The globalisation of fear and the construction of the intercultural imagination

Abstract

Intercultural education concerns the destruction of boundaries between people and their replacement by what Jurgen Habermas has called communicative action. It is a difficult task that raises various forms of existential fear: consciousness of individual mortality, communal insecurity, collective anxiety and distrust. In order to confront this globalisation of fear, to engage with ourselves as well as with others, the construction of what we might term the intercultural imagination is required. Intercultural education must embrace hope and the imagination, but in association with reason, understanding and knowledge. It is grounded in a capacity for critical pragmatism, an appreciation for an educational project based on a global concern for equity and justice and for the establishment of the basis of unfettered, rational communication between peoples. The construction of the intercultural imagination is a process which demands more than the attainment of the usual pedagogical competences; it requires an engagement both with hope and with fear.

Keywords:

• intercultural
• education
• fear
• imagination
• globalisation