Intercultural Communication Education: Broken Realities and Rebellious Dreams (SpringerBriefs in Education) 9811915881, 9789811915888

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SpringerBriefs in Education Fred Dervin · Andreas Jacobsson

Intercultural Communication Education Broken Realities and Rebellious Dreams

SpringerBriefs in Education

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Fred Dervin · Andreas Jacobsson

Intercultural Communication Education Broken Realities and Rebellious Dreams

Fred Dervin Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland

Andreas Jacobsson University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden

ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Education ISBN 978-981-19-1588-8 ISBN 978-981-19-1589-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Praise for Intercultural Communication Education

“With this refreshing take on interculturality, Dervin and Jacobsson invite researchers and educators alike to abandon the ‘monotonous monotony of interculturalspeak’ and to think outside the box of established ideas and methodologies that have now become hegemonic. This is an engaging and much needed book that will inspire interculturalists to rethink and to reimagine what it means to be reflexive and critical, and to challenge Eurocentric assumptions still plaguing much intercultural research.” —Giuliana Ferri, Department of Education, Brunel University London, UK “Beyond offering an invitation to think, this generous book advocates pluralizing our ways of working on the question of interculturality, inter-subjectively, employing the human sciences, and applying the notion to our educational practices (and vice versa). The book represents an inspiring program, structured by the two authors in an original way throughout. By weaving together different genres (syntheses, essays, dreams, dialogue, schematizations and even a decisive ‘brushstroke’), they invite the readers in their turn to take the risk of making their voices and their multiple languages heard differently for ‘interculturalizing interculturality’ sustainably in the first quarter of the 21st century.” —Muriel Molinié, Sorbonne University (EA 2288 DILTEC), France “This timely contribution from two leading critical scholars in intercultural communication education is an engaging appeal for the field to move beyond the hegemony of existing Western or Euro-centric normative paradigms of interculturality, giving insights into how this might be done. The book proposes a fundamentally anti-positivist, critical approach, aiming to upset existing power relations in the field—even among critical scholars—by taking into account the multiple voices still too often suppressed, from various disciplines and areas of life experience, in a ‘multipolar’ or a ‘polycentric’ fashion. Dervin and Jacobsson’s plea to depict and construct ‘the interculturality of interculturality’ will resonate with all those who

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Praise for Intercultural Communication Education

wish to decentre current ideologies in the field, to go further in understanding and seeking to confront, with intellectual humility, dissonant voices and visions from around the world.” —Alex Frame, University of Burgundy, France “Dervin and Jacobsson shed light on the complex notion of interculturality. By bringing up how interculturality is discussed, co-constructed and advocated in different parts of the world and in different languages, they urge the readers to question their own ideologies. Beautifully framed into three tableaux and two dreams, the book is inspiring, and calls for more authentic curiosity and interdisciplinarity.” —Annelise Ly, Norwegian School of Economics, Norway

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interculturalising Interculturality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How the Book is Organised . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 3 4 6

2 Tableau 1: The Brushstroke of Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Interculturality on the Global Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Unipolar Order of the Brushstroke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Potential Consequences of the Brushstroke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3 Tableau 2: Problematic Realities: Interculturality from the Past—But Still with Us? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Otherisation/Culturalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scientism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eurocentrism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beyond ‘Doing Good’? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25 26 28 32 34 36

4 Tableau 3: Are Critical Approaches to Interculturality Contributing to Interculturalising Interculturality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 5 Dream 1: Polycentric Alternatives: Thinking and Analysing Fiction and Actuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Scenes from an African Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diversity of Empirical Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Polycentric Approaches to Intercultural Communication Education . . . . . . Part 2: Actual Scenes from a Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Curiosity and Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55 55 56 58 61 62 65 66

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Contents

6 Dream 2: Verblendungen (Bedazzlement) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From a Thousand Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Encountrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beyond Shadow Puppets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cherishing the Wealth of the Incomprehensible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69 74 76 78 81 84

7 Conclusion: Let’s Dream Together! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5 Fig. 6.6 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3

Glocal ritornellos of interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The unipolar order of the brushstroke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teaching and researching interculturality: examining ritornellos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘Critical’ ritornellos of interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The beehive of alternative ritornellos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The caging of interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Verblendungen (Dedazzlement) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From a thousand points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Encountrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beyond shadow puppets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wealth of the incomprehensible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andreas’s dream of polycentrism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Keywords in Fred’s dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The reverse brushstroke of interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9 11 19 42 48 71 74 74 76 79 81 88 89 92

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List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 7.1

Voices used in the paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andreas’s and Fred’s dreams compared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter frames the book by introducing its main topic and its structure. Starting from the argument that there is still an infinite amount to say about interculturality, the introduction reminds the reader that the notion is multifaceted, polysemic and, at times, it serves as an empty signifier in education, research and politics. Faced with this extreme complexity—which students and scholars often ignore—the authors explain that the book is meant to help reflect on how to make interculturality as a notion more intercultural (or to interculturalise interculturality). The structure of the book is presented as follows: it is built around three tableaus (living descriptions) summarizing and problematising the way interculturality is used and constructed today in education and research and two dreams written separately by the authors to unthink and rethink intercultural communication education. Finally the authors explain that the book is based on multifaceted dialogues between themselves and the readers (each chapter ends with questions to the reader), and with other global disciplines of knowledge and the arts. Keywords Multifacetedness · Interculturalize · Unthink · Interdisciplinarity · Dialogues · Complexity In Molloy Beckett (1955: 188) writes: “When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line.” Working on the ‘forest’ (jungle?) of interculturality today often gives us the impression to go through the same motions: we (feel) we are going forward in straight lines while, at the same time, going in a circle. Considering the complexities of ‘doing’ interculturality as both social beings and scholars, maybe this is not surprising. However, becoming aware of these motions is already a first step towards making a change for interculturality. There is an infinite amount to say about interculturality and publications on the notion and its derivatives (intercultural competence, intercultural awareness, intercultural citizenship, amongst others) are plethora. Often used as a deus ex machina, what the notion refers to, what it occasions and how to ‘do’ it are also questions for which a multitude of answers are provided in English and other languages around the world. At times, interculturality seems to mean everything and nothing at the same © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and A. Jacobsson, Intercultural Communication Education, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5_1

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time. And like Kharms’s (2007: 41) man, interculturality often appears to be inexistent in the way it is discussed, constructed and described: “There lived a redheaded man who had no eyes or ears. He didn’t have hair either, so he was called a redhead arbitrarily. He couldn’t talk because he had no mouth. He had no nose either. He didn’t even have arms or legs. He had no stomach, he had no back, he had no spine, and he had no innards at all. He didn’t have anything. So we don’t even know who we’re talking about.” Kharms (2007: 41) finishes his description by suggesting that “It’s better that we don’t talk about him [the redheaded man] any more.” However, we believe that we must still talk about interculturality again and again, to describe its (imagined and ideologically imposed) components, the glocal (global + local) conversations about it and, most importantly, the silences around the notion (what is not said in what is uttered about interculturality). So interculturality is not self-evident and no single ‘platonic essence’ (e.g. culturalism, non-/anti-essentialism, democratic culture) could ever inform us of its real complexity. The plurality of essences in research and education derives from the fact that interculturality is not a reality as such but an ideology—or a wide range of ideologies. As Wodak (2015: 5) puts it for the concept of discourse, we could say that interculturality is “a dynamic semiotic entity that is open to reinterpretation and continuation”. As we shall see in this book, some ‘major’ ideologies do dominate the world of research and education and ‘force’ thousands of scholars, educators, and students to deal with the notion ‘machinelike’: do as you are told! Don’t ask questions! Don’t question our ideologies! And don’t complain! The diversity of ‘essences’ is actually a good thing. The fact that interculturality can mean different things and connote differently in many parts of the world should enrich our ways of thinking about it. When one or two ideologies, from the ‘West’, dominate the ways we (pretend to) speak to each other about interculturality, it becomes a problem. When interculturality as a ‘thing’ is named by means of one or two dominating and pseudo-universalising ideologies, to paraphrase Artaud (in Derrida & Thévenin, 1998: 43), “it is a dead thing, and it’s dead because it is set apart …”. That ‘thing’ then becomes a simple litany, a solid form of ideology, of ‘order’ (Roucek, 1944). As mentioned earlier, currently the following (opposed) ‘platonic essences’ seem to dominate the field and to be rehearsed in projects, publications and teaching: culturalism, democratic culture, and the more ‘critical’ non/anti-essentialism. Culturalism is, in brief, using culture as an excuse, as an alibi to explain what individuals do when they meet others. Usually their ‘national’ culture is turned into a being that acts and thinks in certain ways—instead of the real concrete individuals. Democratic culture is the new political Trojan horse of the Council of Europe, supported by top UK scholars, together with groups of local European colleagues. Born out of the 2015 ‘migrant crisis’ in Europe, the concept replaced the ideology of intercultural competence as a clear message to those threatening ‘European values’. Finally, non-essentialism (opposing essentialism or the reduction of the other to an essence, to a core ‘imagined’ identity), and its companion anti-essentialism (which does not mean the same since it does not make believe that essentialism can be avoided but asks for its awareness, see Dervin, 2016), represent

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reactions to the ideology of culturalism and/or ‘European’ ideologies like democratic culture. However, they fall short of their criticisms since they are still very much anchored in dichotomies, ‘Western’ ideologism (i.e. pushing through ‘orders’ emitted from the West) and appear to be too ‘romantic’ (can one be non-essentialist as a social being? Can one not categorise, limit the other and self to simplified entities?). All these three dominating ideologies do not necessarily lead to antagonism between their supporters, who rarely enter into meaningful dialogues, all cultivating their own ‘tribes’ on their own territories (although e.g. non-essentialists might accuse—see insult—others of being ‘bad essentialists!’). Those who use their ‘essences’ tend to use them unreflexively, falling into the trap of oversimplifying them and reproducing their interculturalspeak in a “mummified” form. As such, we recently heard from a supporter of the democratic culture ideology that “China must implement democratic culture in the way she teaches interculturality”. When asked what this meant, our interlocutor was unable to define and problematise the link between democratic culture and interculturality beyond the mantra of human rights…

Interculturalising Interculturality? Our book urges researchers and educators to interculturalise interculturality. This tautology corresponds to our endeavour to complexify the way interculturality is discussed, expressed, (co-)constructed and advocated in different parts of the world and in different languages. To interculturalise interculturality is to expand exponentially the way we deal with the notion as an object of scientific and educational discourse, noting the dominating voices and allowing for (auto-hetero-)silenced voices that are rarely heard around interculturality to emerge. In the word interculturality the prefix inter- is probably the most important element. It refers to in-betweenness, change happening when we meet and interact with others. Interculturalising interculturality is in this sense enriching the way we think about interculturality, identifying the problems that we face in/directly through confronting our ideologies (the ‘orders’ we have been given about how to research and educate for interculturality) with other ideologies. It is not about ‘swallowing’ blindly other influences but about weighing consciously the pros and cons of other ways of engaging with the notion intellectually, emotionally, politically, economically, scientifically, etc. and to decide what to take (or not), and more important interculturalising is about viewing one’s own ideologies from a ‘stranger’ position— to step back and to look into one’s ‘own interculturality’ through the reflection of an other’s interculturality. Interculturalising is thus also about asking questions, without always providing answers (especially just one answer). Actually, problems of interculturality tend to be somewhat similar around the world (e.g. how to treat someone who appears different from/similar to me?) and yet the solutions to these problems will be very different depending on the ideologies one follows, the ways one conceptualises self and other, difference and similarity, etc.

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An interculturalised interculturality is not about imposing universal values either, it is rather about analysing different interpretations of said values. The neutralisation of (Western) universalism is a major problem in our field. By imposing models of implied universal functionality upon the world entails a superficial reduction of economic, colonial, political and ideological differences to “objective” cultural values. The influential Dutch organisational psychologist Geert Hofstede (1928– 2020) passed away recently. It is now time for interculturality to lay Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to rest in the past history of the field, as a remnant of a time when interculturality was fully Westernised… Finally, interculturalising interculturality is not about kindness and tolerance, it is about analysing and understanding interculturality from different perspectives. With that said we should as ‘interculturalising’ researchers show respect for research in our field and other fields by actually engaging with and reading the studies that are published, and entering into scholarly critical dialogues without dismissing certain voices. Instead of striving for universal and objective perspectives we should apply a radical contextualisation, where we look more closely at the different contexts from different angles.

How the Book is Organised This book is based on broken realities and (our) rebellious dreams. As two researchers and educators with a long experience of examining discourses of interculturality, somewhat tired of the current monotonous monotony of interculturalspeak in global research (see our reference to litanies before), we consider this book to represent a programme for the future of intercultural communication education. As in all our recent publications, we do pay a lot of attention to the way things are uttered and constructed as far as interculturality is concerned. We are reassured by the richness of different languages to help us unthink and rethink interculturality. As Canetti put it: “How can I be bored as long as I know words?” (1989: 122). Words in different languages are discussed in the book to save us from the monotony of global interculturalspeak that often gives us an illusion of the universalism of interculturality. Gluck (2009: 20) reminds us about this aspect that “Words are always in motion, and as they move across space and time, they inscribe the arcs of our past and present”. The book is divided into three tableaus and two dreams. The word tableau comes from French for living picture (tableau vivant), i.e. a picturesque description of a well-known scene. Each tableau engages with one aspect of intercultural research and education that we have observed in the complex field of interculturality. Tableau 1 is entitled The brushstroke of interculturality. Using the metaphor of the brushstroke leaving a large stain first on paper and making thin lines until it fades while moving away from the first point of contact, we describe how the global field of interculturality functions, the problems it experiences and creates for those whose voices are marginalised (with the fading away of the brushstroke). We also explain

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how dominating ‘ritornellos’ (refrains, tunes) of interculturality, with their prechewed macdonalized ‘lyrics’, influence the whole world in the way the notion is constructed and ‘done’ in education. Supported by e.g. powerful supranational institutions, the creators of these ritornellos reject indirectly alternatives to their ideologies and fake generosity while demonstrating neo-colonial engagement with e.g. the Global South. The Tableau ends with recommendations as to how one can prepare e.g. students to become aware of and act against the global ideological outlook of interculturality. Tableau 2, Problematic realities: Interculturality from the past—but still with us?, complements Tableau 1 by reviewing three aspects of today’s research on interculturality that we argue deserve to be confronted: Otherisation/Culturalisation, Scientism, and Eurocentrism. Canonical concepts and ideas such as Edward T. Hall’s “high context and low context cultures”, Milton Bennett’s model of “cultural sensitivity”; and Michel Byram’s model of “intercultural competence”, are presented as good representatives of these problems. The Tableau also deals with the stubborn illusion of research as being a-political and objective and still ‘culturalising’ intercultural communication education. The Tableau ends on first hints at decolonizing interculturality. In Tableau 3 so-called ‘critical’ perspectives on interculturality (e.g. nonessentialism) are reviewed against the idea of interculturalising interculturality. The Tableau reveals many problems with such approaches: they are far too idealistic; their essence is still very much ‘Westerncentric’; and their criticality appears to be arrogant (without much reflexivity) at times. Having now become major ritornellos in their own right, these critical perspectives look increasingly like unfair and fruitless initiatives—we talk about their ‘limited rupture’ in the Tableau. A certain number of ritornellos are presented then as additions and companions to enrich knowledge of interculturality: D¯owa education, Minzu education and ‘Afrocentric’ approaches. Two different dreams, one written by each of us separately and without consulting each other, are then proposed. Andreas’s dream (Dream 1) is entitled Polycentric alternatives: Thinking and analysing fiction and actuality. Dream 2 (Fred’s) is based on the German word Verblendungen (Bedazzlement). In these dreams the two authors, in turn, present what they believe would make interculturality a more interesting place to be for both researchers and educators. In his dream Andreas first wishes for interculturalists to be creative and courageous by thinking beyond the established box. Begging for putting an end to the strong positivist objectivity that still lingers on in research and education around interculturality, his dream urges the reader to accept and promote dissensus in the way theory and methods are constructed in the field, to consider engagement with micropolitics and intersectionality as fluid analytical concepts and, more importantly, to aim for real equality in terms of epistemology, politics, the economy and ‘culture’. His personal and professional interests in (audio-visual) fiction lead him to suggest its introduction as a tool for what he calls developing polycentric perspectives. The end goal of Andreas’s dream is for polycentrism to function as a default position for researchers and teachers in intercultural communication education. In his dream of Bedazzlement, Fred first tells us that the dream is momentary and that it will change as he himself evolves in his engagement with interculturality as an

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1 Introduction

object of research and teaching–learning. After highlighting several major problems with interculturality, he proposes to find ways of reversing power relations between the multiple voices discoursing interculturality around the world; to create deliberately a multipolar order of interculturality, listening to as many voices constructing interculturality as possible; to accept, enjoy and request conflicts in encounters about interculturality as an object of research and education; and to dig into the complex meanings of words in different languages. In the conclusion, we discover and compare each other’s dreams and discuss their similarities and differences. This is offered as ‘guidelines’ for the reader to unthink and rethink their own engagement with the notion of interculturality. Finally, each chapter ends on a section called [Take time to reflect], where we list a certain number of questions for our readers to consider and to reflect together with us indirectly (we are also happy to discuss these elements by email and/or if we happen to meet anywhere in the world). This book is for you, the reader, and can only ‘live’ through these indirect encounters between you and us. One of our favourite Chinese words is 气 (qì), which can translate as gas; air; smell; weather; but also to make angry; to annoy; to get angry. In English it is often translated as vital energy or qi. The ideographic of the Chinese character is a person breathing air. We hope that with this book we are able to send vapour, energy to our readers to make interculturality more meaningful, complex and fair in education. Our dialogues with each other, including the surprises and disagreements that they contained in the process of writing this book, have filled us with a lot of ‘vital energy’, which we hope the reader will also benefit from.

References Beckett, S. (1955). Three Novels: Molloy · Malone Dies · The Unnamable. Grove Press. Canetti, E. (1989). The Secret heart of the clock. Farrar Straus Giroux. Derrida, J., & Thévenin, P. (1998). The Secret art of Antonin Artaud. MIT Press. Dervin, F. (2016). Interculturality in education. Palgrave Macmillan. Gluck, C. (2009). Worlds in motion. In C. Gluck & A. L. Tsing (Eds.), Words in motion: Toward a global lexicon (pp. 20–40). Duke University Press. Kharms, D. (2007). Today I wrote nothing. Overlook Duckworth. Roucek, J. S. (1944). A history of the concept of ideology. Journal of the History of Ideas, 5(4), 479–488. Wodak, R. (2015). Critical discourse analysis, discourse-historical approach. In K. Tracy, C. Ilie, & T. Sandel (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction (pp. 1–15). Wiley & Sons.

Chapter 2

Tableau 1: The Brushstroke of Interculturality

Abstract This first chapter (Tableau 1) revolves around the metaphor of the brushstroke of interculturality. It deconstructs and describes how the field of interculturality functions in the world today. A complex notion glocally—meaning in different contexts of our globalised world, interculturality in education and research is dominated however by certain privileged voices that tell the rest of the world how to understand, conceptualise and speak about interculturality. The chapter makes the reader aware of the consequences of the domination of these mostly ‘Western ritornellos’ (tunes) and suggests taking into account other less known ritornellos of interculturality from around the world, to make interculturality more intercultural as an object of research and education—as it should! Some strategies to counterattack this domination are already proposed in this chapter and will be explored further in the next ones: e.g. deconstructing the dominating ritornellos of interculturality by focusing on the use of words and the ideologies they contain in English as a global language and other languages. Keywords Deconstruct · Glocal · Privileged voices · Ritornellos · Ideologies This first chapter aims to give a snapshot of the way interculturality was being constructed and ‘done’ as an object of research and education at the time of writing. The complexity of the object makes it impossible to claim for exhaustivity. A whole lifetime would not even be enough to review all the initiatives available in all corners of the world. There are obvious trends, and some that the authors have been made aware of through their reading and engagement with other international scholars, teachers and students. Let’s venture a first metaphor. For those who write in different languages and use computers purchased in different geopolitical locations, the use of different typing keyboard layouts is familiar. The visual layout of the labels on the keys can differ a lot, especially when one looks at the order of the first keys on the top left row of the keyboard. The de facto standard layout is named QWERTY (for Latinscript alphabets: used in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Spain, amongst others), AZERTY in e.g. Belgium, France; QWERTZ in e.g. Germany, Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary, and Slovenia. Denmark, Finland and Sweden have special letters such as å on their keyboards, Germany ü and Hungary ú. Russian, for example, has the labels © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and A. Jacobsson, Intercultural Communication Education, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5_2

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2 Tableau 1: The Brushstroke of Interculturality

ЙCUKEH (corresponding to Qwerty) on the first keys on the top left row. There are also tens of other kinds of keyboards and it gets even more complicated when one looks at keyboards on smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices. When one is curious about interculturality in research and education around the world, one might face similar diversity, with some overlapping features. We could even argue that interculturality also has its own QWERTY as the dominating ‘plural’ layout around the world. When we discuss interculturality as an object of research and education, we should remember to gauge the keyboard layout we are using—as well as those of the people we read, listen to and speak to…

Interculturality on the Global Stage Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. (Gibran, 2011: 27)

This section will sound tautological in itself but we feel that what it contains still needs to be said. We start with some words about the diversity of perspectives and practices of interculturality, influenced by economic-political forces (amongst others). The uncountable number of potential aggregates of interculturality around the world could be better understood by means of Deleuze and Guattari’s (2004) idea of the ritornello (local, national, glocal ritornellos), with their specific tunes and textures. A ritornello is a refrain, a recurrent musical ‘piece’, which we might be comfortable whistling to relax or spend time in a given (private) place. In their work, Deleuze and Guattari define ritornellos as “any aggregate of matters of expression that draws a territory and develops into territorial motifs and landscapes” (2004: 347). As such different refrains about interculturality can be heard around the world. Ritornellos of interculturality differ in (amongst others) harmony, rhythmic identity, orchestration, melodic behavior. These refrains can be divided into e.g. specific supranational spaces that share somewhat similar ideologies (e.g. the European Union about EU identity; a given set of values that unites its member states), national contexts (e.g. laïcité, securalism in France1 ; multiculturalism as a source of pride in Canada; Minzu relations in Mainland China), and, at times, more regional entities (e.g. Hong Kong’s different take on ‘ethnic’ minorities compared to Mainland China). These economic-political elements might have a clear influence on research and education, although there can be variations within glocal research ritornellos (e.g. culturalist vs. anti-culturalist perspectives that might place a different emphasis on the concept of culture). For example, the EU has been sponsoring tens of projects concerning interculturality and EU identity, with the clear agenda of boosting a 1

In a campaign launched by the French Ministry of Education in August 2021, the ‘values’ (ritornellos) of the French Republic were clearly listed on a poster to be placed in schools around the country: Fraternité, civisme, démocratie, laïcité, liberté, égalité, respect, unité, etc. In China, similar posters with the Core Socialist Values would contain more or less the same….

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sense of belonging to Europe—thus instilling conventional convictions rather than equipping people with tools to unthink and rethink. These different ‘localised’ ritornellos can lead to ‘rituals’ and ‘chants’, that might be different but also share similarities with other ritornellos. They might also change and exchange under the influence of other ritornellos, in macrospaces (e.g.: (inter)nationally) and microcontexts (e.g.: a specific field of research). Deleuze and Guattari (2004) call these phenomena deterritorialization: the ritornellos start to be heard and transformed across separate territories. Figure 2.1 represents a sample of ritornellos as black dots of different sizes with a spinning white ‘cross’ inside—again: there is probably an uncountable number of ritornellos of interculturality. The ritornellos in the middle of the Figure are what we will refer to as dominating the field. These ritornellos are often produced in the ‘West’,

Fig. 2.1 Glocal ritornellos of interculturality

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2 Tableau 1: The Brushstroke of Interculturality

especially in English-speaking countries by White scholars working for prestigious institutions and cooperating with e.g. supranational institutions (see below). The peripheric ritornellos (forming a constellation around the dominating ones) might be located in other spheres, revolving around tunes created in other languages, by influential economic-political entities—be it a company like Microsoft that has invested money into producing a report about bettering intercultural encounters or a supranational institution like the UNESCO. The large rotating white ‘wire’ in the middle indicates that the central ritornellos (from the ‘West’) can influence other more glocal ritornellos in the periphery, advocating their ideologies—and making the glocal blind to these acts of advocacy. As one can see in Fig. 2.1, most ritornellos of interculturality are localized and, although some influence others immensely, dialogues appear to be quasi-absent (or they might appear between dominating ritornellos such as multiculturalists and interculturalists; anecdotally between interculturalidad from South America and ‘western’ interculturality). What is more one can see many localized monologues taking place through most ritornellos: anti-essentialism, postcolonialism, democratic culture, interculturalidad, Minzu, etc. Sometimes, overlaps are attempted, linkages between ritornellos but, to our knowledge, very few such actions have been successful, either because they are opposed politically (e.g. multiculturalism vs. interculturalism) or the forms of other ritornellos that are borrowed are stripped of their ‘real’ tunes and/or textures—and become tokenistic. Let’s try to explain what this all means by venturing another musical simile. LateRomantic Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) wrote a piece called Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) in 1909. A symphonic song cycle, the piece is based on six Chinese poems from the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The cycle was written while Mahler was experiencing some unpleasant life moments—his daughter died a few years earlier and he had been diagnosed with heart problems. The general atmosphere of the song cycle is that of fin de siècle—melancholy, sadness and disillusion. In 2005 Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang composed another version of Das Lied. Although the texts on which the songs are based are the same, the order and translation of the poems differ. What is more Ye added more ‘Chinese’ percussions and recitative song parts. Ye’s focus is on pentatonic scale rather than tonality, and there is clear influence from Peking opera in the piece. Mahler’s piece itself just contained a passage of chinoiserie—i.e. some kind of stereotypical ‘Chinese’ pentatonic texture. The tone of Ye’s piece is also different—not fin de siècle. What he wanted to depict was the grandeur and beauty of the poems. Linguistically speaking, there are also differences. Mahler had relied on a German translation of French translations of the poems, which led to mistranslations and somewhat wrong interpretations of the poems. For example, from Li Bai’s Banquet at Tao Family’s Pavilion, one notices the following issue: The line 曲巷幽人宅 (A winding path leads to Mr Tao’s quiet residence in English), was translated into German (from the French) as Mitten in dem kleinen Teiche, Steht ein Pavillon aus grunem, und auss weissem Porzellan (In the middle of the little pool stands a pavilion of green, and white porcelain) (see Lu, 2017: 19). Mahler was eager to pay homage to the beautiful Tang poems that had

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moved him but both his understanding and their ‘flavours’ as expressed through his music stood far from the intended ambiance of the original poems. Ye commented: “My work is not to challenge Mahler’s, but is an interpretation of the Chinese poetry from our own cultural background (…) While Mahler’s work is full of disillusion and agnosticism, my work is more of a liberated attitude toward life, like that of Li Bai” (China Daily, 2011). Having acquainted ourselves with the specific language, flavours and tunes of the Chinese Minzu (‘ethnic’) ritornello of interculturality over the past few years with our Chinese colleagues, we note that the same issues are to be found in the way many of the Minzu ideas have been invested in research and education in the ‘West’. Both the translation of terms (e.g. Minzu as nationality and/or ethnic group) and the flavours of the words and ideologies appear to be misconstrued (e.g. harmony, unity, development, etc. see Dervin & Yuan, 2021). Interestingly Minzu has never been discussed as potential inspiration for scholarship or education about interculturality worldwide but always within the scope of critiques of Chinese governance and education—Today’s chinoiseries for the ‘West’.

The Unipolar Order of the Brushstroke A system is working when an attempt to transform that system is blocked. Ahmed (2017: 45).

Figure 2.2 is another projection of discourses of interculturality on the global stage. Figure 2.2 represents a brushstroke starting from the left—leaving a big black mark on paper—moving to the right and fading into smaller lines. The big spot left by the brush as it touches the paper contains three squares (three ‘ritornellos’ to use an earlier metaphor), that constitute powerful discourses of interculturality worldwide— today’s global ontology of interculturality. Without any surprise, as we shall see on many occasions, these powerful ritornellos emerge from ‘Westerncentric’ capitalist expansion. As such, the collective power of English-speaking countries such as the

Fig. 2.2 The unipolar order of the brushstroke

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UK and the US is very much obvious in scholarship on interculturality. They have become yardsticks to evaluate and negate other ritornellos—or to justify not taking these ritornellos into account. As the brush moves to the right, the ‘Westerncentric’ ritornellos send out some influencing elements to other ritornellos—systems of thought about interculturality represented by small dots along the fading lines made by the brushstroke on the right. The arrow shows the one-sided movement of influences between the dominant voices and the other ritornellos. Borrowing Mignolo’s (2002) idea, we could say that these together represent the geopolitics of thought about interculturality today. The brushstroke generates a unipolar order of interculturality in the production, consumption and dissemination of intercultural knowledge in research and education, which appears to be somewhat tolerant of other small ritornellos. In fact, the dominating brush mark on the left either ignores or disqualifies other ritornellos— which are then ‘buried’ locally. The grounds are never level in research and education about interculturality. As hinted at earlier, as a simplex notion (both complex and simple, Dervin, 2016), interculturality can mean different things to different people, while, at times, seemingly meaning the same. As a reminder, our goal here is not to define what interculturality is or what it is not. It is not about giving ‘ideological orders’ (Althusser, 2008) about how it should be done, especially in the way we meet the ‘Other’. We note first and foremost that the notion cannot escape from ideology and that it systematically relates to politics and is embedded in ‘governance’ by economic forces, symbolized by the trio of the powerful, the consumer, the excluded (Augé, 2017). Thus, any assertion about interculturality and what it means (or not) and entails (or not) in educational and research contexts relates to these elements. We argue that there is a danger in not recognising this and being transparent about it. As John Cage (in Hewitt, 2011: 466) puts it: “The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.” Why do I use this or that ideology? Why do I find other ideologies ‘ugly’? Working on interculturality in education and research should thus lead to reviewing and analysing the ways the intercultural is constructed, not about e.g. ‘brainwashing’ students and apprentice researchers with one perspective but to make them eager and curious to discover other perspectives and to weigh the pros and cons of these perspectives. The ultimate goal is to help them think about how they wish to ‘do’ the intercultural privately and in e.g. their professional context by making (changing) informed choices. In what follows we talk about the global ideological outlook of interculturality in research and education, of which e.g. students should be made aware. Several components of this outlook, representing aspects of the squares and dots of the brushstroke need to be discussed here. When considering interculturality in both education and research from a global perspective, as said earlier, it is clear that some elements ‘govern’ the way it is ‘done’ and ‘discoursed’. They constitute ideological domination. We see four first elements as representing the ‘powerful’ of interculturalspeak around the world. For Lee (1993:

The Unipolar Order of the Brushstroke

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221), “Problems that receive institutional and financial support over a long period of time are usually those articulated by the powerful”. Thus power, politics and the economically strong (amongst others) ‘govern’ global discourses of interculturality. One important point, represented by ‘global gurus’ located in the dominating ritornellos of interculturality, relates to an article published by Peng et al. (2020) where the authors propose a bibliometric analysis of the knowledge domain of intercultural competence research—one central concept and ideology in interculturality. What the authors find is that the dominating figures in the literature (1. Byram, 2. Deardorff, 3. Kramsch, 4. Hammer, 5. Bennett) are all white, Anglo-Saxon, Englishspeaking scholars, based in American and/or British universities. It is important to note that these ‘gurus’ also work with supra-national institutions which ‘dictate’ how interculturality should be defined, done (taught), and evaluated. They define ritornellos and how they should be sung in ‘the right tune’. This is the case of the first two scholars identified by Peng et al. (2020), Byram and Deardorff, who produce reports, frameworks and textbooks for the Council of Europe, the UNESCO and the OECD, which are used as reference documents around the world. For example, Deardorff’s (2019) Manual for Developing Intercultural Competencies. Story Circles, published by Routledge, is an open access book, sponsored by the UNESCO. It is presented as follows on the publisher’s website: This book presents a structured yet flexible methodology for developing intercultural competence in a variety of contexts, both formal and informal. Piloted around the world by UNESCO, this methodology has proven to be effective in a range of different contexts and focused on a variety of different issues. It, therefore can be considered an important resource for anyone concerned with effectively managing the growing cultural diversity within our societies to ensure inclusive and sustainable development.

This all sounds clearly political—the ‘scientific’ or ‘pedagogical’ being relegated to a second place. The ‘Manual’ is based on a model designed in the US, by an American scholar, and whose ritornello (summarized as “effectively managing the growing cultural diversity within our societies to ensure inclusive and sustainable development”) is imposed as an ‘effective tool’ by a powerful global institution on the rest of the world. Arendt (1972: 8) reminds us: “Half of politics is ‘image-making’, the other half is the art of making people believe the image.” The economic-political cooperation between the ‘gurus’ of interculturality and supranational institutions contributes to making as many people as possible believe in the ‘image’ and ‘order’ of interculturality—the most impactful part of the brushstroke. The symbolic power of institutions such as the UNESCO allows Deardorff’s ritornello to propagate even more amongst other ritornellos, claiming that “this methodology has proven to be effective in a range of different contexts and focused on a variety of different issues”— meaning its ideological bases can be passed onto others… What these ‘gurus’ from the dominating ritornellos also produce (sometimes in cooperation with the aforementioned supranational/regional institutions) is a list of concepts and notions to be used to deal with interculturality. They are part of the refrains that they produce and spread to the world. A quick look at articles on interculturality published in 2021 returned the followings:

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• • • • • • • • • •

2 Tableau 1: The Brushstroke of Interculturality

Anti-non-essentialism Cosmopolitanism Critical intercultural awareness Decolonial Democratic culture Global competence Intercultural citizenship Intercultural competence Linguaculture Third Space.

It is important to note that at the time of writing these terms were circulating in research and education around the world, spreading from the left side of the brushstroke to the other side, and that they might mean different things to different people in different contexts, as we shall see later. What is more these concepts and notions might, at times, be combined with glocal (the local embedded in the global) specificities identified in local ritornellos, especially when interculturality is discussed and implemented in the English language. By glocal interculturalspeak, we refer to particular perspectives on interculturality found in different parts of the world. These include: D¯owa education (Japan), Community of Shared Future (China), Interculturalidad (South America), Interculturalité (French-speaking countries, coupled with laïcité in France), Agonistic Palabre (African procedure: public exchange of discourse destined to mediate conflict), Ubuntu (South Africa). All these together, reviewed briefly here but developed upon in a later chapter, represent a somewhat complex ideological brushstroke of which all those involved in interculturality should be aware.

Potential Consequences of the Brushstroke Let’s discuss now the consequences of the brushstroke, especially in relation to the dominating forces of interculturality. We use four Chinese phrases to describe the problems of the domination of the field of interculturality. We are turning to Chinese phrases for two different reasons: to apply the idea of “critical languaging” (Dervin & Jacobsson, 2021), and to actively interculturalise our examples: 1. 2. 3. 4.

作茧自缚 (Zuòjiˇanzìfù: cocoon oneself like silkworms) (cocooning) 话语权 (Huàyˇu quán: discursive right) (no right to speak) ¯ mà: endure being lectured about what is right concerning intercultur挨骂 (Ai ality) (endure being lectured) 小人同而不和 (Xiˇao rén tóng ér bù hé: “cunning people seems to follow your opinion while they are not friendly to you in their minds”—the villain is in harmony but not in harmony) (Illusion of harmony).

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The first element of cocooning represents an attempt at making us aware of the small group of ideas and ‘gurus’ whose ritornellos dominate the field. They tend to cocoon together, although their ideologies are not always compatible, and their ideologies are passed onto others and reproduced through publications, textbooks and talks sponsored by allies of strong economic forces (publishing companies, supranational institutions but also national research institutions). Interestingly one can sometimes find ramifications to the cocooning, whereby the dominating voices are ‘joined’ by somewhat ‘minor’, ‘alternative’ or ‘politically acceptable’ voices. In articles we have reviewed for academic journals, we have noticed that many authors include a mix of voices, which can constitute what we label as ‘ideological mélange’: e.g. Banks, Bourdieu, Byram, Council of Europe, Freire, Gandhi, Hofstede, Holiday, Huntington, Obama, UNESCO. Obviously, the amalgamation of different voices is not a problem as such. In fact, maybe, this is what interculturality should be about. However, a patchwork of voices can be problematic if many of the ideologies represented by the voices do not necessarily go hand in hand (e.g. Holiday vs. Hofstede; Bourdieu vs. Byram). What is more many political ideologies can be hidden in these references (and their mix) and remain undiscussed and unproblematized, which could create a situation whereby ideologies are imposed without awareness/consent. Finally, we often feel that the use of ‘alternative’ voices, ‘knowledge’, is tokenistic, rather than transformative (e.g. Freire). By the end of the day the resulting ideological brushstroke could be confusing, while certain voices from the cocooning still continue to dominate. As a transition to the next consequences, let’s listen to what the British biochemist, historian and sinologist Joseph Needham (1969: 11) has to say about this cocooning, which he describes as ‘pride and prejudice’: Many people in Western Europe and European America suffer from what may be called spiritual pride. They are firmly convinced that their own form of civilization is the only universal form. In deep ignorance of the intellectual and social conceptions and traditions of other peoples, they think it quite natural to impose upon them their own ideas and customary practices, whether of law, of democratic society, or of political institutions. Yet they propagate a culture which is somewhat self-contradictory, for Europe has never fully succeeded in reconciling the material and the spiritual, the rational and the romantic. And their way of life tends to corrode and destroy those of neighbouring cultures, some of which may embody saner values.

The second consequence is entitled 话语权 (Huàyˇu quán: discursive right), which we translate in the negative as “no right to speak”. In many fields of research, the danger of the domination of the powerful to produce knowledge has been discussed extensively. In intercultural research and education, many do not have any ‘discursive rights’, many do not think that they have 话语权 and thus use the dominating ritornellos (either in the way they are meant to be understood and/or in modified versions) to do research and teach interculturality. We note that, at times, 话语权 is given to scholars and practitioners from outside the centre, the cocoon, but only if they rehearse and agree with the powerful. Needham (1969: 4), again, summarizes well this issue:

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2 Tableau 1: The Brushstroke of Interculturality Chinese, Indian, and Arabic studies are even now the Cinderellas of Western European universities, and often treated, if and when pursued, as the investigation of dead things irrelevant to the modem world. British speakers have been heard to maintain that since we alone understand true democracy it is our duty to impose our conceptions even by force upon the non-European inhabitants at least of colonial territories – yet they admitted, upon being asked, that they had never heard of the panchayat, or the asabiyah of Ibn Khaldun; of Mencian authority for tyrannicide, the civil service examinations of the Thang dynasty, or the Yü Shih Pu (the ‘Censorate’).

In his book Sinologism: An Alternative to Orientalism and Postcolonialism, Gu (2015) provides further important points about discursive rights. Sinologism is defined first as “a theory of knowledge production about China, guided by Westerncentric ideology, epistemology, methodology, and Western perspectives” (2015: 6). Beside Gu notes that misperceptions and misrepresentations of knowledge about China have also been produced by some Chinese themselves—as an extra layer of misunderstanding! He labels this phenomenon as “colonized people’s role in the perpetuation of colonized mentality and self-colonization” (2015: 2). As far as scholarship and education related to interculturality are concerned one could see a similar trend: the cocooning of the ‘gurus’ and the lack of discursive rights of some scholars and educators represented by the small dots along the small lines created by the brushstroke, can also lead them to follow the ‘master’s voice’ and to turn their own ritornellos out of tune… The third consequence of the brushstroke is symbolized by the idea of ai ma, or enduring being lectured, here about what is right concerning interculturality. In recent years research on interculturality has been increasingly politicised—while pretending not to be. Concepts and notions such as democratic culture, human rights, citizenship, have been introduced in the field. These highly political, but also glocal, notions and concepts are polysemic, and they turn a ‘localised’ ritornello from Europe into a dominant refrain in education. They tend to be used as ideological orders as to what and how interculturality should be. They tell us how to read interculturality. Only certain ways of understanding and ‘doing’ them are then put forward as acceptable, thus neglecting the opinion and conceptualisations of the ‘Other’—other ritornellos. When these are used by the ‘Other’ in research and education they can produce what we could call schizophrenic perspectives, whereby opposed politico-economic perspectives are combined. For example, in the Core Socialist Values of China the ideas of justice, democracy and freedom are very much present. What they mean and entail may overlap or oppose the use of similar words in e.g. the European context (as in the idea of democratic culture pushed forward by the Council of Europe, using powerful ‘Gurus’ such as Byram to promote it). Another important consequence, which will be discussed repeatedly in our book is that no dissensus, no disagreement is allowed on issues raised by the ‘gurus’ and sustained by supranational institutions. Space for dialogue is not even provided. Dialogue here refers to the Greek etymology of the term: from dia, across, between + legein, to speak. Without space for ‘speaking across’, multiple ritornellos are silenced, disqualified or unheard. For a large amount of others, their capacities to think about interculturality otherwise are denied.

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The last Chinese idea that we use to describe the consequences of the brushstroke relates to language use, and goes hand in hand with the three previous points: 小人同 而不和 (Xiˇao rén tóng ér bù hé: the villain is in harmony but not in harmony). This we call the Illusion of harmony. Many similar words to talk about interculturality are used around the world in English and other languages. However, their connotations and flavours may not allow juxtapositions, making their users unaware of their potential ideological and political colours. Let us just take two apparently simple words in Chinese and English, used at times to talk about interculturality: Tolerance and Tourist. Tolerance in Europe refers to a positive act of opening to the other and ‘accepting’, ‘tolerating’ deviance in the way they might behave/think, etc. We don’t have time to discuss here the problem posed by the term as an educational, intercultural term (see e.g.: Brown & Forst, 2014). In Chinese the word tolerance has at least two different terms: 包容 (bao rong) and 承受 (cheng shou). Bao rong is composed of bao for to cover; to wrap; to hold; to include; to take charge of (with an ideographic of swaddling a baby) and rong for to hold; to contain; to allow; to tolerate; appearance; look; countenance. In English 包容 could translate as to pardon, to forgive, to show tolerance and is somewhat close to today’s understanding of tolerance in many parts of the world. Chengshou is divided into 承 (ideographic: three hands lifting a dead body) for to bear; to carry; to hold; to continue; to undertake; to take charge; owing to; due to; to receive and 受 (ideographic: something 冖 passed from one hand 爫 to another 又) which means to receive; to accept; to suffer; subjected to; to bear; to stand. Two different terms, two different flavours. When we use the word tolerance in English to discuss interculturality, which of the two a Chinese speaker might refer to implicitly? The word Tourist in English is not necessarily positive today, especially when opposed to the idea of travel. In Chinese the word is 观光客 (Gu¯angu¯ang kè); 观 means to look at; to watch; to observe; to behold; to advise; concept; point of view; outlook and has the ideographic to see 见 again 又. Interestingly 观 is also found in the adjective for objective and impartial in Chinese: 客观. 光 (guang) means light, ray, with the ideographic of a person 儿 carrying a torch 火. 客 (ke) refers to customer; visitor; guest. Its ideographic is a person 各 welcomed under one’s roof (宀). Connotation-wise, in Chinese, the tourist is not deemed ‘stupid’, ‘ignorant’ or ‘a sheep’ but a visitor, a guest, see even a traveller. The idea of ‘objectivity’ is attached to it, which means that, in English, the word tourist might not be ‘flavoured’ the same way by a Chinese speaker. Another problem related to ai mai rests in the use of concepts, notions and ideologies from the West (ritornellos), imposed onto another context without reflecting on the kind of imposition that it represents. Let us take an example to illustrate. In the ‘West’ today, the idea of cultural appropriation is a negative phrase used to describe an ideology (a ritornello) whereby someone is criticized for adopting the fashion, iconography, trends, or styles from another ‘culture’. Many stars from the West have fallen under this criticism for wearing e.g. a Japanese style dress, elements of Black American culture. The term is often used to refer to ‘White’ people borrowing from people of other races, who, in the ‘West’, are often treated unequally and in

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discriminatory ways. In the Chinese context, this concept is unknown and hard to understand since cultural appropriation is not problematized the same way. Instead of appropriation, adopting the fashion, iconography, trends, etc. from another culture is often described as acceptance, paying respect to, tolerance. The following Chinese students comment on this ‘Western’ way of thinking about this phenomenon as follows: Student 1: “Cultural appropriation” is something new I learned in this class. It means the act of using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture. But there are few such conflicts between different ethnic groups (民族 Minzu) in China, and the Chinese don’t care. Experiencing national (Minzu) costumes and customs is very popular in China, even if you haven’t heard of it before. On the other hand, it is acceptable for people who do not speak English to wear clothes printed with English phrases (the so-called cultural shirt mentioned in class), for Chinese people to celebrate Western Christmas and Valentine’s Day, etc. As a result, The Chinese concept of culture is more practical and, to some extent, more open than in the West, I think.”. Student 2: “I don’t think cultural appropriation is always nasty and hostile. In China, we are willing to wear other Minzu’s or other countries’ traditional costumes as our way to show our friendliness and respect to their culture. So maybe this problem related to the not so accurate definition or my misunderstanding”.

It is easy to see how clashes of ideologies (ritornellos?) could happen if examples of such cultural borrowings are discussed without opening up what they mean to the Chinese versus the ‘West’. It is thus important to enter into dialogues about ‘localised’ ritornellos to allow us to avoid such unfounded clashes that derive from different ways of engaging with meeting people from other cultures. What all the consequences of the brushstroke of interculturality point at is that there is a need to Interculturalise interculturality. Doing this consists in recognizing and working towards the meaningful reflection on and inclusion of diverse ritornellos or multiple ways of thinking about what interculturality is and what it entails. Figure 2.3 shows what this means in methodological terms when teaching (and researching) interculturality. For Alatas (2006: 84), “Alternative discourses constitute a revolt against intellectual imperialism”. Dominating ritornellos do represent intellectual imperialism! Alatas (2006) proposes that alternative discourses have as a starting point the critique of Eurocentrism, Orientalism—we can add Sinologism here (see above). Alternative discourses can allow us to: • reconstruct scientific discourses and the development of concepts relevant to local/regional conditions; • recognize that any part of the world can serve as sources of ideas; • while, at the same time, they do not favour rejecting ‘Western’ social sciences. The author defines alternative discourses as “those which are informed by local/regional historical experiences and cultural practices in Asia in the same way that the Western social sciences are. Being alternative means a tum to philosophies, epistemologies, histories, and the arts other than those of the Western tradition. These are all to be considered as potential sources of social science theories and concepts,

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Deconstruc ng the domina ng ritornellos of interculturality

Opening up to and combining ritornellos

Reviewing the 'tunes' of interculturality

Fig. 2.3 Teaching and researching interculturality: examining ritornellos

which would decrease academic dependence on the world social science powers” (Alatas, 2006: 82). Dealing with the brushstroke means identifying and deconstructing the dominating ideologies, reviewing the terms that are used to talk about them and then to open up and combine (if possible) them with alternative ritornellos. In our work with Chinese specialists of interculturality, we deem it to be important to reflect on how we talk about intercultural issues in our own languages and other languages so we can talk to each other. Otherwise, as discussed above, we might speak ‘emptily’ to each other—ritornellos floating past each other. The idea, of course, is not to ‘silence’ the powerful—this would not make much sense, the powerful will always talk for and over the powerless. The idea is thus to prepare to see how they can try to move closer to each other by negotiating meanings about interculturality by listening to other voices/ourselves, listening to silences/silenced voices, listening to automatisms (when words and ideas are used like automats without questioning them, like ‘ritornellos’), observing how things appear to be versus multiple uses and interpretations, unthinking and rethinking together different meanings versus ‘realities’. This also means accepting that ‘our’ views about what interculturality is, are not the ‘right’ ones, accepting defeat at times (being wrong), consenting to look in the mirror, tolerating constant change, flexibility, and finally, acknowledging that any utterance on interculturality is… ideological (even so-called ‘critical’ discourses of interculturality as we shall see later on in the book). The following questions can be considered when we come across a specific ritornello:

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• Where does the approach come from? • How was it created and by whom? What information about the authors can be identified? • What political and economic influences? What ideologies? • What concepts are used in the approach? What and whose definitions? • Do we know how to translate these concepts into other languages? What words are difficult to translate? Why? • What are the problems with this approach in different contexts? Are the ideologies compatible with the ideologies of your country, of your institution? Can the ritornellos they constitute be combined in a somewhat coherent and consistent way? • How do people see these perspectives in other contexts? • What criticisms have been made of this intercultural model? Linguistically this means focusing on e.g. etymological work (the archaeology of words, i.e. their origins, shifts in meaning), translation (communicating the meanings of a text between different languages) and the way many and varied ideologies are embedded in these processes. Our goal could be to allow language to reflect a certain fluidity of discourses about interculturality, which can lead to renewed power relations in the way interculturality is constructed as an object of research and education. Cassin’s (2016) idea of the untranslatables, becomes rewarding then. Untranslatables are not what we cannot translate but what we must translate unceasingly to ensure dialogues amongst people who speak different languages. We can then look into specific phrases, notions and terms used in certain languages to talk about interculturality and discuss their untranslatability in other languages. For example, in Chinese: • • • • • • • •

尊重 (z¯unzhòng: ‘respect’) 沟通交流 (g¯out¯ong ji¯aoliú: ‘communication’) 仁 (rén:‘benevolence’) 和而不同 (hé ér bùtóng: ‘harmony but different’) 以和为贵 (iˇı hé wéi gu: ‘harmony is the most precious’) 文化渗透 (wénhuà shèntòu: ‘cultural penetration’) 多元化 (du¯oyuán huà: ‘diversification’/superdiversity?) 文化 自信 (wénhuà zìxìn: ‘cultural (self-)confidence’).

About the last phrase: Cultural (self-)confidence. It is central in today’s Chinese discourses of interculturality, we could discuss the use of both cultural and confidence and consider alternatives while examining how other contexts frame such ideas. For instance, in Finland the idea of ‘national self-esteem’ was identified in one of the objectives of the 2011 nation branding of the Nordic country in: “Raising the national self-esteem of Finns”. Why confidence in the English version of the Chinese and selfesteem in Finland? Why cultural in China and national in Finland? What do these tell us about the way interculturality is conceptualised in the two contexts? There is a deceptive agreement lurking in the fact that we are using similar terms in different languages since the interpretation of the ideas behind the terms may

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differ greatly, here interculturalized interculturality starts to make perfect sense: to dig deep into the polysemic terminology in different contexts. One could also reflect on the omnipresent use of the words civilization and civilised in China. In most Western societies, the word civilization is not used for political and historical reasons. The following slogans in Chinese and English were noted at a tourist site in Inner Mongolia, in the north of China. What do they mean? What would they mean to a foreigner? And what might these reveal about the flavours of the word civilization in the Chinese language versus the English translation? • 文明是最美的风景: Civilization is the most beautiful scenery • 文明游天军 快乐你我他: Civilized tour around the world cheers you and me • 旅途漫漫交明祖伴: Bring civilization with long journey. What can be learnt from these perspectives is that a given term, concept or notion related to interculturality is not ‘universally’ accepted as a (part of a) ritornello and not invented by the ‘West’; never a neutral choice; potentially polysemic in one language and across languages; related to ideologies and specific (sometimes global) economic-political ideologies, and based on a specific view of history and geography (amongst others). The centrality of interculturalising of interculturality, beyond ‘speech acts’, “not bringing about the effects that they name”, declaring an openness to other ways of thinking about interculturality (Ahmed, 2006: 104), is needed more than ever. The point that we make above about the complexity of literal translation is thus a very important point to incorporate in a discussion of interculturalising intercultural research. Relying on English as an academic lingua franca has its communicative advantages but it is also afflicted with some major problems. The “communicative relativism” that Piller (2017) discusses as a core concept for intercultural communication is not made redundant just because a majority of intercultural research studies are published in English. That the ritornello of interculturalidad from South America is not the same as another ritornello of interculturality is just one of a myriad of potential distinctions that we have to make if we are serious about regarding interculturality as “relational processes of diversity”, from a global perspective. The polysemy of languages has to a certain degree been sacrificed in the contemporary anglophone academic system. Gradually the importance of languages has been reduced just for the sake of practicality. But this is of course not the whole story, the global dominance of English is connected to the overarching historical process of colonisation and functions as a gatekeeper for Western, or rather Anglo-North American, dominance in academia. Proficiency in English has to some extent become more important than the actual research that is performed. This has for example resulted in the absurd effect that researchers with English as their first language are automatically regarded as “better” scholars. This is a very problematic fallacy and as we have argued elsewhere (Dervin & Jacobsson, 2021), there is no obvious correlation between having a first language and being a scholar. To counter this development to interculturalise intercultural research we have to engage in critical and reflexive languaging (Dervin & Jacobsson, ibid.) and work actively with the polysemy of central concepts by translating back and forth between different languages.

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[Take time to reflect] • We have used a certain number of metaphors in this chapter to reflect on the plurality of interculturality today: typing keyboard layouts; ritornellos (refrains); a brushstroke. Are they useful for you to problematize the complexity of the multifaceted field of research and education that places interculturality at its core? Are there other metaphors that you think would be suitable to represent, explain and understand this complex and simple reality? • How many ritornellos of interculturality are you aware of? Thinking about the ones you often rehearse, are you aware of why you might have a preference for them? Where do they come from? Are there aspects of the ritornellos that you disagree with? • Can you list examples of combinations or borrowings of ritornellos of interculturality in research and education? How did they happen? What forms? What has changed in any given ritornello? • In the chapter we explained that ritornellos of interculturality can be found in specific geopolitical spaces that share somewhat similar ideologies (e.g. the EU), national contexts, and in more regional entities. A given institution might also have its own ritornello—e.g. International schools. Can you identify specific ritornellos at all these different levels? Why are you aware of them? What do you make of them? Are there similarities between some of these ritornellos (overlaps)? • In the chapter we also assert that “The grounds are never level in research and education about interculturality”. Do you agree with this argument? • Peng et al.’s (2020) bibliographic analysis of the most influential scholars in the literature on intercultural competence lists: (1) Byram, (2). Deardorff, (3) Kramsch, (4). Hammer, (5). Bennett. What do you know about these scholars and their work? What are your feelings towards their ideologies? Do a Google/Baidu search and try to identify some information concerning their backgrounds, their affiliations (beyond their university), their potential links to the business world, the scholars and practitioners they have cooperated with, etc. What do you notice? • Have you witnessed potentially different ideological orientations being placed side by side uncritically in the literature? (e.g. Holiday vs. Hofstede; Bourdieu vs. Byram; Gandhi vs. Huntington) • At a recent conference, someone asked one of us if having just one global ritornello of interculturality might make the world a better place. What are your views on this statement? • How could we resist dominating ritornellos which disagree with our own educational and research contexts? Do we all have the same opportunities to say no to them? How to increase the possibility for more scholars and educators to reject or question dominating voices? • How does this quote about ‘Europeans’ and ‘Westerners’ from Needham relate to discourses of interculturality in research and education? “They are firmly convinced that their own form of civilization is the only universal form. In deep ignorance of the intellectual and social conceptions and traditions of other peoples,

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• •

•

• • •

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they think it quite natural to impose upon them their own ideas and customary practices, whether of law, of democratic society, or of political institutions”. Do you see other consequences triggered by the brushstroke, beyond the four listed in the chapter? Have you ever disagreed openly with someone about a specific aspect of interculturality in research? For example, have you ever rejected someone’s idea, concept or ritornello? Why? What was your line of argumentation? Thinking back, how do you feel about your attitude/reaction? Would you ‘stick to your guns’ today? The philosopher Ricoeur (2006) calls translation ‘linguistic hospitality’. He writes (1992: 338): “Between the place of the self (lieu) and the no-place of the Other (non-lieu) there is the mi-lieu of translation”. How do you understand this idea? What do you make of linguistic hospitality in relation to interculturality? What ‘colours’ do the words tolerance and tourist have in the languages that you know? Do they differ/overlap? How familiar are you with the idea of cultural appropriation? Is this something discussed in your context(s)? Is it condemned? Do you also feel that dominating ritornellos of interculturality represent intellectual imperialism?

References Ahmed, S. (2006). The nonperformativity of antiracism. Meridians, 7(1), 104–126. Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a feminist life. Duke University Press. Alatas, S. (2006). Alternative discourses in Asian social science: Responses to Eurocentrism. Sage. Althusser, L. (2008). On ideology. Verso. Arendt, H. (1972). Crises of the republic. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Augé, M. (2017). Non-places: An introduction to supermodernity. Verso. Brown, W., & Forst, R. (2014). The power of tolerance—a debate. Columbia University Press. Cassin, B. (2016). Translation as paradigm for human sciences. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 30(3), 242–266. Deardorff, D. (2019). Manual for developing intercultural competencies. Routledge & UNESCO. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2004). A thousand plateaus. Continuum. Dervin, F., & Jacobsson, A. (2021). Teacher education for critical and reflexive interculturality. Dervin, F. (2016). Interculturality in education: A theoretical and methodological toolbox. Palgrave Macmillan. Dervin, F., & Yuan, M. (2021). Revitalizing interculturality in education. Chinese Minzu as a companion. Routledge. Gibran, K. (2011). The treasured writings of Kahlil Gibran. Philosophical Library/Open Road. Gu, M. D. (2015). Sinologism. An alternative to orientalism and postcolonialism. Routledge. Hewitt, M. (2011). A few of my favourite things about North Carolina pottery. In R. Cashman, T. Mould, & P. Shukla (Eds.), The individual and tradition (pp. 455–470). Indiana University Press. Lee, W. S. (1993). Social scientists as ideological critics. Western Journal of Communication, 57(2), 221–232. Lu, Y. (2017). The reception of Gustav Mahler’s music in Twenty-first China: Das Lied von Der Erde in Beijing (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). University of Calgary. http://hdl.handle.net/11023/ 3719

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Mignolo, W. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57–96. Needham, J. (1969). Within the four seas. The dialogue of East and West. University of Toronto Press. Peng, R.-Z., Zhu, C., & Wu, W.-P. (2020). Visualizing the knowledge domain of intercultural competence research: A bibliometric analysis. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 74, 58–68. Piller, I. (2017) Intercultural communication: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as another. University of Chicago Press. Ricoeur, P. (2006). On translation. Routledge.

Chapter 3

Tableau 2: Problematic Realities: Interculturality from the Past—But Still with Us?

Abstract The second chapter goes deeper into critiques of intercultural communication education by unveiling three main problems: Otherisation/Culturalisation, Scientism, and Eurocentrism. First defined to ensure co-understanding with the reader, each problem is illustrated by making references to past scholarship on interculturality that is still somewhat dominant today. Current research is also reviewed against the three issues. The conclusion to the review of the problems is that, in today’s research and education, interculturality is responsible for reproducing Western and Eurocentric imaginaries of national cultures and communicative alterity that are a product of a history of colonial structures of inequity and inequality. The authors note that this all seems to be taking place with the ‘intention of doing good’. They thus call for more radical actions in the global field of intercultural communication education. Keywords Eurocentrism · Imaginaries · Radical actions · Inequality · Scientism The field of intercultural communication education is frequently discussed as either inter- or multi-disciplinary. However, rather than offering a fertile intellectual ground for developing new ideas and theoretical synthesises, a number of specific concepts that were introduced by mainly a few US-based influential scholars during the consolidation of the field in the 1950s and 1960s are still being reproduced over and over again—without being questioned, properly problematised, or more than marginally adjusted. To make sense of why an interdisciplinary field with a primary focus on diversity and encounters over so-called cultural borders, is epistemologically so firmly grounded in a specific one-sided geo-cultural/political perspective it is necessary to briefly look at the history and the development of research in the field. In this chapter we approach intercultural communication education by discussing three different contemporary dominating “realities” that we find deeply troubling. Otherisation/Culturalisation, Scientism, and Eurocentrism have been on our minds for quite some time, not the least as objects of critical scrutiny in relation to the recent critical turn of intercultural communication education (e.g. Aman, 2015; Andreotti, 2011, 2014; Dervin, 2015, 2016, 2017; Dervin & Jacobsson, 2021a; Ferri, 2018; Holliday, 1999, 2010; Holliday & MacDonald, 2020; Piller 2017). These terms carry strong negative connotations and they would most likely be presented as just negative © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and A. Jacobsson, Intercultural Communication Education, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5_3

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terms by intercultural communication education scholars and teachers from different academic contexts all over the world. It is according to our interpretation of the current state of the field that we are motivated to highlight these specific concepts and to pinpoint why a rethinking and an updating of the theoretical foundation of the field is of utmost importance. According to our interpretation the field of intercultural communication education is ingrained with an array of blind spots that are covering up for the motivating rationale in the field: to be representing the kind and good side in a polarised, globalised and multicultural world. But goodness—whatever that term might signify in different contexts at the moment—does not sit well on the shoulders of research that is based on theories and methods that not only have passed their expiration date, but also in themselves (unintentionally) promote polarisation. Gorski (2008) captured this ambivalence in the title of an influential article in more forgiving terms as “good intentions”—but the question is if the intentions might not, from time to time, be based on self-interest rather than good intentions? For us, it is now high time to rip off the “band-aid”, regardless of how painful that might be and to investigate what kind of hidden baggage might turn up.

Otherisation/Culturalisation We start with the reality that we find as not only the most apparent problem in the field, but also the idea that is most firmly anchored in the field’s research history. Otherisation/Culturalisation (recently sometimes also discussed as racialisation) has been at the centre of attention since the inception of intercultural research in North American anthropology and educational sciences in the mid-20th Century. The basic anthropological rationale aiming to understand and learn from and about the Other has been and still is the main generator of knowledge for intercultural communication education. Importantly, this Other is predominantly connected with a periphery in relation to the Western world—previously the “Third World”, nowadays conceptualised as the “Global South”. It is an “Other” that is frequently regarded as moving toward the perceived centre of the (Western) world, both physically in the form of migration and intellectually in the form of adapting to Western “universal” thinking and learning. The research objects are then to a large extent captured by the understanding of the Other as non-Western. However, since its inception researchers in the field have been taking for granted that the knowledge being produced is in fact depoliticised, objective and universal. According to this logic it should not matter what kind of centre-periphery relation that is set into motion—the theories and methods would be equally valid regardless of who the Other is at the moment. The faith in the field’s objectivity is manifested in the consistent reproduction of theoretical concepts by the canonised ‘gurus’. To mention some of most influential concepts and ideas, they include: Edward T. Hall’s “high context and low context cultures” and “monochronic and polychronic conceptualisation of time”

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(1959); Kalevi Oberg’s “culture shock” (1960); Geert Hofstede’s “cultural dimensions” (1980, 2001); Milton Bennett’s model of “cultural sensitivity” (1986); and Michel Byram’s model of “intercultural competence” (1997). These theoretical ideas have been infused in the different strands of research and make up a common-sense of intercultural communication education (e.g. Kulich et al. 2020). The concepts introduced by Hall and Hofstede are static in the sense that people growing up in specific geographical and cultural contexts are categorised in relation to certain worldviews and are expected to behave accordingly, regardless of external conditions—people are what people are and, by knowing how they are, communication is facilitated. The concepts connected with Oberg, Bennett and Byram envision a form of movement—a development of individual competences and skills in relation to encounters with the Other—either in the form of travelling or in the form of multicultural societies. However, the development and the movements rely on encounters with subjects considered as static representatives of (national) cultures. A common denominator between these concepts and ideas is that they position groups of people relationally against each other (in a hierarchical fashion) by defining a set of variables for comparison. The comparative frameworks, regardless of the concept in question, are based on cultural belonging as being part of a “national culture”. The function of national cultures is in intercultural communication education actively working as a lumping together of people that only have in common that they have been brought up in the same geographical locations. The national cultural categories are subsequently used to explain communal behaviour and thinking in “cultural terms” (e.g. Hofstede, 1980, 2001), but in our experience there is often a slippery slope for using the generalised facts generated by the studies for categorising individuals. Besides being afflicted with a number of problems regarding the understanding of the concept of national culture, which has been duly and frequently criticised over the years, not the least by researchers connected to the critical intercultural turn1 (e.g. Abdallah-Pretceille, 2006; Breidenbach & Nyíri, 2009; Dervin, 2015, 2016; Dietz, 2018; Ferri, 2018; Fougère & Moulettes, 2007; Holliday, 1999, 2010), these concepts are all developed from a twentieth century Western perspective where the superiority of Western science and rationalism too often have been left unquestioned. Accordingly, interculturality has been and still is a framework for explaining “the Other” as individuals or people from non-Western cultures irrespective of spoken language, social class, gender, age and ethnicity. The step from “interculturality” to the American political scientist Samuel Huntington’s widely criticised and polarised thinking on “Clash of civilisations” (2002), is probably much closer to home than most interculturalists are ready to admit. From our viewpoint Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are based on a survey with categories that are similar to Huntington’s division of the world into civilisations. The maps that are constructed as a result of the World Values Survey under the direction of Ingelhart (2018), differ from Huntington in structure but not necessarily in kind. More recently, Green (2014) has functioned

1

The extensive critique of the concept ‘culture’ is an exception in the field.

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as a bridge between the all-encompassing neuroscience and psychology, and this dominating strand of culturalising intercultural communication education. As an effect of the case that a majority of the pioneering researchers in intercultural communication education have had (and still have) a specific interest in so-called Eastern (Asian) cultures, philosophies and religions (often motivated by business relations), East–West relations is a common theme in the field (e.g. Hall, 1959; Kim, 2001; Ting-Toomey, 1999). As a subsequent effect of this special interest, examples of east–west relations are dominating in the contemporary textbooks on the market (e.g. Jackson, 2020; Liu et al., 2018). This imbalance of knowledge has resulted in the fact that many parts of world are disregarded in intercultural communication education. A clear example of this kind of knowledge gap is found in Hofstede’s survey (1980) that is based on employees at a multinational business corporation. There were very few employees working in the Arab and African countries at the time of the initial study and accordingly these parts of the world are described with much less nuance and the cultural complexity is lumped together into areas rather than as so-called separate national cultures. The comparisons developed by the aforementioned researchers between different “cultures” are made in a hierarchical fashion with “the West” as a generalised, common-sense benchmark (e.g. Fougère & Moulettes, 2007). Whenever the reader encounters a publication in the field that starts with the following generic formulations: “The world today is becoming more and more globalised”, “Migration flows are intensified and national borders are becoming more and more blurred…”, they can be fairly certain that they will read about either the Other in the form of nonWestern people coming to Western metropoles, or as students or business persons travelling and sojourning in non-Western countries. Slowly and piece by piece both the lack of representation of the whole world in intercultural communication education and the theoretical and methodological misconception in the form of inherent Otherisation/Culturalisation is being rethought and rectified (e.g. Aman, 2017; Asante, 2007; Dervin & Yuan, 2021; Ibelema, 2021; R’Boul, 2020), but there is still a lot of work left to move in the direction that we are proposing.

Scientism This second reality of intercultural communication education is focusing on a specific way to produce knowledge that is presumably scientifically valid. It is, of course, not possible for us to cover all possible aspects of all types of research produced in the field of interculturality, and it is also important to acknowledge that there are diverging voices that will be neglected or feel misrepresented in the following discussion. The intention is to point towards a general pattern that in turn illuminates a poignant epistemological problem that can be formulated as follows: If interculturality in all its guises emanates from a single geo-political research perspective, is it still even possible to use the label interculturality? According to our understanding of the field

Scientism

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this question can be answered in three different ways: (1) as a question of research methodology, (2) as a question of research objects, and (3) as a question of the political and ideological ideas that motivate researchers to do research. We start by taking a meta-perspective on research methodology and speak of the field in general terms (this is not the place to enter into a widely time- and space-consuming detailed critical dialogue with specific research methods). In a field-defining book on methodology, Research Methods in Intercultural Communication (Hua, 2016), a great variety of different research methods are covered by renowned experts in intercultural communication, applied linguistics and intercultural education. The volume includes a thorough introductory meta-reflection by the editor Hua (2016), that expands the importance of being aware of five dominant research paradigms in the field of intercultural communication to fully understand the results of research. Hua distinguishes between “the positivist paradigm”; “the interpretative paradigm”; “the critical paradigm”; “the constructivist paradigm”; and “the realist paradigm”. The description is thorough and thought-provoking and captures the diversity of different paradigms and approaches that are co-existing in the field. Quite interestingly, the discussion about the paradigms gives the impression that even though research is varied and may be afflicted by ideology and that research results are dependent on paradigms, the researcher’s own position is not taken into consideration. A conclusion one can draw from reading the volume’s introductory chapter is then that it is important to take paradigms into consideration since they frame the researcher’s way of thinking—but individual researchers and their background are tacitly irrelevant and consequently geo-politically neutralised. This conclusion is based on the fact that it is implied that research is a search for “objective” truth and research studies should be possible to replicate. The researchers or the methods in themselves are not “tainted” by cultural aspects. With a closer look at the 27 researchers contributing to Research Methods in Intercultural Communication all except two were affiliated with Western universities at the time of publication, 18 from Great Britain and the rest from the US, Denmark and Finland (one of us has contributed to this volume). The two researchers that are the exception to the pattern are affiliated with the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Tokyo, but they were trained in Canada and Great Britain. Research from the perspective of this method book can be described as an application of methods and models that are set in motion to clarify and describe social reality. The methods are equally applicable regardless from which perspective you are coming and the type of data you are processing (e.g. Alexander et al., 2014). From an epistemological perspective this “social science”-way of doing and thinking research is connected to the ideal of research as natural sciences—“the facts are out there”, and the task of the scholar is to process the facts in a rigorous and meticulous manner. The research community and the social reality are distinctly separate and this position is upheld by the research methods in question. This is a perfectly fine approach to social science research, but for intercultural communication education it is as we see it one of the main reasons why the research in the field(s) fails to be intercultural and it has mostly to do with the problems of quantifying “culture” and comparing results. When comparisons are made (and they are, regardless of the researcher’s

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stated intention), by other researchers, readers, students and teachers, the basis for comparison starts to crumble (Shohat & Stam, 2012; Stam & Shohat, 2009). Heyman (2017) is one scholar who has critically discussed this methodological problem. He identifies a common flaw in intercultural communication research: the tendency to mistake “social phenomena for things in the world”, and accordingly to regard culture as a thing (2017: 111). Heyman (ibid.: 115) describes the main epistemological problem as a conflation of a “common-sense” understanding of culture with the social sciences. Even if most researchers in the field of interculturality today would be critical of positivism in social research their wish to be able to explain behaviour and communication is constantly leading them in a “quasi”-positivist methodological trap. So why singling out this specific volume as an example here? First of all, the volume is influential, widely used and referenced by researchers from different cultural contexts. Secondly the authors are highly regarded, productive and successful researchers. Thirdly it fits the pattern of approaching research objectively, or at least endorsing research methods as neutral tools for acquiring new knowledge. In the social sciences in general this is not at all controversial premises, and we have no quarrel with these three aspects of this specific book (we have both used it in our teaching and research). And, it is of course perfectly legitimate to bring together researchers from a fairly homogenous cultural and linguistic background to present their ideas on research methods—why shouldn’t it be? And it would of course be wrong to assume that researchers’ ideas are geo-politically restricted. The problem is not this book or these researchers, it is the lack of alternatives to this book, and accordingly methodological dialogue partners from other geo-political perspectives and epistemologies. The lack of alternative books adds to the impression that this book and the likes of it consists of neutral and objective descriptions of the methods for intercultural communication research. The method book in question opens for the following questions: • Does it matter if the majority of researchers who are setting the agenda in the field of interculturality are Western and anglophone? • Does it fully cover the complexity of intercultural research, or does it create and/or reproduce a problematic one-sidedness? • Do individual researchers’ backgrounds matter, or is knowledge value free and separate from the researchers’ own perspective and ideas? • Do individual intercultural researchers have a responsibility for addressing overarching research bias—that is to say that some voices are regarded as more important and influential than others and to scrutinize why this is so? • And, finally, are methods and concepts neutral in the sense that it makes no difference for the research results if all concepts and theories emanate from the West? The outset of our contentions in this chapter should make it quite easy to figure out the answers to these questions. But the questions are harder to answer than they initially seem. Our immediate response is that of course it is necessary to interculturalise interculturality, as we also already have argued for elsewhere (Dervin &

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Jacobsson, 2021b), but how should we proceed to achieve this radical re-thinking and shift of the foundations of the field? That is the really tricky question… It would seem that turning to the interpretative qualitative research methods connected to the humanities instead of the social sciences, to find approaches more adapted to different perspectives and variations of cultural contexts might be a strategic choice. But, many influential voices in the humanities would also strongly disagree with the arguments that we are making in this book. Western anglophone researchers (and others) would persist that they are actually producing context-neutral and universal interculturality that is providing all the answers that we need, and we are only tilting at windmills. One scholar in education who strongly believes that this is the case is Deborah Court. Rarely has a Western research perspective been as clearly and openly expressed as in the introduction to her method book Qualitative research and Intercultural Understanding (2018: 10): Why this European story? What about China, for instance, with its own, completely different history, culture, stories and traditions? What about Indigenous North Americans and Australians? What about the Muslims and Jews in Europe? What about Africa and South America? The short (but important) answer is that modern day research methods worldwide, the academic journals that publish researchers’ work, and the international research conferences that provide forums for the presentation and sharing of research, operate according to the traditions and methods that developed from this European intellectual history. Research language is rich and varied, and there are cultural and national variations, but research is necessarily a shared, international enterprise. Otherwise people could not work together, reading and building on one another’s work to advance knowledge. Modern day research methods, concepts, language and traditions spring from Western intellectual history.

In her introduction Court states that the reason for using qualitative methods in intercultural research is to capture the complexity and different voices in relation to cultural values and differences, and not presuppose that there exists, “… one objective, shared provable reality, rather, people construct their own meanings, people in groups build systems of values and ways of life shared among participants, and different observers of culture may understand what they see in different ways” (Court, 2018: 10). A motivating factor for Court’s use of qualitative research methods is that she is striving for “an overarching and largely shared human goal of a good and peaceful life for persons and for peoples”, and that qualitative research, “can help us work toward understanding of one another, to find commonalities and appreciate differences, and to progress toward that essential and elusive human goal” (2018: 10). Court is open for socio-cultural complexity and she thinks that intercultural research has a mission to make sense of this complexity—to help people get along in spite of differences. But, and this is a big but, it should be performed with Western methodology and theory, in English and be published via specific channels. This point of departure is in line with the “good intentions” that Gorski (2008) has critically identified as a driving force for intercultural research and teaching. The good intentions are, as we have shown, often afflicted with an air of kindness in the sense of being good to the Other that we find very problematic. Kind people may be researchers but research should not be driven by kindness. And certainly not by a kindness that is framed in a unidirectional Western research paradigm. The only way

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to be kind according to this idea is to adhere to a Western perspective (and a Western Eurocentric ideology?). That individual researchers are promoting these ideas is one thing, it’s more problematic that supranational organisations and funding bodies are doing similar things.

Eurocentrism The third reality describes how the intercultural field(s) of research have spread to many different parts of the world and can be found in a variety of academic disciplines, but the scholarly findings show surprisingly little variation when it comes to theoretical frameworks, concepts and (philosophical) ideas. Scrutinising the contemporary research in the conjoined fields of intercultural studies, intercultural communication and intercultural communication education uncovers a pattern clearly showing that intercultural scholars have a strong predilection for referencing Western scholars, using Western theory and applying Western concepts. “Western” is here obviously somewhat crudely but consistently defined as a Euro-American, mainly anglophone, context (to a high degree the references are in general made to the “gurus” that we discussed in the first chapter of this book). A Western perspective is often regarded as a guarantee for objective and universal knowledge, developed since the Enlightenment and refined by (Western) scholars, colonialists, politicians, businesses, clergy and educational systems during centuries. A perspective that either disregards, minimises or appropriates contributions made by scholars and others from other parts of the world (e.g. Amin, 2009; Goody, 2006; Shohat & Stam, 2014). This pattern is fairly similar regardless of which cultural/scholarly context we turn our attention to—the same references appear in the USA and Great Britain, in China and Japan, as well as in France, Germany, Finland and Sweden—and in a number of other places in the world. The Eurocentric perspective and the dominating theoretical concepts have also been integrated into models for “intercultural dialogue” that has been and still is propagated by supranational organisations such as the UNESCO and the Council of Europe, aiming to develop communication skills and so-called understanding over cultural and linguistic borders—not the least intended to be used in teaching methodology in schools all over the world (Daslí, 2019; Simpson & Dervin, 2020). Lately concepts such as “democracy” and “intercultural citizenship” have been introduced in publications sponsored by said organisations, emphasising the Western perspective even stronger by implying that Western interpretations should illuminate the rest of the world, where people are presumably less knowledgeable, have less agency and/or archaic values. To sum up, our conclusion is that scholarship in the field of interculturality is quite far from being intercultural in the sense that interculturality is defined as “relational processes of diversity”. Rather, intercultural research is one-sided and consistently Eurocentric—regardless of where in the world it is practised. The point here is not that we have to rectify the current situation by including other centres and “their”

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perspectives to be equal members of the inner core of interculturality—to even out the playing field so to speak (e.g. Asante, 2007), how commendable that actually is—rather, to be able to move forward a radical re-thinking and a re-invention of the field of interculturality is required, that is taking the inter- in interculturality seriously and that interdisciplinarity is applied in a fashion that transcends the Western research context. A similar Western Eurocentric pattern that we have identified in interculturality has been and still is salient in many academic subjects, but it has also been thoroughly criticised by scholars in a number of fields. To a certain extent some critical discourses have instigated changes in certain fields of research that can work as an inspiration for intercultural communication education. In comparative literature, for example, we find some of the staunchest critics of Westernised and Eurocentric research in Edward Said and Hamid Dabashi. Both these prominent scholars were in the case of Said and still is, in the case of Dabashi, affiliated with prestigious universities in the US, but they come from Palestinian and Iranian backgrounds and have worked consequently to criticise distorted Eurocentric images of the Other (Dabashi, 2015, 2019; Said, 1978, 1994). In the field of anthropology, the colonialist heritage of othering has been debated since the 1960s. A particularly important voice of dissent is the German anthropologist Johannes Fabian affiliated with the University of Amsterdam. Fabian has pinpointed a disturbing discrepancy between researchers and their objects regarding the perception of time: the objects were routinely frozen in a (primitive) time when they became subjects of research whereas the scholars kept on existing in a progressing linearity of past present and future. The effect of this “allochronic” endeavour was a consolidation of Western research dominance over the (primitive) Other (Fabian, 2014/1983). In film and media studies, film scholar Robert Stam and cultural studies scholar Ella Shohat at New York University, published their seminal Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media in 1994. This is still the most important and wide-scoped academic book on the topic that no scholar with a serious interest in world cinema, postcolonial critique and transnational perspectives on film and media can ignore. Their radical stance to push for absolute equality and conviction that no community should be given epistemological precedence (1994: 48) is supported by a rarely seen plurality of audio-visual examples making up a corpus of film and media expanding the perception of film and cultural history. From an Asian perspective a related dialogue is initiated in Kuan-Hsing Chen’s Asia as Method (2010). Chen makes use of decolonial classics by Frantz Fanon (1952) and Albert Memmi (1957) for a cross-contextual critical discussion on decolonisation as an (intercultural) issue of great importance. Another form of radical thinking that not only has presented innovative critique of current events and their connection to history, but also recommended a re-orientation of epistemology and politics, is proposed by scholars who have developed the critical conceptualisation of “coloniality/modernity”. Researchers connected to this thinking have a background and interest in Latin American culture, history and politics. The concept of “coloniality of power” was introduced by Peruvian philosopher

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Aníbal Quijano (2000) and later developed by, amongst others, Argentinian USbased literary scholar Walter Mignolo as coloniality/modernity (2007, 2009) showing that coloniality is the ever-present flipside to modernity. Mignolo’s thinking on the concept of delinking is both an analytical and an action-oriented concept, pointing to the fact that it is necessary to break loose from Eurocentric frameworks, but also that at the same time as progressive Western scholars are debating what will come after the decolonisation process has come to an end, the rest of the world has already started to delink from these structures and has no intention of being caught in the net once again. Financial, political and academic structures are continuously departing from Western (Eurocentric) structures and to be able to detect and understand this delinking, intercultural scholars have to interculturalise their research. To some extent this process is already captured by some scholars that are producing theory under the label of “Southern theory”. South African Anthropologists Jean and John L. Comaroff, problematise the concept of modernity that has firmly connected to Western world dominance and provided solid arguments that the table has turned and the West is now adapting to what could best be described as an African form of modernity (2012). The common denominator between these different examples of research that has made a difference is that these scholars have been expressing and analysing political views in their work, criticising the Eurocentric common-sense in their academic fields and pushing for actual change both regarding subject matter, perspective and methodology (Stam & Shohat, 2016). For cultural studies scholar Lawrence Grossberg Politics is a responsibility that we should embrace and treat carefully (Grossberg, 2010). It is fair to say that these critical voices have been heard and things have changed, but maybe not to the extent that they would have wished for yet. The actual change that has taken place is that today there is a tangible awareness of these issues in Western academia—often verbalised as decolonisation of Western academia (Bhambra et al., 2018). Western researchers are turning their attention toward other parts of the world; they reflect on power structures and their own role as researchers. But the main power in academia is still situated in Western institutions of higher education and research. With this in mind turning to the multiple fields of interculturality very little of the kind has happened here, although the term decolonisation is used more frequently in intercultural communication education (Andreotti 2011; Guilherme, 2019; Martin & Pirbhai-Illich, 2016; Pineda et al., 2020). We are still anxiously awaiting a radical critical awakening, that not only will shake the foundation of the field and lead to actual change in the direction of a process of interculturalisation of intercultural research.

Beyond ‘Doing Good’? To sum up this chapter, interculturality is still possible to describe today as: social science research cross-fertilised with kindness and good intentions and with a primary ambition to understand the non-Western Other/s. The only way to produce research

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from this standpoint is to regard the work as scientifically neutral and devoid of ideology and politics. The only way it can make sense to reproduce imaginaries of national cultures is if the framework is regarded as scientific and neutral. Another more conflict-oriented way of phrasing this is that interculturality today is responsible for reproducing Western and Eurocentric imaginaries of national cultures and communicative alterity that are a product of a history of colonial structures of inequity and inequality, but with the intention of doing good. Now we have run full circle and clarified why interculturalising interculturality is not about including other perspectives into the already existing framework. We have to approach the problem from a different and certainly more radical angle. [Take time to reflect] • Explain briefly how you understand these three realities of intercultural communication education: Otherisation/Culturalisation, Scientism, and Eurocentrism. Can you give concrete examples for each of these phenomena based on what you have learnt from the chapter and/or from your own acquaintance with the field of interculturality? • What does the phrase the Global South refer to when it comes to scholarship on interculturality? • Can knowledge produced by scholars of interculturality be de-politicised and/or objective? • What do you know about the following concepts and ideas? Are you aware of the critiques that have been targeted at them? Edward T. Hall’s “high context and low context cultures” (1959); Kalevi Oberg’s “culture shock” (1960); Geert Hofstede’s “cultural dimensions” (1980, 2001); Milton Bennett’s model of “cultural sensitivity” (1986); and Michael Byram’s model of “intercultural competence” (1997). • How do you understand the problem of ‘culturalising’ intercultural communication education? • Which parts of the world (or ‘cultures’ for some scholars) seem to be used somewhat systematically as ways of illustrating problems of interculturality? What examples seem to be used repeatedly? • According to the authors, a sentence like “The world today is becoming more and more globalised”—identified in a research paper—might hide another discourse, which one? Can you think of other examples of such formulations? • Try to find arguments for attempting to do research ‘objectively’—regardless of your own beliefs about objectivity and subjectivity. • How would you answer this question asked in the Tableau: Does it matter if the majority of researchers who are setting the agenda in a field of interculturality are Western and anglophone? • What would be your suggestions to interculturalise interculturality in research and education? • At this stage in the book, how do you feel about the idea of ‘context-neutral and universal interculturality’?

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• What do you make of the argument that “research should not be driven by kindness”? • Go back to the latest publications you have read about interculturality. Do you see confirmations that “intercultural research is one-sided and consistently Eurocentric”? • Imagine that you are leading a project with colleagues or supervising a Master’s and Ph.D. student from another part of the world. How could you make sure that ‘their’ glocal knowledge about interculturality is taken into account in e.g. publications? • Try to find more information about Mignolo’s concept of delinking and how it can help rethink certain aspects of interculturality in education. • In your opinion, why hasn’t decolonizing intercultural communication education been successful until today?

References Abdallah-Pretceille, M. (2006). Interculturalism as a paradigm for thinking about diversity. Intercultural Education, 17(5), 475–483. Alexander, B. K., Arasaratnam, L. A, Avant-Mier, R., Durham, A., Flores, L., Leeds-Hurwitz, W., Mendoza, S. L., Oetzel, J., Osland, J., Tsuda, Y., Yin, J., & Halulani, R. (2014). Defining and Communicating what “intercultural” and “intercultural communication” mean to us. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 7(1), 14–37. Aman, R. (2015). Impossible interculturality: Education and the colonial difference in a multicultural world. Linköpings Universitet. Aman, R. (2017). Decolonising intercultural education: Colonial differences, the geopolitics of knowledge, and inter-epistemic dialogue. Routledge. Amin, S. (2009). Eurocentrism: Modernity, religion, and democracy—a critique of eurocentrism and culturalism (2nd ed.). Monthly Review Press. Andreotti, V. (2011). (Towards) Decoloniality and Diversality in Global Citizenship Education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(3–4), 381–397. Andreotti, V. (2014). The Educational Challenges of Imagining the World Differently. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/revue Canadienne D’etudes Du Développement, 37(1), 101–112. Asante, M. K. (2007). An afrocentric manifesto: Toward an African renaissance. Polity. Bennett, M. J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations., 10(2), 179–196. Bhambra, G. K., Gebrial, D., & Nisamcioglu, K. (2018). Declonising the University. Pluto. Breidenbach, J., & Nyíri, P. (2009). Seeing culture everywhere: From genocide to consumer habits. University of Washington Press. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters. Chen, K.-H. (2010). Asia as method: Toward deimperialization. Duke University Press. Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. L. (2012). Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. Anthropological Forum, 22(2), 113–131. Court, D. (2018). Qualitative research and intercultural understanding: Conducting qualitative research in multicultural settings. Routledge. Dabashi, H. (2015). Can non-Europeans think. Zedbooks. Dabashi, H. (2019). Europe and its shadows: Coloniality after empire. Pluto Press.

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Daslí, M. (2019). UNESCO guidelines on intercultural education: A deconstructive reading. Pedagogy, Culture, Society, 27(2), 215–232. Dervin & Jacobsson (2021b). Interculturaliser l’interculturel. L’Harmattan. Dervin, F. & Jacobsson, A. (2021a). Teacher education for critical and reflexive interculturality. Dervin, F. (2015). Towards post-intercultural teacher education: Analysing ‘extreme’ intercultural dialogue to reconstruct interculturality. European Journal of Teacher Education, 38(1), 71–86. Dervin, F. (2016). Interculturality in education: A theoretical and methodological toolbox. Palgrave Macmillan. Dervin, F. (2017). Critical interculturality: Lectures and notes. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Dervin, F., & Yuan, M. (2021). Revitalizing interculturality in education. Chinese Minzu as a companion. Routledge. Dietz, G. (2018). Interculturality. In The international encyclopedia of anthropology (pp. 1–19). John Wiley Online Library. Fabian, J. (2014/1982). Time and the other: How anthropology makes its other. Columbia University Press. Fanon, F. (1952). Masques blanc, peau noir. Éditions du Seuil. Ferri, G. (2018). Intercultural communication: Critical approaches, future challenges. Palgrave Macmillan. Fougère, M., & Moulettes, A. (2007). The Construction of the modern West and the backward rest: Studying the discourse of Hofstede’s Culture’s Consequences. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 2(1), 1–19. Goody, J. (2006). The theft of history. Cambridge University Press. Gorski, P. (2008). Good intentions are not enough: A decolonizing intercultural education. Intercultural Education, 19(6), 515–525. Green, J. (2014). Moral tribes: Emotion, reason, and the gap between us and them. Atlantic Books. Grossberg, L. (2010). On the political responsibilities of cultural studies. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 11(2), 241–247. Guilherme, M. (2019). The critical and decolonial quest for intercultural epistemologies and discourses. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 14(1), 1–13. Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. Fawcett Publications. Heyman, R. (2017). The ontology and epistemology of society, culture and meaning in intercultural communication. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 12(2), 110–119. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Sage. Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences—second edition: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across Nations. Sage. Holliday, A., & MacDonald, M. (2020). Researching the intercultural: Intersubjectivity and the problem with postpositivism. Applied linguistics. Advance online publication: https://doi.org/10. 1093/applin/amz006 Holliday, A. (1999). Small cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 237–264. Holliday, A. (2010). Intercultural communication and ideology. SAGE. Hua, Z. (2016). Identifying research paradigms. In Hua, Z. (Ed.), Research methods in intercultural communication: A practical guide. Wiley Blackwell. Huntington, S. P. (2002). The clash of civilisations: And the remaking of World order. Simon & Schuster. Ibelema, M. (2021). Cultural chauvinism: Intercultural communication and the politics of superiority. Routledge. Inglehart, R. (2018). Cultural evolution: People’s motivations are changing and reshaping the World. Cambridge University Press. Jackson, J. (2020). Introducing language and intercultural communication (2nd ed.). Routledge. Kim, Y. Y. (2001). Becoming intercultural: An integrative theory of communication and intercultural communication. Sage.

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Kulich, S. J., Weng, L., Tong, R., & DuBois, G. (2020). Interdisciplinary history of intercultural communication studies. In D. Landis & D. P. S. Bhawuk (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of intercultural training (pp. 60–163). Cambridge University Press. Liu, S., Volcic, Z., & Gallois, C. (2018). Introducing intercultural communication: Global cultures and contexts. Sage. Martin, F., & Pirbhai-Illich, F. (2016). Towards decolonising teacher education: Criticality, relationality and intercultural understanding. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37(4), 355–372. Memmi, A. (1957). Portrait du colonisé. Corrêa. Mignolo, W. D. (2007). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of colonialism and the grammar of decoloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 449–514. Mignolo, W. D. (2009). Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and de-colonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7–8), 1–23. Oberg, K. (1960). Cultural shock: Adjustment to new cultural environments. Practical Anthropology, 7, 177–182. Piller, I. (2017) Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction (second edition). Edinburgh University Press. Pineda, P., Celis, J., & Rangel, L. (2020). On interculturality and Decoloniality: Sabedores an government protection of indigenous knowledge in Bacatá Schools. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 50(8), 1175–1192. Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power: Eurocentrism and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from the South, 1(3), 533–580. R’boul, H. (2020). Researching the intercultural: Solid/liquid interculturality in Moroccan-themed Scholarship. The Journal of North African Studies. Advance online publication. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books. Said, E. (1994). Culture and imperialism. Vintage. Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (2014/1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media. Routledge. Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (2012). Race in translation: Culture wars around the postcolonial Atlantic. New York University Press. Simpson, A., & Dervin, F. (2020). Interculturality and the Political Within Education. London: Routledge. Stam. R., & Shohat, E. (2016). Critical ethnic studies, identity politics, and the right-left convergence. In N. Elia et al. (Eds.), Critical ethnic studies: A rReader (pp. 416–434). Duke University Press. Stam, R., & Shohat, E. (2009). Transnationalizing comparison: The uses and abuses of cross-cultural analogy. New Literary History, 40(3), 473–499. Ting-Toomey, S. (1999). Communicating across cultures. Guilford Press.

Chapter 4

Tableau 3: Are Critical Approaches to Interculturality Contributing to Interculturalising Interculturality?

Abstract This chapter represents the third Tableau of the book. Its focus is on so-called ‘critical’ perspectives on interculturality that have blossomed over the past decade—wishing to move away from the remnants of past e.g. Hofstedian/culturalist approaches. The authors review such initiatives and note that they have mostly emerged from and revolved around the ‘West’, with some of them having become popular ‘ritornellos’ (tunes) of interculturality around the world—replacing, at times, the dominating voices of ‘culturalist’ and ‘essentialist’ scholars with other forms of ideology. The authors urge the reader to look for other kinds of alternatives—outside the ‘West’, meaning the powerful voices of interculturality imposing their agendas. Examples are provided to illustrate the diversity of other ritornellos available glocally. Keywords Culturalism · Arrogance · Unheard voices · Non-essentialism · D¯owa education In his letter to P. Le Gobien in February 1703, French missionary de Chavagnac (1703), based in China, describes what happened when he showed a world map to some Chinese scholars: I once had the pleasure of witnessing their surprise and embarrassment at the sight of a map of the world. Nine or ten scholars, who had asked me to show it to them, sought China there for a long time; finally, they mistook their country for one of the two hemispheres which contains Europe, Africa and Asia: America still seemed too big to them for the rest of the universe. I left them in error for a while, until finally one of them asked me for the explanation of the letters and names that were on the map. You see here is Europe, I said, Africa and Asia; here is Persia, India, Tartary. Where is China, they all exclaimed? It’s in this little patch of land, I told them, and here are the boundaries. I cannot express to you what their astonishment was: they looked at each other, and said these Chinese words to each other: Chiao te kin, that is to say: she is very small (our translation from French).

The scene described by the missionary reads ironically today. Two bouts of arrogance are contrasted here—but only one seems to be sneered at by the author. • First layer of arrogance: the Chinese scholars’ reactions in front of the map. America is too big, they confuse one of the hemispheres for China. What the author wishes to emphasise is the Chinese’s surprise at how small China is, compared to the rest of the world. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and A. Jacobsson, Intercultural Communication Education, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5_4

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• Second layer of arrogance: the missionary’s pleasure at showing them a different reality. The world is big, Europe is big, America is big. China is ‘a little patch’ with boundaries. His arrogance is also identified in the pleasure he takes in making them embarrassed because of their ‘ignorance’, their ‘error’. Who is giving lessons to whom here? The amused missionary who was in China with a very specific agenda of ‘invading’ China spiritually, intellectually—and most likely economic-politically too? The missionary confronted by the Chinese’s ethnogeocentrism, while, by his own presence in China, with the idea in his mind that he is better than them, also representing a form of ethno-geocentrism? Or the Chinese who had a different way of ‘imagining’ the world—we also imagine the world! As a reminder the Chinese word for the country named China is 中国 (Zhongguo), the country of the centre (the Middle Kingdom)? Logical Europe crushes the mind endlessly between the hammer blows of two extremes, she opens the mind only to close it again. But now the suffocation is at its peak, we have suffered too long under the yoke. (Artaud, 1976: 105)

In this chapter we examine critiques of interculturality today—especially, those emerging from the ‘West’. Most of these critiques still appear to be located in the big black spot made by the brushstroke of interculturality when it touched the paper, as identified in Fig. 2.2 in Tableau 1. Although critical voices have looked into previous thoughts about interculturality (e.g. culturalism, essentialism, obsession with competence), they still seem to evolve within that same sphere of influence: the ‘West’. Some of the ‘new’ ritornellos created by these critiques have even become part of the ‘mainstream’—the one imposed onto the rest of the world by the ‘West’. By being published in English, and without any critique of languaging around interculturality as an object of research and education, without any real critical awareness of other ritornellos of interculturality from other geopolitical spaces, the form of intercultural knowledge that they produce resembles monologues for and within the ‘West’—but which will end up affecting the rest of the world. Although, like the missionary above, they might even laugh at other people’s lack of awareness of their critique—e.g. a white ‘critical interculturalist’ ‘ordering’ a Chinese scholar not to be culturalist— they forget to mock themselves for remaining within the ‘Western’ ritornellos that they have contributed to construct. We argue that the way they approach interculturality contains fine traces of similar blindness to their own ethno-geocentrism as in the missionary’s letter. As we have seen in the previous chapters, intercultural can mean many different things to different scholars around the world (‘ritornellos’)—although we might have the illusion, especially when interacting in English, that we have the same starting point and ideological positioning. That is why we need to be clear about what intercultural means, refers to and connotes for us and for others, in our language(s), other language(s) and especially in English as a global academic language, whereby most of the world’s knowledge about interculturality is constructed and passed down to researchers, educators, and parents, through different languages. First it is important to remember that interculturality refers to both phenomena and academic ways of understanding, explaining and interpreting these phenomena. For

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some researchers interculturality (as a range of phenomena) is limited to interactions between people having crossed national borders, other researchers might expand this understanding to any act of interaction between individuals. For fear of repeating ourselves but we feel we should say this again and again: the way interculturality is thought of, argued for, discoursed, researched and analysed in research always relies on various ideologies, beliefs and experiential intertextuality (researchers reading data through their own life experiences). In order to be intercultural, we believe that research on interculturality should embrace the following elements: • Being fully aware of the ideologies that ‘hide’ behind our way of shaping and ‘flavouring’ academic discourses of interculturality (those we support, those we reject) and how these might lead to misinterpreting and judging some of these discourses. Theories, paradigms, concepts, notions, etc. deserve to be fully reflected upon. • Being transparent about the influences on the way we use discourses of interculturality in research such as (un/official) political movements, economic forces, religious beliefs, ideologies formulated by supra-/national institutions. Researchers’ affiliations beyond their institution must be made known to readers, students and colleagues since they influence the way interculturality is ‘done’ in research. • The recognition and acceptance that ‘our’ way of thinking about interculturality is neither the only nor the right way. • Unthinking and rethinking what interculturality is about and how others conceptualise and problematize it, especially when we examine ‘their’ contexts, experiences and discourses. • Giving real space to other ways of thinking and seeing interculturality beyond the canonical and cult scholars from the ‘West’ or those presented as ‘musts’ in thinking about interculturality. This is not just about giving them the floor to speak or to analyse what they say in ‘our’ terms but to let them speak in their own ways about interculturality, letting them do it freely, rejecting if they want our ideologies, beliefs, and judgements. Many other voices have been heard in the field, but these voices are often made to copy ‘our’ critical voices in English. When they ‘attack’ the dominating discourses of interculturality and propose alternatives, which may be economically and politically divergent from the liberal doxa, they are marginalized. • Although it might appear patronizing: giving a boost to real ‘unheard’ voices (meaning: not voices from outside the dominant sphere, who confirm our own dominating voices) is part of the intercultural of research on interculturality. • Reflecting multilingually (and systematically) on the concepts and notions used to problematize and discuss interculturality in research is necessary since these might mean and/or be connoted differently. The use of diverse languages and/or problematized translations—rather than one language such as English as a global language—must be part of the researcher’s daily practice. Considering all these elements, it is clear that very few studies labelled as ‘intercultural’ fit the image of research that corresponds to ‘intercultural interculturality’.

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Fig. 4.1 ‘Critical’ ritornellos of interculturality

Dominating 'Critical' ritornellos

Critical push to integrate other ritornellos

Powerful ritornellos from the 'West'

What we note is that there appear to be ‘provincialised’ ritornellos of interculturality from specific contexts (US, UK, Canada, ‘Europe’ and marginally France) dominating world research on interculturality. Even postcolonial research on interculturality, in all its good intentions, recycles critical discourses from the ‘Western’ world, without taking into account alternative voices from outside this sphere. The dichotomization of what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in intercultural research, intersected with own political, socio-economic and personal beliefs, does not allow real dialogue (dia = to go across) with voices about interculturality as a research element. These all represent good intentions but their strengths in allowing others to take part in conversations are still limiting and limited. Let us now review how some scholars from the field of intercultural communication education have attempted to make interculturality more intercultural in their work (we will limit what we have to say to works published in the English language here). Two trends appear to emerge (see Fig. 4.1): (1) scholars who are critical and reflexive about interculturality but still remain within the ‘Western’ interculturalscape, whistling the same ritornellos, which end up being dominant and imposed onto others; (2) scholars who try to integrate other kinds of knowledge, other epistemologies—ritornellos from the periphery. Amongst recent publications, Holliday (2010, UK), Holliday and Sara Amadasi (2020, UK, Italy), Piller (2017, Australia), Ferri (2018, UK), Halualani (2017, US) and Minabere Ibelema (2021, Nigeria) seem to fit into the first category. It seems to us that rendering interculturality intercultural in their writings consists in making readers aware of problems concerning certain ways of doing interculturality in practice, research and education (e.g. culturalism, essentialism). The proposed frameworks (e.g. Holliday’s Cosmopolitanism or Guilherme’s critical intercultural citizenship), which are ‘critical’, seem to remain within the ‘Western’ sphere although they urge readers to think otherwise about interculturality, beyond ‘Western’ values, prejudice and ethnocentrism. Their critiques remain at a metalevel of interculturality (culture, power, ideology, identity, racialization), following ‘Western’ movements of

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criticality rather than try to feed in new (disruptive) knowledge and ideologies about it. Linguistic aspects of the constructions of discourses of interculturality (e.g. polysemy of words about interculturality in and between different languages), an element which we argue needs to be systematically problematized, as well as the presence of multiple ideologies about the notion around the world, are rarely included in these perspectives. Only different categories of ideologies produced in the West (e.g. multicultural, intercultural, global) appear to be either criticized or favoured. Let us take a break to reflect on an article published in summer 2021—at the time of writing—in the journal Intercultural Communication Education. The article was written by G. Humphreys, who received a PhD from the Centre for Global Englishes (University of Southampton, UK) and was an assistant professor at Sojo University (Japan) at the time of writing. The paper is entitled “Planning, implementing, and evaluating a non-essentialist training programme for study abroad in the Japanese HE context”. The paper caught our eyes for using the adjective ‘non-essentialist’ in its title—a term we notice more and more in publications on interculturality globally and a phrase we have used ourselves repeatedly some years ago. In recent years, we have been critical of the dichotomous ritornello of ‘essentialist’ versus ‘non-/antiessentialist’ for two reasons: (1) Can anything, anyone really be either essentialist and/or non/anti-essentialist? (in other words, can we approach the complexity of the world from a position that is fully objective, nonjudgmental, un-categorizing, beyond ideologies, politics, etc.?) (2) The way this ritornello is framed is still very much embedded in ‘Western’ discourses even in its ‘criticality’. Lichtenberg (2012: 170) urges us to ‘dig’ into these issues, when he writes: “To do just the opposite [of e.g. essentialism, culturalism] is also a form of imitation.” We take this article as an ‘ideal-type’ of this new ritornello and observe how it positions ‘non-essentialism’: • Whose voices are included? Whose voices are silenced? • What ideologies seem to emerge from discussions of non-essentialism? • What contradictions—since dealing with the dichotomy of essentialism/nonessentialism cannot but lead to contradictions? • Who is accused of doing what—in other words in his own ‘god-like’ position as a researcher, who is criticized for not allowing and/or learning non-essentialism? • Since the study takes place in Japan, how much of the glocal ‘stories of interculturality’ (‘Japan’ beyond the ‘Western’ cliché of ‘Japan’ as seeing itself as ‘monocultural’) are taken into account, especially in relation to the languaging aspects of discussing interculturality plurilingually? A few words about the study before digging into these questions. We are told that the research took place at a “non-language major university in Japan where intercultural learning through SA participation and English language learning were promoted in university internationalisation policies” (2021: 159). The paper starts from the assumption (‘order’ and/or ‘ritornello’?) that intercultural preparation is necessary in Study Abroad (SA hereafter). 22 Japanese students were involved in what the author calls ‘an innovation’ (an action research project), based on “systematic design, implementation and evaluation of a non-essentialist SA training”. In

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the course, the students had to do some tasks and reflect on their learning. Three research elements are said to have inspired the ‘innovation’: intercultural awareness, intercultural citizenship and English as a lingua franca. Our focus here will be on the first two aspects: intercultural awareness (from Baker) and intercultural citizenship (Byram). Finally, the main research question of the paper is “How can a non-essentialist intervention be developed and be made successful for SA training in a university ELT context?” (2021: 159). We start with the voices used to justify the author’s ‘non-essentialist’ perspective. In total the article contains 40 references. In the first section of the article called Beyond Essentialism in Intercultural Learning for Study Abroad 15 references are used to problematize the notion and explain how it is understood and used in the ‘innovation’. Table 4.1 lists these different voices. Table 4.1 shows how many times each voice is heard, what they are made to do and the geopolitical/institutional location of the scholars at the time the paper was published. This last part is potentially hazardous since it limits people to one part of the world and some of these authors were not necessarily born in the places where they had a position. In any case what seems to emerge from the table is that the UK and the US as locations of scholarship are dominating. Outside the ‘West’, Argentina, China and Japan are marginally represented (with one scholar from China having done a Master’s and PhD in the UK in the same institution as his co-author; the two scholars—the paper author included—located in Japan being from the UK). When one looks at what these voices do, it is clear that ‘Western’ (UK/US) voices do dominate with their ritornellos around the definition of nonessentialism, why it matters and how to do it (‘intercultural citizenship education’). So, in order to justify the need for a non-essentialist approach at a Japanese university, ‘Western’ ritornellos seem to be used to give the order to adopt this approach. We also note that no critiques of non-essentialism (as e.g. an illusionary perspective) are included in the paper—no dissensus: non-essentialism is the (only) solution! Interestingly, in the ‘jungle of voices’ identified in the first section of the paper at times, we note an ambiguous moment when discussions about Byram’s and Baker and Fang’s definitions of intercultural citizenship education turn into discussing the notion of criticality, leading to Holliday and Liddicoat & Scarino being involved—to our knowledge these scholars have not used this ritornello in their work. Finally, about voices, in the discussion and implications part of the paper six voices are reinvested to discuss the results in light of interculturality: Byram (2008) (3 times); Liddicoat and Scarino (2013) (3 times); Holliday (2010) (once); Abdzadeh and Baker (2020) and Yu and van Maele (2018) were used to confirm the usefulness of Baker’s ICA model in the paper. As a whole, only one part of the reported ‘innovation’ seemed to have been linked with the glocal context of Japan: “I adapted some topics and reflective questions from that course [Baker’s], supported by educational resources in Japan (e.g., Abe et al., 1998; McConachy et al., 2017; Shaules & Abe, 1997)” (2021: 163). We did not have access to these publications, which seem to have been co-written with ‘Western’ scholars, with one being cited many times by the author to justify the need for non-essentialism.

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Table 4.1 Voices used in the paper References

#

Location

Used to…

Abdzadeh and Baker (2020)

1

UK

Illustrates the ‘power’ of Baker’s ICA second level

Alvaré (2017)

1

US

Defines essentialism

Baker and Fang (2021)

1

UK/China (Master’s and Ph.D. from UK)

Defines intercultural citizenship education

Baker (2015)

5

UK

– Justifies needs for non-essentialist perspectives – provides the ICA model for the study (4 times)

Berti (2020)

1

US

Proposes that intercultural citizenship education can support engaging more deeply with learning and reflecting

Byram (2008)

2

UK

– Proposes that intercultural citizenship education can support decentering – Proposes that intercultural citizenship education can support criticality

Dervin and Härkönen (2018)

1

Finland

Argues that there are no miraculous recipes for intercultural learning

Fang and Baker (2018)

1

China (Master’s and Ph.D. from UK) /UK

Defines essentialism

Holliday (2011)

3

UK

– Explains that non-essentialism recognizes diversity from within – Helps develop understandings of diversity in terms of behavior, values and ways of thinking – Argues that (intercultural citizenship education? Criticality?) can help rethink perspectives when engaging with learning content

Holliday (2018)

1

UK

Justifies the idea that essentialism is a ‘trap’

Humphreys and Baker (2021)

1

Japan (UK)/ UK

Illustrates the ‘power’ of Baker’s ICA second level (continued)

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Table 4.1 (continued) References

#

Location

Used to…

Liddicoat and Scarino (2013)

3

Australia

– Argues that essentialism does not transform students – Argues that non-essentialism can help decentre – Argues that (intercultural citizenship education? Criticality?) can help rethink perspectives when engaging with learning content

McConachy (2018)

2

UK

– Explains that non-essentialism recognizes diversity from within – Argues that non-essentialist perspectives help develop understandings of individuals beyond national characterisations

Porto et al. (2018)

1

Argentina, Japan (UK), UK Defines intercultural citizenship education

Yu and van Maele (2018)

1

China(?)/Belgium

Illustrates the ‘power’ of Baker’s ICA second level

When we look at who the author ‘accuses’ or ‘criticises’ in/directly for either ignoring non-essentialist perspectives or ‘failing’ at them, it is clear that the spotlight is on the ‘locals’ (i.e. the Japanese): the institution, which is investing in internationalization but through essentialism (according to the author); indirectly those who used to teach intercultural preparation before the author started teaching it ‘differently’ and… the students whose quotes the authors presents before his course was organized, and quotes from the students from his own course, with some following the ‘essentialist’ ideology. ∗ ∗ ∗ A short break. To summarize the context of the article: a white British scholar teaches the ritornello of non-essentialism (and the ‘evil’ of essentialism) to Japanese students at a Japanese university, using ‘Western’ tunes sung by influential (mostly) White European males. What form of interculturality is that?

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“Only thought which does violence to itself is hard enough to shatter myth.” (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2002: 34). ∗ ∗ ∗ If we look at the results of the study, without much surprise, we note that the scholar identified both non-essentialist and essentialist discourses in what the students had to say after taking the course (could it be otherwise?). The author writes: – “Focusing on the pedagogical framework in learning outcomes, the course appeared to lead to some awareness of non-essentialist thinking and ELF awareness, though there were also some essentialist comments in student reflections” (Humphreys, 2021: 165). – “Based on the above extracts, some evidence was provided of transformation, related to ICA and intercultural citizenship” (Humphreys, 2021: 166).

What non-essentialism and essentialism mean and entail, however, seems to be limited to discussions of stereotyping or resisting stereotypes in the paper… To be fair the author does mention a couple of times that he is being ‘partially subjective’ when he interprets data; that his own experiences influence his interpretations and meaning although he has “attempted to be analytically objective”. Referring to a chapter written by Fred (Dervin & Härkönen, 2018), he also tells us that what students write at the end of a course might not really reflect what they would write about or do for another interlocutor in another situation. To finish about this paper, what place is given to plurilingualism in the treatment of knowledge of interculturality and data? All the references used in the paper are in English—and none appear to be translations from other languages. The knowledge used does not seem to have been renegotiated between e.g. English and Japanese (the connotations of words like essentialism and citizenship knowledge-wise or the concrete negotiation of what the students might have expressed in Japanese). The only reference to Japanese is found in this paragraph: Course unit reflections were largely written in English and end of course feedback largely in Japanese. Therefore, some translation work was required. I used machine translation through DeepL online translator (https://www.deepl.com/) to aid in the translations and speed up the process. I then reviewed all translations and Japanese language support was available from a colleague to check my interpretations represented the form and content of the original discourses (Humphreys, 2021: 159).

As we suggest repeatedly in this book, it is important to share these discussions to ensure a dialogue between different ritornellos and to avoid the symbolic violence of imposing ‘our’ meanings and ‘our’ connotations. Before we move on to the next form of critiques of interculturality in education and research, let’s summarize what we just discovered. What intercultural means—in research terms—cannot be limited to today’s widespread dichotomies of essentialist/non-essentialist, culturalist/non-culturalist, ‘Western’/‘non-Western’, postcolonial/‘White’, postmodern/modern, etc. Although these are meant to be ‘critical’, they are still labels that are imposed onto global researchers by those who have ‘the right to speak’ about interculturality in global research outlets such as top

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Minzu Nommo

Ubuntu

Interculturalidad Nuestra América Dōwa Confucianism Hawaiian epistemology Fig. 4.2 The beehive of alternative ritornellos

journals, books published by top publishers and top conferences. They still create images of the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ and lead to judgements that disregard people’s own beliefs, ideological background, but also their complexity (what someone says about interculturality at moment X might differ entirely at moment Y—just a few seconds later). These labels still represent political battles, unfairly fought by those who are being judged by researchers. These labels still create hierarchies between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Finally, these labels do not reflect the intercultural of interculturality, i.e. the diversity of perspectives and voices on the notion from around the world—be they religious, political, socio-economical, artistic and/or a mix of all of these. This first strand of critical research could thus be labelled as ‘limited rupture’ in the scholarship and education for interculturality. Figure 4.2, which symbolises a ‘busy’ beehive, represents the second case scenario of critical engagement with ritornellos. The second category contains recent publications which attempt to introduce other knowledge and ideologies about interculturality to expand our thinking about the notion. We find this second strand to be increasingly stimulating—although for a long time we two contributed to the first strand only. In their Global Intercultural Communication Reader (second edition), Asante et al. (2014) included many chapters which are relevant to interculturalise interculturality in research. As such a chapter is devoted to Afrocentricity, the Asiacentric turn, Hawaiian epistemology, as well as what is referred to as ‘cultural wisdom’ by the editors: ancient and ongoing African traditions of communicative practice such as Nommo, Kawaida and Ubuntu; four cardinal concepts of the Islamic worldview; aspects of Confucianism (Asante et al., 2014). In a similar vein Dai and Chen (2017) allow us to discover alternative ideologies about interculturality, focusing on conflict management, such as Kemetic and Confucian traditions. In another volume, dedicated to (Southern) Chile Payàs and Bonniec (2020) describe and problematize alternative perspectives on interculturality theoretically and empirically, such as the liberating intercultural philosophy of “Nuestra América”. Aman (2017) follows the same path in proposing to examine the Latin American concept of interculturalidad

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as an alternative to what he calls Eurocentric interculturality, urging scholars to open up to the epistemological diversity of the world about the notion. Other ideologies of interculturality have been explored in fields other than education. For example, in D¯owa Policy and Japanese Politics Ian Neary (2022) discusses what he calls “human rights protection in a non-Western society”. His focus is on Japanese D¯owa policy and its positive influence in overcoming prejudice and economic injustice related to the position of ‘Burakumin people’ in Japan, who, throughout history have been looked down upon, discriminated against—their children have also been denied an education. D¯owa education, provided in formal education in Japan, aims to empower Burakumin and to eliminate prejudice against them, by denouncing discriminatory incidents. Several methods have been developed such as Seikatsu Noto (diary notebooks) where students write about their daily lives and are encouraged in response by their teachers; Han (small groups) whereby groups leaders from classes of 30–40 students meet, discuss their experiences and encourage each other. Another such ideology resides in Ubuntu (Tembe, 2021), based on the idea of human connectedness (South Africa). Many African belief systems are said to be based on Ubuntu. For Battle (1996: 99), “each individual’s humanity is ideally expressed in relationship with others and, in turn, individuality is truly expressed. Or a person depends on other persons to be a person.” In Fred’s current research he has been working with Chinese scholars in trying to make sense of, negotiate and utilize aspects of what is referred to as Chinese Minzu education for research on interculturality—as an attempt to make the latter more intercultural (e.g. Dervin & Yuan, 2021). The idea of Minzu corresponds to one of the important elements of what Fred has labelled the Chinese Story of Interculturality, i.e. how China in the past and today has engaged with interculturality. Minzu refers to the 56 officially recognized diverse groups composing China—often labelled as ‘ethnic groups’ in English, a translation we have questioned for its potentially misleading ideological orientations. Minzu ideologies have some overlaps and divergences from e.g. the form of interculturality that Fred has developed in his work. For example, it emphasizes taking into account (unstable) similarities and differences in encountering the other while its main goal is to ensure ‘economic development’ and ‘happiness’ for all. In order to understand today’s China, ideologies around Minzu are essential to take into account since they are omnipresent in e.g. politics, education and societal discussions. The Communist Party of China, as the main political force leading the country, has implemented an uncountable number of so-called Minzu policies in all aspects of life. Missing out on such elements makes working on China and with Chinese colleagues somewhat fruitless. Cooperating with Chinese colleagues and/or researching Chinese society without taking Minzu ideologies into account and imposing ideologies about interculturality from another context are extremely problematic. Other (research) ideologies, we repeat, will always relate to specific political, socio-economic (and sometimes religious) positions and worldviews and cannot always match another context without creating dissonance, hierarchy, and judgements about the ‘receiving’ context. With his colleagues, Fred constantly negotiates the meanings and flavours of Minzu, what it entails, the problems it faces and tries to solve, the major differences and potential overlaps with other

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ideologies. This means reading research about aspects of Minzu (policies, education, economy) in both Chinese and English to identify potential misunderstandings/nonunderstandings that we can correct in our research published in English. For Fred, it also means taking on a modest position and being silent; allowing his ‘head’ to be shaken in different directions; accepting being wrong at times and correcting his own prejudices about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’; recognizing how ‘brainwashed’ he has been in accepting (too easily) and spreading ideologies that he always considered as ‘research ideas’. Fred and his colleagues have now read most of the literature published in English by both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars, which mostly appears critical and denigrating what China has been trying to achieve (policy- and practice-wise). But Fred realized early on that the starting point of both Chinese (educated mostly in Australia, the UK and the US) and non-Chinese scholars is systematically from outside the ideological scape of Minzu, i.e. ‘Western’ multicultural, postcolonial perspectives. Although these perspectives have contributed a lot to our understanding of some Western societies’ engagement with diversity, we are less and less convinced that these frameworks work on Chinese Minzu since they impose certain ideologies that are politically and socio-economically opposed to it. Interculturality here does not seem to be happening research-wise. Other ideologies are congealed onto the Chinese context, leading to misunderstandings, nonunderstandings, direct judgements but also indirectly ethnocentric and biased views from scholars. At this stage in Fred and his Chinese colleagues’ work on Minzu, they have been able to put on paper what Minzu is about from realistic and as less biased as possible perspectives, educationally and research-wise. They have already identified major differences and some overlaps with e.g. forms of intercultural and multicultural education. In the book that Fred co-wrote with Yuan (Dervin & Yuan, 2021), they use Minzu as a way of making scholars reflect on their own views and use of interculturality. Minzu thus serves as some kind of a mirror, but is not necessarily meant to inspire direct change in the way people think of and do research on interculturality. The next stage in Fred’s work on Minzu is not too clear: should they leave these ideologies as they are for global usage or inter-culturalise them—i.e. create some kind of betweenness, changes—with other perspectives on interculturality from other parts of the world? Minzu has its own specific characteristics and some shared ideologies with other perspectives. Who can decide what to keep and/or discard if combined with other ideologies? Should the work of a scholar be to push through ideologies or to observe ideologies to contrast/confront them with others and then enrich their readers’, students’ and colleagues’ take on interculturality? [Take time to reflect] • Can you identify one of each of these ritornellos of interculturality: 1. Powerful ritornellos from the ‘West’; 2. Dominating ‘critical’ ritornellos; 3. Critical push to integrate other ritornellos? What are their main proponents and characteristics? Have they been critically evaluated by their ‘creators’, ‘followers’ and for which aspects?

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• What problems have you identified yourself in so-called ‘critical’ approaches to interculturality? • What problems do you see about the ideology of non-/anti-essentialism? • Read Humphreys’s (2021) article entitled “Planning, implementing, and evaluating a non-essentialist training programme for study abroad in the Japanese HE context” and read our review of it again. What problems do you see in both the article and our review? What other aspects of the paper do you find interesting? • How many of the references found in Humphreys’s paper to determine essentialism and interculturality do you know and use in your own work? What are their pros and cons? • What references would you use yourself in a paper or your teaching to problematize the dichotomy of essentialism/non-essentialism? Or would you introduce it at all? • Observe what each reference is made to do in the table summarizing how different references are used in Humphreys’s paper (1st section of the paper). Can you see patterns in the way these references are used for specific purposes? • Would you agree that most of the current strand of critical approaches to interculturality in education represent ‘limited rupture’? Can you summarize what their contributions are today and what you feel is still missing to interculturalise interculturality? • Try to identify ‘Afrocentric’ approaches to interculturality. What are their core ideas? What could they contribute to in global scholarship and education? • Find out more about Seikatsu Noto (diary notebooks), a method used in D¯owa education (Japan). What is specific about the way they are used? How could this complement the way we teach-learn about interculturality? • China has had many ‘ritornellos’ about interculturality throughout its history. Here are random components of such ritornellos in Chinese. Try to find some information about them: who put them forward? When? How have they been used in education, politics, daily life (amongst others) in the past and today? 换位思考 (Huàn wèi s¯ıkˇao) 不置褒贬 (Bùzhì b¯aobiˇan) 吸收外国文化有益成果 (X¯ısh¯ou wàiguó wénhuà yˇouyì chéngguˇo) 人类命运共同体 (Rénlèi mìngyùn gòngtóngtˇı). • Finally, imagine that you are given an opportunity to organize a symposium on interculturalising interculturality: critical perspectives in education and research, where you can invite five speakers. Who would you choose and why? What would you want to achieve through the symposium?

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Humphreys, G., & Baker, W.(2021). Developing intercultural awareness from short-term study abroad: Insights from an interview study of Japanese students. Language and Intercultural Communication, 21(2), 260–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2020.1860997. Ibelema, M. (2021). Cultural chauvinism: Intercultural communication and the politics of superiority. Routledge. Lichtenberg, G. C. (2012). Philosophical writings. State University of New York Press. Liddicoat, A. J., & Scarino, A. (2013). Intercultural language teaching and learning. WileyBlackwell. McConachy, T.,Furuya, S., & Sakurai, C. (2017). Intercultural communication for English language learners in Japan. Tokyo: NAN’UN-DO. McConachy, T. (2018). Critically engaging with cultural representations in foreign language textbooks. Intercultural Education, 29(1), 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2017.140 4783 Neary, I. (2022). D¯owa policy and Japanese politics. Routledge. Payàs, G., & Le Bonniec, F. (2020). Intercultural studies from Southern Chile. Springer. Piller, I. (2017) Intercultural communication: A critical introduction (2nd Ed.). Edinburgh University Press. Porto, M., Houghton, S. A., & Byram, M. (2018). Intercultural citizenship in the (foreign) language classroom. Language Teaching Research, 22(5), 484–498. https://doi.org/10.1177/136216881 7718580 Shaules, J., & Abe, J. (1997). Different realities: Adventures in intercultural communication. Tokyo: NAN’UN-DO. Tembe, P. Z. (2021). Ubuntu beyond identities: Isintu as a performance turn of Ubuntu. Real African Publishers. Yu, Q., & van Maele, J. (2018). Fostering intercultural awareness in a Chinese English reading class. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 41, 357–375.

Chapter 5

Dream 1: Polycentric Alternatives: Thinking and Analysing Fiction and Actuality

Abstract In the first dream about interculturality, the author (Andreas) first wishes for interculturalists to be creative and courageous by thinking beyond the established box. Begging for putting an end to the strong positivist objectivity that still lingers on in research and education around interculturality, the dream urges the reader to accept and promote dissensus in the way theory and methods are constructed in the field, to consider engagement with micropolitics and intersectionality as fluid analytical concepts and, more importantly, to aim for real equality in terms of epistemology, politics, the economy and ‘culture’. The author’s personal and professional interests in (audio-visual) fiction lead him to suggest its introduction as a tool for what he calls developing polycentric perspectives. The end goal of Andreas’s dream is for polycentrism to function as a default position for researchers and teachers in intercultural communication education. Keywords Creativity · Curiosity · Positivist objectivity · Epistemology · Polycentrism

Part 1: Scenes from an African Film A fiction film I keep revisiting and that has had a great impact on my thinking on intercultural communication education research and teaching is Keita—L’héritage du griot (1995), directed by Burkinabe filmmaker Dani Kouyaté. In the film a young boy is approached by a griot (a traditional West-African storyteller), played by the director’s own father Sotigui Kouyaté, who wishes to tell the boy the story of his name—thereby introducing him to oral storytelling and the traditional history of his people. The boy is torn between going to school and staying at home and listening to the griot. However, his parents wish him to go to school and take part of a “modern” West-influenced education to secure the son’s future. Knowledge in this film becomes a matter of an individual choice between “modern” and “traditional” forms of education. Keita—L’héritage du griot depicts the co-existence of different and conflicting epistemologies in a post-colonial society and the main question the film is posing is if it is possible to negotiate between different forms of education and different views on what knowledge is, could be or should be? Besides introducing © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and A. Jacobsson, Intercultural Communication Education, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5_5

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different ways of regarding knowledge in specific cultural contexts, the film is visualising the griot’s story in the form of sequences that are capturing the specific logic of oral narration—moving back and forth in time and space, and letting characters shift their shape between images. In these sequences the audio-visual medium displays a particular quality to open for the audience to perceptually and emotionally experience the oral dimension and the different knowledge it brings. I have two specific reasons for briefly discussing this sub-Saharan African film in the introduction to this chapter that are cutting to the core of my dream of how to interculturalise intercultural communication education research and teaching. Firstly, to promote the importance of diversifying the object of study in the field by introducing (audio-visual) fiction on equal terms, as actual social events. Secondly to use film as a tool for developing polycentric perspectives.

Diversity of Empirical Material A pivotal aspect of interculturalising the field is to include empirical material that helps us take different perspectives and ideas into consideration. Film, or literature for that matter, are not new as research material for intercultural scholars, but have mainly been used as representations of languages and cultures (e.g. Pegrum, 2008; Yang, 2016), or as illustrations of specific intercultural issues (Lee, 2019). An alternative approach to (audio-visual) fiction would be to treat them, in a Deleuzian manner, as philosophically motivated sources of knowledge about interculturality (Jacobsson, 2017). That is, to use fiction to think with and to develop new ideas—and eventually to create new concepts (Deleuze, 1985, 1988). Not by analysing the content of the stories or what they might represent in real life, but to analyse what is taking place in the intercultural encounter between the spectator and the audio-visual depiction, or the reader and the book, and the ideas that are developed in this intersection. To think deeper about relations of diversity requires something tangible to think with (some material or an idea), but also the liberty to think, probe, fail and rethink in dialogue with scholars from different cultural and academic backgrounds. Many times, the traditional material in the field consisting of so-called empirical data is afflicted by a methodological framework that stifles rather than encourages thinking. The scientific objectivity that the social sciences have brought to intercultural communication education more often than not fills the function of a disincentive. I argue that the field would benefit greatly from a little more inspiration from the interpretative fields of study in the arts and humanities. The strong impact that languages, linguistics and educational sciences have had on the field is, as we have presented in the introduction, a major reason for the “scientification” of intercultural communication education, bringing a strong focus on measurability, replicability and assessment (e.g. Holliday & MacDonald, 2020). The Norwegian anthropologist Eriksen (2004) puts the finger on this conundrum in his take on the ongoing discussion of the relationship between nature and culture. Eriksen’s diagnosis is that the all-encompassing quest for simple and unequivocal

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answers to complex issues is dominating both the natural sciences and humanities. The way forward for Eriksen (ibid.) is to take scientific facts as well as subjective experiences, moods and meanings into consideration. It is fairly discouraging to see that so many young aspiring scholars are following in the footsteps of the old “gurus” replicating old studies with new material. To attend an international conference on intercultural communication education anywhere in the world is to enter a world more or less frozen in time. Doctoral students and young researchers are presenting how their empirical material/data can be moulded in already well-established theoretical and methodological frameworks and models of intercultural competence repeated from ‘old school’ intercultural communication education research—approaching the world according to preconceived notions about the West and the rest. To describe one important paradigm that covers the field as a reassuring scientific comfort blanket—if language input and output is possible to measure then culture must be possible to measure as well, since language and culture is so closely connected. Without entering in a detailed explication of why this established connection of language and culture is highly problematic, in my dream, a new generation of creative and courageous interculturalists are trying out new ideas, new methods and new material that reach outside of the box. To sum up the first point: I dream of an expansion of the empirical material that is considered as proper objects of study in the field of intercultural communication education, be it film, literature, art, social media or other material, and be it fictional or not, thereby providing an openness for methodological diversity and establishing a platform for developing more truly interdisciplinary research. French philosopher Cassin (2016) proposes that translation should be established as a paradigm for the Humanities—an idea that we support in this book as a core idea of interculturalising interculturality. Cassin (2016: 243) reflects on the meaning of “entre”, the French word for inter-, which means both “between” and “come in”. Cassin’s (ibid.) reflection reminds us of something important that often seems to get lost in intercultural communication education: the overarching focus on comparison between cultures as coherent social entities—regardless of the scholar’s awareness of complexity and non-essentialism—tends to distract research and teaching from the flow of people, expressions and materiality that is constantly entering into the equation. Comparison as a research method has also been problematised in different academic subjects. Melas’s (2007) critique of comparative literature is an example of a study that clarifies how complex and unstable comparative studies are. Not only is it a fact that comparisons to a high degree are based on Eurocentric assumptions but comparisons also emphasise the researcher’s own position in a positive light, and run into constant difficulties regarding upholding equivalence in a multicultural world (Stam & Shohat, 2009). In my dream naïve methods for comparison that suppress the politico-economical edges of differences will no longer be accepted in intercultural communication education. Regardless of possible good intentions, Hofstedian cultural dimensions, World Value Survey-maps and other similar studies, are infused with ideologically motivated ideas about desired movements in directions on the charts that are fulfilling the objectives of “good” culture.

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Polycentric Approaches to Intercultural Communication Education In my dream important contributions to multicultural and intercultural philosophy (Solomon & Higgings, 2003), will have an impact on intercultural communication education by opening for the development of an intercultural hermeneutics, as well as a discussion on intercultural ethics (Nelson, 2017; Xie, 2014). Nelson (2017: 3) is highly critical of the dominant position of Western universalism regarding the production of philosophical thinking and his approach is to move past a comparative stance since interculturality already is a “historical reality, albeit underappreciated and underdeveloped” in the field of philosophy. Van Norden is developing a related critique of Western exceptionalism as a false move, but is rhetorically even more outspoken in naming one of his books, Taking Back Philosophy (2017). The philosophers mentioned above are strongly propagating for what might be described as polycentric perspectives breaking away from a one-sided Eurocentric worldview on thinking and knowledge, which leads to the second point of my dream: for critical interculturality to be critically sound, it simultaneously has to be polycentric. Polycentric is here not conceptualised in solely geographical terms, so to be perfectly clear: it is not about adding more centres to the Western intercultural concoction for its own sake. In line with Shohat and Stam (2014) it is rather about investigating “fields of power, energy and struggle” between different centres, and introducing a “systematic linkage of differentiation, relationality, and linkage” (ibid.: 48). Shohat (2006: 3) captures how the production of “neat” binaries such as us vs them, white versus black, North versus South makes up an epistemological hindrance for polycentric perspectives and “puts on hold everyone else who does not fit in either category sitting and awaiting their turn to speak”. This line of reasoning is closely connected to the “no right to speak”-problem that we have identified in intercultural communication education. However, what Shohat (ibid.) is adding to the discussion is the imperative to extend the discursive right to become an issue of general concern, stretching its relevance outside of academic circles. The methodological re-orientation that is required to achieve an intercultural communication education that activates polycentric perspectives, in the words of Shohat, is to “produce knowledge within a kaleidoscopic framework of communities in relation” (2006: 3). Polycentric perspectives can never be static and still keep their critical edge—it is a conceptualisation that requires scholars and students to be prepared to actively shift perspectives in their analysis. With polycentric perspectives we take a substantial step on the road towards interculturalising interculturality. The end goal of my dream is that polycentrism functions as a default position for researchers and teachers in the field of intercultural communication education. They will automatically include different perspectives by not only “respecting” differences but by taking different perspectives seriously. This requires a knowledge-based approach where comparisons are made in dialogue between different perspectives in a non-discriminatory way.

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A concept that is closely connected to polycentric interculturality is epistemic (in)equality (Santos, 2014, 2018; Santos et al., 2008). Equality and inequality have recently become noticeable in discussions of interculturality as a result of the attention that Latin American interculturalidad has received (e.g. Aman 2015, 2017), but also by the connected critical perspectives raised by researchers associated with the thinking on coloniality and modernity, see e.g. the work of Walter Mignolo (2007, 2009, 2011) and Mignolo and Walsh (2018). Equality in the form of epistemology, but also politics, the economy and culture, is an idea that runs as one of the red threads throughout our book—and it goes hand in hand with our ambition to interculturalise interculturality. It is also the core concept connecting the different aspects of my dream as it is described so far. However, to deconstruct and criticise inequality is one thing, but to work for and accept actual change is a completely different thing. As French historian Pierre Rosanvallon has noted: inequality is often critically problematised on an overarching societal level, but at the same time, it is more or less accepted by most people in everyday life (2013: 6). This tension between criticising global, regional or local politics for not taking inequality and inequity into consideration is undermined by a widespread meritocratic acceptance and individual interests. This tension is of utmost importance to analyse interculturally. A vital step in this direction of re-thinking interculturality in relation to inequality is Aman’s (2017) idea of highlighting inter-epistemic relations in intercultural communication education. Aman has developed this concept in relation to his discussion of different epistemologies between interculturality and interculturalidad. Aman has succinctly formulated a specific lack of perspectivism in the current educational philosophy on diversity connected to the recycling of Western conceptualisations of knowledge, even by critical scholars: Broadly speaking, the vital insights and critical finesse that Biesta, Fricker and Popkewitz offer converge on an acknowledgement of epistemological diversity and of the ways in which certain perspectives hold sway. Yet, they overlook the consequent subordination of non-European modes of knowing, conceptualisation and representation. Consequently, in restricting themselves to a diversity of interpretations within a Western framework of knowledge, they fail to fully respond to the task of making epistemology geopolitically case-sensitive in ways that avoid reproducing colonialist cartographies (2017: 21).

To develop polycentric perspectives as an individual researcher is a daunting task. You are not only required to familiarise yourself with research studies in different academic fields from different geo-political perspectives, but also shift perspectives according to the “mood and meaning” of experiences, as Eriksen (2004) reminds us. From my own experience watching films from different parts of the world can be very helpful for developing polycentric perspectives. Besides familiarising oneself with cultural-specific narrative conventions and audio-visual elements of style and form in films from different cultures (so-called ‘world cinema’), an insight in sociopolitical and ideological structures, a historical awareness and an overview of contemporary globalisation is required. There is an abundance of audio-visual material that are easily accessible for scholars and students everywhere, from an armchair interculturalist position, to watch films from outside their own cultural context.

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I have previously discussed this form of strategic spectatorship as intercultural viewer positions (Jacobsson, 2017). The intercultural experience develops between the spectator and the film. To analyse audio-visual interculturality is to turn the attention both to the material and the spectator. In feminist film theory the idea of “the gaze” (male or female gaze) has been a core concept to problematise gendered power structures and the desires of different audiences. In a canonised film studies article inspired by psychoanalysis, Mulvey (1975) describes how female characters in classical heteronormative Hollywood cinema are dressed up and sexualised with a “to be looked at-ness” intended for a specifically male gaze, whereas women in the audience have to endure a masochistic viewer position. A lot has happened in feminist film theory since 1975, not the least from a global perspective, but the concept of the gaze and the attention to the discrepancy between audience expectations and their experiences, still contribute interesting perspectives for intercultural communication education. However, from an intercultural perspective the type of gazes that matter could be termed as the “ethnographic gaze”, the “culturalist gaze” and the “intercultural gaze”—describing three distinctly different ways of watching world cinema. The ethnographic gaze captures a general, often positive, interest in the Other and an appreciation for differences. The culturalist gaze represents an exotic desire of otherness characterised by a hierarchical power structure where the gaze is in power over the Other. This gaze is closely related to what Said (1978) would have described as “orientalism” from a Eurocentric perspective. The intercultural gaze is then of course the ideal spectator, that not only watches films non-discriminatorily, but also problematises hierarchical power structures and shows an openness for actively shifting perspectives. The intercultural gaze is ideally a viewer position in line with how the Deleuzian inspired thinking refrains from focusing on film as representation or illustration. There is clearly an ethical dimension attached to these three different gazes, both spectatorship and analysis of world cinema require a conscious choice of how to watch a film. To use film to interculturalise interculturality is potentially an efficient strategy. Film can help us move around the world and experience not only contemporary expressions but orient ourselves all through film history. To be qualified to approach film as intercultural material it is also, of course, necessary that we develop our knowledge of film aesthetics and film history to make an informed analysis of the depictions. However, film is just one form of empirical material that can help us achieve our goal. I have used it here in my future dream because it has certain media-specific qualities that I find particularly important for intercultural communication studies: it is audial and visual at the same time; it captures movement in time; it depicts different contexts and environments; it simultaneously and concretely activates perception, emotion and cognition (Grodal, 2009); it is accessible regardless of literacy. Other media such as television, News media, social media and literature are of course also potential sources. But it is important to keep in mind that different media provide different angles on interculturality, and require slightly different analytical concepts. Including different media as analytical material entails even more complex previous knowledge about different media history and the specific forms of expression in different cultures from a global perspective (Miller & Kraidy, 2016).

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To promote media as equally valuable empirical material as actual social events in the field of intercultural communication education is not to confuse this with an introduction of substitutes for so called face-to-face interaction. In a mediatised society where communication and interaction are taking place on many different mediated platforms, it would be overtly naïve not to devote as much attention to this form of communication as anything else in our field. There is though, a huge knowledge gap in regard to treating media as a form interculturality that, as I see it, has to be credited to the old-school intercultural communication theories—that are still with us, dominating research in our field.

Part 2: Actual Scenes from a Classroom Occasionally, in my teaching in intercultural studies at higher education institutions during the last decade, I have encountered students who have been expressing what best can be described as an intercultural, often emotional, breakthrough. Thoughts are finally falling into place, and a form of clarity suddenly develops. To explain their experience the students have stated, for example: “finally I understand …” why my mother and I have clashed …”; “why I have felt so out of place …”; “why the experience of living in different cultures at the same time is so hard to balance”. The students who have encountered this kind of epiphanic moments are predominantly living their lives positioned as minorities, as living in-between cultures, or as the Other in society. Almost exclusively these breakthroughs are then individual and deeply personal, pinpointing what could be described as a micropolitics (Deleuze, 1986) of interculturality. Even though individual experiences are illuminating to discuss in class, my interest here is focused on the power structures ingrained in everyday life in specific (cultural) contexts. The personal experiences that are taking place in class should (ideally) make us aware of how people are affected differently by these structures. It is with this in mind that the idea of analysing intersectionality starts to make sense in the field of interculturality. The gender studies concept is becoming more and more common in intercultural communication studies and it has been quite helpful for researchers and students to initiate a process of deconstruction of the all-encompassing concept of culture—highlighting the different layers of identity at play when people meet in different situations. However, intersectionality also runs the risk of a similar form of intellectual fossilisation as culture and interculturality have gone through in the field(s) of intercultural studies as a result of being subjected too strongly to generalisations when used in analysis and as explanations for social interaction. It is therefore important to remind ourselves that individual case studies of intersectionality should not be regarded as generalisable patterns (Hill Collins & Bilge, 2020: 37). This is of course equally true in relation to interculturality. Both interculturality and intersectionality are concepts that are constantly in the making, developing and moving in different directions depending on the context. They are, so to speak, fluid concepts and suitable for analysing fluid events. But

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all too often they have been used in a way that gives them the function of fixating and generalising the Other in time and place, thereby losing their critical potential as analytical concepts. In my dream intercultural researchers and students of intercultural communication education are loosening their restraints and are becoming curious, open and willing to go with “the flow of interculturality”—in short: being prepared to constantly re-evaluate and rethink not only what they are doing, but also the consequences of doing nothing and because of non-action upholding the status quo in the field. To be able to fit into my dream, research and teaching have to be liberated from the constraints of the positivist objectivity that still lingers on in the field. It makes little sense to turn to textbooks on intercultural communication to find support for this part of my future dream, since interculturality—all too often uncritically—is discussed in traditional terms of “intercultural dialogue” or “intercultural competence”—as we have made clear in the previous chapters in this book. Rather than exploring interculturality as fluid expressions of power structures in (everyday) social interaction and how micropolitics intersects with overarching macropolitical structures, a set of platitudes about inherent cultural differences and introductions of banal methods and models for improving practical communication skills are being reproduced over and over again, with slight variations.

Curiosity and Conflict In the second part of my dream I highlight two aspects of interculturality that I find particularly important in the strive to move forward with interculturalising interculturality, and eventually reaching past the banality of textbooks and too much of the scholarship in the field. The first aspect is a general human capacity with particular importance for intercultural communication education, namely curiosity. To specify this general capacity which, of course, is relevant for every field of study, my dream is filled with scholars, teachers and students of intercultural communication education who are guided by genuine curiosity to produce new and interdisciplinary knowledge. The curiosity in my dream breaks down the suspenders and restraints of the stifling tradition of enclosed ritornellos. The curiosity envisioned here guides interculturalists to try out new routes, new languages and new empirical material. It provides confidence for researchers as well as students to enter into dialogue over linguistic and ideological borders. To be curious is in this vision to be open for what Eriksen (2004) describes as both scientific facts and subjective experiences. Curiosity of subjective experiences is what made the students mentioned above reach their intercultural moments of clarity. These moments require knowledge and theoretical concepts to be verbalised in a concrete form, but the experiences in themselves are not necessarily anything else than singular moments of importance solely for the individual students. As such they should inspire us to think further, but not necessarily to try to generalise in patterns to explain interculturality. It is rather, as I’ve already mentioned, the context in which they take place and the meaning they

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entail that should be in focus. The specific examples that I have provided here activate in my dream an active engagement with micropolitics and intersectionality as fluid analytical concepts with no final product in the form of a paper or an article to be published—just an ongoing scholarly dialogue in the form of a global seminar. This Socratic dream which for contemporary Western academia and its neoliberal obsession with assessment and evaluation must be a nightmare, will never materialise, but that does not matter since it is just a dream. What will materialise, and which has already started to be noticeable is an equally liberating aspect of interculturality as curiosity, namely conflict. Conflict in the form of not agreeing as a result of ideological tensions, has been very rare in intercultural communication education. In my dream conflict in many different shapes will be an important driving force for interculturalising interculturality, but primarily, I look forward to scholarly dissensus regarding theory and methods in the field. The first thing that in my mind has to happen is that scholars start to problematise one of the basic foundational values of intercultural communication. The focus on intercultural dialogue as overcoming all differences and aspiring for an “angelic conversation” (Durham Peters, 2000), completely filled with consensus has overshadowed the fact that disagreement, misunderstanding and conflict are inherent to the idea of dialogue. Early anthropological interculturalists were set out to find ways to ensure understanding of the cultural Other to avoid miscommunication and conflict to help (business) projects to run smoothly. Turning to other precursors to contemporary intercultural communication education such as the Christian missionaries in the socalled third world before decolonialisation, aiming to convert people to their own faith, they were equally focused on minimising conflict and misunderstanding. This brief display of Eurocentric history explains how intercultural communication has been used to consolidate unequal power structures and keeping the Other in peace/place. That the US dominated the historical background to this day still has not been properly criticised and settled with, is negatively afflicting contemporary research and education and the potential to interculturalise interculturality. Instead of objectively describing the evolving history of the field (e.g. Kulich et al., 2020), we have to focus on addressing critically the contemporary consequences of repeating these structures by using certain theories and methods—in short, we have to argue with history and about history. Earlier in my dream I described striving for equality as a core aim with my dream. French philosopher Jacques Rancière is perhaps the contemporary thinker that most consistently has propagated for a “radical equality”. This is not possible to achieve without conflict and “dissensus” (2010). To break down a political “idyll of consensus” where people are left as empty gaps without voices and establish a “dissensus” that disrupts the order of inequality, Crichtely (2007: 130) highlights “anger” as a motivational force for political change and ethical awareness. The lack of anger and conflict in intercultural communication education is disturbing since the field is focusing on relations of difference and diversity. French philosopher Barbara Stiegler has diagnosed contemporary European neoliberalism in her book Il faut s’adapter (2019), which translates as “you have to/must adapt”. By suppressing dissensus and anger, and adapting to the all-encompassing feeling of being insufficient to change

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status quos, we are also adapting to other neoliberal political ideas such as cultural and biological evolutionism. With this in mind it is clear that radical equality, or any form of equality for that matter, will not arise without conflict in the field of interculturality. Placing the concept equality at the forefront of interculturality is actually adding possible conflict areas exponentially. In my dream radical equality will be the concept that finally moves intercultural scholars and students to seriously address tensions between micropolitics and macropolitics in different cultural contexts. A small step in the direction of exploring this conflictual tension is to be found in the edited volume Queer Intercultural Communication (2020). In their introduction Eguchi and Carafell describe the ambition with their work: “Thus, forefronting queerness is a strategy to destabilize the normative knowledge production of intercultural communication. The field of inquiry is to seek alternative ways of knowing, being and acting that counter the majoritarian belongings in and across local, national, and global contexts” (2020: 3). This is a promising statement. However, their description of the field that they are trying to destabilise is in line with perceptions of intercultural communication research as primarily developed in the US. Expanding this ambition to an interculturalised interculturality would most certainly add a layer to my dream. The part of my dream that focuses on conflict is, as we have seen, divided into different parts: conflicts between researchers, conflicts with history and conflicts generated by power structures and hierarchies of inequality. This diverse pattern clarifies why fluidity and complexity will continue to be central for making sense of interculturality and even more so in relation to a process of interculturalising interculturality. Another poignant way of capturing the contemporary condition in our field is found in the writings of anthropologist Tsing (2015). In her well-known reflection on late capitalism and posthumanism, precarity describes a similar sentiment as what I have tried to capture with the tension between inequality and equality: What if, as I’m suggesting, precarity is the condition of our time – or, to put it another way, what if our time is ripe for sensing precarity? What if precarity, indeterminacy, and what we imagine as trivial are the center of the systematicity we seek? Precarity is the condition of being vulnerable to others. Unpredictable encounters transform us; we are not in control, even of ourselves. Unable to rely on a stable structure of community, we are thrown into shifting assemblages, which remake us as well as our others. We can’t rely on the status quo; everything is in flux, including our ability to survive. Thinking through precarity changes social analysis. A precarious world is a world without teleology. Indeterminacy, the unplanned nature of time, is frightening, but thinking through precarity makes it evident that indeterminacy also makes life possible. The only reason all this sounds odd is that most of us were raised on dreams of modernization and progress (Tsing, 2015: 20).

In this lengthy quote Tsing captures a core idea of what we are trying to formulate in relation to interculturalising interculturality. Openness, indeterminacy and loss of control is what radical equality brings to the table in discussions of interculturality. If this is worth fighting for to integrate it in intercultural communication education, will be a question for the future, in my dream it is, but again it is just a dream.

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A Disclaimer To develop the concept of interculturality in our research and teaching we have to accept, or more precisely embrace, disagreement as a foundation for dialogue in class as well as in research and between researchers. With all this said, a final disclaimer is necessary to include at the end of my dream chapter, or more precisely I will have to initiate an argument with myself. Looking back at what sources that I have used, they are from a variety of different fields of study which opens for interdisciplinarity. However, a majority of the researchers and thinkers that I have made use of are of European descent and connected to Western academia and this does not rhyme well with interculturalising interculturality. To my defence I have proposed world cinema and media production from different parts of the world to be included as primary empirical material. But as Dabashi (2015, 2019) has frequently mentioned, Western researchers are constantly running the risk of intellectual complacency in using the same concepts as they always have only persuading themselves that they are critically aware. Going back to Dabashi (2019): it is not enough to say that you are for decolonising research or education or for breaking down Eurocentric perspectives, you also have to show that this is what you are doing. I might, as many of my colleagues in the field of intercultural communication education, have a long way to go to interculturalise interculturality but at least I am dreaming of doing just that. [Take time to reflect] • Define the idea of polycentric alternatives. • How could we combine scientific facts as well as subjective experiences, mood and meaning in researching and educating for interculturality? • Why does the field of intercultural communication education seem to ‘loathe’ conflict and dissensus? Do you agree that “The lack of anger and conflict in intercultural communication education is disturbing since the field is focusing on relations of difference”? Have you ever come across harsh and honest disagreements between scholars in the literature? • “To attend an international conference on intercultural communication education anywhere in the world is to enter a world more or less frozen in time.” Has this been your experience? • Make your own suggestions of methodological diversity (e.g. use of films, fiction, art, …). Have you ever considered films as a source of inspiration for developing polycentric perspectives for interculturality in education? • Following Shohat (2006) Andreas mentions several ‘neat’ binaries that work against polycentrism: us vs them, white vs black, North vs South. Can you think of other such binaries that ‘pollute’ interculturality in education? • How do you understand epistemic equality and inter-epistemic relations? What would be a good example for knowledge of interculturality globally?

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• Try to formulate the three gazes of the “ethnographic gaze”, the “culturalist gaze” and the “intercultural gaze” in your own words. How useful could they be for a teacher to use as ‘tools’ for working on interculturality with their students? • Have you experienced any intercultural (often emotional) breakthroughs like the ones described in Andreas’s dream? • When Andreas talks about intersectionality, he warns us about the potential risk of “a similar form of intellectual fossilisation as culture and interculturality have gone through in the field(s) of intercultural studies as a result of being subjected too strongly to generalisations when used in analysis and as explanations for social interaction”. He insists that “individual case studies of intersectionality should not be regarded as generalisable patterns”. From your own understanding of intersectionality, what do you make of Andreas’s comments? • In what ways are textbooks of interculturality potentially ‘banal’? Reflect on the ones you have used in the past. • Referring to Dabashi (2020) at the end of his dream, Andreas writes: “it is not enough to say that you are for decolonising research or education or for breaking down Eurocentric perspectives, you also have to show that this is what you are doing.” What do you suggest scholars and teachers do to make this a reality— beyond discourse and performance of action? What concrete steps to take?

References Aman, R. (2015). Why interculturalidad is not interculturality: Colonial remains and paradoxes in translation between indigenous social movements and supranational bodies. Cultural Studies, 29(2), 205–228. Aman, R. (2017). Decolonising intercultural education: Colonial differences, the geopolitics of knowledge, and inter-epistemic dialogue. Routledge. Cassin, B. (2016). Translation as paradigm for human sciences. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 30(3), 242–266. Critchely, S. (2007). Infinitely demanding: Ethics of commitment, politics of resistance. Verso. Dabashi, H. (2015). Can Non-Europeans think. Zedbooks. Dabashi, H. (2019). Europe and its shadows: Coloniality after empire. Pluto Press. Deleuze, G. (1985). Cinema 1: The movement image. Athlone. Deleuze, G. (1986). Kafka: Toward a minor literature. University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G. (1988). Cinema 2: The time image. Athlone. Durham Peters, J. (2000). Speaking into the air: A history of the idea of communication. University of Chicago Press. Eguchi, S., & Calafell, B. M. (2020). Introduction: Reorienting queer intercultural communication. In S. Eguchi & B. M. Calafell (Eds.), Queer intercultural communication: The intersectional politics of belonging in and across differences (pp. 1–16). Rowman and Littlefield Publishing. Eriksen, T. H. (2004). Rötter och fötter: Identitet i en föränderlig tid. Nya Doxa. Grodal, T. (2009). Embodied visions: Evolution, emotion, culture, film. Oxford University Press. Hill Collins, P., & Bilge, S. (2020). Intersectionality (2nd ed.). Polity Press. Holliday, A., & MacDonald, M. (2020). Researching the Intercultural: Intersubjectivity and the Problem with Postpositivism. Advance online publication.

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Jacobsson, A. (2017). Intercultural film: Fiction film as audiovisual documents of interculturality. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 38(1), 54–69. Kulich, S. J., Weng, L., Tong, R., & DuBois, G. (2020). Interdisciplinary history of intercultural communication studies. In D. Landis & D. P. S. Bhawuk (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of intercultural training (pp. 60–163). Cambridge University Press. Lee, S. C. (2019). Integrating entertainment and critical pedagogy for multicultural pre-service teachers: Film watching during lecture hours of higher education. Intercultural Education, 30(2), 107–125. Melas, N. (2007). All the difference in the world: Postcoloniality and the ends of comparison. Stanford University Press. Mignolo, W. D. (2007). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of colonialism and the grammar of decoloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 449–514. Mignolo, W. D. (2009). Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and de-colonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7–8), 1–23. Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The darker side of western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press. Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press. Miller, T., & Kraidy, M. M. (2016). Global media studies. Polity Press. Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18. Nelson, E. S. (2017). Chinese and Buddhist philosophy in early twentieth-century thought. Bloomsbury. Pegrum, M. (2008). Film culture and identity: Critical intercultural literacies for the language classroom. Language and Intercultural Communication, 8(2), 136–154. Rancière, J. (2010). Dissensus: On politics and aesthetics. Continuum. Rosanvallon, P. (2013). The society of equals. Harvard University Press. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books. Shohat, E. (2006). Taboo memories, diasporic voices. Duke University Press. Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (2014/1994). Unthinking eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media. Routledge. Solomon, R. C., & Higgings, K. (2003). From Africa to Zen: An invitation to world philosophy. Rowman Littlefield Publishers. Stam, R., & Shohat, E. (2009). Transnationalizing comparison: The uses and abuses of cross-cultural analogy. New Literary History, 40(3), 473–499. Santos, B. S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Paradigm Publishers. Santos, B. (2018). The end of the cognitive empire: The coming of age of epistemologies of the South. Duke University Press. Santos, B., Nunes, J. A., & Meneses, M. P. (2008). Opening up the canon of knowledge and recognition of difference. In B. Santos (ed.), Another knowledge is possible: Beyond Northern epistemologies. Verso. Stiegler, B. (2019). Il faut s’adapter: Sur un novel impératif politique. Gallimard. Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in the capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press. Van Norden, B. (2017). Taking back philosophy: A multicultural manifesto. Columbia University Press. Xie, M. (Ed.). (2014). The agon of interpretations: Towards a critical intercultural hermeneutics. Toronto University Press. Yang, L. H. (2016). A new model of foreign media sense-making. Intercultural Education, 27(2), 151–164.

Chapter 6

Dream 2: Verblendungen (Bedazzlement)

Abstract In this second dream the metaphor of bedazzlement, inspired by a musical piece by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, the author (Fred) first tells us that the dream is momentary and that it will change as he himself evolves in his engagement with interculturality as an object of research and teaching–learning. After highlighting several major problems with interculturality, the author proposes to find ways of reversing power relations between the multiple voices discoursing interculturality around the world; to create deliberately a multipolar order of interculturality, listening to as many voices constructing interculturality as possible; to accept, enjoy and request conflicts in encounters about interculturality as an object of research and education; and to dig into the complex meanings of words in different languages. Keywords Power relations · Interdisciplinary voices · Tension · Monotony · Encountrictions In this chapter I am ‘freeing’ my thoughts about what the foundations of research and education on interculturality could be. I start with a quote from Samuel Beckett who reminds us in his two sets of monologues called Molloy (1955: 51): And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.

I do not claim that what follows is either original or inventive, or that it is meant to be inspirational. I am not saying ‘this is what interculturality should be like’. What I am trying to do is to share the dreams that I have at the moment of writing this book. At the moment. This means that this dream will be amended—as all my dreams of change for interculturality in the past 20 years. My hope is that by sharing some of my current thoughts, based on the reflections on the previous chapters, I might trigger new (small) discussions around specific aspects. My inspirations are interdisciplinary and include music, philosophy, sociology. A menagerie of interdisciplinary voices. This dream is about what could be done globally to the notion of interculturality— not what it is.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and A. Jacobsson, Intercultural Communication Education, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5_6

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My main inspiration for the dream is based on a musical piece written by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho called Verblendungen (1984; bedazzlement in German), a piece where music produced by the orchestra is mixed with the sound of a prerecorded tape (computer). The orchestra and the tape work in opposite directions and join together in Verblendungen. At the beginning of the piece of about 13 min, the tape sound is ‘noisy’ while the orchestra sound is ‘vibrant’, forming together a climax in the form of a flash of glaring light. Throughout the piece a dazzling process takes place leading to the tape and orchestra changing places after 7 min. Towards the end of the piece, the orchestra sounds like the tape (‘harsh sounds’) and the textures of the orchestra are adopted by the tape, leading to a gradual exchange of roles. This is how the composer describes the process taking place during the piece: Blindingness, various surfaces, textures, weaves, depths. Metaphorical dazzling. Interpolation, contre-jour. Death. The sum of independent worlds. Shadowing, the refraction of light. (Saariaho in Nieminen, 1985: n.p.).

The two keywords of tension and release summarize well the impression one gets while listening to Saariaho’s piece. Verblendungen inspires a dream for interculturality for the following reasons: • Moisala (2009: 31) argues that Saariaho was inspired by Elias Canetti for her work. She explains: “[Canetti] examines how people can be dazzled by an abstract notion that renders them incapable of perceiving other things. This becomes the core metaphor for Saariaho’s composition.” • In the way Saariaho transforms timbre and creates new textures between an orchestra and a tape by starting from a climax and turning the piece of music into vanishing lines goes against the canon of music that usually develops towards the climax. The way interculturality is discoursed today by dominating voices in research and education ‘bedazzles’ us—or like Canetti argues, they make us incapable of ‘perceiving other things’, i.e. other ways of seeing it. The climax created by the bedazzlement of ‘Western’ voices must find its moment of change—a shift of timbres and textures, release triggered by tension. How to make this happen? I need to start from problems. As a summary of some of the major points made in the book until now I would like to start by listing three problems that should urgently be addressed today—at the time of writing, but it can be relevant for the future too. The three issues are represented inside a (mental) cage in Fig. 6.1. Silent cannibalization and monotony are inspired by Baudrillard’s work (2008) where he argues that today’s global dominating voices of capitalism—maybe (neo-) liberalism?—construct, devise and impose so much (limited and biased) knowledge upon the rest of the world that it ‘cannibalizes’ every one of us—‘eats us alive’! By so doing, hierarchies of knowledge—if awareness of alternative knowledge exists— occur with dominating knowledge from certain parts of the world being felt to be the only absorbable/recyclable/recitable knowledge in research and education (see “why don’t you use the idea of ‘intercultural citizenship’ in your work, Byram uses it!”). At times this knowledge is used in a-contextualised and a-problematised forms

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Fig. 6.1 The caging of interculturality

and turned into empty caricatures. As far as knowledge about interculturality is concerned, it becomes some kind of limited system of representations, a global meaningless/encrypted discourse. Methodologically, epistemologically, ideologically but also metaphorically it grows into monotonous, somewhat prechewed prêt-à-penser (ready to think), prêt-à-agir (ready to act), prêt-à-être (ready to be). For the dominants the knowledge they use to cannibalize others represents mere ‘auto-propaganda’ through which they indoctrinate themselves (and auto-cannibalize). Current misuses of discourses of democracy, human rights, social justice, etc. in research on interculturality in education for instance would evoke in Sartre’s protagonist Roquentin a further sense of nausea, and eat him up, in his novel La Nausée (1938). While interculturality as an act of research and education should rely on encounters, plurality and mind-shifts, it turns into monotonous credos (from Latin “I believe”)—mere statements of beliefs. Knowledge aphasia is the second problem we need for my dream and is a direct consequence of cannibalization. Aphasia is a communication and comprehension disorder through which one is unable to comprehend or formulate language due to damage or injury to a specific area of the brain. Discourses and practices of interculturality have been part of the history of humanity—every single person has

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‘done’ it and dealt with it in one way or another, in an open or closed understanding of interculturality (beyond and within ‘national’ borders after the notion was politically invented). The other, the guest, the migrant, our (lack) of conversation, dialogue, tolerance, respect, war, (refusal of) transformation, encounters, etc. Every single group has constructed and reconstructed their own diverse narratives, discourses, ‘theories’, ideologies, laws, but also dreams, art productions, prayers, totems, symbols in relation to how they meet (or not), include, reject people from other groups. The ways each group silences and embellishes the way they think about the other and their relations to others also constitute discourses and practices. In that sense, there is an infinite pool of diverse knowledge about interculturality globally that could be used to unthink, rethink interculturality. Unfortunately, being from the side of the dominant and the dominated, there often appears to be aphasia about this potential richness. Often these elements are believed not to be about interculturality— so they are excluded; they are believed to be fiction—not strong enough for research and/or educational purposes; too ‘ancient’; not philosophical enough—philosophy is often believed to be only ‘Western’; too political—as if interculturality from ‘Europe’ was not—or politically unacceptable (see “democracy-speak”); purely untranslatable and irreconcilable with other lingua-thoughts—ad nauseam. Let’s take the case of China for example. Many emic discourses and ideologies concerning interculturality are ignored or rejected by international scholars, alongside many Chinese scholars. These include: ideologies of Minzu affairs (Chinese internal ‘ethnic’ diversity of 56 groups), the Communist Party of China’s own take on issues of glocal encounters (e.g. the Belt and Road Initiative), ideas from Chinese philosophy, etc. There seems to be this idea that the Chinese can’t even think about it themselves. It does not even seem to cross dominant scholars’ minds that the Chinese—like other peoples—have the right and duty to take part actively in discussions of interculturality and share new ‘knowledge’ about it. This gives us the impression that interculturality can only be uttered in ‘right’ ways (even critically) from certain positions and geopolitical locations in the world. Skirting around real questions about interculturality, the third point of the cage, is an issue inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s engagement with the dichotomy of the problem versus interrogation. Deleuze (1996) argues that, in philosophy, most questions do not represent real problems but mere interrogations. Let’s look at the etymologies of these two words to examine what Deleuze is trying to say. In English the word interrogation comes from Latin interrogationem which means ‘a question; questioning; judicial inquiry’ and is composed of inter for ‘between’ + rogare ‘to ask, to question’. Interestingly, une interrogation also refers to an exam, a test in the French language—with a hint at a tedious, cramming form of education. Interrogation in French also shares the same root as interrogatoire (e.g. questioning by the police). Problem comes from Greek probl¯ema, ‘a task, that which is proposed, a question’ also ‘anything projecting, headland, promontory; fence, barrier’. Problem also means literally ‘thing put forward’ from proballein ‘propose’, from pro ‘forward’ + ballein ‘to throw’. For Deleuze (1996: n.p.) interrogations are imbecilic, since they skirt around real, proper questions. Interrogations make us ask questions to each other,

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but questions can be non-questions, questions with preprogrammed answers—prêtà-questionner (ready-to-question) in a sense. Identifying a problem instead, helps to throw forward, to move forward. Many interrogations concerning interculturality in research and education are mere statements disguised under questions: e.g. do my students develop intercultural competence, following Deardorff’s model? while the main idea is to confirm the scholar’s ideologies for the researcher’s benefits—as in “oh yes my teaching works and transforms my students into good interculturalists!”; How can I help my students develop intercultural citizenship?; Are Hofstede’s ‘theories’ confirmed by my data?; Is what this person says culturalist and/essentialist?— can a discourse not be culturalist/essentialist? Etc. This is all skirting around real questions. These interrogations are ideologies that pretend not to be ideologies. These interrogations do not interrogate anything; they just confirm others’ (dominating) ideologies. These interrogations take interculturality—or rather those who ‘discourse it’—for granted. Identifying real problems about interculturality is what we need in order to avoid being trapped by these ideas, these utterances—rather than real questions-answers. Our book has identified a certain number of (basic) problems that still need to occupy scholars and educators around the world: • Is there such a thing as interculturality? What is it for you, me and them? Depending on how we understand it, can it be ‘done’? Who decides? • Why is it that certain visions of interculturality dominate and others are ignored or discarded? Who ‘sponsors’ and supports them? • What is hidden in scientific and educational discourses of ‘being good at interculturality’? • Can we ever ‘do’ interculturality? I feel that only these ‘real’ problems, which many will perceive as sempiternal— but vital to confront again and again—can help us ‘throw forward’ (proballein) small steps in potentially novel paths to unthinking and rethinking interculturality. Let’s close the door of the cage now and go back to my dream. We listen to composer and conductor Pierre Boulez who answers the question “How do you conceive of musical pedagogy?” and let’s substitute pedagogy with interculturality: Pedagogy must have the function of a detonator. And for there to be a detonation, you need a detonator, but also an explosive charge. If you have one without the other, there’s no point. (my translation, Boulez, 1999: 99).

To create Verblendungen (Bedazzlement), that moment of change for interculturality, both a detonator and an explosive charge are needed to make a difference. My dream contains these elements and are listed in the circle in the middle in Fig. 6.2. The following sections discuss and problematize the four detonators and explosive charges in this order: From a thousand points, Beyond shadow puppets, Encountrictions, Words as outposts. The arrows in the circle indicate that there is no stage/level/order in the way these components are applied when rethinkingunthinking interculturality. These are elements that are complementary and cooccurring.

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6 Dream 2: Verblendungen (Bedazzlement) •Beyond mere informa on - what is knowledge? •Fashion vs. change •Poli cal knowledge and the need for antagonism •U lity of interculturality as a no on

•Korvat auki! •Tension & release •To be another •Metaxu

Encountric ons

Beyond Shadow puppets

From a thousand points

Words as outposts

•Heteroglossic perspec ve •Cross-fer liza on of ritornellos •The gaze becomes mobile

• The 'fishing net' and 'fountain of youth' of mul lingualism • Wealth of the incomprehensible • Connota on/denota on • Experience transla ng and being translated

Fig. 6.2 Verblendungen (Dedazzlement)

From a Thousand Points The first element of the dream is entitled ‘from a thousand points’—and beyond a unipolar order of interculturality. Its components are reproduced on musical scales in Fig. 6.3. The idea of Deleuze and Guattari’s ritonello (reminder: a musical term for a refrain, a familiar tune, the one we might e.g. whistle in the shower, 2004) is central in this component of Verblendungen. The idea of From a thousand points was inspired by a quote from Canetti (1989: 61): “To extend your thinking from a thousand points, not just one”. The need for ‘thousand points’ has been highlighted repeatedly throughout the book, pushing through pluralizing potentials. What this means for interculturality is to allow heteroglossic perspectives, i.e. different (complementary and similar at times) discourses about the notion. It entails combing through the thousands of sources of discourses about interculturality around the world in scientific publications, fictions,

Heteroglossic perspective Cross-fertilization of ritornellos The gaze becomes mobile Fig. 6.3 From a thousand points

From a Thousand Points

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education, etc. From a thousand points aims to cross-fertilize knowledge from around the world with an aim to lead to some transformative potential. In previous chapters, we underlined the importance to become aware of the different aggregates of knowledge about interculturality. The uncountable number of potential aggregates of interculturality around the world could be better understood by Deleuze and Guattari’s (2004) idea of the ritornello, local, national, glocal ritornellos with their specific tunes and textures. Different refrains about interculturality can be heard around the world. These refrains can be divided into specific geopolitical spaces that share similar ideologies (e.g. the EU), national contexts, and at times more regional entities (e.g. Hong Kong’s different take on ‘ethnic’ minorities compared to Mainland China). These different ritornellos lead to ‘rituals’ and ‘chants’ that might be different but also share similarities with other ritornellos. They might also change and exchange under the influence of other ritornellos, in macrospaces (e.g.: nationally) and microcontexts (e.g.: a specific field of research). Deleuze and Guattari (2004) call these phenomena deterritorialization: the ritornellos start to be heard and transformed across separate territories. Cross-fertilization might then happen! What this could mean for a dream on interculturality is that we start listening together (we’ll come back to the together part later) to as many different ritornellos as we can, not so much to copy them or to discard them, but to start reflecting on our own ritornellos—and if possible to adopt certain aspects, exchange them with other refrains. To give concrete examples, Panikkar (1982) suggests looking for homeomorphic aspects in different discourses of human rights. Homeomorphia refers to functional equivalents to the terms, ideologies that compose our own ritornellos. There are in fact many such elements surrounding interculturality around the world, listing them, discussing and problematizing what they mean and entail is a good way to 1. Enrich global ritornellos and 2. Avoid judging other ritornellos for sounding out-of-tune or ‘boring’ because they do not sound appealing or similar to ‘our’ ritornellos. As such liberty might be problematized as harmony in another part of the world; human rights as dignity… Sometimes, other ritornellos are misunderstood because we judge them from our own standards, our own ‘ears’. Anthropologist Philippe Descola (2009: n.p.) recalls how, during the years he spent with the Jivaros Achuar indigenous people in Ecuadorian Amazon, when he played recordings of Bach and Beethoven that he had brought with him, his hosts would perceive their music as ‘mere noise’—their ritornello of what music is was very different. Deleuze (1996: n.p.) also gives a good example of how Freud, in his discussions with Jung, was not able to untune to retune to other ritornellos in a sense: There is case that gives me a lot of pleasure, in a text that I adore by Jung, who broke off from Freud after a long collaboration. Jung told Freud that he had a dream about an ossuary, and Freud literally understood nothing. He told Jung constantly, “if you dream about a bone, it means the death of someone.” But Jung never stopped telling him, “I didn’t tell you about a bone, I dreamt about an ossuary.” Freud didn’t get it. He couldn’t distinguish between an ossuary and a bone, that is… An ossuary is one hundred bones, a thousand bones, ten thousand bones… That’s what a multiplicity is, that’s what an assemblage is.

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This is an important point in the Verblendungen dream: what we might see as being part of someone’s ritornello may not correspond to their own experiences of the ritornello. From a thousand points thus urges us to ‘move’ our gaze instead of asking the other to move in the direction—the tune/texture to keep the musical metaphors— that we want them to follow. This requires intense and genuine encountrictions….

Encountrictions The neologism behind this component is a portmanteau word constructed by means of the words encounters and frictions. The first message behind this element is that it is imperative to meet others in order to contribute to enlarging the way interculturality is discussed, problematized and ‘done’ in research and education around the world—and beyond the current centre represented by a limited number of scholars located in the ‘West’. Another message concerns the need for frictions to occur when scholars and educators meet across ‘ritornellos’ of interculturality. The neologism is not actually needed here. In fact, when we check the etymology of the word encounter in English, we note that frictions are central in the way the word has been used since the fourteenth century. As such the word is derived from French encontrer (meet, come across; confront, fight, oppose) and from Late Latin incontra “in front of”. This all indicates frictions in its etymology. However, today, the word encounter has a weakened sense of “meet casually or unexpectedly” as in the somewhat banal use of the phrase ‘intercultural encounters’. So, I added the idea of frictions in the word to emphasise the need to take this aspect into account. As a reminder, friction comes from Latin frictionem “a rubbing, rubbing down”. Figure 6.4 (an ear) contains the four components of encountrictions: Korvat auki! (Finnish for Ears open!), tension and release, metaxu and to be another. Undoing (invisible) borders between us as scholars and educators is an urgent reality of today. We might have the illusion that there are no borders and that we can freely enter into dialogues with each other around interculturality, stepping in and out Fig. 6.4 Encountrictions

Encountrictions

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of ritornellos. But there are many practical and psychological hurdles to this process. I am just listing some examples that come to mind: ‘tribal’ identities (belonging to a specific academic group, deemed to be a ‘pariah group’ for some scholars); political beliefs (disguised as paradigmatic, linguistic, field differences); a lack of motivation/interest in stepping outside one’s (ideological) comfort zone; a lack of knowledge about other ritornellos (linguistic hurdles, looking down on alternative knowledge considered to be ‘minor’). As I mentioned earlier I have realized for example that the fact that some other parts of the world have very specific ritornellos about interculturality does not even cross some scholars’ and educators’ minds. Some other scholars and educators might denigrate these ritornellos, arguing that theirs are more powerful, more ‘beautiful’. There is some form of interculturalspeak-centrism in dealing with interculturality in research and education. We might think we know better about it… Now let’s imagine that there is an opportunity for encountrictions. What could be done? In the list of elements in Fig. 6.4 I have put the Finnish sentence Korvat auki! (Ears open!). This is inspired by a Finnish association from the 1970s that aimed to counteract the nationalistic undertones of Finnish art music at the time. A group of students from a university told the establishment: EARS OPEN! Listen! Listen to us! Listen to the avant-garde, to contemporary music! Some of the finest Finnish musicians and composers of the 1990s, such as Kaija Saariaho, whom I mentioned earlier, Esa-pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg, took part in the movement (Moisala, 2009: 7). According to Salonen (in Moisala, 2009: 7): Korvat auki! described “what music should not be: music may not be tonal, music may not be modal, music may not be easily understandable—the form of music must be complex.” My dream is that this message is also taken seriously for interculturality in education and research: Listen, listen and listen! Listen to voices that are unheard, observe what they ‘do’ about interculturality, how they ‘do’ it, ‘speak’ it. You may ask a few questions—not interrogations—but bear in mind that questions might contain answers in their formulations since your way of seeing interculturality does influence discoursing around it with others. More importantly: Allow yourself to be puzzled, to feel discomfort about your own beliefs. Process what you hear, give it time and enter into dialogues: encountrict! Encountrictions may take place with colleagues, students, ‘common people’, engagement with fiction, the law, the news. By being a participant-observer, by listening to ‘witnesses’, ‘spokespeople’, ‘privileged informants’, etc. For the vast majority of interculturalists relations are said to be essential and their main object of analysis and education. However, in the way we/they ‘do’ it in our/their work, relations are somewhat outside the scope of problematizing interculturality. There are of course relations taking place between scholars and educators from different ‘contexts’ but when I look at the literature, encountrictions appear to be rare: people seem to write on their own or with colleagues and students who (are made to) agree. Frictions, disagreements, ‘fights’ do not seem to happen—at least for the ‘witness’ I might be when I read the literature. If they happen, they appear to remain within the dominating sphere of intercultural scholarship (e.g. multiculturalists vs. interculturalists; culturalists vs. non-culturalists). To quote Canetti (1989:

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61): “You need the rhetoric of others, the aversion it inspires, in order to find the way out of your own”. We need the kind of tension that might lead to release—and thus reconstruction, unthinking and rethinking. Canetti again (1989: 70): “To be another, another, another. As another, you could see yourself again, too.” Encountrictions can help us see ourselves from a distance: how do we conceive of interculturality? What might be special about it? What might be problematic? What could my encountrictions allow me to modify about ‘my’ interculturality? We may not agree with others, and identify some ‘oddities’, but by listening, experiencing tensions (and releases) I am made to think! The encounter then becomes ‘my volcano’ (Canetti, 1989: 36). Encountrictions don’t mean that I am constantly facing difference and that, what I consider to be difference in e.g. the way the other problematizes interculturality, might in fact share similitudes with some aspects of my own ritornellos. As Said wrote (1994: 336): “No one can deny the persisting continuities of long traditions, sustained habitations, national languages, and cultural geographies, but there seems no reason except fear and prejudice to keep insisting on their separation and distinctiveness, as if that was all human life was about”. I have coined the idea of differilitude (portmanteau word based on difference and similitude, see Deleuze’s Différence et répétition, 1968) to attract our attention to the necessary tension between these two parts of a continuum. Philosopher Simone Weil’s concept of Metaxu in Gravity and Grace (1992) emphasizes that (opposed) things are intermediaries leading from one to the other. For example, a wall is both a barrier but also a way through—prisoners separated by a wall may communicate with each other by knocking on it. As such the wall separates them but also links them and represents a potential bridge! An idea about interculturality that might appear ‘strange’, ‘unusual’, ‘incomprehensible’ at first—for different reasons: linguistic, ideological, economic-political—and separate us from the other, might end up bridging us, either by pointing at our differilitude or by making us change the way we see aspects of interculturality.

Beyond Shadow Puppets The less these people understand, the better they’ll behave. You get my point? Good. Here are the regulations that I’ll ask you to have proclaimed by the town criers in every district, so that they may be mentally digested by your townsfolk, even by those whose mental digestions are most sluggish. Ah, here they come, the town criers. Their pleasant appearance will help to fix the memory of what they say in the minds of their hearers. (Camus, 1962: 266)

Shadow puppetry consists in casting shadows of puppets or actors on a screen. This is often referred to as a shadow show. One sees the shadows but cannot discern details of the characters—e.g. colours and fine particulars. What is more, a puppeteer controls the movement of the puppet by means of strings or wires. The shadow puppet thus has no agency, no ‘real’ clear identity. My impression of (dominant) scholarship and/or education on interculturality is that of shadow puppetry: one manoeuvres (or is manoeuvred to manoeuvre), but

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also recycles ideologies, words, sayings, beliefs about the notion, without always questioning and/or understanding what is occurring. Often knowledge about interculturality, with a very specific ideological background, beliefs (silences!), is static and becomes mere pieces of information, statements. Like the secretary in Camus’s play State of Siege (1962), about a city taken over by the plague, quoted above, these become ‘regulations’ to be “fixed” in people’s minds. Beyond this puppeteering, movement is needed: ideas, concepts, ideological constructions that are capable of moving—not just imprinting a shadow on a wall! Figure 6.5 presents aspects of my dream concerning this component of interculturality. To move beyond mere information towards reflections on methods, definitions, use of words, translations (we’ll come back to this in the next section), ways of interpreting and discoursing, is a necessity—which also means moving beyond the fashionable towards constant change. This means questioning what sounds like prêtà-penser (ready-to-think) and prêt-à-parler (ready-to-speak). Three quick examples:

Beyond mere information ‒

what is knowledge? Fashion vs. change Political knowledge and the need for antagonism Utility of interculturality as a notion

Fig. 6.5 Beyond shadow puppets

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Byram’s savoirs (1997) are probably the most quoted aspects of intercultural competence on the global scene. They have become ritornellos that are sung in different versions—often in simplified tunes. They are hardly ever criticized, problematized and appear to be used as a ‘model’. Another example is Holliday’s (1999) idea of small/big culture which is often used devoid of its potential intricacies. The same applies to Abdallah-Pretceille’s (2006) concept of culturality which has become a mere synonym for culture. In a sense, these all become accepted, but also simplified. These prêt-à-penser (ready-to-think) and prêt-à-parler (ready-to-speak) dominate the field and serve as shadow puppets for the whole world. In the way they are used there is no interculturality, no other voices have served to open them up to other horizons. The inter- is negated. They tell us how and what to do—without us always understanding what their ‘inventors’ might have wanted us to do with them. There is thus a need to look for ideas that haven’t been ‘chewed on’… ideas that respect the principle of interculturality itself as something that moves forward— and backward and in all directions—constantly, reflecting the encountrictions of the previous section. Political knowledge is a dream priority for interculturality (Dervin & Simpson, 2021). Mouffe’s (2013) idea of pluralism is inspiring in this sense. For Mouffe, the political must lead to different forms of dissensus to help us move forward in our lives, thinking and takes on the world. Antagonism can help resist ethico-political ‘orders’ that are passed onto us by hegemonic institutions and systems such as education, politics, the media, capitalist practices, etc. These orders tell us what to do, what to believe, what to not question, how to behave (see the aforementioned aspects of prêt-à-penser (ready-to-think) and prêt-à-parler (ready-to-speak). Mouffe (2013) argues that antagonism is the only way that pluralism of thoughts, ideologies, practices, passions can get recognition. About today’s reality in the ‘West’ (in research included!), Mouffe (2013: 43) explains: Liberal theorists envisage the field of politics as a neutral terrain in which different groups compete to occupy the positions of power, their objective being to dislodge others in order to occupy their place, without putting into question the dominant hegemony and profoundly transforming the relations of power. It is simply a competition among elites.

Although people might disagree and argue (politely) with each other—if they have or are given real opportunities to do so!—the system itself is deemed uncriticizable and unchangeable. In relation to interculturality, it appears fine to ‘put down’ e.g. culture or a certain über-constructivist usage of identity but critiques of the prêtà-penser (ready-to-think) and prêt-à-parler (ready-to-speak) of democracy, human rights, citizenship1 appear to be unacceptable. It is probably true of other (glocal) political ritornellos of interculturality where specific orders are non-negotiable. One way of dealing with this, still according to Mouffe (2013), is to recognize and accept the need for a multipolar world “abandoning the illusion of a political unification of the world”, which I would qualify as a multipolar world of ritornellos of interculturality. Reconciliation is impossible. Too many of us believe that we hold ‘the 1

An interesting Freudian slip in a first draft of this dream made me spell citizenship, critizenship.

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truth’ about what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ interculturality in education and research. And instead of brainwashing others, trying to convince them that ‘our’ own interculturality is the chosen one, we must (let them) listen (to us/again) to this multipolar world, look back at ourselves/themselves and decide ourselves/themselves if we are ready to change, to accept to unthink and rethink, move beyond the status quo… ad nauseam … again … Conflicts, frictions, strong disagreements, antagonism represent essential parts of these processes. Not reaching consensus is an achievement in itself when it comes to interculturality as a discourse and practice of research and education. Finally, beyond the shadow puppets, beyond the accepted and what is deemed the accepted, interculturality must allow itself to question its own usefulness in practice and theory…

Cherishing the Wealth of the Incomprehensible The last component of my Verblendungen dream is represented in Fig. 6.6, and contains four aspects to be discussed in what follows. This component is based on the somewhat provocative idea of the wealth of the incomprehensible from Canetti (1989: 20): “To release a man into the languages of the world. He becomes wiser by the whole wealth of the incomprehensible”. Using language always includes the risk of not being understood—even misunderstood or non-understood. When we discuss interculturality in research and education, in our own language(s) or in a third language (a lingua franca like English), a lack

The 'fishing net' and 'fountain of youth' of multilingualism

Wealth of the incomprehensible Experience translating and being translated

Fig. 6.6 Wealth of the incomprehensible

Connotation/denotation

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of explicitness, criticality, reflexivity co-performed with(out) others might lead to incomprehensibility: we think we are dialoguing but actually we are not. In recent years, through my intensive engagement with Chinese scholars of so-called ‘Ethnic minority education’ (Minzu education) it has become clear to me that we were not always ‘communicating’ when we spoke to each other. We used words and phrases and ideas that appeared to be familiar to each of us in English, but this was an illusion in most cases since we did not ‘feel’ them the same way most of the time (see Dervin & Yuan, 2021). This made us appreciate the wealth of this incomprehensibility since it pushed us to put our ideas, discourses, and ideologies on the table and to dig into the bases of things—a tabula rasa! One very important aspect of this relates to the dichotomy of connotation and denotation. Denotation (the direct specific meaning of a word, as distinct from an associated idea) may not be so problematic in this process—dictionaries will provide us with such (sometimes illusionary) equivalents. Connotation, on the other hand, which refers to properties, suggestions, secondary senses that come to mind when one hears a word, may be completely misleading when using translated words. Umberto Eco (2001: 24) explains the importance of this last aspect: One could say that a good translation is not concerned with the denotation but with the connotation of words: the word cool, in English, denotes a physical state but in the idiom keep cool connotes a psychological one, so that a correct Italian translation should not be rimani freddo but rather sta’ calmo.

In my work with Sude, Yuan et al. (e.g. Dervin & Yuan, 2021) we have come across so many such issues in our use of words such as propaganda, ethnic, tolerance, and even interculturality… When used in English as a lingua franca, most of these words might easily turn into double entendres—there are several possible interpretations, with one potentially leading to miscommunication. This incomprehensivity—a wealth rather than a limit!—must be discussed around the connotations of words and ideas. Translation plays a central role in this process. Translate again and again! Eco (2001: 18) makes an important suggestion in what follows: If translation studies are concerned with the process of translation from a source text A in a language Alpha to a target text B in a language Beta, then translation scholars should have had, at least once in their life, both the experience of translating and that of being translated (obviously into a language they know, so they can work in close cooperation with their translator).

I have had the opportunity to experience translating my own work and being translated into Chinese. For the latter, on one occasion, I did not have the opportunity to check the translation, which led to a small disaster: the Chinese version was very ambiguous and provided the readers with wrong interpretations of my ideas about interculturality. Conversely, the translation of one of my books led to very interesting discussions between the team of translators and myself, which also helped me move forward in my own work. The ‘Starbucksification’ of the dominating knowledge of interculturality in research and education is a danger, especially if it is not problematized, contrasted, dialogued around. It represents a danger if the dominating voices are not somehow

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muffled and asked to listen to others. By engaging around language about interculturality we might be empowered to look into the possibilities of struggle against the powerful voices and to resist our hidden and often unnoticed ideologization. Canetti, whom I have quoted repeatedly in this chapter, has always been very sensitive to issues of language in his writings. He describes for example words as “outposts” in one of his books (1989: 51). Using a military metaphor, he shows the power of words and their potential manipulations. This is why we must beware of them, not to be imposed ‘orders’ and ideas that we might actually disagree with. On the other hand, in the same volume, Canetti (1989: 53) notes “When I read the words of this new (for me) language, my own words are filled with freshness and strength. The languages find their fountain of youth in one another”. Being confronted with other languages increases the wealth of the incomprehensible and thus can also enlarge our views on the world, especially if we can dialogue around these words, exchange arguments, agree-disagree, aim for consensus or not. To summarize this aspect of the dream, let me use another metaphor. Cassin (2016: 49) reminds us that German Romantics proposed to compare a language to a net thrown onto the world. Depending on the type of mesh, the place where the net is used for catching fish, the way it is thrown into the water and retrieved, different fishes can be caught. What this means is that different languages as nets can catch different—and of course at times similar—things. Discussing these different ‘fishes’, through encountrictions, beyond shadow puppets, can support us in the goal from a thousand points…. [Take time to reflect] • Do you believe that something new could be thought of and invented about interculturality in education and research today? Is Beckett’s “You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson”, mentioned at the beginning of Dream 2, too pessimistic? What is ‘inventing’ in education and research? • How could we find new inspiration for unthinking and rethinking interculturality? • Are the dominating ritornellos of interculturality necessarily making us blind to other ritornellos? • What problems contained in the ‘cage’ of interculturalspeak have been challenging you to move forward with interculturality? • How do you understand the idea of ‘silent cannibalization’ in the context of research and education about interculturality? • Are there ‘monotonous credos’ of interculturality that you keep hearing in research and education? Can you say what they are and what makes them problematic? • In the chapter, Fred lists what could be referred to as ‘false questions of interculturality’ (e.g. Are Hofstede’s ‘theories’ confirmed by my data?). Can you think of more such non-questions? What about problems? What are for you concrete problems of interculturality in education and research today? • Explain the following components of Fred’s dream: encountrictions, words as outposts, Korvat auki! Can you think of concrete examples of how to deal with these aspects?

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• Do you believe in the possibility of cross-fertilizing ritornellos of interculturality? Have you come across ‘convincing’ examples? • Can you think of examples of Metaxu which are beneficial for rethinking interculturality? • Fred mentions a few reasons as to why few ‘real’ dialogues around interculturality are taking place between scholars globally—but we could also say the same about teachers and students. Can you think of other reasons? • How to stimulate encountrictions in global research on interculturality? Can you think of potential initiatives that could be taken? • What do you make of Canetti’s quote for interculturality: “You need the rhetoric of others, the aversion it inspires, in order to find the way out of your own”? • Do you see potential problems with the concept of differilitude? • Fred came up with several examples of prêt-à-penser (ready-to-think) and prêt-àparler (ready-to speak) about interculturality (concepts such as Byram’s savoirs, Holliday’s small/big culture) in his dream. Have you come across such elements? • Do you agree with Mouffe that there must be space for antagonism for us to move forward with plurality of thoughts and ritornellos? How could constructive antagonism be possible in a world of research and education where it is basically impossible to disagree with ‘powerful’ figures? • Have you experienced ‘fishing’ out different connotations of words related to interculturality when you tried to use a different linguistic fishing net? Give examples.

References Abdallah-Pretceille, M. (2006). Interculturalism as a paradigm for thinking about diversity. Intercultural Education, 17(5), 475–483. Baudrillard, J. (2008). Carnaval et cannibale. L’Herne. Beckett, S. (1955). Three Novels: Molloy · Malone Dies · The Unnamable. Grove Press. Boulez, P. (1999). Entretiens avec Michel Archimbaud. Gallimard. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters. Camus, A. (1962). Caligula and three other plays. Vintage. Canetti, E. (1989). The secret heart of the clock. Farrar Straus Giroux. Cassin, B. (2016). Éloge de la traduction. Compliquer l’universel. Fayard. Deleuze, G. (1968). Différence et repetition. Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine. Deleuze, G. (1996). L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze (with Claire Parnet, DVD). MIT Press. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2004). A thousand Plateaus. Continuum. Dervin, F., & Simpson, A. (2021). Interculturality and the political within education. Routledge. Dervin, F. & Yuan, M. (2021). Revitalizing interculturality in education. Chinese Minzu as a companion. Routledge. Descola, P. (2009). A voix nue. https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/voix-nue/philippe-descola Eco, U. (2001). Experiences in translation. University of Toronto Press. Holliday, A. (1999). Small cultures. . Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 237–264. Moisala, P. (2009). Kaija Saariaho. University of Illinois Press. Mouffe, C. (2013). Agonistics: Thinking the world politically. Verso.

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Nieminen, R. (1985). Kaija Saariaho: “At the moment the computer and I belong together”. Finnish Music Quarterly. https://fmq.fi/archives/1985 Panikkar, R. (1982). La notion des droits de l’homme est-elle un concept occidental? Diogène, 120, 87–115. Said, E. (1994). Culture and imperialism. Vintage. Sartre, J.-P. (1938). La nausée. Gallimard. Weil, S. (1992). Gravity and grace. Routledge.

Chapter 7

Conclusion: Let’s Dream Together!

Abstract This chapter concludes the book by summarizing the main points made about the need to interculturalise interculturality. Bearing in mind the current problems faced by interculturalists, noted in the book chapters, the authors’ dreams are made to come together. Although the dreams were formulated differently (author 1 called for a multipolar order vs. author 2 polycentrism) and contained minor differences the rebellious dreams proposed by the authors joined hands by suggesting to invest in dialogue as a meaningful signifier while allowing, requesting and practising conflict and dissensus in the way scholars, students and educators engage with the idea of interculturality. As they have tried to demonstrate in the book, authentic curiosity and interdisciplinarity also represent fundamental aspects of their dreams. The authors claim, to conclude, that the only viable dream is that of reversing power relations in the way interculturality is expressed, constructed and done glocally. Keywords Meaningful signifier · Reversing power · Dissensus · Intersectionality · Multilingualism Kraus (1919: 80) describes well our attempt at interculturalising interculturality in this book: “Soldiers who don’t know what they’re fighting for know, nevertheless, what they’re not fighting for.” There is a ‘fight’ to be fought for interculturality— multifaceted fights… Sometimes we know what we are (not) fighting for, sometimes we are not sure…. This conclusion starts with a summary of our dreams presented in the previous chapters. What are their specificities and similitudes? What can we take away from dreaming about interculturality otherwise? Andreas’s dream started with the wish to see a new generation of creative and audacious interculturalists willing to try out new ideas, new methods and new material outside of the box by implementing e.g. ‘real’ interdisciplinarity. Andreas insisted repeatedly on the need to liberate research and teaching from the constraints of positivist objectivity, which still dominates our field. He argued for comparisons (should they be needed) to be made in dialogue between different perspectives in a non-discriminatory way without suppressing the politico-economical edges of differences. The dream continues to suggest preparing to re-evaluate and rethink not only what we are doing, but also the consequences of doing nothing and of upholding © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and A. Jacobsson, Intercultural Communication Education, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1589-5_7

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Beyond positivist objectivity

Conflict and dissensus

Radical equality

Polycentrism

Fig. 7.1 Andreas’s dream of polycentrism

the status quo in the way interculturality is dealt with in intercultural communication education. The keyword of equality—radical equality to be more precise—in terms of epistemology, politics, the economy and ‘culture’, is central in Andreas’s dream. This includes openness, indeterminacy and loss of control. And equality must be conjoined with the right to conflict and dissensus in e.g. devising theory and methods. The importance of diversifying objects of study by introducing e.g. audiovisual fiction as a tool for developing polycentric perspectives is also fundamental. This would require active engagement with micropolitics and intersectionality (as fluid analytical concepts) by means of ongoing global scholarly dialogues. Andreas’s dream ultimate goal would be to make polycentrism function as a default position for all researchers and teachers. All in all, his dream can be summarized by means of Fig. 7.1. Fred insists at the beginning of his dream that his Verblendungen (Bedazzlement) is momentary, meaning that the dream will and must change as much as one’s conceptualization of interculturality shifts when one encounters new colleagues, new students, new ideologies, new ‘ritornellos’. He also insists on the fact that his dream is not about what interculturality should look like but what could be done about it as an object of research and education around the world. The first aspect of Fred’s dream is to help people (himself included) to not be bedazzled by certain discourses of interculturality but to have the capacity to perceive other things in the notion. This is drawn from what Fred describes as four basic problems that urgently need to be addressed in education and research: silencing of the powerless voices, monotony of the dominating voices, ignorance of glocal knowledge and asking false questions while ignoring major problems of interculturality. As a consequence Fred’s dream proposes four strategies to be used to fight against these problems: to create deliberately a multipolar order of interculturality, listening to as many voices constructing interculturality as possible; to avoid rehearsing and recycling ideologies of interculturality that we do not feel comfortable with; to accept, enjoy and request conflicts in encounters about interculturality as an object of research and education; to dig into the complex meanings of words in different languages. About multilingual engagement with discourses of interculturality, Fred suggests including reflections on language use in relation to discourses of interculturality in our work: Discuss untranslatability, formulations, explanations with multilingual colleagues and make changes to our own thinking/writing accordingly. Read in as many languages as we can, even plurilinguistically—e.g. in a language from the same language family of languages we speak. Interrogate the words used in different languages and confront them with others. Like Andreas’s dream this dream ultimately calls for reversing power relations

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Fig. 7.2 Keywords in Fred’s dream

Conflicts

Reverse power relations Multilingual approach

Reject if necessary

between the multiple voices discoursing interculturality. Fred’s dream is summarized in Fig. 7.2. Table 7.1 contrasts and compares Andreas’s and Fred’s dreams, showing their starting points, the elements that they wish to see changed, the strategies contained in their dreams as well as their ultimate goals. Strikethroughs in the ’what to change?’ section of the table emphasise major problems in intercultural scholarship today. Let’s focus on the proposed strategies here. Although they are formulated differently (see multipolar order in Fred’s dream vs. polycentrism in Andreas’s) and contain minor differences (e.g. the emphasis on adopting a genuine multilingual perspective on discoursing interculturality in Fred’s dream and the important idea of fighting against the status quo in Andreas’s), many similarities are noted: • The keyword of dialogue, as a meaningful signifier, is omnipresent in the two dreams. As a first step when encountering the other, being transparent about the influences on the way we use discourses of interculturality in research such as (un/official) political movements, economic forces, religious beliefs, ideologies formulated by supra-/national institutions must be practised. To enter into a dialogue means allowing oneself to leave one’s comfort zone (which can be physical, intellectual, linguistic, ideological …) and to open the door to the other. In Dervin and Yuan (2021) the authors use the metaphor of the companion in Chinese to urge people to enter into dialogues. In Chinese companion is based on the character for a gate—opening it together. Let’s give real space to other ways of thinking and seeing interculturality beyond the ‘canonical’. This is not about merely giving the other the floor to speak in ‘our’ terms but to let them speak in their own ways about interculturality, using the words and ideologies that they might want to use. Let the unspoken be heard (e.g. ideologies that some scholars and educators might feel are not acceptable in ‘global’ research).

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Table 7.1 Andreas’s and Fred’s dreams compared Andreas

Fred

Starting point Wish for a new generation of creative and audacious interculturalists

Dreams of interculturality will and must change Intercultural research and education are not about what is interculturality? but about what could be done to make it a fair object of research and education?

What to change?

Make comparisons in dialogue between different perspectives in a discriminatory way, suppressing politico-economical edges

Address four main problems: silencing of the powerless voices, monotony of the dominating voices, ignorance of glocal knowledge and asking false questions while ignoring major problems of interculturality

Imprison research and teaching within positivist objectivity

Bedazzlement in front of certain dominating discourses of interculturality

Strategies to try out Prepare to re-evaluate and rethink the consequences of doing nothing and of upholding the status quo

Create deliberately a multipolar order of interculturality, listening to as many voices constructing interculturality as possible

Place equality in terms of epistemology, politics, the economy and ‘culture’ at the centre

Avoid rehearsing and recycling opportunistic ideologies of interculturality

Use one’s right to conflict and dissensus in e.g. devising theory and methods

Accept, enjoy and request conflicts in research and educational encounters

Require genuine global scholarly dialogues Discover and problematize systematically the complex meanings of words in different languages Diversify objects of study by introducing e.g. audio-visual fiction Ultimate goal Make polycentrism a default position for all Reverse power relations between the multiple researchers and teachers voices discoursing interculturality

• Conflict and dissensus must be allowed, requested and practised to allow moving forward in the field of intercultural communication education, breaking down the borders between academic ‘tribes’ and ‘tribal-centrism’. Being fully aware of the ideologies that ‘hide’ behind our way of shaping and ‘flavouring’ discourses of interculturality (those we support, those we reject) is the first step. How these might lead to misinterpreting and judging some of these discourses is the second before engaging with others. Theories, paradigms, concepts, notions, etc. deserve

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to be fully reflected upon. Although we live in times where ‘direct’ conflict seems to be avoided at all costs, the kind of conflict and dissensus that we suggest requires having the right to speak and to disagree openly with others, explaining as clearly as one can why one disagrees and even sharing one’s sentiments as to why one feels one must disagree. If feelings of injustice for oneself and/or others are experienced, one must share them too. Empowering others to disagree (for example, a younger colleague) is also part of this strategy. Let’s reflect and be transparent about why we use a given intercultural ideology, paradigm and/or methodology and related concepts and notions. Let’s consider if alternatives could be used and/or complement our initial thoughts and reflect critically on our own ideologies. Let’s write about and/or discuss these openly in our articles/diaries and with other scholars. Maybe we should bear in mind what Russell (in Thomas, 2021: 2) said about ‘our’ knowledge: “We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.” Our knowledge about interculturality is always limited. Conflict and dissensus cannot but help us move forward! • Finally, the two dreams clearly call for authentic curiosity and interdisciplinarity in the way interculturality is discoursed in research and education. There are, of course, signs of interdisciplinarity in the field already, however we often feel that this kind of interdisciplinarity is too easy, monotonous and sometimes tokenistic. In our dreams, and in the tableaus, we have allowed ourselves to be curious otherwise by looking into music, art, the cinema, philosophy, etc. By rehearsing the same ‘intercultural’ voices, even interdisciplinary ones, we run the risk of stifling interculturality further. Let’s read, let’s listen, let’s watch, let’s include a menagerie of voices in our work! And more importantly: let’s not be afraid of being iconoclastic, of trying out new things. The richness of interculturality must be reflected in this important aspect of our work! What our ‘challenging’ dreams clearly call for is a liberation of the mind about interculturality! Instead of acting as ‘bureaucrats’ and ‘civil servants’ of the notion by applying dictated rules and regulations (Don’t be essentialist! Believe in (‘our’) democracy! Tolerate! Respect cultures!…), interculturality must provide us with opportunities to ponder over what we don’t know, about problems rather than (solid) answers or (simple/fake) questions. To conclude (temporarily): In Tableau 1 we used the metaphor of the brushstroke to describe the domination of the field by certain ‘Western’ voices and the presence of a multitude of (unheard and ignored) alternatives. In Fig. 7.3 we suggest to reverse the direction of the stroke by starting from these alternatives and allowing each of us to engage (see the bidirectional arrow) with each other and to circulate amongst the different ‘ritornellos’ of interculturality. We feel that this symbolises well liberating our mind.

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Fig. 7.3 The reverse brushstroke of interculturality

References Dervin, F., & Yuan, M. (2021). Revitalizing interculturality in education. Chinese Minzu as a companion. Routledge. Kraus, K. (1919). Die Fackel, 508–513. Verlag Die Fackel. Thomas, C. G. (2021). Research methodology and scientific writing. Springer.