transnationalism. In N. Durovicová and K. Newman, eds., World Cinema, Transnational Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 12–33. Hjort, M. and Mackenzie, S., eds. (2000). Cinema and Nation. London: Routledge. Iordanova, D. (2014). Unseen cinema: notes on small cinemas and the transnational. In D. Desser, L. Giukin and J. Falkowska, eds., Small Cinemas in Global Markets: Genres, Identities, Narratives. Washington, DC: Lexington Books, pp. 259–60. Iordanova, D. (2016). Choosing the transnational. Frames Cinema Journal, 9. https://framescinemajournal.com/article/choosing-the-transnational/ (last accessed 10 November 2018). Kantaris, G. (2003). The young and the damned: street vision in Latin American cinema. In S. Hart and R. Young, eds., Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 177–89. Kaspar, S. (2013). Interview by email with author, 15–19 August 2013. Llosa, C. (2009). La teta asustada. Spain and Peru: Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies et al. Released in English in 2010 as The Milk of Sorrow. Prout, R. (2010). Golden bears, amulets, and old wives’ tales? JGCinema.com: cinema and globalization. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/11098/ (last accessed 2 January 2019). Ross, M. (2014). Machuca. In S. Barrow, S. Haenni and J. White, eds., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films. London: Routledge, pp. 321–3.

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Roy, C.-S. (2009). Claudia Llosa: l’espoir d’un cinéma péruvien. Séquences: la revue de cinéma, 260, 12. Rueda, C. (2015). Memory, trauma, and phantasmagoria in Claudia Llosa’s ‘La teta asustada’. Hispania, 98(3), 442–51. Shaw, D. (2013). Deconstructing and reconstructing transnational cinema. In S. Dennison, ed., Contemporary Hispanic Cinema: Interrogating the Transnational in Spanish and Latin American Film. Woodbridge, UK: Tamesis, pp. 47–65. Shaw, D. (2015). The Three Amigos: The Transnational Filmmaking of Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Shaw, D. and de la Garza, A. (2010). Introducing transnational cinemas. Transnational Cinemas, 1(1), 3–6. Smith, P. J. (2012). Transnational cinemas: the cases of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. In L. Nagib, C. Perriam and R. Dudrah, eds., Theorizing World Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 63–76. Tierney, D. (2009). Alejandro González Iñárritu: director without borders. New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 7(2), 101–17. Tierney, D. (2018). New Transnationalisms in Contemporary Latin American Cinemas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Vecchio, R. (2010). Why to root against ‘The Milk of Sorrow’s’ Oscar nomination. Peruvian Times, 5 February. www.peruviantimes.com/05/why-toroot-against-the-milk-of-sorrows-oscar-nomination/4784/ (last accessed 2 January 2019). Wolf, S. (2010). No turning back. Sight and Sound, 20(9), 14–17. Wood, A. (2004). Machuca. Chile, Spain, UK and France: Wood Producciones and Tornasol Films.

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27 Religion and Intercultural Communication Margaret Littler

27.1

Introduction

This chapter will discuss religion and intercultural communication in the context of German-language literature, while also interrogating many of the assumptions underpinning such discussion: that religion is an object of knowledge, that cultures are discrete entities engaged in dialogue, and that literature is a representation of social practices such as religious observance. Nonetheless religion has come to occupy a central place in discussions both of intercultural communication and its failure, apparently endorsing Samuel Huntington’s hypothesis (1993) that culture and religion would be the main sources of conflict in the post–Cold War world. The 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center intensified German suspicions of the nearly three million Muslims, mostly of Turkish origin, in their midst and, in the decade that followed, there was a well-documented shift in German media discourse from designating foreign residents as ‘migrant’ or ‘Turk’ to ‘Muslim’ (Spielhaus, 2006; Yildiz, 2009). Thus religious identity has become synonymous with difference in the debate about how the secular German ‘self’ should enter into dialogue with its Muslim ‘other’, a debate which places many German Muslims in the absurd position of having to enter into dialogue with themselves as strangers (Kermani, 2010: 27; Twist, 2018: 1). In the following, religion will not be approached as a set of codified and culturally specific practices about which one presumes to know, but as a relation to the divine with potentially transformative power. I seek an approach to the sacred through literary texts, in which religion is not so much content or theme, but a source of creative intensity that erupts into settled notions of established religious practices and cultural identities. Literature itself is viewed here not as a representation of religious practice

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nor even as a contribution to theological debate, but in the sense of Deleuze and Guattari’s view of literature as an experimentation with the real, in which the sacred can be a catalyst for change rather than a reflection of what is already known. In approaching Islam through literature in German, this chapter builds on the work of Hodkinson and Morrison (2009) and Hofmann and von Stosch (2012), although the latter remain wedded to the self/other paradigm, in the interests of a peaceful coexistence of cultures. Literature is for them a ‘meta-discourse’ on social questions, rather than an intervention in the real, while Twist (2018) adopts a non-foundationalist approach to religion more in keeping with my own. From such a perspective, texts like Frischmuth’s novel Das Verschwinden des Schattens in der Sonne (The Disappearance of the Shadow in the Sun, 2000 [1973]; my translation) or Özdamar’s short story ‘Großvaterzunge’ (Grandfather’s Tongue, 1990, reproduced in Haines & Littler, 2004) do not offer predictable features of Sunni Islam as practised today, but rather ambiguous traces of Anatolian mysticism that live on in Alevism, a branch of Shia Islam, and in the imagery of Sufi poetry. Overall, these works require an affective as well as an intellectual response, performing and producing something of the mystical delirium that inspires them, and working to unsettle dominant notions of both Islam and Christianity. Viewed in this way, they pose a challenge to a range of dichotomies that tend to structure thinking about religion and intercultural communication: self and other, sacred and profane, transcendent and immanent, and even text and world. Without these dualities it is possible to conceive of the sacred as a force within the real, its effects palpable beyond normatively religious experience. A similar challenge to dualisms underpins Twist’s recent monograph (2018), which explores how Muslim writers in German engage with the non-dualist aspects of Sufism in ways that invoke spirituality without representing a fixed religious identity. His study brings together Sufism and the non-foundationalism of Jean-Luc Nancy, and he detects in the works studied a mystical spirituality that resists any fixed religious identity in favour of ‘a cosmopolitan heterogeneity’ (Twist, 2018: 3). Twist seeks out mystical intensities in affective forces such as passion and love in the writings of Zafer Şenocak, SAID (the pseudonym of an exiled Iranian writer in Germany) and Navid Kermani, and invokes Nancy’s destabilizing understanding of faith to approach ‘the experimental, worldly spirituality of the texts’ which do not posit God as the organizing principle of our world, but ‘instead concern themselves with fleeting and uncertain glimpses of the divine in the alterity in our world’ (Twist, 2018: 12). Vulnerability and openness to an uncontrollable otherness is what matters, not the will to make sense, to understand, stabilize and identify, which is conventionally the aim of interreligious dialogue.

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Overall, an approach that likewise resists the representational as key to religious understanding drives this chapter’s engagement with literature, as well as an interest in Sufism as a link to an Islam more tolerant of ambiguity, scepticism and heresy than it has often since become. Twist’s emphasis on the ‘worldly spirituality’ of the texts is also central here, but in place of Nancy’s view of interconnected ‘being-with’, Deleuze’s positive view of immanence informs the readings that follow. The relationship to the divine is seen in terms of a Deleuzian fold rather than Nancyian openness to the absence of God in the world. Both are ways of overcoming the dualism inherent in monotheisms, locating God in heaven and man on Earth, but Deleuze’s Leibnizian thinking offers a way of conceiving the sacred as enfolded within the real, neither external nor internal to it, but enclosing its virtual potential (Deleuze, 2006). This provides an apt way of thinking about the merging of sacred and profane in Islamic mysticism. For Deleuze and Guattari, however, even monotheistic religions are not merely the sedentary agents of the state, but acquire nomadic qualities when they mutate in unpredictable directions (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004: 422–3). Such nomadic thinking can also be found in the heresies and mysticism inspiring the works by Şenocak, Frischmuth, Özdamar and Zaimoglu, which will now be discussed.

27.2

Sufism in Şenocak’s Essays

Zafer Şenocak (born 1961 in Ankara) grew up in Munich, and began publishing poetry in German in the 1980s. Since the 1990s he has been an outspoken commentator on the shortcomings of German multiculturalism and a critic of contemporary Islam as an intellectually and aesthetically impoverished religion that has lost touch with the riches of its own tradition. His essays frequently invoke Islam’s early spirit of enlightenment and its suppressed cultural legacy, in ways that challenge dominant perceptions of Islam in Europe today: In contemporary Islamic culture there is almost nothing left of the influence of a sceptical thinker like Ibn Rushd, or the eroticism of the mystic Rūmī, or the spiritual spheres of the Persian mystic of illumination, Suhrawardi . . . Above all the erotic component of Islamic culture lies untouched where it was buried a few centuries ago. The tension between homosexuality and heterosexuality was the true mainspring of intellectual renewal in the blossoming of Muslim culture from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries (Şenocak, 2001: 77–8; unless otherwise stated, translations from German are mine).

Meanwhile his own poetry and prose fiction draws inspiration from that tradition ‘in all its pious and heretical currents’ (p. 78). As I have discussed

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elsewhere, this includes evocations of ambiguous eroticism and of spirituality as emerging from a resonant milieu (Littler, 2009; 2012). In a 2006 essay titled ‘Zwischen Koran und Sexpistols’ (Between the Qur’an and the Sex Pistols), Şenocak writes of how the poetry of the medieval Anatolian mystic Yunus Emre helped him to negotiate the clash between his Muslim family life and the nihilism of punk rock (2006: 29–33). Emre’s poetry spoke to him of ambiguity, doubt and sceptical distance from self: The perspective on otherness in Yunus Emre’s works was quite different from that in the religious texts of Muslim scholars. The boundaries between belief and non-belief and between the religions were permeable, the perspective on the other was not clouded by the rhetoric of the self, it was instead an estranged perspective on the self (p. 30).

This characteristic decentring of self, which affords a glimpse of that estranged self, is also an implicit critique of the self/other discourse of intercultural German studies. In 2016 Şenocak published an intensely personal volume of prose and poetry inspired by the death of his father titled In deinen Worten: Mutmaßungen über den Glauben meines Vaters (In Your Words: Conjectures on My Father’s Faith). The text incorporates poetry, italicized quotations from his father’s papers, and prose addressed to his father as ‘you’. From his father Şenocak learned that Sufism was the humane face of Islam, and a way to God through the materiality of the body rather than in remote transcendence: ‘Sufism, the voice of mysticism in Islam, offers an opportunity to humanize faith in God, to endow Him with a humane dimension. Through the voice and the breath the Sufi seeks to clear a way for the word into the heart’ (Şenocak, 2016: 82). To his father the works of Yunus Emre, Saadi and Farīd ud-Dīn Attar were a corporeal experience, their words entering his body via his tongue, providing nourishment for his soul (p. 82). He saw the soul as a second circulatory system, as essential to the body’s survival as the blood, and which could be seen as an embodiment of the sacred. Şenocak understands why his father would never read the Qur’an in translation, as the poetry and music of the Arabic language were so essential to its corporeal effect. In this respect Şenocak shares the experience of all non-Arab Muslims for whom the sound of the Qur’an and the Muslim prayers are more important than their meaning. The lullabylike cadences of the prayers stay with him long after he has forgotten the meaning of the words, meaning being less reliable than sound: ‘for the meaning of the words is a keen traveller, transient and open to misunderstanding, but its sound is eternal. In this sound resides the eternal loneliness of God, the (l-) only God who speaks to us’ (p. 63). Later he admits that when he learned the meaning of the prayers he would mix the words up and lose the rhythm:

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‘Meaning is a shackle for the word. Only the unshackled word unfolds its sound. Music is full of unshackled words’ (p. 71). Like Deleuze and Guattari’s minor use of language (2004: 108), this evokes language that has been released from its normative use and has rediscovered its power to mean. For the young Şenocak, fascinated by the illegible Arabic script in his father’s books, the aim of reading was not to understand, not to encounter the already known, but to be transported to mysterious places and mystical experiences, to ‘the country behind the letters’, as one of his essay collections is named (Şenocak, 2006). A brief italicized passage indicates that to his father’s faith was very similar to what Deleuze understands as the virtual: the possibility of reality being otherwise: ‘To have faith means that the world can be otherwise than it is. That every individual life possesses a different possibility. Faith promises space [i.e. ‘cosmos’/’Weltraum’] instead of home [i.e. ‘belonging’/ ‘Heimat’]’ (2016: 94). This risk-taking, expansive view of faith explains why, to Şenocak, his father was a free man, confined neither by the secularism of the Turkish state nor the conservatism of Sunni orthodoxy. In a poem he presents his father’s faith as flowing water, a river that kept its integrity without ever standing still, and connecting as much as it divided, mountain with valley, valley with the sea (p. 47). Even though he never shared his father’s faith, they shared a love of poetry, both that of the medieval Sufis and the poets of Turkish modernity, in whose work Sufi wisdom still resonates and in which there is intimacy without identity: ‘In reading poetry there is . . . this connectedness that requires no community. It opens up new territory to which no claims have yet been made’ (p. 48).

27.3

Mystical Islam in Frischmuth’s Work

Austrian novelist and lifelong scholar of Turkish language and culture Barbara Frischmuth (born 1941) acknowledges and echoes Şenocak’s writing on Islam in her own critical essays on images of oriental cultures in the West. The very title of her 2008 volume Vom Fremdeln und vom Eigentümeln (On Othering and Selfing) makes ironic reference to the dualist discourse of self and other in intercultural communication, in which she condemns the ‘scandal’ of using religion to define the line between the two (2008: 22). Like Şenocak she sees mysticism as the underlying link between all the great religions, most effectively communicated through art and poetry (p. 143). In this, they both echo the thought of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, who believed the mystics of all religions shared the same experience of God, regardless of doctrinal differences. This is what makes Sufism, the Islamic form of mysticism, an ‘intellectual challenge for all religious orthodoxies’ (Schweizer, 2008: 11).

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Initially recognized by feminist critics for her strong female characters, Frischmuth has only relatively recently received recognition as a writer on cultural difference in the German-speaking world (e.g. Yeşilada, 2000). Her novel The Disappearance of the Shadow in the Sun, originally published in 1973, is of interest here for its thematic focus on a young Austrian woman’s research into the history of the Bektaşi Sufi faith, and for its reticence in representing mystical Islam. Set in Istanbul against the background of the 1960 military coup, it alternates between first-person narrative of the narrator’s daily life in the city and passages from her historical research, between a sense of mystification in the present and an authoritative discourse about the past. Yet Frischmuth’s depiction of Istanbul is intimately enfolded with mysticism and with its past. It is a place in which the narrator feels more attuned to the history of Anatolian Sufism that she is studying than with the city’s present, which is violent, impenetrable and unpredictable (Frischmuth, 2000 [1973]: 140). However, the whole book juxtaposes present and past, her daily routines and her studies, in ways that suggest unspoken connections between them. It is left to the reader to make the links between the narrator’s reading about the Anatolian Bektaşis, their traces of Turkmen shamanism and their calls for social reform, and her daily life in Istanbul, living with and growing to love friends about whom she knows very little. By the end of the novel she realizes that her love for these friends, whose lives remain deeply mysterious to her, borders on an intense identification, as if the boundaries between self and other had dissolved. She is overwhelmed by a sense of submission (‘Hingabe’) in all her encounters: My sense of life had changed in such a way that I felt myself capable of submission even to the objects around me. I hardly noticed any more gestures of tenderness which I had previously tolerated in a spirit of conformity, but inwardly only reluctantly endured; I now reciprocated them as a matter of course. As if it were possible at times to blur the boundary between myself and others (pp. 164–5).

Even the German word for submission, ‘Hingabe’, generally understood as the meaning of ‘Islam’, suggests that instead of representing the Alevi faith, the novel demonstrates its affect on an unknowing narrator, whose sustained state of arousal and intensity implies a transformative encounter with the sacred. The narrator later castigates herself for having adapted to her surroundings rather than critically analysing them, and indeed the novel itself has been submitted to a similar critique (e.g. Fachinger, 2001: 96). The novel’s political comment comes through repeated reference to the Bektaşi demands for social reform and women’s equality, and their active uprisings against the Sultanate: ‘Almost all the revolutionary movements that had occurred in this country had been instigated by mystics’ (Frischmuth, 2000 [1973]: 138). Her entire project aims to uncover traces of a faith

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that has been driven underground for political reasons, and exists only ‘in secret’ (‘im verborgenen’) (p. 178). As Sökefeld’s ethnography (2008) of Alevis in Germany has shown, the heterodox nature of the faith and its tradition of ‘dissimulation’ (‘takiya’) frustrates attempts to define it. Outlawed in Atatürk’s Republic as backward Ottoman superstition, its leftist political leanings also made Alevism a target of the military coups of the late twentieth century, resulting in spikes of emigration to Germany at those times (Sökefeld, 2008: 41). Only in the late 1980s did it begin to emerge as a social movement in Germany, transforming from a leftist politics of exile aiming for change in Turkey into an anti-racist movement claiming a distinct cultural identity in multicultural Germany. Since then Sökefeld presents it as an internally fractured discursive field (p. 93), encompassing everything from atheist Marxism to claims to be the ‘true’ Islam. In place of the Sunni emphasis on the rules of ‘Sharia’, however, the ‘Alevi Path’ (‘Alevi Yolu’) focuses on the human being, and requires only control of the hands, loins and tongue (p. 95). Frischmuth’s protagonist traces the origins of this heterodox tradition to early Arabic and Anatolian mysticism (Frischmuth, 2000 [1973]: 148). However, she fails to suspect why her host and sometime lover Turgut disappears to secret meetings, then apparently leaves Istanbul to visit his family, finally being shot dead at a demonstration in the city, possibly a case of mistaken identity. The mysterious title image of Frischmuth’s novel is explained only towards its end, as a reference to a Persian myth encapsulated in a poem by the Seljuk mystic Farīd ud-Dīn Attar of Nishapur (c. 1145–c. 1221), ‘The conference of the birds’ (‘Mantiq-ut-Tayr’). A hoopoe leads the other birds in search of their king Simurgh, passing through seven valleys and facing many trials. Only thirty of them reach the seventh valley where they wait to see the Simurgh, until they realize that they themselves are it, (the Persian phrase si-murgh means ‘thirty birds’): When they looked at the Simurgh they saw themselves, and when they looked at themselves they saw the Simurgh, and when they looked at both together, they saw only one Simurgh. So they disappeared in Him and sank into Him. The shadow disappeared in the sun, and it was over (Frischmuth, 2000 [1973]: 181).

It is an allegory of the overcoming of the soul’s separation from God, using the ambiguous metaphor of the Simurgh to show that the soul is in some way always already one with God.

27.4

Competing Voices of Islam in Özdamar’s Prose

The Sufi desire for oneness with God, ambiguity between sacred and profane love, and a delight in the avian imagery of Sufi poetry link

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Frischmuth’s novel to the prose fiction of Emine Sevgi Özdamar (born 1946 in Malatya). An actress, director, playwright and novelist, Özdamar first travelled to West Germany in 1965 as a factory worker, but was motivated by a passion for the theatre of Bertolt Brecht, later to be realized when she was employed at the East Berlin Volksbühne, the East German theatre which sought to preserve the spirit of Brecht’s epic drama. Her first published collection of short prose Mutterzunge (Mother’s Tongue)1 in 1990 opens with two interrelated stories about a young Turkish woman in the still-divided Berlin, reflecting on her alienation from the Turkish language. Whether this is due to migration to Germany, her leftist political opposition to the Turkish regime, or the replacement of the Arabic script with the Roman alphabet by Atatürk in 1928, is left ambiguously open (e.g. Littler, 2002; Yildiz, 2008). However, in the second story ‘Grandfather’s Tongue’ she decides to learn Arabic in order to reconnect with the Ottoman Turkish of her grandparents’ generation. The ensuing love affair with her Arabic teacher, Ibni Abdullah, is expressed in intoxicating love poetry that resonates with the Sufi tradition of the ‘ghazal’, lyrics that express both the beauty of love and the pain of separation. Özdamar’s romantic treatment of Ottoman poetry and the beauty of Islamic calligraphy has been critiqued as self-orientalization (Pizer, 2008: 140), but this is to dismiss the ambiguity of Özdamar’s evocation of Islam, which is brought into dialogue with itself, both in quotations from the Qur’an and in Sufi love poetry, which at times floats free of the individual subjects in the narrative, in what Roy has called ‘a sort of extra-subjective monologue’ (2009: 175). During the love affair the narrator spends forty days in her teacher’s small West Berlin apartment, hidden from his other pupils behind a veil-like curtain. He teaches the Arabic script from the Qur’an, at times seeming to embody the script, and his name associates him with the prophet Muhammad himself.2 In his presence the narrator, a modern, secular, leftist Turkish woman, becomes conscious of her uncovered hair and her exposed wrists as she learns to write the letters, and her shame sits personified in the room. But Ibni Abdullah also serves her food and alcohol, makes love to her (in his room that is ‘a small mosque’), and recites love poetry: You fine rose of my thoughts, you cheerful nightingale of my heart. I have seen you.

1

This is an unsettling neologism in German, which does not share the same word for tongue and language, as does English and Turkish. The published English translation normalizes the title as Mother Tongue (1994).

2

Abdullah was Mohammad’s father. Ibni Abdullah is ‘son of Abdullah’.

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Your fiery mouth, the dimple in your cheeks. You have burned me. (Özdamar, 1994: 32)

He is at once an embodiment of Sharia discipline, upholding the letter of the law, and a Sufi lover, distracting the narrator from her studies with sensual poetry and erotic desire. When she first encounters the Arabic script she sees in it not its symbolic meaning but the visual images it evokes, and when she hears his pupils reading about the Day of Judgement in the Qur’an, the words are interspersed with other verses about Allah’s creative power, both from the Qur’an and from a Turkish folk song. These passages have been interpreted in terms of the narrator’s resistance to rulebased Sunni Islam, juxtaposing it with Anatolian folk religion (Haines & Littler, 2004: 125–7). Roy has underlined also the a-personal intertextuality of the poems and citations, relating poems such as that cited above to ‘ghazal’ poetry, and the dialogic passages to the classical Arabic literary form ‘mu’āradah’ (2009: 174–5). Sometimes the poetry is clearly recited, at others it stands in the text without quotation marks, as when Ibni Abdullah has just served mezzes and rakı and there follow the unattributed lines: Wine-giver, bring me wine, take my understanding away with the wine, it is not worth anything in this world. I want to be a wineglass moving between your hands, my shadow should fall only on your face (Özdamar, 1994: 32).

The cup-bearer or ‘saki’, as Roy reminds us, is a standard symbol of the ‘ghazal’ and a metaphor for God or divine inspiration, as well as an unexpected celebration of intoxication in Islamic literature (2009: 175). Similarly, in the poem above, there is no fixed attribution of image to identity, as the narrator is both the nightingale and the rose, classic ‘ghazal’ imagery for the lover and the beautiful, unresponsive beloved. And in one of several gender reversals in the story, Ibni Abdullah is in the end also the rose, the unresponsive beloved, who eventually withdraws from their passionate affair, pleading for a ‘spiritual’ love. Such a division of body and spirit is impossible for the narrator, who asks: ‘When the body forgets, doesn’t the soul forget also?’ (Özdamar, 1994: 51). Indeed, the narrator experiences a doubling of Ibni Abdullah, as both her sexual partner and a presence within her body, which I have discussed elsewhere as analogous to the Sufi desire to overcome the painful separation from God (Littler, 2009: 223–4). Thus, in the text there are competing voices of Islam, not always anchored in identity, and shifting even within the person of Ibni Abdullah, who is by turns the voice of Sharia, the sensual lover and the ascetic mystic. Only a reading that tolerates such ambiguity can appreciate how Islam serves as poetic inspiration rather than an object to be understood in the writing of this secular Turkish German author.

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455

Opening Up New Realities in Zaimoglu’s Evangelio

Feridun Zaimoglu (born 1964 in Bolu) is the only one of these authors to profess to a Muslim faith, though his writing also defies expectations of representations of Islam. Like Şenocak he has lived most of his life in Germany, shooting to fame in 1995 with a book of monologues titled Kanak Sprak (Spik Speak) based on interviews with young Turkish German men that made his name for provocative eloquence and as a spokesman for minority voices in Germany. He is a prolific author of prose and drama, addressing an eclectic array of themes. In ‘Gotteskrieger’ (God’s Warriors, 2005), the focus is on a disillusioned Islamist terrorist and the story’s machinic imagery, violent language and ambiguous ending suggest a view of Islam in terms of Deleuze and Guattari’s war machine, as a counterforce to the state apparatus (e.g. Littler, 2009). The war machine is described in A Thousand Plateaus as the potential for mutation and becoming in steady state or stable systems (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004: 253). Only when it is harnessed by the state does it settle into a military institution, or the hierarchy of an established church that solidifies existing state structures. However, religions such as Islam and Christianity have the potential to liberate new energies and open up new virtual realities. This is also how I read Zaimoglu’s recent novel Evangelio (2017a), an account of Luther, the heretic and fugitive in the Wartburg, where he translated the New Testament into German. Having refused to recant at the Diet of Worms in 1521, Luther was abducted by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, to protect him from persecution as a heretic, both by the Roman Catholic Church and by multiple competing Protestant sects. He lived for ten months incognito at the castle as a nobleman, his main link to the outside world being exchanges of letters with fellow theologians Georg Spalatin and Philipp Melancthon, to whom he confided his physical and spiritual torments (Roper, 2017 [2016]: 204). Luther’s letters intersperse the narrative, most of which is in the earthy idiom of his guard. Critics praised the language of the novel, inspired by Luther’s Early New High German but transformed into Zaimoglu’s own literary style. The narrative voice of the humble guard Burkhard, who is opposed to Luther’s heresy but develops a grudging admiration for the man, was welcomed as a corrective to the ‘Luther-hype’ of 2017: In Evangelio, we see Luther’s dark side, his hatred of the Pope, the Jews and the Turks, his disdain for women and lack of sympathy for the rebellious peasants. Jörg Magenau (2017) criticized the novel’s reductive view of the Middle Ages as nothing but dirt, blood, superstition and carnality without a whiff of transcendence. However, this absence of transcendence, the earthiness of the language, and the immediate, urgent use of the present tense are fundamental to the novel’s power. When viewed from the

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guard’s perspective, Luther is no saint but a tormented man pursued by demons that take material form. One night, Burkhard and the castellan hear Luther screaming and find him in his secluded chamber, his hand bleeding from a bite. He claims the devil appeared to him as a black dog, though there are none in the castle. The castellan is sceptical, but Burkhard goes out to see where the satanic dog could have escaped: ‘I carefully check the crack where the cur Satan crept; smouldering. Burnt lumps of mortar’ (Zaimoglu, 2017a: 129). When Burkhard later accompanies Luther to Wittenberg, where he is no longer tormented by the devil, he notices that the scar from this bite has healed (p. 299). Luther’s visceral experience of evil is such that in his presence even Burkhard begins to dream of the devil, as if the demons that torment him seep into his guard’s dreams: These are not my dreams, this is what the feverish heretic makes me dream. Because they fill him up so he’s fit to burst. Because his body’s bounds are bursting. Because all grace is banished by the rat’s frothing corrupt corpse and the cur gone up in smoke. The castle is licked by demonic tongues inside and out (p. 216).

Luther’s experience of nature is of matter animated by demons, so that when out riding with Burghard on the Hörselberg, even a gnarled tree appears to him a deformed and tormented spirit, and the mountain is transformed into the Venusberg of the Tannhäuser myth, heated by the fires of purgatory. This is a world of unpredictable and terrifying material transformations, only tenuously held at bay by the power of the written word. The novel both alludes to and performs something of the power of Luther’s language, posing a formidable challenge to the translator.3 When overhearing Luther cursing one night, Burkhard and a fellow guard (Lung) do not so much ‘hear’ as ‘ricochet’ off the power of the words: ‘Lung and I bounce off the force of the words, but Luther, this pig-headed warrior of Christ thunders on against the wretched devils that we are, as we cower in the darkness to escape the bolts’ (Zaimoglu, 2017a: 206). Zaimoglu’s use of repetition, rhythm and alliteration is often what lends force to Luther’s words, which resonates with Roper’s characterization of Luther’s German in the New Testament as a sonorous demotic rather than a literary prose (Roper, 2017 [2016]: 207–8). Zaimoglu’s Luther describes the translation process as harnessing every Latinate word like a sow with a halter of bells to make it ring like a German bell that makes sense even to the illiterate peasantry (Zaimoglu, 2017a: 280). The material power of the Bible translation is implied by Melancthon’s

3

For a flavor of the style, see Simon Pare’s excellent sample translation (Zaimoglu, 2017b).

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claim that Luther is banishing the devil with ink, with the power of the written word (p. 279). To Burkhard Luther is a writer of mystical runes, ‘as if etching sounds and whimpers and curses into the Saviour’s skin’ (Zaimoglu, 2017b: 6). Luther himself repeatedly denounces other Protestant sects for their claim to a direct relationship with God as a bypassing of the word (Zaimoglu, 2017a: 294–5). The localized presence of the divine was a debate that divided the Protestants, who appear in the novel as warring factions, as dangerous to Luther’s safety as the Roman Church. While Luther opposed the worship of relics, he remained committed to the real presence of Christ in the eucharist, unlike Calvin and Zwingli who saw the bread and wine as purely symbolic (Hendrix, 2010: 56; Roper, 2017 [2016]: 257). Here again, the Luther of the novel does not see God as supraterrestrial and unified but as materially expressed in disparate phenomena, so that divinity is dispersed and intensive rather than localized in extensive space (Hills, 2017/ 18: 42). In all of these literary encounters with the divine, then, there emerge unpredictable aspects of established religion, be it Islam or Christianity. Mystical, heterodox and heretical beliefs blur the boundaries between body and soul, sacred and profane, and between the religions themselves. Faith is not a barrier to be overcome by understanding but an expansive opening to how reality could be different, and mystical experience can bridge doctrinal differences. This is not a retreat into an apolitical realm, however, but a micropolitics of resistance in a metastable state of reality, hemmed in by the vested interests of church, state and orthodoxy. To apprehend this, it is helpful to approach the texts in a non-representational mode, not looking for depictions of a familiar reality but being affected by the poetry and the force of the language, and suspending the urge to judge, interpret and understand. To return to Şenocak’s engagement with poetry, such reading might be seen as experiencing an intimacy without identity, as a possible mode of intercultural communication.

References Deleuze, G. (2006). The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. T. Conley. London: Continuum. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2004). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. B. Massumi. London: Continuum. Fachinger, P. (2001). Rewriting Turkey: Barbara Frischmuth and Hanne Mede-Flock. In P. Fachinger, ed., Rewriting Germany from the Margins: ‘Other’ German Literature of the 1980s and 1990s. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 84–97.

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Frischmuth, B. (2000 [1973]). Das Verschwinden des Schattens in der Sonne. Berlin: Aufbau. Frischmuth, B. (2008). Vom Fremdeln und vom Eigentümeln: Essays, Reden und Aufsätze. Graz and Vienna: Droschl. Haines, B. and Littler, M. (2004). Emine Sevgi Özdamar: ‘Mutterzunge’ and ‘Großvaterzunge’ (1990). In B. Haines and M. Littler, eds., Contemporary Women’s Writing in German: Changing the Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 118–38. Hendrix, S. H. (2010). Martin Luther: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hills, H. (2017/18). Dislocating holiness: city, saint and the production of flesh. Open Arts Journal, 6, 39–65. Hodkinson, J. and Morrison, J., eds. (2009). Encounters with Islam in German Literature and Culture. Rochester, NY: Camden House. Hofmann, M. and von Stosch, K., eds(2012). Islam in der deutschen und türkischen Literatur. Paderborn: Schöningh. Huntington, S. P. (1993). The clash of civilizations? Foreign Affairs, 72(3), 22–49. Kermani, N. (2010). Wer ist Wir? Deutschland und seine Muslime. Munich: Beck. Littler, M. (2002). Diasporic identity in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Mutterzunge. In S. Taberner and F. Finlay, eds., Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics and Literature in the Berlin Republic. Rochester, NY: Camden House, pp. 219–34. Littler, M. (2009). Intimacies both sacred and profane: Islam in the work of Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Zafer Şenocak and Feridun Zaimoglu. In J. Hodkinson and J. Morrison, eds., Encounters with Islam in German Literature and Culture. Rochester, NY: Camden House, pp. 221–35. Littler, M. (2012). Der Islam im Werk von Zafer Şenocak: ‘Der Pavillon’. In M. Hofmann and K. von Stosch, eds., Islam in der deutschen und türkischen Literatur. Paderborn: Schöningh, pp. 139–52. Magenau, J. (2017). Bußmarter und Beiweib. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 4 April. www.buecher.de/shop/glaube/evangelio/zaimoglu-feridun/products _prod ucts/detail/prod_id/46994957/#reviews (last accessed 21 September 2018). Nancy, J.-L. (1991). The Inoperative Community, trans. P. Connor, L. Garbus, M. Holland and S. Sawhney. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Özdamar, E. S. (1990). Mutterzunge: Erzählungen. Hamburg: Rotbuch. Özdamar, E. S. (1994). Mother Tongue, trans. C. Thomas. Toronto: Coach House Press. Pizer, J. (2008). The continuation of countermemory. In K. Gerstenberger and P. Herminghouse, eds., German Literature in a New Century. Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 135–52. Roper, L. (2017 [2016]). Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet. London: Vintage. Roy, K. (2009). German-Islamic literary interperceptions in works by Emily Ruete and Emine Sevgi Özdamar. In J. Hodkinson and J. Morrison, eds., Encounters with Islam in German Language and Culture. Rochester, NY: Camden House, pp. 166–80.

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Schweizer, G. (2008). Vorwort: Ein unbekannter Islam. In N. Gürsel, ed., Sieben Derwische: Anatolische Legenden, trans M. Carbe. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, pp. 7–19. Şenocak, Z. (2001). Zungenentfernung: Bericht aus der Quarantänestation. Munich: Babel. Şenocak, Z. (2006). Das Land hinter den Buchstaben: Deutschland und der Islam im Umbruch. Munich: Babel. Şenocak, Z. (2009). Der Pavillon, trans. Y. Dağyeli-Bohne and Y. Dağyeli. Berlin: Dağyeli Verlag. Şenocak, Z. (2016). In deinen Worten: Mutmaßungen über den Glauben meines Vaters. Munich: Babel. Sökefeld, M. (2008). Struggling for Recognition: The Alevi Movement in Germany and in Transnational Space. Oxford: Berghahn. Spielhaus, R. (2006). Religion and identity: how Germany’s foreigners have become Muslims. Internationale Politik, 8(2), 17–23. Spielhaus, R. (2010). Media making Muslims: the construction of a Muslim community in Germany through media debate. Contemporary Islam, 4(1), 11–27. Twist, J. (2018). Mystical Islam and Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary German Literature: Openness to Alterity. Rochester NY: Camden House. Yeşilada, K. (2000). Encountering the other – beyond political correctness: interview with Barbara Frischmuth, trans. J. Clausen. Women in German Yearbook, 16, 1–12. Yildiz, Y. (2008). Political trauma and literal translation: Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s ‘Mutterzunge’. Gegenwartsliteratur, 7, 248–70. Yildiz, Y. (2009). Turkish girls, Allah’s daughters, and the contemporary German subject: itinerary of a figure. German Life and Letters, 62(4), 465–81. Zaimoglu, F. (2017a). Evangelio. Ein Luther-Roman. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Zaimoglu, F. (2017b). Evangelio, trans S. Pare. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Sample translation of the first two chapters: www.kiwi-verlag .de/ifiles/sample_files/9783462050103.pdf (last accessed 28 August 2018).

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28 Irish–English Cultural Encounters in the Diaspora Bronwen Walter

28.1

Introduction

The Irish diaspora has a very long history extending over at least a thousand years. Although the earliest period involved the movement of men to continental Europe to join religious foundations, migration to Britain and its former colonies has formed the largest part of the settlement overseas. Since Britain was the colonial power, seen as responsible for religious repression and lower rates of economic development in Ireland which have led to large-scale emigration, this has involved unequal interaction with the colonizer. In the English-speaking world the Irish have not only been outsiders but ‘others’ often stigmatized as its binary opposites and thus inferior. There are therefore taken-for-granted understandings of each other’s cultures, deeply embedded in centuries of tradition. However, the nature of encounters has varied between different destinations, often depending on their relationships to the British ‘centre’. Over time these links have changed for political, economic, social and demographic reasons. Much of the literature on the diaspora has related to the very large Irish American population, where intercultural encounters are now represented as overwhelmingly positive (Kenny, 2000). This chapter focuses more precisely on the de facto heartland of Britishness, England itself. It explores recent cultural encounters drawing attention to local and regional variations. This inevitably raises the issue of the national identities of the constituent nations within Britain which are often conflated with England so that the two labels are used interchangeably. In Scotland and Wales, different cultural encounters usefully underline the specificity of contact with the largest member of the Union (Bradley, 1995; O’Leary, 2004).

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A crucial element of Irish–English interactions is the uneasy political relationship between now separate states. This arises from several centuries in which Britain has exerted control over Ireland, especially to protect its western flank from foreign invasion from a disaffected neighbour. The war of independence started in 1916 with the Easter Rising in Dublin but a limited success was secured only through partition of the six northern counties, reconstituted as Northern Ireland in 1921. Largely unrestrained Protestant rule sanctioned discrimination towards a sizeable Catholic minority and underlay the bitter conflict from 1969, finally easing with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In the recent period these Troubles were the backdrop to the often hostile English attitudes towards Irish migrants in Britain and their families. Diasporas are by definition multigenerational so that ‘Irish’ means identification with Irish culture through family inheritance and can include children, grandchildren and later generations. Cultural expressions are likely to be greater closer to the immigrant generation, varying with individual circumstances. Attention here will be on the English-born children of one or two Irish-born parents living in England, the so-called second generation, who provide a particularly valuable window on intercultural interactions. Children living across cultural boundaries within their own families and outside are well placed to observe cultural differences which may be harder for their parents to recognize or decipher (Song, 2003: 106). Contacts and understandings change over the lifecycle as people encounter new situations and accumulate knowledge of at least two cultures. A variety of sources can be used to analyse these experiences. This chapter draws primarily on data from the Irish 2 Project completed in 2002, which used a range of methods including discussion groups with forty-six second-generation Irish participants.1 These took place in four English locations, London, Manchester, Coventry and Banbury, chosen to include different sizes of settlement in geographical locations which have contrasting histories of Irish immigration and attitudes to people of Irish background. In each location participants were recruited to fill broad quotas by gender, social class, religious background, one and two Irishborn parents and motherhood.2 These are the ‘experts’ whose reflections on their childhood and adult lives were shared with others from similar backgrounds, recorded and transcribed.

1

This research was funded by Research Grant R000238367 from the Economic and Social Research Council, directed by Professor Bronwen Walter, Anglia Ruskin University. Co-applicants were Professor Mary J. Hickman, London Metropolitan University and Dr Joseph M. Bradley, University of Stirling. Dr Sarah Morgan was Research Fellow. The Second-Generation Irish in Britain: A Hidden Population in Multi-ethnic Britain. Full report at https://s3-eu-west-1 .amazonaws.com/esrc-files/outputs/8kgU9SBtpECR2hti2E4HEw/O4J1p4VZDEC202Esjb3hfw.pdf (last accessed 28 September 2016).

2

Pseudonyms were given to participants and their families.

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London has a long history of Irish settlement at least since medieval times and has been the major destination of Irish migrants in the post–Second World War period, supporting a wide range of cultural and welfare associations. Manchester, in the north-west of England, has had a substantial population of Irish descent constantly replenished by new arrivals. It has a long-established network of Catholic churches and schools and population with Irish family connections leading to a well-accepted community. On the other hand, Coventry’s large Irish population dates only from the 1950s, settling in a city with no strong Catholic tradition where arrivals from Ireland were viewed with suspicion. Finally, Banbury is a smaller, ‘English’ town with fewer Irish-born people and no specifically Irish cultural associations. Cultural encounters are thus inflected by a range of factors. Power differences between the colonizer and the colonized are an ongoing backdrop to relationships, nuanced by geographical and temporal patterns of migration and histories of settlement. There are widely recognized aspects of cultural difference between the Irish and the English which include language, religiosity, importance of family and sociability. Whereas language and religious background are inescapable labels, social values and their associated behaviours may be more hidden variations. Each of these themes will be explored to throw light on complex cultural relationships. On the one hand, there are areas of English unawareness, incomprehension, misunderstanding and hostility. But at the same time there is admiration and envy for positive assets observed in Irish culture and felt to be lacking amongst the English.

28.2

Language

Irish accents are the most frequently noticed cultural difference of the Irish in England. There are strong associations between non-standard, and therefore perceived inferior, use of language and negative stereotypes of stupidity and clumsiness. English has been the most widely-used language in Ireland since it was both imposed and chosen in the nineteenth century. Despite compulsory formal education, many born in Ireland have only basic or very limited knowledge of the original Gaelic tongue. Yet the adoption of the English language built on existing older structures and helps to explain what are judged ‘incorrect’ ways of speaking. These are often grouped together as ‘Irish accents’ but comprise a range of linguistic elements such as pronunciation, sentence structure, vocabulary, speaking speed and richness of expression (Walter, 2008). In a group discussion in Coventry, second-generation Tricia recounted an incident where the apparent absence of Irish voices led a lecturer to assume he was in a room with English people who would agree with his negative

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attitudes. At the same time, he belatedly became aware that expressing these was against college rules and would offend Irish people. Tricia: As I was growing up, that was so much around me, not in my own community, and not as school obviously. But if I ever stepped outside to a social event, it seemed to be OK to say, ‘Oh we know the Irish are thick’. People making a mistake, I am at college for something else at the moment, and the lecturer, they have a real anti-oppressive policy, made a mistake in his anatomy class, and said ‘Sorry that sounded Irish didn’t it?’ He then looked around the room, and there was an Irish woman who I was sitting next to, he said ‘There is no-one in the room that is Irish is there?’ Anne put her hand up and myself and two others put our hands up, and said ‘Yes, we are actually’. He looked highly embarrassed, and we debated afterwards whether we should go and complain about it (Coventry Group 1).

Many other participants in discussion groups noted the especially negative political associations of Irish accents reported by their parents during the Northern Irish Troubles. As a consequence, the adults either remained silent in public or tried to mimic English accents. Tara: I remember my mum saying she was on the bus and making sure she had the right change, so she wouldn’t have to ask (Banbury Group 2).

Participants also reflected on their own accents which had traces of the ways of speaking they first learned as children. Maura: I am a nurse, and I meet people from all over the place, my ears are tuned, I can listen to a patient, not look at their name, and you can hear it in their vowel sounds, and you think ‘they are second generation’ (Coventry Group 2).

But to mainstream English society this was not audible. Thus secondgeneration Irish people could avoid the stigma themselves, especially as their schooling and social interactions helped to remove the vestiges of early learned language. In the professional men’s discussion group in London, Matt reported: [That] was all I heard, was my mother and my father, so I spoke with an Irish accent. It was only when I went to school that I spoke with an English accent (London Group 2).

They were protected from the discrimination which could arise when Irish accents were heard. Marie in Banbury reported: My mum didn’t have a strong accent, but when the Birmingham bomb went off, she was in London in the Post Office, and there was an Irish lady with a strong accent in front of her. The person in the post office was really abusive to her, and of course my mum told them off, and said she was Irish as well. But I’ve never experienced anything like that, but as you say haven’t got a strong accent (Banbury Group 1).

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Whilst they were well aware that Irish voices could be treated with disdain or rejected in the outside world, in the privacy of the home talking was a major activity, especially for women. James in Banbury recalled ‘the chatting thing, it was always in the kitchen’. Particular words also marked out people of Irish background. In Banbury, Tara reported: I even speak differently, I will say things like hot press, instead of airing cupboard. I do have a lot of words in my vocabulary that are Irish words, not English words, and English people don’t understand (Banbury Group 2).

Margaret in Coventry reported that her husband and children refer to her as ‘mammy’, although she herself uses the English ‘mummy’. This resonates with Meg Maguire’s account of a Catholic primary school in London where the banning of ‘mammy’ was a key step in her training for middleclass English acceptability (Maguire, 1997: 92). Talking ‘too fast’ was another Irish language trait which created problems in encounters with English people. Language is a particularly sharp boundary between the two cultures. There is a long-standing association between Irish accents and inferiority which has persisted over centuries. At times of political unrest this could be a dangerous attribute, exposing Irish people to hostility or ridicule. It is difficult for migrants to hide their voices, especially for women who need to deal with English officialdom on behalf of families. The ‘loss’ of Irish accents in the English-born generations was irretrievable, removing a potentially invidious identifier, though a few participants described how their siblings deliberately developed Irish accents when they visited Ireland or, in one case, looked for acceptability in the Irish Heritage Centre in Manchester. Other cultural attributes can be more hidden, passed down in families and adapted to suit English conditions.

28.3

Religiosity

A significant difference between Irish and English cultures that is brought over with migrants and re-established in England is the character and importance of religion. The most obvious contrast is between the Catholic background of most Irish people and English forms of Protestantism, which is embedded in the culture, even if less openly espoused. Religiosity can take many forms, including church attendance, symbols in the home and moral values.

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A clear cultural contrast reported by many of the second-generation participants lay in more regular church attendance. There was strong agreement in the discussion group of professional men in London: Matt: Well it was just a major, it’s just a major part of your life because you do, you go to, you go to a Catholic primary school and normally to a Catholic secondary school or a comprehensive but you’re always still sent out to church on Sunday (London Group 2).

This was echoed by participants in each location. Eilish: One thing I noticed where my mum lives, we were the only ones that went out on a Sunday morning by car to mass. Everyone else was washing their cars, we were the only ones that went to mass. So completely different, and they didn’t see mass as an issue because it is not to them (Manchester Group 2).

Less recognized in English society is the emphasis on church attendance in Irish Protestant families. When asked what distinguished her family from English neighbours, Tara, whose family was from Dublin, said: Forced religion, we are not Roman Catholic we are Protestants but we were strict church goers, whereas my friends’ parents weren’t forcing them to go to church every Sunday (Banbury Group 2).

Irish children could be severely penalized by teachers who did not understand the importance of Irish religious culture in families, despite being Catholic themselves. Eilish in Manchester related: One incident at primary school stands out for me. My mum has a sister that lives in Blackburn, and that was the only part of my mum’s family living in England, because all the rest are in Ireland. We are very close, and she has five kids and there was myself and my brother, and it was my cousin’s first communion. We were with the choir at mass in our school, we would go every Sunday singing away. One Sunday we couldn’t make it because we went to my cousin’s first communion in Blackburn, and the Monday after, one of the teachers got myself and my brother who was about six, in school assembly, dragged us to the front of school and shouted at us, because we didn’t turn up at mass and I was thrown out of the choir (Manchester Group 2).

Expectation of strict participation in religious celebrations extended to members of the wider Irish community. In Banbury, Moira contrasted behaviour amongst the Irish with her English husband’s different attitude. You say about going to a funeral, we’d be the same if anyone died that we know, we’d have to go to the funeral. Whereas my husband’s side of the family [are English], and I suppose it is easier for them as they are all in this

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country, they don’t see it as an important issue to have to go to somebody’s funeral . . .. You might not know this person very well, you went because it was your duty to go. Everybody would get a mass card, and you’d be able to pick out who wasn’t there, and I wonder why they didn’t go. It was a very close community (Banbury Group 1).

One of the most obvious visual differences between English and Irish Catholic homes reported by participants was ubiquitous religious iconography. This was a hidden aspect of Irish culture which many English people would never encounter. Parents did not invite many, if any, English people into the home, but children had playmates who might cross the ethnic divide. Second-generation participants became aware that their English friends found the objects culturally strange. In answer to the question ‘Inside your house, it was obviously an Irish household was it?’, Nicholas, who had an Irish mother and English father, said I think so, you would see the statues, and the crosses and the various decor of a Catholic household, the same as you’d see anywhere else. I am not sure you’d see much else that made it visibly an Irish house as against an English house of that period (London Group 4).

Josie, in Coventry, felt more uncomfortable at the extreme religiosity displayed in her house. Yes they were my friends, I brought them home, but I used to get the impression that they were laughing at my mum and dad a bit. My parents were very ordinary, neither of them are alive now, they were very, very religious. They [the friends] might have been laughing at all the religious pictures around the walls. There were hundreds of statues and religious pictures, we had a big picture of Our Lady and The Sacred Heart, it was the ones where the eyes seemed to move wherever you went in the room. There were rosary beads hanging on the corners of each photograph . . . I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d talked behind my back really (Coventry Group 2).

Harder to pinpoint but a deeply felt cultural difference expressed by some participants was the greater importance attached to spirituality and morality in everyday life. A participant in Manchester said: Jim: What it means for a lot of the kids who don’t have any spiritual values at home, means they grow up in a moral vacuum, and that is very sad. A very important part of Irish culture and tradition is spiritual values, they are one of the things that distinguish Irish culture from English culture. If they are lost, a big part of tradition is lost I think (Manchester Group 1).

The moral link between Irish and Catholic culture remained even when the institutional commitment had declined.

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Maura: I’m quite glad I was brought up in Catholic schools, whether I am a practising Catholic now or not, it doesn’t really matter. Apart from the religion thing, there was a strong emphasis on morals and values, so that part of it I am eternally grateful for (Coventry Group 1).

The cultural impact of Catholicism on the Irish in England was profound. It was largely invisible to non-Catholic English populations, being performed inside separate buildings, churches and schools as well as in private homes. It affected not only behaviour on certain days but more strongly held values and attitudes which might be displayed elsewhere in caring, philanthropy or political beliefs, for example. This may be co-opted as a desirable British trait, for example in the celebration of inclusive British values in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London devised by the second-generation Irish film director Danny Boyle (Walter, 2017: 437).

28.4

Importance of Family

Religious values and teaching are also reflected in the particularly important place families occupy in Irish culture. There are strong links between faith and family, illustrated by references to being ‘born into’ a faith which is subsequently reinforced by upbringing (Hall, 2016: 1032). In Ireland this has both religious and economic underpinnings. In land ownership and inheritance amongst farming families, keeping ‘the name on the land’ has been a key part of the value system, reflected in the greater political representation given to the rural West at the establishment of the Free State. Until quite recently the Catholic Church has been able to force unlimited procreation on women resulting in very large families held together by the rule of fathers and emotional hold of mothers. The primacy of the family was enshrined in Article 41.1.1 of the 1937 Constitution, which stated that: The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law (Department of the Taoiseach, 1980: Art. 41.1.1).

Limited access to contraception was introduced in the Republic in 1993 and abortion in certain circumstances was legalized by the referendum in 2018. The large size of families in Ireland has provided a ready-made pool of traditionally close-knit relatives, so that second-generation people have typically had a much larger number of aunts, uncles and cousins than their English neighbours. Protestant Irish families were also larger than English ones although, like Catholics, the numbers of children born in England were

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much lower. Moreover, unlike English families, closeness was retained over time, strengthened by responsibilities to ageing parents, regular visits to the family home in Ireland at holiday times and participation in family occasions – wedding, funerals, birthdays and first communions. Moira: Family is very important to them, that’s the whole extended family, not just their immediate family, the whole family, cousins and all are important (Banbury Group 1).

The participants were aware that this was a positive aspect of their Irish identity which English people felt they lacked. Cormac: I think you put your finger on it early on, a lot of people envied you, they envied me with all the family I have, being able to go back and forth. A lot of English people don’t know who half their uncles are, I think they realise we have got something very special (Manchester Group 1).

There were very strong pressures on all family members to take part in family occasions. Moira’s English husband queried the necessity to undertake an expensive trip but she was adamant that it was a ‘duty’ she could not refuse. We have an uncle and it is his sixty-fifth birthday, he lives in England but is going back to Ireland to have his party. My aunt has organised it all, he doesn’t know. So we are all going, but my husband said ‘Why, we’ve got a lot of things going on this year’. He was asking ‘Can we afford to go?’, but I feel out of a sense of duty, that I have got to go (Banbury Group 1).

These celebrations were also occasions for pleasure and enjoyment which cemented Irish culture for their children and continued family traditions. Moira contrasted this again with ‘different’ English social events. It’s nice to pass on your culture to your children, it’s nice that it is a fun culture, there is a lot of dancing and it is quite fun. The things that you would have done, and that your parents would have done, and if you go to a gathering the sorts of things that happen. A wedding, if you go to an Irish wedding you are going to have a good time (Banbury Group 1).

The inclusion of children was further evidence of the closeness of generations within families and continuities with second and later generations. Moreover, the presence of many family members opened up opportunities that were not available to English children. Lisa: Another thing on the social event side, my parents were a lot more lenient in letting me go to social events than English friends, as half of my family would be there. My cousins, uncles, aunties would be there watching, and telling, so I would be allowed out to do more things anyway, than my English friends who were not allowed (Manchester Group 1).

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Extensive families with many religiously-based social celebrations provided opportunities for gatherings both in England and ‘at home’ in Ireland. There is thus an overlap between meetings of relatives of different generations and wider collections of friends, many of whom would have music and dancing skills to provide entertainment.

28.5

Sociability

A characteristic of Irish culture in England commented on by many participants was the greater sociability experienced in Irish families and communities. This broad label connected a range of differences relating to demography, religion, food and artistic expression which constituted everyday life, especially in rural Ireland from where most migrants originated. Music and dancing set apart events in Irish families and communities and reinforced ties of sociability. This was a topic which Manchester participants responded to particularly strongly, reflecting the large and confident Irish community in South Manchester where music was central to many second-generation people’s lives. They contrasted their wide circles of friends with the more restricted networks of English young people they knew. Gerry: I couldn’t imagine not being Irish, we got out so much more, we’d play music two to three nights a week, we were all over the country playing music, nearly every weekend. The friends at home, being English their dad would take them out for football on a Saturday and that was the highlight of the week, whereas I had something on all of the time (Manchester Group 1).

But Irish dancing took place behind the closed doors of community centres and was not visible to English people even in parts of Manchester where there was a large, long-established Irish population. Eilish: I remember when we were younger we used to do dancing, and it was something you never thought twice about, we are going dancing tonight, or music. But when we went to school we never mentioned it, until there was one particular day, and if you had a hobby you brought in what you did. Myself and Trina brought our dancing costumes in and danced, and everyone stared at us, and nobody knew what we were doing. It was very, very strange (Manchester Group 2).

At a smaller spatial scale, differences within the home were also noticed. The traditions of sociability were replicated in hospitality towards visitors.

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Growing up in London, Nicholas responded by confirming his Irish mother’s behaviour: Very hard to say without knowing how other people went on. Certainly, there was a tradition of welcoming people, a lot of emphasis placed on hospitality and the duty to be friendly to guests in the house (London Group 4).

This extended to different attitudes to providing food for guests. In Manchester Eilish contrasted the generous inclusion of visiting children in Irish family meals with the absence in others’ houses (see also Kneafsey & Cox, 2002). Now that we mention food, going to people’s houses. If you go to an Irish house, and I didn’t notice until I went to an English person’s house, it is so different. If I went to your house I would stay to dinner because that is what happens. If you went to a friend’s house or relatives you’d get sandwiches, cake and tea. If you stay for half an hour you get biscuits and a cup of tea, if you went to somebody else’s house, you’d be waiting for the drink (Manchester Group 1).

Tricia elaborated on differences between Irish and English family lives. There were no boundaries around time, people would sit up and chat, nights would be long, it was a culture shock. This is why I feel that I am in one culture, but I have access to another one, and this other one is full of routine, full of structure and boundaries and full of rules (Coventry Group 1).

English culture was being seen ‘from the inside’ by people who had grown up immersed in Irish family and community life but entered into English homes in an informal way through childhood friendships. Maura in Coventry believed that being ‘uninhibited’ was an Irish characteristic which distinguished her from ‘English people’. Maura:

Even aspects of my personality, like you said about going to Ireland, so many aspects of my personality that are inherently Irish, even though I speak with an English accent. . . . I am very sociable, gregarious and outgoing, I’m not saying English people aren’t, but I do feel that English people are a bit inhibited at times (Coventry Group 1).

The participants noted that some English people envied their outgoing social life once they were introduced to it, suggesting that it had previously been unknown. Ian in Banbury, the most ‘English’ location, said: ‘there is almost this jealousy creeping in, they want to taste a little bit of it’.

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However, many Irish migrant parents held themselves back in England and enacted only a pale shadow of the sociability they had enjoyed in Ireland. They did not want to draw unwanted attention, or felt they should conform to a drabber social world that Maura was describing. In Tricia’s view, her parents lacked confidence in their social position. That was my abiding essence of my childhood, that they didn’t feel on equal status to the English members of the public (Coventry Group 1).

When they returned to Ireland on holiday they were transformed into different people. This was eye-opening to their children who began to understand a much stronger Irish culture, which was also reflected in more pronounced language differences. Tricia:

I didn’t go to Ireland until I was fifteen, and that was like the light going on for me, I no longer understood my parents in isolation in the sense of what their struggle was. Although a lot of friends has similar experiences in terms of their culture, but seeing them in their own culture, I realised what they’d lost. . . . As soon as they were back in their home culture a couple of days, their Irish accent was really thick and pronounced (Coventry Group 1).

Unlike English people, second-generation Irish children could both observe and participate in Irish culture in both transnational locations. They could evaluate the intercultural changes their parents had to make to ‘fit into’ the society in which they had settled and which now claimed their children as members.

28.6

Conclusion

Irish cultural differences remain largely hidden in England, although visibility varies between geographical locations and over time. The voices of the migrant generation are the most noticed sign of Irishness but their apparent disappearance in the next generation leads to an assumption that cultural difference no longer applies to their children or grandchildren. Indeed, second-generation Irish people are actively discouraged from expressing difference and may be told they are inauthentic ‘Plastic Paddies’ if they do so, in contrast to Irish Americans whose affiliation is unquestioned in the fifth or sixth generation. Language operates in England as a simple binary which overrides a much wider range of cultural markers. Those with recognizable ‘accents’ are

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labelled ‘Irish’, whilst their children must accept that they are simply ‘English’. However, beneath this division lies a raft of nuanced and ongoing differences played out in Irish homes and communities. Religion in particular continues to signal an Irish background, supported by parental choice and social expectation, of Catholic schooling for children of Irish descent. Although Catholic schools have frequently attempted to distance themselves from Irish national identification, for example by excluding Irish history from syllabuses, they positively reinforce group cultural specificities by bringing together children of Irish background (Hickman, 1995). This overlaps with the importance of family in passing on knowledge and traditions beyond the migrant generation. Finally, the richness of sociability is a highly-valued trait which is nurtured by strong ties of family relationships and friendships and spreads Irish culture to an even broader population including English people who admire its exuberant celebration of music, dance and ‘craic’. Cultures are dynamic and their expression relates closely to political contexts, which is especially salient in the Irish situation. Speaking in the early twentieth-first century, the Irish 2 Project participants described the difficulties experienced in Irish communities during the Northern Irish Troubles for which they were held accountable. However, attitudes began to change in the 1990s, as negotiations for peace took place and the flourishing Celtic Tiger economy raised the status of the Irish Republic. The Manchester bombing in 1992 was not met with the same backlash as earlier attacks, partly because the local Irish community was longer established and more accepted than in other English cities. Participants pointed to the wide popularity of St Patrick’s Day celebrations, although the Manchester Group observed rather resentfully that English participation showed no awareness of the Irish significance of St Patrick’s Day but simply co-opted the ‘English’ pub culture aspects. An important issue is the extent to which Irish culture is associated with working-class status which could increase its otherness to middleclass English values. Certainly, Tricia in Coventry believed that her parents had internalized English attitudes which heightened their sense of social inferiority. But ethnic difference could also override class. Other research has pointed to discrimination in educational circles where there was shared middle-class positioning. In the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) report on Discrimination and the Irish community in Britain (Hickman & Walter, 1997), a university lecturer in Birmingham reported the failure of English colleagues to take her seriously when her Irish accent was heard. Such attitudes are ongoing despite the recognition of high levels of economic development in Ireland since the early 1990s. A recent study of young Irish teachers in England examined the persistence of negative

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stereotypes and anti-Irish sentiments which emerged in a variety of ways amongst colleagues and parents (Ryan & Kurdi, 2015: 265–8). One teacher in a school in southern England had experienced significant damage to her self-esteem and confidence in her national identity through workplace bullying, such that she had completely changed her accent. This points to serious consequences of the absence of sensitivity towards Irish cultural difference by people in positions of authority in the English mainstream. Irish welfare agencies point out that elderly Irish people who enter care homes may not find their needs catered for (Gaffney, 2001). This age group migrated in earlier times when cultural differences were more marked. Frequently these are older women who spent their lives caring for families perhaps with part-time paid work in areas such as the school meals service and often lived within supportive Irish neighbourhoods (Malone, 2001). They now need sympathy and familiarity when removed from family and community, particularly in the understanding of their food preferences and different repertoires of communal songs, as well as access to Catholic religious activities on specific days (Walls, 2004). Older single men who worked ‘on the buildings’ may have adapted least to English cultural norms (Leavey, Sembhi & Livingston, 2004). Irish accents can also trigger negative attitudes in the legal system during court appearances. Cases raised during research for the CRE report (Hickman & Walter, 1997: 182) suggested that Irish defendants were penalized by court officials’ ingrained anti-Irish attitudes triggered by hearing their voices. Intercultural differences persist in very long-standing diasporic relationships and are accepted as ‘normal’ by the more powerful partner. However, they continue to have real negative consequences for the subordinate group, reinforced at times of political stress. But from the inside there is also confidence in the value of a richer, more open and creative culture, sometimes glimpsed enviously by those on the outside.

References Bradley, J. M. (1995). Ethnic and Religious Identity in Modern Scotland: Culture, Politics and Football. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Department of the Taoiseach (1980). Bunreacht na hÉireann (Constitution of Ireland), enacted in 1937. Dublin: Government Publications Office. Gaffney, M. (2001). Culturally Sensitive Care for Older Irish People. Report commissioned by Haringey Irish Community Care. Hall, S. (2016). Moral geographies of family: articulating, forming and transmitting moralities in everyday life. Social and Cultural Geography, 17(8), 1017–39.

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Hickman, M. J. (1995). Religion, Class and Identity: The State, the Catholic Church and the Education of the Irish in Britain. Aldershot, UK: Avebury. Hickman, M. and Walter, B. (1997). Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain. London: Commission for Racial Equality. Kenny, K. (2000). The American Irish: A History. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education. Kneafsey, M. and Cox R. (2002). Food, gender and Irishness: how Irish women in Coventry make home. Irish Geography, 35(1), 6–15. Leavey, G., Sembhi S. and Livingston G. (2004). Older Irish migrants living in London: identity, loss and return. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30 (4), 763–79. Maguire, M. (1997). Missing links: working-class women of Irish descent. In P. Mahony and C. Zmroczek, eds., Class Matters: ‘Working-class’ Women’s Perspectives on Social Class. London: Taylor and Francis, pp. 87–100. Malone, Mary (2001). The health experience of Irish people in a north west London ‘community saved’. Community, Work and Family, 4(2), 195–213. O’Leary, P. (2004). Irish Migrants in Modern Wales. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Ryan, L. and Kurdi, E. (2015). ‘Always up for the craic’: young Irish professional migrants narrating ambiguous positioning in contemporary Britain. Social Identities, 21(3), 257–72. Song, M. (2003). Choosing Ethnic Identity. Oxford: Polity Press. Walls, P. (2004). Consulting the Irish Community on Inside Outside: Improving Mental Health Services for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in England – the Community Response and Its Evaluation. London: Federation of Irish Societies. Walter, B. (2008). Voices in other ears: accents and identities of first- and second-generation Irish in England. In G. Rings and A. Ife, eds., Neocolonial Mentalities in Contemporary Europe? Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, pp.174–82. Walter, B. (2017). The diaspora in comparative and multi-generational perspective. In M. Daly and E. Biagini, eds., The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 423–38.

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29 Intercultural Dimensions in Academic Mobility South Korea and Spain F. Manuel Montalbán, Francisco M. Llorente and Evelina Zurita

29.1

Globalization and the Internationalization of Higher Education

Globalization is a multidimensional phenomenon which has led to an immense flow of people, ideas, gadgets, goods and services. Education is directly implicated in these developments. Globalization not only calls into question the classic concept of education, but it makes education an essential tool to face the challenges of the new global order and the emergence of new knowledge and skills (Garratt, Phillips & Piper, 2003). Internationalization is one of the most relevant expressions of globalization in education. Worldwide, universities and colleges prioritize internationalization in their development plans, and academic mobility is increasing. In East Asia, there has been an exponential increase in the number of higher education students and teachers taking part in exchange programmes. Some countries, such as the Republic of Korea (hereafter South Korea), view globalization as a national priority, and have made strong financial, academic and logistic efforts to offer a wide variety of options to study abroad or to attract foreign students (Kwon, 2013). Higher education is considered to be one of the main pillars of economic development in the knowledge age, and study abroad programmes would seem to guarantee the acquisition of valuable skills (Ghazarian, 2014). In Asia traditional trends in mobility are moving towards English-speaking countries, but there is a search for new exchange partners like Spain, which is viewed as a bridge between Europe and Latin America. In relation to higher education programmes, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport has followed an internationalization strategy that offers opportunities to learn and acquire linguistic, communicative, intercultural, teamwork, entrepreneurship and leadership competence in

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transnational work settings (MECD, 2014). Spain is the European leader in the number of students taking part in the ERASMUS programme, both as a host country and in the number of Spanish students studying abroad (European Commission, 2017). The appeal of Spain as a host country has been explained by the wide range of courses available to international students, interest in the language and culture, the lifestyle, good weather and opportunities for tourism. These aspects have been attested by nonEuropean students participating in these types of exchange programmes (Pérez-Encinas et al., 2017). In particular, there is a growing interest among Spanish universities in building closer relationships with universities in East Asia, especially those in China, Japan and South Korea. This interest has generated intense activity and a certain degree of competition to establish links and inter-university agreements (Del Águila, Montalbán & Padilla, 2017). Academic exchanges between South Korea and Spain involve reciprocal mobility, which is mainly driven by opportunities for language learning and specific programmes within inter-university collaboration agreements. From the Spanish perspective, South Korea is considered to be a small but emerging partner in its internationalization strategy, and Spanish educational institutions consider the South Korean education system as having ‘high-quality and a focus on new technologies’ (Ministry of Employment and Social Security, 2017). Since 2006 the University of Malaga has been working to become a major partner of South Korean and Ibero-American universities and institutions, which led to an agreement with Incheon National University in 2010. In 2011 the University of Malaga initiated a new degree in East Asian studies, with a special focus on South Korea, aimed at enabling professionals to act as cultural intermediaries between the Spanish-speaking world and the world of business, culture and international relationships in South Korea (Doménech et al., 2016). In this chapter, we explore intercultural dimensions in the joint internationalization programmes and the effects of academic mobility on interculturality in greater detail because this seems key to the development of indispensable skills in a global world. The main question is how international students construct dynamically their intercultural experience reflected in competences, beliefs, knowledge and identity. In many cases, these aspects are left to chance within informal and personal interactions, constituting a range of myths that can be deconstructed.

29.2

Internationalization and Intercultural Relationships

Most academic mobility programmes measure their success by the number of participants (Aba, 2016: 488). However, critical voices demand a wider

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range of indicators and a more comprehensive perspective that should include potential shifts in the conception and understanding of terms such as society, economy, interculturality, politics, environment, infrastructure, power-geometries and social justice (Sheller & Urry, 2006). Kim (2009: 397) has criticized a neoliberal approach to the discourse on mobility, which mainly addresses market values and university rankings based on the number and qualifications of the students and academics they recruit. In fact, in countries such as Great Britain, many universities not only include the direct economic impact that foreign students have on their finances in their analysis, but also include the indirect effects they have on the community through accommodation, catering, culture and entertainment. These financial benefits are sometimes rhetorically linked to the activity of soft diplomacy, in which international students and teachers are viewed as economic and cultural ambassadors (Dervin, 2011). Research on academic mobility has also been criticized for its excessive focus on description and its lack of theoretical, methodological and ethical rigour (Robertson, 2010). Dervin (2011) suggests that mobility has undergone a certain degree of ‘fetishization’ and identifies issues that researchers have until recently underestimated in their studies. These include gender bias, political and economic power balances in regional and international settings as well as forced academic mobility (e.g. refugees). These aspects motivated us to reconsider the role of interculturality in academic internationalization and mobility, given that academic experience abroad alone may not be sufficient to ensure the emergence of an inclusive and enriching intercultural context (Jackson, 2016). This should be obvious if we wish to achieve more than multicultural tolerance and aim for a wider concept of interculturality that includes mutual interest, understanding and interaction between people who belong to different cultural groups (Kim, 2009). Aba (2016) recently questioned to what extent intercultural competence is an automatic result of the mobility experience. Initially, it seems apparent that this kind of mobility offers opportunities to experience cultural scenarios that differ from the place of origin. However, some inherent factors (e.g. lack of proficiency in the new language or in English as the ‘lingua franca’) could be substantial barriers to intercultural exchange (Schweisfurth & Gu, 2009), and the mobility experience may also reinforce ‘them–us’ group binaries by promoting ‘othering’, essentialist identity construction and neo-orientalist stereotyping (e.g. of Asian visitors) (Jackson, 2016). For these reasons, Aba (2016) emphasized that international experience alone is insufficient. Clearly, exposure to different cultural environments does not necessarily guarantee the acquisition of intercultural competence, which should include an interest towards the other, an openminded perspective and a constructive attitude towards the traditions,

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beliefs or behaviours of different cultures (Deardorff, 2006). All this requires active engagement and creative skills to transform simple categorizations linked to identity and belonging, but also the attitudes, skills and knowledge needed to assess and efficiently respond to the interpersonal, emotional, educational and organizational demands of cultural diversity (Byram, 1997). Drawing on this more challenging conception of interculturality, Dervin suggests that ‘the literature on interculturality is often disparate, scattered, and contradictory in the theoretical and methodological approaches used’ (2011: 37). Dervin asks researchers to acknowledge the potential limitations of the methods used and suggests that some of the results might not always support the widespread idea that any experience of this kind would necessarily be enriching. Therefore, he encourages researchers to move beyond contradictory and circular arguments on academic mobility, internationalization and interculturality. Interculturality understood in this way, challenges preconceived and unproven ideas about the other. It demands going beyond an essentialist notion of culture, but also beyond forms of interculturality that essentialize cultural differences by conceptualizing it as a bridge between closed cultural universes, downplaying its intersubjectivity, and falling into the trap of ‘othering’ (Dervin, 2011). Based on this perspective, we explore in greater detail: 1.

2.

the extent to which academic mobility between students from the University of Malaga and South Korean universities helps to develop non-essentialist forms of interculturality; the particular aspects of that interculturality and their link to internationalization initiatives.

29.3

Methodology

This study is part of a wider project called ‘Building the Future: South Korean Studies Postgraduate Programme and Research Development at the University of Malaga’, which is funded by the Academy of South Korean Studies for the period 2016–19. The overall objective is to stimulate and consolidate academic and research opportunities for interdisciplinary South Korean studies at the University of Malaga. By opting for nonparticipant observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews with students, we chose a qualitative ethnographical approach to address the above-mentioned research objectives. This methodology allows us to analyse and interpret phenomena from observable discourses and facts, and to search for their social meaning. Thus, we follow in the footsteps of pioneering researchers such as Murphy-Lejeune, who has repeatedly called for the rejection of merely quantitative approaches and attempts to ‘try and

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account for the definition of the experience by the actors themselves, an often neglected source of information’ (Murphy-Lejeune, 2002: 8). Ethnographic information was collected using a digital sound recorder, photographs and field notes. We conducted a total of sixty-five interviews with South Korean students from our partner universities and forty-eight with Spanish students from our university, both at the University of Malaga and at South Korean universities during the academic year 2016–17 and the first semester of the academic year 2017–18. We also analysed field observations conducted at the University of Malaga in 2016–17 and at our South Korean partner universities in June–July 2017. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, and we followed Wetherell and Potter’s suggestion (1988) to explore the discursive production by taking ‘interpretative repertoires’ as units of analysis. These repertoires are discursive frameworks by which to understand the internal structure of the narratives used by the participants to create their own versions of events, actions, affects, cognitive processes and other phenomena within the academic mobility experience. They include sets of terms, descriptions and identifiable items that are often clustered around metaphors and other rhetorical devices. The results section includes extracts from the interviews that illustrate some of the elements described. It also includes the students’ nationality, gender and age.

29.4

Results and Discussion

We identified three interpretative repertoires related to the intercultural experiences of South Korean and Spanish students: ‘Language Opens Doors’, ‘Imagined Otherness’ and ‘People and Culture’. These repertoires show some of the features used to construct experiences that come with academic mobility.

29.4.1 Language Opens Doors Language challenges were a recurring topic in almost every interview, which is very much in line with contemporary research on international exchange. A recent report by the University of Oxford (2017) showed that linguistic competence in English or another second language (e.g. French, Spanish, Russian or South Korean) and the distance between the home and host countries are already key factors when choosing a university in which to study abroad. Linguistic competence has also been identified as a vehicle for acculturation and as being beneficial to internationalization. In our study, we found that language was also related to what a Spanish student at a South Korean university called ‘elements of practical culture’.

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Language was considered to be a key element in the adaptation to academic activities at host centres, as well as in daily tasks such as using public transport, dealing with landlords, making new friends and shopping. One Spanish student (female, 24 years old) summarized her language challenges in South Korea as follows: I was a bit scared because my Korean was very basic. I thought the underground system would be particularly chaotic, but then I saw that all the signs were in English too, so that was a relief. Meals were a bit more difficult. If you want to eat on the street and don´t speak much Korean, you have to trust other people’s orders or the photo of the dishes. In the first few weeks I mainly spoke English, but I slowly felt more confident with my Korean, and started using it a bit more. Daily practice has really helped me improve. The intensive Korean course offered at the university was also very helpful.

Other students confirm that English was the dominant global communication language, especially among young people. This aspect is paradoxical in that it can both open and close doors to intercultural experience. Fieldwork shows that knowing the host country’s language not only opens communication channels but also promotes understanding of other ways of life and different world views, which can promote an open-minded attitude. In both countries, relationships with older people were strongly affected by the students’ proficiency in the local language. However, this is not the only possible reading of the ubiquity of English, and later in this article we examine the use of English from other perspectives. We can illustrate this with the example of a South Korean student in Malaga (female, 23 years old): I had some problems with my landlord because of the small print in the contract. He refused to speak English; he said he didn´t know it and only spoke Spanish, which I don’t understand very well. Communication was also very difficult with other older people. I had to resort to my Spanish friends and Student Support at university.

The University of Malaga has a specific programme on East Asian studies, which mainly focuses on South Korea. Thus, a significant proportion of the students taking part in the study abroad programmes took Korean courses before their departure. The experience of students who had some level of Korean generally entailed greater opportunities for closer interaction with the friends and relatives of their South Korean peers. This is the notion expressed by a Spanish student (male, 24 years old): I was lucky enough to learn a bit more about the life of some of their friends, their relatives, and their inner circle . . . I was taking Korean studies, so they valued and appreciated my interest in their culture. When they hear you speaking a bit of Korean, they often change their serious and

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defensive facial expressions, although people are usually gentle and helpful, but somewhat distant as well.

The South Korean students we interviewed tend to see Spanish as an emerging international language, which is particularly appealing to those who wish to establish professional relationships in Latin America. This area is clearly of great interest regarding the expansion of South Korean financial and business interests. One participant claimed that many South Korean companies viewed a stay in Spain as a valuable asset when assessing job applications. When this aspect is the primary motivation, the intercultural experience often becomes secondary or is even diluted in comparison with the weight given to the requirements of the job market. A South Korean student (female, 22 years old) said in this regard: Malaga University gave me the chance to practice my Spanish a bit more, and they also offer specific courses at a competitive price. Spanish is a dooropener for South Korean companies working in Latin America and for international cooperation.

Spain is viewed as a European country and a tourist destination. This perspective leads many South Korean students to believe that the general population has at least some grasp of international English and most choose to study English for Specific Purposes. Many South Korean universities have specific courses in English for international students, which often hinders their direct interactions with South Korean students. This lack of day-to-day interactions with South Korean students means that they are often viewed as being ‘closed’ or ‘introverted’, which connects this repertoire with the second repertoire (‘Imagined Otherness’), as evidenced by the comments of a Spanish student (female, 22 years old): There were Chinese, Japanese and Spanish students in the Korean classes, and everyone was very nice. In the other classes we were all foreigners too, and it was easier to make friends. So I didn’t get to have that much contact with Koreans, because they are a bit shyer. I guess they thought they would have to speak English with me because I was a foreigner, and so they probably didn’t feel like it. I think it was mostly down to shyness.

Such comments are in line with Leung’s (2013) challenge of the widely accepted myth that academic mobility in itself promotes diversity. The author emphasizes that the use of English as the international language for academic communication represents a tendency towards homogeneity. Within the setting of academic mobility, what could be called ‘English fever’ can become a serious disadvantage to the internationalization of some fields of knowledge or geopolitical areas in which the use of English is not traditionally widespread. However, in line with the work of Jenkins

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(2014), we recognize that the role of English as a vehicle is frequently simplified in the discourse on internationalization. We return to this aspect when addressing the third repertoire (‘People and Culture’).

29.4.2 Imagined Otherness This second repertoire brings together perspectives on preconceived values and cultural characteristics that define the host nationality. With comments like ‘At first, I thought that all Koreans were . . .’, students reproduced a simplified portrait of the personality or characteristics of the host culture, which is included on websites dedicated to information on the cultures of the two countries. Most participants said that they looked up general and practical information on these types of sites and browsed blogs and discussion forums to read about the personal experiences of others. Some participants also had face-to-face conversations. Many of the participants reported obtaining information from the universities that offered mobility programmes. The following comment made by a Spanish student (female, 21 years old) is a good example: I imagine the teachers will be quite strict. I feel . . . I’ll have to be . . . super . . . super respectful, because their culture is like that.

Such descriptions are generic presentations of cultural differences that emerge from the idea of culture as an essential entity which is not only physical but also symbolic in nature. This aspect is reminiscent of Hannerz’s concept of ‘culturespeak’ (1999), by which culture is understood ‘in a systematic and uncritical way, which leads to a reified and “objectivist” vision’ (Dervin, 2011: 43). From this perspective, relationships are based on the assumption that each interlocutor exists as a more or less prototypical cultural specimen. The situations described reflect a univocal and deterministic framework by which to interpret actions according to a given cultural identification. This process involves the creation of alienating otherness exclusively based on physical appearance. In some interviews, South Korean students reported pejorative expressions that universalize Asians as ‘Chinese’. In Spain, the Chinese community is typically viewed as a particularly closed social group and is often perceived in a negative light (Petit, 2002). The type of expression referred to has additional negative tones due to Chinese immigrants being stigmatized in South Korea (Kim, 2012). Some Spanish students single out the Chinese community as a cohesive and closed otherness when describing cultural relationships within the general group of international students. It is worth noting that this othering dynamic, which is focused on a third cultural group to which prejudices are directed, keeps the way open for more constructive encounters between Spanish and South Korean

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people once cultural misunderstandings are resolved. Some reference texts, such as those by Wilkinson and Kitzinger (1996) and Duncan (2003), have suggested that the othering processes take place when, from a clearly ethnocentric perspective, we represent others in terms of what we are not. One South Korean student (female, 23 years old) complains: I think a lot of people in Malaga think Asian girls are like . . . dumb? They often say “Hey there, Chinese girl” when I’m walking down the street . . . The police also discriminate against Asians during the immigration paperwork process, Europeans always get helped first. We are all Chinese to a lot of people.

In spite of all this, South Korean students generally describe Spanish people as friendly, nice and open. For example, a South Korean student (female, 23 years old) said: I’ve learnt that Spanish people are very . . . very welcoming to everybody, and they are very nice to me although my Spanish is not very good, they try to speak to me, and I’ve learnt to be more mature, and I’ve had an exciting time here.

Spanish students on the other hand, tend to describe Koreans as less open, shy, formal, drinkers, or only interested in fashion and grooming. We can also report a discursive view shared by many visiting students from both countries. South Korea is described as a technological country, ‘fashionable’ or up-and-coming, very much focused on the audiovisual industry, and tied up in a never-ending conflict, but also as exotic and an ideal gateway to other regions of East Asia. Spain is seen by South Korean students as a European country, a bridge to Latin America and North Africa, and a football paradise. References to Andalusia in particular highlight good weather, tourist attractions and its position as a hub to travel around continental Europe and the Mediterranean region. Regarding the academic values of universities, Spanish students highlight the prestige of the host institutions, the culture of hard work in the South Korean education system and the bureaucratic simplicity of admission procedures. South Korean students at the University of Malaga rarely mention any indicators of academic quality and they mainly value its ‘privileged location with sun and beaches’. They appreciated that teachers were easily accessible to students. Another recurrent opinion was that the enrolment process needs to be improved as it is seen as being excessively bureaucratic. Regardless of the specific content of these generic characteristics, we must highlight their function in establishing comparisons between ‘here’ and ‘there’, or ‘what I thought’ and ‘what I see’, as one Spanish student (male, 25 years old) indicates quite clearly: people are very competitive in South Korea, so compared to here I’d say Spanish students are not so obsessed with work, grades.

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Such comparisons also introduce particular experiences that show greater diversity in intersubjective relationships, which are captured in the next repertoire.

29.4.3 People and Culture During the interviews, participants also described interactions that went beyond the confines of the rigid cultural framework described in the previous repertoire. In particular, cultural perspectives seem to become more flexible as closer relationships are established with ‘flesh and blood people’, as one of the students remarked. This is in line with Dervin’s (2006) comments on an alternation between essentialist cultural discourse and what might be called ‘liquid’ intercultural discourse, in the sense coined by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. There is also the idea of a ‘Janusian’ or ‘two-sided’ discourse that combines both perspectives. In both cases, the relationship between culture and people is imagined dynamically and this can include subcultural levels. One Spanish student (female, 24 years old) reflects this orientation very well: Culture is culture, but people are also culture, and when you meet more people you realize that the same differences exist between them as in any country. Friendly, traditional, modern people, etc. There are many generational differences as well. I share many interests with the young people I’ve met. Having got through the initial disorientation, especially the language, searching for accommodation, choosing subjects and all that, I’ve met lots of different people, and I’ve made real friends.

To enhance such an orientation, Dehmel, Li and Sloane (2011) have highlighted the need to incorporate a comprehensive concept of interculturality in international mobility programmes. In particular, it seems essential to understand and articulate the different sociocultural and personal aspects involved in intercultural exchange. During the development of personal relationships, intercultural aspects might give way to a constructive dialogic space, which goes beyond simple counts of similarities and differences. In this sense, intercultural contact allows the inclusion of other dimensions, such as global youth culture, gender issues, elective affinity and the recategorization of foreign or native students as party and leisure companions and classmates. These notions are exemplified by a Spanish student (female, 25 years old): It depends on how you go about it. I’m a bit of a social butterfly, so I’ve hung out with different people and groups, without too much trouble. In class, the group was made up of international students, with few South Koreans. Everyone was very friendly, but not very interested in exploring Seoul, especially at night and so on. However, I already knew some South Korean students who I’d met in Malaga during their stay the year before

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mine. I could count on them if I wanted to go out, and they completely accepted me. I even became good friends with some of their friends.

Among the elements that facilitate this transition, South Korean students highlight the figure of the buddy, mentor or academic host, who facilitates cultural, academic and linguistic integration. Many students are very satisfied with the commitment shown by their buddies that is not limited to university orientation alone but opens channels that enrich the social experience of their stay, as this South Korean student (female, 23 years old) explains: I really don’t know what I would have done without my buddy. We became good friends . . . I don’t speak Spanish very well, so it was difficult to interact with Spaniards . . . At the police station and, well, almost everywhere. But I solved it thanks to my buddy . . . We’ve learned things together.

In South Korea, university clubs represent a privileged space in which to meet people and share activities, which is highlighted by one Spanish student (male, 24 years old): Due to the design of the curricula and my choice of subjects, I didn’t share many classes with South Korean students, which I think made it more difficult to socialise with them. After class and during breaks, the South Koreans would go looking for their friends who went to other classes on the same floor of the building. So, making acquaintances was not hard, in a hello-and-goodbye sort of way, but actually making friends was more difficult. You had to, for example, join a college club, and there you’d get to meet more people . . . that’s what I did. The role of some clubs is to put international and South Korean students in touch with each other, although many international students preferred to just stick to their own group. As for me, I’m doing Korean Studies, so I had a special interest in making friends so I could gain a deeper knowledge of the country and South Korean society.

Further insight into the dynamics of intercultural exchange is provided by the ‘international bubble’ dimension, in which students almost exclusively interact with a wide range of other international students who are also involved in transnational mobility. A Spanish student (male, 25 years old) clarifies: I’ve spent several months in Seoul. I had a lot of free time, especially on weekends. The international group at the residence was very welcoming to me and other students later on. I made friends with some English and American people, a couple of other Spaniards, a few Italian girls, Germans and Turks. We shared information and experiences . . . We mainly communicated in English, but everyone had very different levels, so we mixed in some Korean expressions and some from other languages that we were learning, and of course, gestural language.

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Thus, the use of English as the main language determines specific types of interaction, especially among peers. It creates conditions for more frequent and fluent social interactions with international students or with South Korean students interested in English conversation practice. Kalocsai (2014) describes such an emergence of multilingual groups of international students in which the students shape, rehearse, test, regulate and negotiate the emerging dynamics of social interactions. Although the monolithic conception of the English language as the lingua franca is reinforced in this setting, paradoxically, the conception also becomes weaker. Based on this type of evidence, Baker (2016) recommends the adoption of a flexible approach to understand the crucial and varied role of languages in the mobility experience.

29.5

Conclusions

We proposed to explore how university exchange programmes influence the development of students’ interculturality. In particular, we examined the extent to which academic mobility between students from the University of Malaga and South Korean universities helps to develop nonessentialist forms of interculturality, and the features of that interculturality, including their link to particular internationalization initiatives. In this context, we identified three different interpretative repertoires related to the intercultural experience of South Korean and Spanish students: ‘Language Opens Doors’, ‘Imagined Otherness’ and ‘People and Culture’. These repertoires relate to the features used to construct intercultural experiences in academic mobility, especially mastery and interest in the language, the measure in which students are favourably disposed towards counter-stereotypic otherness, and the possibility of ‘putting faces’ to the culture. While there can be no doubt that academic mobility can help to reduce stereotyping, our evidence suggests that international mobility is insufficient in itself to engender experiences far beyond cultural essentialism. In particular repertoires 1 and 2 (‘Language Opens Doors’, ‘Imagined Otherness’) can limit intercultural experience very substantially. Linguistic competence is a crucial factor in mobility, and English as the lingua franca can limit the access to intercultural experiences beyond university horizons. However, if we bear in mind the third repertoire, the role of English is more ambiguous: our study highlights the emergence of multilingual groups of international students, which create and negotiate third spaces by drawing on English as a lingua franca. In this context, the concept of culture that underlies these interactions leads to shared youth cultures that manage to blur national cultural realms. In our opinion this is potentially a very

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fruitful area for further research and, in particular, future studies might want to focus on the role of global youth consumer culture in intercultural dynamics (Quijada, 2010). With regard to the second repertoire, ‘Imagined Otherness’, it is interesting to note that the majority of students start the mobility with generic and formal information about cultural differences between South Korea and Spain. The guides of mobility elaborated by universities often tend to present cultural differences as a dichotomy, which gives priority to supposedly exotic and archetypical characteristics. Contact based on such binary images does not necessarily imply intercultural interaction or dialogue, especially when cultures are imagined as essential entities. Rather, opinions about the culture of origin and the host culture tend to reproduce in interaction prototypical features of characters or customs and are constructed in a comparative manner. Research suggests that universities place too much trust in spontaneous and ‘automatic’ intercultural experiences in mobility programmes (Baker, 2016; Dervin, 2006; Papatsiba, 2006), i.e. these experiences are left to chance in informal and personal interactions. Another promising research area would be to determine how and to what end universities develop their standards for exchange programmes, choose extracurricular activities and identify cultural and touristic elements that should feature prominently in the introduction of potential exchange students to the host country, city and university. This leads to questions regarding the means by which they do this, but also to the content of introductory information and how this information is disseminated. These aspects are key for the development of initial assumptions that might influence the choice of a destination for the mobility (if any) and that can ultimately facilitate or hinder attempts to establish more enriching intercultural interactions and relationships. Finally, we should not forget to examine in much greater depth the role played by variables such as sex, gender, ethnicity and social strata in access to mobility experiences, and to explore the role of subcultural values for the construction of intercultural relationships in academic mobility.

References Aba, D. (2016). Addressing Intercultural experience and academic mobility in higher education. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 45(6), 487–502. Baker, W. (2016). English as an academic Lingua Franca and intercultural awareness: student mobility in the transcultural university. Language and Intercultural Communication, 16(3), 437–51.

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Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Deardorff, D. K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241–66. Dehmel, A., Li, Y. and Sloane, P. (2011). Intercultural competence development in higher education study abroad programs: a good practice example. InterCulture Journal, 15, 11–36. Del Águila, A.R., Montalbán, F. M. and y Padilla, M. (2017). Asian studies degrees and intercultural competence: the case of Spain. KEDI Journal of Educational Policy, 14(1), 45–58. Dervin, F. (2006). Can the study of non-places lead Erasmus students to ‘liquify locals’? On anthropology and intercultural competence in student mobility. In C. Amador, D. Limon, G. Soriano Barabino and C. Way, eds., Enhancing the Erasmus Experience: Papers on Student Mobility. Granada: Atrio, pp. 86–98. Dervin, F. (2011). Introduction. In F. Dervin, ed., Analysing the Consequences of Academic Mobility and Migration. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 1–12. Doménech, A. J., Montalbán, F. M., Llorente, F. M., Zurita, E., Kang, E. K., Botella, L. A. and Chica, P. (2016). We-Uri 2.0: identities and transcultural mediations in Korea–Spain academic exchanges. Paper presented at the ‘8th World Congress for Korean Studies’, 5–7 October, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania. http://congress.aks.ac.kr/ korean/files/2_1478847096.pdf (last accessed 22 September 2018). Duncan, N. (2003). ‘Race’ talk: discourses on ‘race’ and racial difference. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 27(2), 125–267. European Commission (2017). Erasmus+ Programme Annual Report 2015. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Garratt, D., Phillips, R. and Piper, H. (2003). Globalisation and its impact upon education: prospects and challenges. British Educational Research Journal, 29(1), 441–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920301840. Ghazarian, P. G. (2014). Actual vs. ideal attraction: trends in the mobility of Korean international students. Journal of International Students, 4(1), 89–103. Hannerz, U. (1999). Reflections on varieties of culturespeak. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2(3), 393–407. Kalocsai, K. (2014). Communities of Practice and English as a Lingua Franca: A Study of Erasmus Students in a Central-European context. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Kim H. J. (2012). Politics of race in East Asia: the case of Korea and the Chinese community in South Korea. Provincial China, 4(1), 100–15. Kim, T. (2009). Transnational academic mobility, internationalization and interculturality in higher education. Intercultural Education, 20(5), 395–405.

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30 Defining, Developing and Assessing Intercultural Competence Darla K. Deardorff

30.1

Introduction and Overview

Given the turbulent times of the twenty-first century, intercultural competence is arguably crucial to human survival. With more human mobility (both physical and virtual) than ever before, there is a great need and potential for humans to address collectively the local and global challenges that exist today. Intercultural competence has emerged as a vital construct in human relations as diversity intensifies in societies, whether geographic, religious, socio-economic, ethnic, racial, gender or generational differences. This chapter explores this bridging construct further through an overview of terms and definitions, as well as ways to develop and assess this construct.

30.2

Terms and Definitions

There are many terms used to describe the concept of intercultural competence: cross-cultural competence, international competence, global citizenship, intercultural effectiveness, cultural intelligence, cultural competence, transcultural competence (Glover & Friedman, 2015), and intercultural sensitivity (Bennett, 1986) to name just a few. Many terms are specific to academic disciplines; for example, in the United States, engineering often uses ‘global competence’ (Caspersen, 2002; Downey et. al. 2006, Grandin & Hedderich, 2009; Jesiek et. al 2014) while the healthcare professions and social work may use ‘cultural competence’, referring more to domestic diversity (Anand & Lahiri, 2009; Campinha-Bacote, 2002; Fong, 2009; Weaver, 2004). Business may predominantly use a term such as ‘cultural intelligence’ or ‘intercultural effectiveness’ (Earley & Ang, 2003; Moran,

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Youngdahl & Moran, 2009). Education uses a wide variety of terms including both ‘global competence’ and ‘intercultural competence’, as well as ‘global citizenship’ and ‘global learning’. These terms often have very similar definitions, with slightly different emphases or variations. Each discipline has its own main researchers and scholars whose work is utilized in regard to this concept within the discipline. Given that there is often little interaction between intercultural researchers in different disciplines, Deardorff (2017) has developed a network that connects researchers in different disciplines. Outside of academia, there is also a wide variety of terms used to describe this concept of intercultural competence. For example, the Council of Europe and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization use the term ‘intercultural competence’ (Council of Europe, 2011; UNESCO, 2013); while the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Asia Society, and the United States Department of Education use ‘global competence’ (Asia Society, 2017; OECD, 2017). The US Department of Defense uses ‘cross-cultural competence’ and the World Bank uses ‘intercultural competence’. Even though there may not need to be consensus on terminology, it is important to understand how terms are defined, which frameworks are being used, and how these terms are translated into practice in the respective disciplines and contexts. Scholars, primarily in the United States and in Europe, have been attempting to define intercultural competence since the late 1950s and 1960s. Much of the early literature consisted of published lists of attitudes, knowledge and skills that comprise intercultural competence (e.g. see Ezekiel, 1968; Gardner, 1962, Hall, 1959; Ruben, Askling & Kealey, 1977), with little of the scholarly work actually derived from research on the holistic concept of intercultural competence. In more recent years, visual frameworks have been developed, some of which attempt to establish the relationship between various aspects of intercultural competence. Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) categorize more than twenty definitions into five categories (which are not mutually exclusive): compositional, co-orientational, developmental, adaptational and causal. One of the first research-based definitions and frameworks of intercultural competence came from Deardorff (2006) as the Process Model of Intercultural Competence; other frequently used definitions (as demonstrated through study by Deardorff & Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017) include the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (Bennett, 1986), Model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (Byram, 1997), Integrated Model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (Arasaratnam, 2006), and the Intercultural Competencies Dimensions Model (Fantini, 2009).

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495

Major Dimensions of Intercultural Competence

The basic definition of competence is the attitudes, knowledge and skills of an individual. Some intercultural competence definitions also include awareness, motivation and personality traits as separate dimensions, and more recent definitions also include emotional intelligence and mindfulness. One of the research-based definitions also adds internal and external outcomes. Many of the existing definitions assume sojourning in an environment different from one’s own and often include adaptability as a common element in many of the definitions of intercultural competence. Numerous definitions conclude that a desired outcome of intercultural competence is communication and behaviour that are both effective and appropriate, with effectiveness being determined by the individual and appropriateness being determined by the other person(s) in the interaction. Effectiveness (the degree to which one achieves one’s goals) is only half the intercultural equation, with appropriateness being the other half. Intercultural competence requires both. Attitudes refer to feelings, positions or ways of thinking, predicated on assumptions and values, that impact on one’s behaviour. Three key attitudes emerged as part of the consensus documented in the Deardorff (2006) study: respect, openness and curiosity/discovery. Respect for others involves demonstrating that they are valued, including through showing interest in them and listening attentively to them. It is especially important to extend respect to those whose beliefs and values may differ from one’s own. Openness and curiosity both imply a willingness to risk and to move beyond one’s comfort zone. These three attitudes are foundational to the further development of the knowledge and skills needed for intercultural competence. Other attitudes found in intercultural competence definitions include patience, tolerance, acceptance, politeness and friendliness. Knowledge refers to specific information gained through education and/ or experience. Intercultural competence definitions and models often include long lists of specific knowledge areas necessary for developing competence. Much of the knowledge involves culture-specific information, communication knowledge, cultural self-awareness (meaning awareness of the ways in which one’s culture has influenced one’s identity and world view), and information about the world (history, sociopolitics, etc.) and particular contexts. Skills refer to the abilities one possesses, both general and specific. Intercultural competence definitions and models include numerous skills, both macro-level and micro-level skills. Some of the key skills often mentioned (this is not exhaustive) include perspective-taking, observation, flexibility, interacting, trust-building, empathizing, helping, mindfulness, reflection and self-efficacy. In summarizing key themes from

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regional studies on intercultural competence, the following emerged as core dimensions (as cited in UNESCO, 2013: 24): • respect (‘valuing of others’); • self-awareness/identity (‘understanding the lens through which we each view the world’); seeing from other perspectives/worldviews (‘both how these perspectives • are similar and different’); • listening (‘engaging in authentic intercultural dialogue‘); • adaptation (‘being able to shift temporarily into another perspective’); • relationship-building (forging lasting cross-cultural personal bonds); • cultural humility (‘combines respect with self-awareness’). Much of the literature on intercultural competence focuses on the individual, and the attitudes, knowledge and skills they need to have. Literature is beginning to emerge, though, from the Global South and from nonWestern backgrounds that indicate other perspectives on intercultural competence, related to identity, context and relationship. For example, from the South African context, the philosophical concept of ubuntu emerges (Steyn & Reygan, 2017). Much has been written about ubuntu, found in the Zulu proverb ‘Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu’ – meaning that a person is a person because of others. Ubuntu stresses the importance of collective action and interconnectedness while de-emphasizing the solitary individual. A related philosophical concept to ubuntu comes from the Andes: alli kawsay, loosely translated as ‘good living’, which focuses on cooperative relationships (UNESCO, 2018). Similarly, another Andean concept, nande reko, stresses harmonious living. In Maori culture can be found whanau, which refers to sharing and living life together as a community. Other cultures have similar concepts such as kizuna (Japanese) and siratulrahim (Malay/Indonesian). These concepts also highlight the importance of seeing from other cultural perspectives, so there is not a reliance solely on concepts within one culture to define values in human interactions. Relational aspects and interconnectedness, then, become key themes when exploring intercultural competence from different viewpoints. In addition to interconnectedness, other perspectives on intercultural competence emphasize sincerity, such as the Chinese zhong dao and xintai (‘heart attitude’) (Chen & An, 2009; Wang, Deardorff & Kulick, 2017), while from an Indian perspective comes the Hindu concept of vishwa roopa darshanam, or ‘oneness’, defined as unity within diversity (Manian & Naidu, 2009). Other concepts such the Japanese uchi-soto refer to situational competence (UNESCO, 2013), while courage emerges as a common element from South African perspectives. Context plays a key role in intercultural competence in some cultures, whereas the dominant discourse on intercultural competence often

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discusses this concept as devoid of context. Increasingly, the role of power and equality emerges as critical to understandings of intercultural competence, as does situating the concept within the historical, economic, political, social, and religious realities of an interaction (Deardorff, 2009). These are but a few of the themes found in other perspectives on intercultural competence. Other emerging concepts include cultural humility (Murray-Garcia & Tervalon, 2017), which has to do with the way in which others are approached initially, and cultural empathy (Calloway-Thomas, Arasaratnam-Smith & Deardorff, 2017). Important questions to continue to ask in any context include intercultural competence according to whom, influenced by what and to what degree.

30.4

Developing Intercultural Competence

As some of the more recent research notes, intercultural competence is a lifelong process. This means one workshop or experience (such as studying abroad) is insufficient in developing such a vital competence, although it can certainly be part of the process. Within an educational context, service learning has been shown to be a high-impact practice (Association of American Colleges and Universities, n.d.) that can impact the process of developing intercultural competence. Likewise, internationalization of the curriculum, which is the inclusion of intercultural, international and global dimensions in the content and delivery of a course, often addresses intercultural learning (Beelen & Jones, 2015; Leask, 2015; GregersenHermans, 2017). Deardorff and Arasaratnam-Smith (2017) found that in higher education, intercultural competence development took place both in and out of the classroom and involved the use of active engagement, intentionality, customization, a focus on process (instead of results) and an emphasis on the learner, as well as skills and attitudes, given that knowledge alone is not sufficient for intercultural competence development. In other contexts, such as healthcare or engineering, the developmental process takes places through engagement with clients or in teams, often within the community. Intentional, guided engagement in real-world contexts with feedback and coaching are a key way for developing such competence. Gregersen-Hermans (2017) found that the quality of such engagement was mediated by five elements: diverse opportunities, conditions for the contact (per Allport, 1954), social aspects (including time), inclusive environment and intentional pedagogy (which includes reflection and practice of reconciliation). One example within an international organization for developing intercultural competence is a methodology developed and piloted by UNESCO in

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all five UNESCO regions. This methodology involves using the ancient tradition of storytelling repurposed for developing specific aspects of intercultural competence such as listening for understanding (instead of reply or judgment). This methodology has been used successfully in both formal and non-formal contexts in numerous cultures around the world (Deardorff, 2019). Regardless of how and where intercultural competence is developed, intentionality and reflection both play key roles. Such a competence does not typically evolve naturally but rather must be intentionally addressed. Self-reflection, particularly in stepping back and considering what was learned through engagement and what can be done differently in the future, becomes vital for further intercultural development.

30.5

Assessing Intercultural Competence (Principles, Changing Assessment Paradigm)

Assessment of intercultural competence remains a crucial issue (OECD, 2017) and one in which many misconceptions abound. There is a natural tendency to focus first on assessment tools when in reality the first step is to determine the purpose for assessing intercultural competence, which should ultimately be for providing feedback to the learner for continued intercultural development. There are more than 140 assessment tools for measuring various aspects of intercultural competence (Deardorff, 2017). Given the complex, lifelong and holistic nature of intercultural competence, there is no one tool that can measure this construct in its entirety. Rather, research has shown that there needs to be a multi-measure, multiperspective approach employed in assessing intercultural competence in others (Deardorff, 2015). Therefore, assessment principles become foundational on shaping approaches to assessing this construct. Some key principles for assessing intercultural competence include the following: 1)

2)

Define the construct of intercultural competence within its context, based on existing literature. It is important to first define what is being measured. Defining this construct may involve more than one definition or framework, since many can be complementary. Adapting multiple definitions can often result in a more holistic and comprehensive definition of intercultural competence. Prioritise: given the complexity of this construct, which is often delineated through specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes, it becomes important to determine which elements are most important to assess. These elements can then be developed into specific, measurable outcomes statements (see Deardorff, 2015 for a detailed discussion).

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3)

4)

5)

499

Align: alignment is one of the most critical principles in ensuring the validity of assessment efforts. This means activities/experiences are aligned to learning outcomes which are aligned to goals. This also means collected evidence closely fits with the learning outcomes to indicate the degree of achievement of the stated outcomes. Any assessment tools used to collect the evidence must also be as closely aligned with the outcomes as possible. Identify evidence: one of the first assessment steps is in identifying both direct and indirect evidence of desired intercultural changes in the learner and of achievement of stated learning outcomes. Direct evidence is often defined as evidence of actual student learning collected during the learning experience (such as reflections, observations, peer assessment, etc.) while indirect evidence is defined as perceptions of student learning which are collected outside of the learning experience, usually before and after (through questionnaires, interviews and focus groups) (Deardorff, 2015). Use: the use of assessment data and collected evidence is crucial since it relates back to the overall purpose of conducting the assessment. This would include using the information to provide continued guidance and feedback to learners as they continue to develop intercultural competence. It can also mean viewing the evidence in aggregate to report percentages of students who achieve specific learning outcomes in order to identify areas which need improvement in terms of learning interventions.

In applying these five principles, there are some key considerations to remember. First, it is helpful to map goals, outcomes, content, learning activities, evidence and use to ensure alignment noted above. Second, relevancy of assessment becomes important in addressing a number of issues that arise such as resistance or assessment fatigue. Considering a holistic approach to intercultural competence assessment means integration into a learner’s overall development as a human being, including developmental, cognitive, emotional and spiritual aspects. These considerations are indicative of a changing paradigm of assessing intercultural outcomes. In this changing assessment paradigm (Deardorff, 2015; 2017), there is a shift from the traditional evidence collected through pre-and post-measures to more authentic evidence collected through actual teamwork and interactions, even beyond a classroom. The focus becomes much more process-oriented as opposed to results-oriented (given the lifelong nature of intercultural competence development). There is a recognition that a standardized, one-size-fits-all approach (i.e. using one assessment tool) is no longer meeting individuals where they are, so a more customized and tailored approach is needed. And finally, depending on the definition of intercultural competence, the focus may not even be as much on the individual but rather on relationships.

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30.6

Conclusion

This chapter has highlighted the terminology and definitional themes related to intercultural competence, as well as provided a general overview of the development of this construct in individuals. Intercultural assessment principles become key in guiding approaches to measuring this construct. There is much more that needs to be investigated in regard to intercultural competence, despite the great strides made since the turn of the century. In particular, cross-disciplinary researchers need to engage with one another, to build on cumulative knowledge in this area. Much more is needed on effective interventions for developing intercultural competence as well as the implications of the changing paradigm of intercultural competence assessment. Other research questions note the role of cognitive complexity, the role of language, holistic development, and the inclusivity of multiple perspectives and in languages other than English (for a more in-depth discussion of these research questions, see Deardorff & Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017: 298–301). Continued conversations and explorations around the necessity of intercultural competence must go on. Much more work remains to be done, particularly in fulfilling the broader vision of intercultural competence helping to build a more peaceful world as humans continue to understand what it means to learn to live together.

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Ezekiel, R. S. (1968). The personal future and Peace Corps competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(2), 1–26. Fantini, A. (2009). Assessing intercultural competence: issues and tools. In D. K. Deardorff, ed., The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 456–76. Fong, R. (2009). Intercultural competence in social work: culturally competent practice in social work. In D. K. Deardorff, ed., The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 350–61. Gardner, G. H. (1962). Cross-cultural communication. Journal of Social Psychology, 58(2), 241–56. Glover, J. and Friedman, H. (2015). Transcultural Competence: Navigating Cultural Differences in the Global Community. Washington DC: American Psychological Association. Grandin, J. and Hedderich, N. (2009). Intercultural competence in engineering: global competence for engineers. In D. K. Deardorff, ed., The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 362–73. Gregersen-Hermans, J. (2017). Intercultural competence development in higher education. In D. K. Deardorff and L. A. Arasaratnam-Smith, eds., Intercultural Competence in Higher Education: International Approaches, Assessment and Application. London: Routledge, pp. 67–82. Hall, E. T. (1959). The Silent Language. New York: Anchor Books. Jesiek, B. K., Zhu, Q., Woo, S. E., Thompson, J. and Mazzurco, A. (2014). Global engineering competency in context: situations and behaviors. Online Journal for Global Engineering Education, 8(1), 1–14. Leask, B. (2015). Internationalization of the Curriculum. London: Routledge. Manian, R., and Naidu, S. (2009). India: a cross-cultural overview of intercultural competence. In D. K. Deardorff, ed., The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 233–48. Moran, R., Youngdahl, W. and Moran, S. (2009). Intercultural competence in business-leading global projects: bridging the cultural and functional divide. In D. K. Deardorff, ed., The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 287–303. Murray-Garcia, J. and Tervalon, M. (2017). Rethinking intercultural competence: cultural humility in internationalizing higher education. In D. K. Deardorff and L. A. Arasaratnam-Smith, eds., Intercultural Competence in Higher Education: International Approaches, Assessment and Application. London: Routledge, pp. 19–31. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2017). Preparing our Youth for an Inclusive and Sustainable World: The OECD PISA Global Competence Framework. Paris: OECD. Ruben, B. D., Askling, L. R., and Kealey, D. J. (1977). Cross-cultural effectiveness. In D. S. Hoopes, P. B. Pedersen and G. Renwick, eds., Overview of Intercultural Education, Training, and Research: Theory. Washington, DC: Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research, pp. 92–105.

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31 Effects of Social Media Use on Cultural Adaptation Ming Li and Stephen M. Croucher

31.1

Introduction

How people from different cultures, lands, occupations, religions and environments meld together into one culture, nationality, identity and/or group has been a perennial question. To attempt to answer it, scholars, scientists and policymakers have developed numerous theoretical models and explanations (Croucher, 2011; Croucher & Kramer, 2017). In communication studies, scholars have overwhelmingly turned to the theory of cultural adaptation (Kim, 2008; 2012). Kim (2001) defined cultural adaptation as ‘the dynamic process by which individuals, upon relocating to new, unfamiliar, or changed cultural environments, establish (or re-establish) and maintain relatively stable, reciprocal, and functional relationships with those environments’ (p. 31). However, researchers have questioned the foundations of cultural adaptation; in particular that assimilation is not possible and often not desired (Kramer, 2003). In fact, Kim (2008) even asserted ‘intercultural personhood’, where newcomers and the host culture merge identities, is a more realistic representation of the adaptation process. Collectively, researchers have recognized that the process of adapting to a new culture, whether it is called cultural adaptation (Kim, 2001; 2008), fusion (Croucher & Kramer, 2017), hybridity (Kraidy, 2005) or any other term, is complex and value-laden. Moreover, increasingly this process is further complicated by the influence of social media (Croucher & Rahmani, 2015). Thus, the purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, it describes adaptation from a traditional cultural adaptationist approach (Kim, 2001; 2008; 2012) and from a cultural fusionist approach (Croucher & Kramer, 2017; Kramer, 2003). This discussion provides a contrasting discussion of approaches to understanding ‘adaptation/fusion’. Second, this chapter

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explores the links between social media and adapting to a new culture. Third, directions for future research are put forth.

31.2

Cultural Adaptation and Cultural Fusion

31.2.1 Cultural Adaptation At the turn of the twentieth century, the process of adapting to a new culture was viewed by most sociologists and psychologists from a social Darwinist perspective: the strongest culture survives at the expense of the weaker cultures (Kramer, 2003). With this philosophical frame, Park (1950) developed his race relations cycle, one of the first systematic cultural adaptation theories. Park outlined a four-phase cycle. First, immigrants encounter a new dominant culture. Second, competition between the dominant and immigrant culture develops over resources. Third, the immigrant group accommodates to the dominant culture. Fourth, the immigrant’s culture is assimilated into the dominant culture. Similarly, Redfield, Linton and Herskovits (1936) addressed the changing nature of the immigrant/ minority culture in the adaptation process. Redfield et al. provided the first definition of acculturation, which acknowledged how change could happen among dominant and minority groups: ‘Those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contacts, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups’ (p. 149). Their definition was followed by Fichter’s definition of assimilation which was defined as ‘a social process through which two or more persons or groups accept and perform one another’s patterns of behaviour . . . but . . . this must not be interpreted as a “one-sided” process’ (Fichter, 1957: p. 229). Redfield et al.’s and Fichter’s definitions served as foundations for many social scientific and communication explorations and theorizing of adaptation. Gordon (1964) proposed seven stages in the assimilation process: cultural assimilation, structural assimilation, marital assimilation, identification assimilation, attitude reception, behavioural assimilation and civic assimilation; the model also includes a range of underlying sub-processes. His model did not recognize a contribution from the immigrant culture on the dominant culture. A non-dominant member is expected to go through all these stages in order to be accepted as a full member by the host majority. In this model, immigrants, rather than the receiving society, are expected to make changes to adapt to fit into the social and political structure of the receiving society (Bourhis et al., 1997). Underlying this model is the assumption that non-dominant groups assimilated into the dominant culture will experience alienation, isolation, stress, anxiety, abuse, denial, loss of support, loss of one’s cultural identity and loyalty,

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and suffering from social problems until they are fully accepted within the new culture (LaFromboise, Coleman & Gerton, 1993). Berry (2001; 2006) explored, among many factors, the interplay between cultural maintenance and participation or contact with other groups. Berry (2005) rejected the traditional assimilationist model and suggested that the interplay between these two factors equates to four acculturation strategies: assimilation, integration, marginalization and separation. Assimilation is when newcomers adopt the culture of the dominant culture over their own native culture. Integration is when newcomers adopt elements of the dominant culture and maintain elements of their native culture, which is often considered biculturalism. Marginalization is when newcomers reject both the new and their original culture. Separation is when newcomers reject the new dominant culture in favour of their native culture; such rejection often leads to ethnic communities. In addition to the two dimensions of acculturation (cultural maintenance, contact and participation), Berry (2005; 2006) insisted that a third dimension – the power to decide on how acculturation takes place – should be taken into consideration, such as immigration policies, national institutions, structural constraints, openness and inclusiveness of orientations towards cultural diversity and multiculturalism, and attitudes towards immigration and racial discrimination. Berry argued that mutual and reciprocal accommodation is required to attain integration – non-dominant groups should adopt the values, beliefs and norms of the host society, and at the same time the host society should adapt its national institutions, policies and strategies to the needs of all groups in the multicultural society. Acculturation affects both host population and immigrants and the acculturation context, and both groups have to modify their own system in the process of interaction. However, Navas et al. (2005) noted that it was the less powerful minorities who had to make greater changes and compromise and a greater effort to adapt. In intercultural communication, Kim’s (2001; 2008; 2012) theory of cultural adaptation has garnered the most attention. Kim (2001) described cultural adaptation as a multistep process: including the enculturation, deculturation and acculturation of newcomers, with the ultimate goal of newcomer assimilation into the new host culture. Enculturation is the adoption of the behavioural patterns of the surrounding culture. This is typically the socialization process of individuals in their native culture(s). Deculturation is the process individuals go through when losing their socialized identity. During this process, newcomers learn new cultural behaviours from the host culture, and unlearn some of their native cultural behaviours. Acculturation is when newcomers abandon their native cultural behaviours and adopt those of the new culture. The ultimate goal of this process is assimilation, or becoming as similar to the dominant culture

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as possible. Kim has argued that functional interpersonal communication is an essential aspect of immigrants learning about the dominant host culture. It is through communicating with the dominant culture that ‘newcomers’ are able to learn about the dominant culture, and then assimilate into that dominant culture.

31.2.2 Cultural Fusion As previously stated, researchers have questioned the feasibility and ethical nature of assimilation. Kramer (2003) equated expecting newcomers to assimilate to creating (monocultural) robots. Smither (1982) proposed a cultural fusion model. In this model, ‘members of diverse cultures join to create a new kind of culture’ through cultural borrowings that create ‘an unceasing stream of new “fusion” cultures’ (p. 59). Immigrants change and are changed by the existing cultures. LaFromboise et al. (1993) emphasized the reciprocal relationship between individuals and their environments. The model suggests cultures sharing the same economic, political, legal and geographic space and institutional structures will fuse together to form a new culture through cultural interactions on an equal footing. Once fused, ‘the individual’s psychological reality would be indistinguishable from a member of the majority group’ (p. 401). Croucher and Kramer (2017) also proposed an alternative framework to cultural adaptation: cultural fusion. Within this framework, newcomers adapt to the new culture while also maintaining elements of their own culture. Simultaneously, interactions between the dominant and newcomer cultures lead to cultural changes in the dominant culture. The fusion process represents a more dynamic, interactive process, where both groups influence one another. The assumptions, axioms and theorems of cultural fusion theory outline this interactive change process. Research has shown that social media play a critical role in helping immigrants and sojourners to establish, maintain and extend interpersonal connections, and provide support to guide them to effectively navigate the unfamiliar social and cultural terrains in the process intercultural adaptation (Croucher, 2011; Croucher & Rahmani, 2015; Forbush & FoucaultWelles, 2016). Social media create a supra-territorial cyberspace that encourages self-expression and self-presentation, extends cultural perspectives, enhances online interactions and experience, supports identity construction and enables individuals to learn new roles, values, norms and social practices (Zhang, Jiang & Carroll, 2012). The study by Zhang et al. (2012) revealed that social media support the process of adaptation to acculturation for Chinese students in the United States through social bonding and engagement activities. They found that Chinese students used social media to maintain their existing social ties with Chinese friends and

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peers, and thus reinforce their original cultural identity in the process of acculturating into the dominant society. Acculturation is complex. There are different sojourners whose purposes, desires, wants and needs are so vastly different. Therefore, they may adopt different acculturating models and strategies, assisted by their use of social media.

31.3

Social Media and Adapting to a New Culture

31.3.1 Benefits of Social Media There has been a plethora of literature on the impact of social media on cross-cultural adaptation. Oiarzabal (2012: 1470) conceptualized social media as ‘critical hubs of information distribution’ that facilitate social and cultural adaptation through social support in the process of migration. Use of social media enables sojourners to extend their personal networks, seek social and emotional support from others and enhance cultural adaptation through both strong and weak ties between individuals and groups (Forbush & Foucault-Welles, 2016; Sandel, 2014). Ryan, Magro and Sharp (2011) found social media aided international students in cultural adaptation by exchanging information, building social networks and reducing anxieties. Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2010) reported that social media affected the social behaviours of users in three dimensions: initiating (meeting strangers and making new friends), maintaining (using social media to maintain existing ties) and social information seeking (seeking information from offline connections). Social media, according to Wooley (2013), enables individuals to create and maintain shared social connections through the creation and distribution of information, and for international students, the diverse social networks formed through social media helps to significantly enhance social and cultural adaptation in the host culture. Social support as acculturative strategies from social connections is believed to help sojourners to seek bonding and bridging social capital, reduce acculturative stress, mitigate the negative effect of marginalization and enhance adaptation and integration (Forbush & Foucault-Welles, 2016; Mao & Qian, 2015). Komito and Bates (2011) noted that social media facilitates ‘passive monitoring’ (p. 289) and durable contacts and long-lasting relationships, including non-kin relationships, with previously existing contacts. Social media enables the maintenance of connections and networks on existing sites, and at the same time forms new connections (McCarthy, 2010). It helps create background awareness and co-presence so that a virtual migrant always remains hooked up in the existing groups, and provides a platform for users to share information and experience, alleviate anxieties, receive emotional support and encouragement (Sandel, 2014), form durable bonds regardless

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of changes and interruptions, and reduce loneliness and stress in cultural acculturation (Forbush & Foucault-Welles, 2016; Komito & Bates, 2011). Pang (2016; 2018) found that WeChat had become an integral part of the daily life for Chinese international students and their online activities involved entertainment, socializing with close friends and sharing personal information.

31.3.2 Social Media and Social Capital Seeking social capital and social support from social networks is one of the key aims of using social media. Lin (2017: 6) defined social capital as the ‘investment in social relations with expected returns’ from embedded resourced in social networks. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 14) defined social capital as ‘the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’. Individuals engage in interactions and networking via social media to access social capital as cumulated resources and benefits in the form of information, personal relationships, ties with friends and neighbours, and emotional support, resulting in smooth adaptation, employment connections and enhanced self-esteem, psychological well-being and levels of satisfaction (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe, 2007; Granovetter, 2003). To Putnam (2000), social capital consists of bonding social capital and bridging social capital. Bonding social capital refers to the strong ties and benefits experienced by individuals in close personal relationships such as family and friends of homogenous groups or in networks that provide social, emotional, personal and even financial support, solidarity, reciprocity and access to scarce or limited resources (Granovetter, 2003; Lin et al., 2012). Bridging social capital describes the weak ties and tangible outcomes from loose, distant connections, casual acquaintances and heterogeneous groups that can provide new information, new perspectives, broad world views, outward-looking behaviour, and new networks (Ellison et al., 2007; Lin et al., 2012). Steinfield, Ellison and Lampe (2008: 437) added another form of social capital, maintained social capital, ‘a form of social capital that speaks to one’s ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community’. Ellison et al. (2007) noted that these three forms of social capital were found in their study, with Facebook being the strongest in terms of bridging social capital. The use of Facebook was found to provide greater benefits and life satisfaction to low self-esteem users. Pang (2018) surveyed 212 Chinese international students at a German university on their use of WeChat and found that WeChat use was positively correlated with bridging, bonding and maintained social capital and life satisfaction, with bonding social capital being ‘the most important

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predictor of international students’ well-being perception in the online setting’ (p. 301). The findings of the study by Li and Chen (2014) show that all forms of social capital (strong and weak ties), contributed to life satisfaction, trust, social engagement and cultural adaptation. The use of social media, Renren or Facebook, was positively linked to Chinese international students’ bridging social capital. They also found that Chinese students in the host country (the United States) used the Chinese social media site Renren as a tool to form and maintain weak ties and used Facebook to build up their connections to access information about the culture and society. They explained that Chinese students used other modes of communication to communicate with their strong ties, such as WeChat, QQ and Weibo, and thus contribute to their bonding social capital. Chinese international students preferred to use Renren to keep in touch with their pre-existing ties and maintain their home country social capital because their friends could not access Facebook, which had been banned in China. Chu and Choi (2010) compared the communication behaviours of college students in China and in the United States and found that both Chinese and American students had a greater portion of weak ties than strong ties in their use of social network sites, and Chinese students had a lower level of bonding social capital in social network sites than their American peers in the use of social media. Chu and Choi’s study suggests that social media are more effective for accessing and promoting bridging social capital to facilitate information exchange and information flow. Granovetter (2003) and Ellison et al. (2007) supported this view: weak ties with bridging social capital enable an individual to access information and social support from a wide range of circles, fields and occupations more easily than the individual’s strong ties. Literature supports the notion that weak ties enable migrants and sojourners to access larger and more diverse social networks and connections to draw resources and generate bridging social capital to facilitate acculturation (Forbush & Foucault-Welles, 2016; Ryan, 2016). Li and Chen (2014) pointed out that the use of social media could lead to an increase in the size of weak ties, networks, number of opportunities of sociability offline and maintenance of social capital to support acculturation. Forbush and Foucault-Welles (2016) claimed that the inherent structures of social media enable users to foster and manage weak tie connections, provide an opportunity to engage with a broad range of connections, local or international, and form their own communities around shared interests, without any geographical barriers. They found, however, that it was the type and quality rather than quantity of relationships international students had established that mattered in terms of acculturation.

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Raman and Harwood (2016) examined the effects of media usage on Asian Indian students’ and professionals’ acculturation patterns in the United States and found the usage of the ethnic media or the host media reflected individuals’ motives to remain connected with friends, families and acquaintances in the home country, or to identify with host mainstream culture by learning its values, knowledge, cultural norms, language and social practices. They concluded that co-ethnic contact and Indian media consumption negatively predicted acculturation and the quality of intergroup contact, while American media consumption correlated positively with acculturation, social engagement and political participation, and the knowledge and desire to access interpersonal contact and valuable bridging resources from an extensive range of social networks. Ryan (2016), however, challenged the view that fostering and seeking bridging capital and weak ties was the primary motive for migrants and sojourners. She argued that for migrants, it was the relative social distance and willingness to share valuable resources rather than tie strength and ethnic composition that was the primary motive. To bridge relative social distance, time, effort, opportunities and a certain amount of cultural capital (language competence) are required to reach out to build connections. The social distance cannot be bridged automatically by having a social media account. Ryan suggests that ties, strong or weak, social capital, bonding or bridging, ‘are often embedded in circles of mutual acquaintances leading to opportunities for social encounters’ (2016: 966). Such ties and social capital are latent resources that have to be unlocked and actually realized through trust, mutuality, reciprocity and connection strategies. She stated that unlocked latent resources can be beneficial when immigrants are connected to people of influential positions who are willing to share resources and to serve as ‘ladders’, leading to career advancement. Such connections should not necessarily be weak: weak ties lack trust and mutuality.

31.3.3 Social Media and Acculturation Intercultural adaptation involves an understanding of the host values, beliefs, norms and patterns of interactions, and participation in local social activities to increase the level of cultural and organizational fit (Sawyer & Chen, 2012). Social media plays a very important role in cultural adaptation at different phases of migration and sojourning. Much literature on acculturation has shown that social media influences the early planning, decisions, desires, aspirations and expectations of individuals to move to another country (Thulin & Vilhelmson, 2014). This means intercultural adaptation starts at the pre-migration preparatory stage when prospective migrants and students seek insider information and first-hand experiences

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through social media from those who can ‘a more reliable, relatable, and authentic image of living in a new place’ (Davis, 2017: 250). At this premigration stage, personal expectations shaped through social media interactions can have a considerable impact upon the outcomes of sojourners’ intercultural adaptation (Collin, Karsenti & Calonne, 2015). Chen and Ross (2015) reported that Chinese international students in the United States used WeChat and QQ to seek information about the ranking and reputation of universities, the best dormitories, the difficulty levels of courses, information about lecturers and ‘strategies for picking classes’, and learning strategies of how to get an A – even before they set foot on campus. Such information was extremely useful for first-year Chinese students to navigate the new physical, social and cultural terrains in the host culture. However, as many Chinese students were able to use Chinese social media to interact with Chinese nationals only, this led to the formation of an ethnic enclave on campus, which would become a barrier to their acculturation. Forbush and Foucault-Welles (2016) identified the importance of timing and preparation through social media platforms to help international students adapt to the local culture by connecting them with the new country prior to their arrival. They argued that international students experienced the greatest challenges and acculturative stress during their initial stage of adaptation. If social support was not available, it was highly likely that they would seek help from co-nationals and join their ethnic enclaves, without motivation to grow and diversify their social networks and interact with host nationals. A practical strategy would be the use of social media to connect local and international students well before their arrival. In this way, the social support mechanism would be ready and online interactions could be shifted to offline face-to-face interactions with people the students had never met before. The authors stressed that timing and pre-departure preparation and local support services were the determining factors for intercultural adaptation for international students. Smith and Khawaja (2011) supported the notion that international students need diverse networks for social support during their sojourn in the host country, which would serve as social capital for acculturation and as a buffer against acculturative stress and the hardships of cultural and social integration. Berry (2005) indicated that social support provided by host nationals could help reduce acculturative stressors. The integration approach could help sojourners experience less stress and achieve better cultural adaptation than other approaches, such as marginalization, assimilation and separation. Nga, Wang and Chan (2017) concurred that integration was the most effective approach to acculturation. Sojourners should be provided with opportunities to pursue an integrative approach to facilitate their acculturation and integration into the host culture, and at the same

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time maintain old ties that ‘perpetuate a sense of belonging’ (Hiller & Franz, 2004: 743) to reduce acculturative stress and homesickness (Davis, 2017). Moreover, Forbush and Foucault-Welles (2016) suggested that the inclusion of host nationals as ambassadors in social networks could help increase social and cultural adaptation, but host nationals should take the first step to reach out to international students, who, in spite of their strong desire to have local friends and connections, often find it difficult to make the first move due to feelings of apprehension.

31.3.4 Social Media and Social Support Much literature on acculturation focuses on the role of social support, including informational, emotional and instrumental support, and on the attenuation of adjustment challenges and acculturative stress experienced in cultural transition in a new environment (Chen & Choi, 2011; Sawyer & Chen, 2012). Studies have shown that social support from host nationals helps sojourners enhance acculturation and integration, reduce marginalization, build a local professional and social network and community, and reinforce and affirm their culture and identities (Nga et al., 2017; Rao & Hemphill, 2016). Sandel (2014) maintained that for international students, acculturation means the sense of connection and emotional and social support. Marlowe, Bartley and Collins (2017) reported that various social media enabled sojourners to create, maintain and intensify networks and relationships with host nationals, shift from online to face-to-face interaction, transit ‘from participatory culture to a culture of connectivity’, normalize daily interactions as ‘an essential means to engage socially’ (p. 98), and achieve a sense of belonging and feeling of connectivity. Social media are used by higher education institutions to provide support for international students’ cultural adaptation. Ryan et al. (2011) showed that Facebook was used as an important platform to support international doctoral students’ learning and academic acculturation, and alleviate pressure with regard to all aspects of their doctoral studies. Lin et al. (2012) reported international students actively interacting with American friends had better social cultural adjustment and college attachment. Ali and Kohun (2009) established that doctoral students who received adequate social support, and who were more culturally and socially open, had a better chance to be socially integrated into the doctoral programme and a higher probability of graduating successfully. They discovered that social isolation was a primary factor for doctoral students’ attrition, and a lack of support to socially integrate students into the doctoral programme led to students’ seeking support from co-nationals, thus impeding cultural adaptation and integration. As a result, these students began to hide themselves in their ethnic enclaves and this intensified their sense of belonging as well as feeling of social isolation.

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When seeking social support and connectiveness, sojourners do not blindly engage with anybody on social media; instead, they make strategic decisions to engage or not with specific social media, and specific people, in accordance with their purposes, intentions and expectations, and the perceived benefits of doing so (Marlowe et al., 2017; Nga et al., 2017). They use social media to connect with friends, relatives and family networks from the home culture for emotional support, connectivity, relationship maintenance and social cohesion, and with host nationals for language learning, cultural knowledge, mentoring and specific life skills to facilitate acculturation (Nga et al., 2017).

31.4

Directions for Future Research

Social media play an important role in intercultural adaptations in terms of establishing and maintaining interpersonal connections, gaining social support and acquiring intercultural communication skills and knowledge of the host society’s values, norms and interaction protocols. Much research focuses on the purposes, intentions, willingness, affordance and effects of the adoption of different varieties of social media in the acculturating process. Studies have shown that acculturation is a reciprocal process; immigration influences and is influenced by the host society (Berry, 2011; Kramer, 2000). There is much too much research on how immigrants, international students and refugees make an effort to adapt to the host society; yet there has been inadequate research on how they influence the host society economically, academically, politically, culturally and socially, how they use social media to facilitate their acculturation, and how organizations, education establishments, government agencies and city councils of the host society use social media to strategically engage with their targeted audience and newcomers from foreign countries. Manca and Ranieri, for example, reported that although social media tools are seen as powerful drivers to transform teaching the learning practices in a multicultural context in higher education, ‘social media use is rather limited and restricted’ (2016: 216) and academics have ambivalent attitudes towards these social networking tools for cultural, social and pedagogical reasons and due to institutional constraints. According to the International Consultants for Education and Fairs Monitor (2017), in 2016, nearly five million students studied outside their home countries; 84 per cent of them studied in nine countries: the United States (22 per cent), the UK (11 per cent), Australia (11 per cent), China (9 per cent), Canada (8 per cent), Germany (7 per cent), France (6 per cent), Russia (6 per cent) and Japan (4 per cent). When international students study overseas, intercultural adaptation becomes a critical issue (Campbell & Li, 2008). Future studies

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should investigate: (1) how social media can be best used to maximize their advantages to support international students in their academic transition, intercultural adaptation and cultural fusion in educational establishments; (2) how the openness, interactivity and sociability of social media can be embedded in pedagogical practices, learning processes, learning support and counselling services in order to support international students’ acculturating process. Similarly, when new migrants arrive in a new country, social support is critical to their intercultural adaptation. Government organizations, agencies and city councils can use social media to specifically target newcomers, engage with them, predict their adaptation issues, take proactive strategies and measures to support their acculturation, and avoid the misguided belief in the ‘sink or swim’ method. Vacca et al. (2018) proposed a personal network approach to the study of structural assimilation and transnationalism among international immigrants. They defined the structure as ‘embeddedness in native social networks of the host society and in conational social networks of the origin society, respectively’ (p. 72). The structure proposed by Vacca et al. is similar in many ways to the cultural infusion theory (Croucher & Kramer, 2017; Kramer, 2000) discussed earlier in this chapter in that new immigrants will, in the acculturating process, adopt the host society’s values, norms, cognitive styles and patterns of social interaction, and at the same time maintain their home society’s values, norms, social practices and different types of connections and relationships. While living in the receiving society, they continue to participate in the political, economic and cultural life of the sending countries. A future study is required to examine the proposed structure and how the host society can effectively and seamlessly integrate both networks through social media to facilitate newcomers’ intercultural adaptation. There are many social media tools, each with their own specific functions. People’s decision-making as to what social media are to be adopted is determined by many factors: intention, expectations, habits, user’s trust, accessibility, popularity, trends, ubiquity, social influence and compatibility (Ajzen, 1991). There is a trend of media convergence to meet the different needs and demands of social interaction and social life. For example, Mu and Lee (2017) found that the reason that WeChat has become extremely popular inside and outside of China, claiming 700 million active users in the world, is that it provides the multiple functions of ‘text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast messaging, video conferencing, video games, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing’ (p. 249). Importantly, it also offers third-party mobile payment apps and other service apps such as booking hotels, flights, taxis, and paying energy bills, loans and other expenses. Immigrants and students from China accustomed to the WeChat functionalities might find their acculturating life

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difficult when they come from an almost cashless society to countries where social media platforms are still at a ‘traditional’ stage. Future research should examine how certain groups of immigrants and international students cope with the acculturation stress and challenges deriving from technological gaps in terms of converged social media.

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32 A Constructivist Approach to Assessing Intercultural Communication Competence Milton J. Bennett 32.1

Introduction

This chapter considers the assessment of intercultural communication competence (ICC) in a particular paradigmatic context – constructivism. In order to clarify the idea of paradigmatic context, the chapter will begin with a short exposition on the epistemology of assessment in general, continuing with a focus on the paradigmatic contexts of intercultural communication and their implications for assessment. Finally, the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) will be offered as an example of how constructivist theory and methodology can be applied to assessing ICC. The term ‘paradigm’ will follow its usage by Kuhn (1967), and the naming of the major scientific paradigms – Newtonian, Einsteinian, quantum – will follow the usage of Briggs and Peat (1984) as representative of many popular science writers. The author (M. Bennett, 2013) takes responsibility for the specific claim that Newtonian physics has entered social science as ‘positivism’ as the term is used by Comte (1966), but of course most social scientists agree implicitly or explicitly that they are attempting to apply the principles of physical science to the measurement and prediction of human phenomena. They are usually less clear about what exact scientific paradigm they are using in that effort. The author is also responsible for the claim that cultural relativism is a translation of the Einsteinian paradigm into social science, as explained below. The author is joined by many others who are exploring the application of the quantum paradigm to human social phenomena (e.g. Wheatley, 2006; Penrose, Hameroff & Kak, 2017), and the identification of ‘constructivism’ as one such application is not unusual.

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32.2

Scientific Knowledge Paradigms and Implications for Assessment

The foundational paradigm of Western enlightenment and the scientific revolution is Newtonian. Established now for several centuries, the Newtonian paradigm continues to hold sway over popular thought about physical science. Simply stated, the paradigm organizes research with the assumption that there is a single discoverable reality, and that the ability to measure and predict events allow events to be understood and potentially controlled. Further, observers of reality are not restrained by perspective – anyone looking in the same direction will see the same thing. If they do not, they simply lack sufficient information or perhaps are blinded by prejudice. The Newtonian paradigm has been translated into social science as positivism – the idea that events, including human behaviour, are objects that can be measured and described in terms of logical principles. While positivism continues to hold sway in various endeavours of social science – especially assessment – the underlying Newtonian paradigm has ceased to inform new research in physical science. It was supplanted during the first part of the twentieth century by different assumptions about space, time, gravity and other phenomena reframed by Einstein’s theory of relativity. Particularly notable for this topic was the reframing of an omniscient observer of an absolute reality to that of a positioned observer of a selectively perceived reality – the essence of relativism. Towards the end of the twentieth century, yet another paradigm was solidly established in physics – quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen School interpretation of that paradigm reframes the observer as neither a purely objective nor a necessarily subjective presence, but as a co-creator of the objects of perception; observations act as focusers and categorizers in a co-ontological relationship with phenomena. This view is now entering social science as ‘constructivism’, where it implies that experience does not just happen, as might be inferred in a Newtonian paradigm, nor is experience just a matter of selecting which events to attend to, as might be inferred in an Einsteinian paradigm. Rather, experience is always in the process of being constructed in the interface of events and observation. The idea of constructed perceptual/ experiential categories is foundational to constructivist psychology (e.g. Kelly, 1955), cognitive linguistics (e.g. Lakoff, 1987; Whorf, 1956) and constructivist neurobiology (e.g. Maturana & Varela, 1992; von Foerster, 1984). These three knowledge paradigms generate very different assumptions about assessment. In a positivist paradigm, the purpose of assessment is frequently to discover or confirm unilateral causal relationships through quantitative methods. In a relativist paradigm where causality is mutual, the purpose of assessment is more likely to explore complex interplays of

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systemic variables, either quantitatively or qualitatively. In a constructivist paradigm where the observer is part of the co-construction of events, research tends to be more qualitative and confirmatory rather than exploratory. These methods can be combined (mixed-method research), but with a danger of ‘paradigmatic confusion’. Such confusion occurs when the epistemological assumptions of the assessment method do not match the paradigmatic context of the phenomenon being assessed. For instance, it is paradigmatically confused to assess a complex behavioural constellation of mutual causality with a relatively simple measurement of unilateral causality. In most cases, confusion occurs because of reification: observations and/or explanations are treated as if they are ‘things’ rather than processes. A well-known example of this kind of reification and paradigmatic confusion is the measurement of IQ (Gould, 2012). According to Gould, in the early twentieth century French educators were trying to select children for different kinds of educational programmes. They observed that some children were more inclined than others to engage in schoolwork or solve certain kinds of problems. No single behaviour or measurement was predictive of that ability, but there was some correlation of the inclination towards schoolwork with a constellation of scales from existing measurement instruments. They named that constellation of scales the ‘general intelligence factor’ (‘g factor’). Initially, ‘g’ was just an indicator of the abilities, but in its subsequent application by Terman as the Stanford– Binet Intelligence Scale, the measurement category was reified: it acquired the positivist assumption that intelligence was a ‘thing’ that people had more or less of. Despite Howard Gardner’s (1983) relativistic plea for multiple intelligences and many criticisms of the culture-bound nature of scale items, the reification persists. When this kind of reification is made about intercultural competence – that it is a measurable internal quality that manifests in more competent cross-cultural behaviour – a paradigmatic confusion is created between positivist measurement methodology and the constructivist assumptions underlying intercultural communication. Another example of reification found in the IQ application of the Stanford–Binet and countless other measurements is the assumption of ‘normal distribution’. This positivist assumption of the long-term distribution of probability is crucial for making statistical inferences, but it begs the question of whether or not the observed phenomenon is actually normally distributed in the population. If it is not, then a measurement of the phenomenon that assumes normal distribution will necessarily over or underestimate its actual occurrence, even if there are compensations for skewing. This has significant implications for the measurement of a phenomenon like ICC that is defined in a non-positivist way, and thus cannot be treated as a trait or characteristic.

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32.3

The Emergence of Constructivist Intercultural Communication

At the end of the nineteenth century, positivist science in the form of social Darwinism was being used to justify various forms of colonialism and imperialism. In an intentional effort to challenge that positivist claim with a relativist alternative, Franz Boas (1911) defined the notion of ‘cultural relativity’. Boas argued that civilizations should not be thought of as evolving into ‘higher’ forms; rather, he held that civilizations were different adaptations to various social environments, each successful in its own right. The cultural relativist position was embraced by many anthropologists, notably Margaret Mead (2001 [1938]) and by social theorists of the Frankfurt School (e.g. Adorno et al., 1950), postmodern critical social theory (e.g. Foucault, 1984), and critical pedagogy (e.g. Freire, 2007). Both anthropologists and social theorists were motivated by a desire to counteract the oppressiveness (and actual oppression) of positivist scientific approaches to human phenomena. In the case of anthropology, cultural relativism opened up the entire idea of subjective world view, expanding fieldwork from artefacts and kinship systems into the exploration of unique values and beliefs. For social theorists, cultural relativism offered a platform for ideological clashes in the service of greater equity. The downside of cultural relativity was its failure to define any mechanism for communication across cultural divides. Essentially, people socialized in culture A could not understand people of culture B, since B’s world view was unique and unavailable to A short of resocialization (and maybe not even then). This idea persists, for instance in gender relations, where critical feminists may hold that men are incapable of understanding women because they lack a women’s world view and experience (and sometimes vice versa). Since understanding and thus empathy is impossible in this view, the only relational mechanism is power. And indeed, most critical theory focuses on the use and abuse of power in intergroup relations. For some anthropologists, linguists and others concerned with communication across cultural boundaries, the lack of a communicative mechanism in traditional cultural relativity was a real problem. For instance, diplomats, business people, and development workers all needed to understand different cultures well enough to coordinate meaning and action towards their goals. Particularly after World War II, these people knew that it was insufficient to just be cosmopolitan – to have visited a place and be knowledgeable about the institutions and customs. They needed skills in understanding the more subjective world view of the other culture sufficiently to generate appropriate and effective behaviour. This need could not be satisfied in the relativism paradigm, and most anthropologists and linguists

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were loath to return to a positivist set of universal values that could be applied cross-culturally. So they turned to the new constructivist paradigm for answers. One of the first efforts to use constructivism in understanding other cultures was formulated by Ruth Benedict in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946). Recognizing the need for making comparisons amongst cultures, she constructed several categories whose only purpose was to compare cultural contexts. For instance, she employed the category ‘shame/ guilt’ to label Japanese culture as more of a ‘shame culture’ compared to the United States as more of a ‘guilt culture’. A decade later, Edward T. Hall (1959) defined the category ‘high-context/low-context’ to describe a cultural difference in how much detail people find appropriate in messages. Like Benedict, Hall had the practical task of helping people understand and deal effectively with a culture different from their own. In the case of Benedict, it was the US Army needing to understand post-war Japan; for Hall, it was international business and foreign service workers. For them and most others who have followed their lead, the goal of cultural description was to construct useful comparators that could guide short-term adaptation, not to generate thick cultural descriptions demanding anthropological expertise. Categories that are constructed for the purpose of describing relevant cultural differences can be termed ‘etic observational categories’. Such categories are not intended as emic cultural descriptions; for instance, there really is no ‘high-context’ culture or ‘shame’ culture. These terms have meaning only as comparators, and then only as comparators relevant to some particular goal. For instance, Hall was interested in preparing people to communicate effectively in different cultures, and thus the comparative categories he constructed were meant to illuminate differences in communicative behaviour; trainees could learn to recognize a systematic difference in how detail was being incorporated into messages and then adjust their interpretive and intentional behaviour accordingly. For her clients, Benedict was more concerned with understanding motivation and the potential response to occupation; the observational category she created were therefore more related to how certain behaviour might be valued or disvalued. The constructivist principle at work is that a cultural description only has meaning in terms of an observer who is attempting to compare cultures, and then only if the category yields a useful comparison for the purposes of the observer. A failure to appreciate this principle leads to the reification of observation, where trainees (and researchers) assume that cultures really are more shame-based or guilt-based, highcontext or low-context. Actually, the descriptors are not of culture – they are of the observation of culture for some purpose. The implication of etic observation and comparison is that intercultural communication was, from the beginning, constructivist. It was solidly

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based in cultural relativity, but the lack of any mechanism for cross-context communication in that paradigm demanded a reframing of relativity into the newer paradigm of constructivism. Constructivism allows intercultural communication to address at least three dimensions in unique ways: • Cultural identity: from a constructivist perspective, identity is not a thing but a process of identifying. In other words, people do not ‘have’ a culture; they ‘do’ a culture through the process of socialization and role enactment (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Further, cultural identity is not just a process of subjective affiliation; it also must take into account objective ascription by others (Mead, 1934). Intercultural constructivism takes these classic ideas into the realm of multicultural and liminal identities that form at the intersection of cultures, coupling agency with identity. • Interaction analysis: etic observational categories allow people to identify relevant cultural differences and to predict likely misunderstanding in those areas. The purpose of the categories is not to describe culture per se, but rather to describe a difference that makes a difference to coordinating meaning and action across cultural boundaries. • Intercultural adaptation: the deeper purpose of observing cultural difference is to enter into the experience of an alternative world view – to engage intercultural empathy. So the etic categories are not so much descriptors as doorways through which people can move into alternative experience and thus be able to authentically enact appropriate behaviour in the alternative cultural context. The ability to engage in the three activities above – bringing agency to identity, identifying relevant cultural difference and generating alternative appropriate behaviour – can generally be considered ICC. With this constructivist definition, attempts to assess ICC would therefore be expected to focus on issues like identity formation, perceptual competence and empathy. However, that direction of research is impeded by the fact that there are relatively few research tools that focus on those constructivist phenomena, and many more that focus on personal traits and characteristics.

32.4

The ‘Lamp Post Effect’ and Other Mismeasurements of Intercultural Communication Competence

The most common approach to assessing intercultural competence is to treat it more or less like intelligence. That means making the assumption that there are some internal conditions – personal characteristics, personality variables or a constellation of beliefs and attitudes – that manifest as or cause the competent behaviour, and that those qualities can be measured

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or at least inferred from measurement. This is, of course, the positivist assumption that underlies most assessment. There are two criticisms of this approach that are relevant to introducing a more constructivist approach. The first criticism is more of a personal observation. I have been struck by the general lack of epistemological reflection regarding measurement methodology in social science. It is as if the original positivist assumptions that accompanied the translation of Newtonian physics into social science are unquestionable, and that methodology based on those assumptions can be elaborated and modified but not seriously challenged without losing credibility. This probably reflects a general tendency towards traditionalism in academe, but it is problematic when the demand for a credible assessment collides with the differing paradigmatic context of the target phenomenon. It is like the inebriated guy looking for his keys under a lamp post: a passer-by asks, ‘What are you doing’, and he replies muzzily, ‘Looking for my keys’. The passer-by continues, ‘Where did you lose them?’ and, after a pause, he points away from the lamp post and says, ‘Over there’. She asks, ‘So why are you looking for them here?’, and he exclaims, ‘Because the light is better!’ I suspect that we also look for answers to our assessment questions where the light is better; that is, where the established and accepted methodology leads us to look. But the phenomenon we are seeking to assess is not there; it is in a different paradigm. The second criticism of positivist methodology goes back to the assumption of normal distribution. There is absolutely no reason to think that ICC is normally distributed in any population, even in a highly skewed form. There is much more reason to think that ICC is a rare exception to the default condition of ethnocentrism and xenophobia. That does not mean that ICC cannot be defined and assessed, but it does mean that methods based on normal distribution are located in the wrong paradigm. We should be approaching assessment in this case more as if we were assessing highly talented and gifted people who are operating on the extraordinary edge of consciousness. They are likely to fall outside most normal distributions, but they represent a human potential nevertheless. A more mundane example might be riding a bicycle. Bicycle riding is clearly a human capability that can be acquired rather easily, but there is no reason to think that we can predict its acquisition with any test of beliefs, values, attitudes or other constellations of reified traits. Bicycle riding is a simple behavioural adaptation to context (need for transportation, availability of bicycle). We are likely to find the complex adaptive behaviour of ICC somewhere between the rarity of gifted artists and the commonality of bicycle riding. In addition to locating the assessment of ICC paradigmatically, it is useful to place it at an appropriate level of analysis. As the term is generally used in sociology, ‘level of analysis’ refers to degrees of abstraction, from more

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discrete and concrete to more aggregate and abstract. The base level of analysis is usually called ‘individual’, a mid-range level is called ‘group’, and the most abstract level is called ‘institutional’. Imagining the three paradigms intersecting with these three basic levels of analysis yields nine possible analytical positions for assessing intercultural competence. For instance, the intersection of positivism and individual level supports the identification of personal characteristics as unilateral causes of intercultural competence, while relativism at the individual level supports looking at more multilateral (e.g. symbolic interactionist) approaches to cultural identity. Relativism at the group level is, of course, the basis of cultural relativity, while positivism at either the group or institutional level supports the objectification or essentializing of cultures and institutions. Constructivist assumptions at the individual level support the relationship of individual self-reflexive consciousness with intercultural competence; at the group level contextual awareness is the key variable, and at the institutional level the focus would be on assessing subjective/objective cultural dialectics. When intercultural communication includes a concern with power, it may be useful to consider cross-level analyses. For instance, power relations can be defined by considering the intersection of individual and organizational levels of analysis – how individuals may be privileged or disempowered by their organizational contexts. A positivist paradigm combined with this intersection supports the idea that oppression is caused by the prejudices of people higher in organizational hierarchies who have the power to impose their views on subordinates. A more relativist framing of the individual/organizational intersection supports the view that both privilege and oppression are functions of the hegemony of particular cultural contexts in the organization. Constructivist approaches to power look at an organization’s ability to maintain a critical mass of respect for diversity. Any assessment of ICC (including the use or abuse of power) should include careful attention to locating the target phenomenon. For instance, if the desired outcome of a programme is ‘prejudice reduction’, it may be that a positivist individual/organizational location is appropriate. However, if the desired outcome is ‘creating a climate of respect for diversity’, the location would more usefully be considered at the intersection of group level and constructivist paradigm. In the former case, methods would focus on individual attitudes and role behaviour. In the latter case, methods would focus on group norm-building and organizational support for ICC. Another system of levels capable of focusing assessment efforts has been suggested by Bateson (1972; 1979). He uses the first level (‘action’) to refer to unilateral causal analysis – similar to the intersection mentioned above of positivism and individual level. The second level is ‘contextual’, where phenomena and their interaction need to be considered in context, similar to the

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intersection of relativism and group or institutional levels. Most importantly, he defines a third level as ‘metacontextual’, where the assessment of phenomena needs to take into consideration the perceptual framing of the phenomena. This third level is clearly constructivist in the terms of this chapter, referring not so much to individuals or cultures themselves but rather to the experiencing of one’s own and other cultures. Insofar as we define ICC as the ability to consciously experience different cultures (and thus to be able to intentionally generate appropriate alternative behaviour), we would need to assess that competence at Bateson’s third, metacontextual level. And, insofar as we locate intercultural communication in constructivism, we would additionally need to use constructivist assumptions in assessing individual, group and/or institutional competence in the area.

32.5

Constructivist Methods of Assessment

Taking metacontextual experience as the key aspect of ICC, an assessment would need to both model the development of that experience and measure the capability to generate it. The unit of analysis would need to match the appropriate level of analysis. So, if the goal were to assess an individual’s competence, the measurement would need to focus on metacontextual phenomena at an individual level of analysis; that is, it would need to measure some form of self-reflexive consciousness. In other constructivist terms, an individual measurement would need to focus on how an individual was organizing perceptual categories so as to generate a particular kind of intercultural experience. Alternatively, if the goal were to assess a group’s ability to support ICC, the unit of analysis would need to be the group, not just an aggregate of individuals. Constructivist phenomena at the group level include the influence of expectation and other synergistic effects of critical numbers of individuals operating within defined group boundaries. These group phenomena need to be measured differently than individual phenomena. Adding the metaphor of the ‘tail wagging the dog’ to the ‘lamp post effect’, the initial consideration for assessment should not be the measurement; it should be the model that is guiding the measurement. There are two kinds of models commonly associated with constructivist ICC: taxonomic models of perception largely derived from Kelly’s (1963) theory of personal constructs, where cognitive schema can be described in various states of cognitive complexity (e.g. Delia, O’Keefe & O’Keefe, 1982; Nishida, 1999), and developmental models such as the well-known work of Piaget (1954) and its legacy in other models based on perceptual development (e.g. M. Bennett, 1986; King & Baxter Magolda, 2005; Vygotsky, 1978). The taxonomic models are located at the individual level of analysis, while

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constructivist developmental models are also applied at the group and institutional levels. The primary measurement tools for taxonomic models are derivatives of Kelly’s repertory grid (1991), a technique for mapping the constructs used by individuals in creating meaning. The technique elicits perceptual categories from individuals by having them dichotomize concepts and then organize phenomena in triads of two things that resemble one pole of the dichotomy compared to one thing at the other pole. A constellation of these triads constitutes a ‘grid’ representing the perceptual organization of a particular context. Data from the grid can be examined with qualitative content analysis techniques and/or a variety of non-parametric statistical procedures such as principle component or multivariate analyses. While the rep grid began as a clinical tool, its use has expanded to other areas such as marketing and social relations. There is a plethora of websites providing data collection and analysis software for repertory grid research. Other methods of this type include semantic networks, Q-sorting, and the Role Category Questionnaire (Delia et al., 1982). Research with the RCQ, a measurement of ‘cognitive complexity’, has indicated a correlation between being able to articulate a greater number of categorical distinctions about people and certain forms of interpersonal communication competence (Griffin, 2011). The use of repertory grid or related techniques for the assessment of ICC is based on the classic Sapir/Whorf idea that finer discriminations of perceptual categories within some context are related to more sophisticated experience in that context. For instance, wine connoisseurs have more elaborated perceptual categories for wine – nose, tannin, finish, etc. – and also a deeper experience of wine than the casual drinker. This is obviously also true for audiophiles, sports enthusiasts, chefs and anyone else who particularly appreciates or produces some activity at a sophisticated level. In the case of ICC, finer perceptual discrimination of one’s own and other subjective cultures would correlate with the capacity for a more sophisticated experience of cultural difference. Of course, other factors such as motivation and opportunity would influence whether the capacity for ICC was realized in any particular situation. To maintain a constructivist focus in research, certain positivist criteria for methodology need to be reframed. In her excellent treatment of constructivist social work research, Mary O’Connor (2015: 96–7) suggests that ‘validity’ and ‘reliability’ be redefined in non-positivist terms of ‘trustworthiness’, which includes the ideas of ‘credibility’, ‘dependability’, ‘confirmability’ and ‘transferability’. • Credibility parallels internal validity in positivist research, but in the constructivist paradigm it represents conceptual coherence in process and relevance in product. For instance, a paradigmatic mismatch of

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methods and outcomes in a study of ICC would generate incoherence of process and thus damage the credibility of the study. Also, in terms of credibility, researchers would need to ask whether the study addresses factors that are likely to be associated with ICC. So, while personality variables can certainly be correlated to some degree with cross-cultural behaviour, research claiming constructivist credibility would need to show that personality is theoretically relevant to ICC, not just that measures of personality can be correlated with other measures of ICC. • Dependability parallels reliability in positivist research. In addition to traditional measures of inter-rater reliability such as coefficient alpha, dependability refers to the consistency of decision-making by researchers. In constructivist terms, dependability involves researchers taking responsibility for their observational categories and for the consistency with which they apply them to analysing data. For instance, studies of ICC that depend on content analysis would need to both justify the theoretical relevance of the categories being applied to data and also demonstrate that independent raters with knowledge of the categories be able to replicate analyses. • Confirmability parallels objectivity in positivist research, although in constructivist terms it does not refer to the truthfulness of a finding in terms of some objective standard. Rather, the confirmability of a study is determined by its adherence to a discernible logic of connection among methods, data, analysis and outcome. In other words, an outside auditor could conceivably replicate the logical process of the research, although the auditor might disagree with the analysis and/or generate a different outcome based on his or her own conceptual schema. In the case of ICC studies, confirmability means that the use of commercial instruments with hidden algorithms would not be acceptable, since an independent auditor could not replicate the logic of the analysis. • Transferability is more or less parallel to external validity in positivist terms, although it does not include ‘generalizability’ as that term is used in traditional research. The relevance of a finding in one context to a similar context is not determined by meeting some standard of generalizability; it is determined by an observer in terms of usefulness. The hypothesis of a study relevant to one context might be relevant to another context, or not. For instance, studies of ICC in an international context could be relevant to domestic multicultural situations, and vice versa, not because they are generalizable to the other population but because the hypothesis of one study could be based on a model that could also be relevant in the other context.

32.6

DMIS as an Exemplar of Constructivist Research

Adding ‘development’ to representation taxonomies such as the repertory grid yields models of how perception (and by implication, experience)

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becomes more sophisticated and thus more adaptable to changing circumstances. The basic template for these dynamic models is the perceptual development of children, whose increased ability to discriminate phenomena complexly is associated with their greater viability and adaptability in dynamic circumstances (Piaget, 1954; Vygotsky, 1978). The DMIS is an attempt to model the acquisition of capability in ICC in terms of this kind of perceptual development (M. Bennett, 1986; 2013). The term ‘sensitivity’ in DMIS refers to the increasing ability to make appropriate perceptual discriminations, as in the phrase ‘she is sensitive to the needs of her employees’ or ‘he is sensitive to the nuances of colour coordination’. In an intercultural context, appropriate perceptual discriminations would include being able to observe one’s own and other cultures in terms of relevant etic categories as well as being able to generate useful metacontextual constructions of cross-cultural events. The model suggests that people can move from a condition wherein they have very few perceptual discriminations available regarding culture and cultural difference to one where many more perceptual discriminations are available to them. The greater availability of discrimination is potentially manifested in more competent intercultural communication behaviour. The DMIS can be seen to follow constructivist principles both in its genesis and in its application to research. As grounded theory, the model began with focused observations of behaviour. In constructivism, there is no such thing as unfocused (unbiased) observation – the observer is making some decision to pay attention to one thing or another, the only question being whether the observer is acknowledging and taking responsibility for the focus and its potential usefulness. In this case, the focus was on how people get better at being effective in cross-cultural situations. With a defensible number of such observations from a variety of cross-cultural contexts (e.g. study abroad, international business, multicultural workshops), the observer then ‘makes meaning’ of the observations by applying a coherent explanatory framework. In the case of the DMIS, the framework is perceptual constructivism. Movement from less to more developed along a continuum is defined in terms of the relative fineness of category distinctions. ‘Stages’ are arbitrary boundaries differentiating various degrees of perceptual capability. In constructivist models, stages refer to the organization of the model, not to assumedly objective distinctions in reality. In the DMIS, the stages are: (1) ‘denial’, where few perceptual discriminations are available beyond ‘foreigner’, or ‘immigrant’, or ‘minority’ and consequently only a vague experience of otherness is possible; (2) ‘defence’, where a few more discriminations allow others to be evaluated as good or bad in stereotypical ways, leading to a predominant experience of threat, superiority or inferiority; (3) ‘minimization’, where a greater number of potential differences are

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subsumed into existing familiar categories, leading to the experience of shared humanity and the sanctioning of assimilation; (4) ‘acceptance’, where cultural differences in addition to human similarity are acknowledged as existing and valuable, associated with the beginning of consciously contextualized experience; (5) ‘adaptation’, where perception begins to operate metacontexually, allowing perspective-taking and the expansion of one’s repertoire of appropriate behaviour; and (6) ‘integration’, where perception routinely operates metacontextually and intercultural consciousness is part of everyday experience. DMIS has been used extensively as a model to guide research into ICC – both in constructivist and, unfortunately, in positivist ways. An example of the latter is the degeneration of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) (Hammer, Bennett & Wiseman, 2003) into positivism. The IDI is a kind of reverse content analysis instrument consisting of statements that were derived from directed interviews, categorized according to DMIS stages, and then subjected to various factor analyses to yield scales corresponding with the stages. The idea was that people’s agreement to some degree with the items would be similar to their having generated the statement themselves in an interview. While that assumption is arguable, it really did not matter, since the results of the inventory were meant to be used as the starting point for a diagnostic coaching session, and the trustworthiness of the outcome would be determined jointly by the IDI administrator and the subject. So far, the IDI was a good example of the four criteria for constructivist research: (1) credibility established by coherent use of a relevant model, (2) dependability established by a logical application of the model to the data, (3) confirmability established jointly by the subject and administrator and (4) transferability to other relevant contexts determined by the subject. Unfortunately, the initial constructivist condition of the IDI was cut short by commercial interests that reified the instrument and drove the methodology into positivism. First came an added assumption of normal distribution that allowed the parametric pre/post t-testing of groups of IDI subjects. While this was (and is) an effective technique for assessing programme effectiveness, the concomitant attribution of internal qualities also allowed rank ordering of respondents in terms of an IQ-like curve. The IDI interpretations now clearly imply that people possess greater or lesser amounts of ‘intercultural sensitivity’. That reification of perceptual behaviour led to a severe weakening of dependability and confirmability; the reified methodology was no longer dependably consistent with the paradigmatic assumptions of the model, and confirmability was taken out of the hands of the administrator–subject interaction and placed firmly into the assumedly superior judgement of the instrument. Finally, credibility was fatally compromised by claiming that a ‘new’ model underlay the same set

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of items that had been constructed and tested in terms of the ‘old’ model. The rationale for the continued effectiveness of the instrument is now firmly rooted in positivist methodology, and the IDI can no longer be considered an adequate tool for constructivist methodology. Aside from the IDI, the DMIS remains a robust model that can guide constructivist research in various ways. The content analysis methodology that was used to create the IDI is still an effective strategy for representing and analysing the perceptual behaviour of people vis-à-vis culture, cultural difference and intercultural communication. In the last couple of decades since the IDI work was done, content analysis methodology has improved dramatically due to improved computing and algorithm capabilities. It is now possible to set up a kind of dynamic rep grid that can create both a snapshot and a moving picture of perceptual development. While it is not the only game in town, the DMIS still serves as a good example of how paradigm, model and methodology can be coordinated to generate a constructivist view of ICC.

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Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Gould, S. (2012). The Mismeasure of Man, rev. ed. New York: Norton. Griffin, E. (2011). A First Look at Communication Theory. New York: McGraw Hill. Hall, E. T. (1959). The Silent Language. New York: Doubleday. Hammer, M., Bennett, M. and Wiseman, R (2003). Measuring intercultural competence: the intercultural development inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 27(4), 421–43. Kelly, G. (1955). The Psychology of Personal Constructs. New York: Norton. Kelly, G. (1963). A Theory of Personality. New York: Norton. Kelly, G. (1991). The Psychology of Personal Constructs. London: Routledge. King, P. M. and Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2005). A developmental model of intercultural maturity. Journal of College Student Development, 46(6), 571–92. Kuhn, T. (1967). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire, and Other Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Maturana H. and Varela, F. (1992). The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, rev. ed. Boston and London: Shambhala Press. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mead, M. (2001 [1938]). Growing Up in New Guinea: A Comparative Study of Primitive Education. New York: HarperCollins. Nishida, H. (1999). Cultural schema theory. In W. B. Gudykunst, ed., Theorizing about Intercultural Communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 401–18. O’Connor, M. K. (2015). Social Work Constructivist Research. London: Routledge. Penrose, R., Hameroff, S. and Kak, S., eds. (2017). Consciousness and the Universe: Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind. Cambridge, UK: Cosmology Publishing. Piaget, J. (1954). The Construction of Reality in the Child. New York: Basic Books. Von Foerster, H. (1984). On constructing a reality. In P. Watzlawick, ed., The Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know (Contributions to Constructivism). New York: Norton, pp. 41–62. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wheatley, M. (2006). Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler. Whorf, B. (1956). Science and linguistics. In J. B. Carroll, ed., Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. New York: John Wiley, pp. 265–80.

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Index

6D Model, 99 academic mobility, 11, 475–9, 481, 486–7 action competence, 3, 56, 58–60 Africa, 87, 112, 136, 175, 230, 237, 357, 415, 417, 425, 483 Arab Spring, 92 Argentina, 8, 306–9, 314, 391 Asia, 103, 105, 112, 175, 415, 417, 475–6, 483, 494 audiovisual, 6, 228–9, 232, 234, 237 Australia, 110, 234, 370, 412, 514 Austria, 374 Bhabha, H. K., 2, 22, 73, 137 Black British writing, 412 Blommaert, J., 45–6 Brexit, 74, 165, 233 business communication, xi Byram, M., 47–8, 57, 137, 320, 478, 494 Chamisso, 262, 264–6, 268 Chile, 11, 268, 314, 441 China, 104–5, 179, 287, 356, 391, 476, 510, 514–15 Christian, 108, 306, 309–10, 358 Code Unknown, 296–8 commonsense narrative, 229–30 consciousness, 78, 141–3, 146–7, 177, 245, 268, 293, 527–9, 533 contrastive approaches, 4, 40, 43 courtroom, 9, 350 creative writing, 279 critical intercultural communication, 4, 85, 210, 218, 389 cultural adaptation, 12, 172, 504–8, 511–13 cultural dimensions, 4, 96–8, 100, 102, 104, 107–8, 110–12, 114, 116, 267, 282, 324, 388 cultural diversity, 3, 39, 44, 47, 64, 194, 234, 238, 326, 330, 360–1, 372, 375, 398, 478, 506 cultural encounters, 10, 432, 462

cultural memory, 8, 146–7, 150, 278–9, 302–4, 309, 311 cultural norms, 8, 106, 139–40, 188–9, 193–6, 198–9, 206, 208, 473, 511 cultural representation, 43 decolonization, 205, 209 desires, 139, 143, 156, 159–62, 164, 166, 234, 237–8, 272, 508, 511 diaspora, 11, 174, 306, 309, 460 digital environment, 4, 85, 87–92 digital media, 6, 44, 85, 91, 180 disparity, 175 Eco, U., 41, 237, 277 ecology, 5, 177–8 educational importance, 28 educational system, 144, 146, 372 Egypt, 191, 350–1, 370 empowerment, 6, 91, 176, 206 enjoyment, 161–2, 164–6, 322, 422, 468 ethnographic perspective, 22, 140, 339, 342, 367, 390 Europe, 9–11, 46, 56, 74, 112, 155, 174, 218, 227, 230, 232, 235–6, 248, 259, 306, 314, 327, 329, 357, 367–9, 373, 396–8, 400–1, 408, 417, 425, 448, 460, 475, 483, 494 European Union, 10, 281, 355, 359–60, 369, 397–8, 407 fantasies, 159, 161–2, 164–6 Finland, 105, 114, 372 France, 107, 162, 227, 235, 248, 296, 350, 354, 358, 370, 374, 397, 401, 514 freedom, 110, 113, 267, 280, 308, 357 gender equality, 176, 351, 360 Gerchunoff, A., 8, 307–10, 314 Germany, 74, 97, 105, 107, 145, 262, 265, 268, 271–3, 290, 294, 354, 370, 372, 396–7, 399, 401–3, 447, 452–3, 455, 514 Glantz, M., 8, 307, 310–12, 315

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Index globalization, 7, 23–4, 29, 45, 69, 73, 76, 120, 286, 288, 294, 475 GLOBE study, 42, 106, 383 Greece, 370, 373 Gumperz, J. J., 37, 39–41, 48, 423 Haneke, M., 296–9 Hidden, 296–8 Hofstede, G., xii, 4, 30, 41–2, 46, 96, 98, 101–16, 124, 174, 383–5 Holliday, A., 42–3, 124, 155, 251, 339, 344 Homelander, 230–1, 233, 235–6 hospitality, 105, 149, 232, 469 Hungary, 74, 227, 281, 398 hybridity, 44, 68, 72–5, 504 hypermobility, 9, 367 imagined, 25, 70, 126, 139, 198, 230, 310, 315, 432, 434, 484, 487 independence, 100, 110, 208, 237, 270, 307, 309, 461 Inglehart, R., 4, 98, 108–10, 113 integrative intercultural communication, 5, 120–1, 125–6, 132 interactive approaches, 37, 49 intercultural awareness, 10, 114, 337, 344 intercultural competencies, 3, 36, 47, 56, 251, 319, 323, 325, 327, 329–30 intercultural dialogue, 5–6, 24, 121, 124, 126, 128–30, 132, 145, 188, 190, 197, 199, 496 intercultural education, 8, 51, 331, 335–6, 338, 340–1 intercultural ethics, 6, 187–92, 196–7 intercultural mediation, 3, 8, 36, 41, 44, 47, 49–50, 323, 326–9, 336 intercultural skills, 7, 63, 276, 278–9, 281–3, 320, 327, 330, 374–5 interdisciplinarity, 50, 125–6, 128, 132, 215 Iraq, 148, 370 Islamic, 9, 351, 355–9, 448, 450, 453–4 Israel, 303, 306 Jandt, F. E., 1, 35 Japan, 57, 105, 114, 189, 208, 386, 391, 476, 514, 525 Jordan, 370 K., 312–14 Kanak Sprak, 265, 455 Kramsch, C., 45, 171, 278 Kucinski, B., 8, 307, 312–15 Latin America, 8, 112, 175, 306–7, 443, 475, 481, 483 Lebanon, 370 legal system, 350, 357, 359, 473 Levy, A., 5, 137, 144–8 linguistic approaches, 10, 244 linguistic diversity, 45–7, 175, 360, 378, 398, 400 list models, 57, 62, 64 marriage, 9, 189, 191, 215, 324, 352, 354, 356–7, 359, 361, 386 mass migration, 148, 330, 415

537

Mediacom–itim study, 99, 112 methodologies collaborative, 211 ethical, 212 indigenous, 179, 210 intersectional, 214–16 queer, 213 reflexive, 211–12 Mexico, 8, 11, 307, 310–12, 389, 435–7 Minkov, M., 4, 52, 97–9, 102–3, 105–6, 111–14 modernity, 23–4, 28–30, 72, 217, 436, 438, 450 monoculturality, 2, 70, 80, 178, 281, 289, 305, 371, 507 multiculturality, 68–71, 73, 77 multidisciplinarity, 125–6 multilingualism, 3, 36, 45–9, 126, 155, 264–6, 376, 410 Netherlands, 373, 399, 402–3 nexus analysis, 5, 121, 123–4, 126–8 nomad, 448 Norway, 105, 374 Obama, B., 85, 88–9 Oliver, J. F. A., 273 Open City, 5, 137, 144, 148, 150 othering, 10, 43, 137, 156, 281, 294, 299, 389, 396–7, 400, 477–8, 482 persuasion, 199, 255, 406 Peru, 11, 438–40 pluralism, 355, 360 plurality, 5, 18, 143, 147, 150, 178, 197, 350 poetics, 266, 268, 412, 414–16, 419, 423 Poland, 5, 74, 158, 160, 162–3, 312, 407, 411 politeness theory, 243, 246, 248, 250–4 positivism, 21, 218, 521, 528, 533 postcolonial perspectives, 22, 73, 214 postcolonialism, 86, 206–7 power relations, 2, 6, 39, 86, 173, 272, 389, 528 pragmatics, 37–8, 246, 251, 253 pseudo-anonymity, 88, 90 psychoanalytic reading, 5, 72, 156, 159, 164, 166 public policy, 9, 205, 350, 352–7, 359, 361 reciprocity, 60, 125, 420, 509, 511 re-entry, 172, 335, 342–4 reflective writing, 343 relativism, 78–9, 193–5, 521–2, 524, 528–9 resistance, 10, 91, 149, 151, 156, 163, 179, 206, 208, 236, 292, 389, 413, 427, 454, 457, 499 rhizomatic approach, 124, 126–7, 130, 132 Russia, 106, 232, 287, 306, 311, 391, 514 Said, E. W., 43, 210, 388 Schwartz Value Orientations, 99 second language, 8, 40, 335, 374, 401, 406, 479 Single Story, 136 Small Island, 5, 137, 144–8 social work practice, 8, 319–20, 331 sociological approaches, 8, 170 South Africa, 87 South Korea, 11, 476–89

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Index Spain, 8, 11, 97, 306, 309, 311, 326–7, 329–30, 354, 359, 475–6, 481–3, 487 speech act, 249 structural models, 56, 62 study abroad programme, 8, 335, 338 Sweden, 105, 236, 370, 372, 378, 401 symbolic order, 156, 162

United Kingdom, 397, 402, 412 United States, 6, 19, 57, 85, 87–9, 101, 155, 158, 161, 175, 178, 189, 206–7, 213–14, 218, 234, 236–7, 287, 289, 291, 311, 325, 344, 353, 355, 359, 367, 370–1, 386, 389, 494, 507, 525 user-generated content, 88, 90, 92

The Family Tree, 310 The Jewish Gauchos, 307–8 transculturality, 3, 24, 68–76, 78, 279 transfer approach, 3, 36, 47 transfer competence, 60 transnationality, 10, 432–3, 435 Trompenaars, F., 41, 383, 389 Trump, D., 23, 88, 90 Turkey, 370, 452

Van Dijk, T. A., 39 Vietnam, 390 Welzel, C., 97–8, 108–10 Wodak, R., 39 World Values Survey, 99, 112 Zaimoglu, F., 262, 265–6, 448, 455–7 Zephaniah, B., 10, 412–14, 416–17, 419–27

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