The Double Bind of Interculturality and the Implications for Education

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which boundaries of estrangement are produced in the academic literature assigned for courses on interculturality. As the existence of interculturality is dependent on the ascription of content to culture – since the notion, by definition, always involves more than one singular culture – this essay seeks to provide an answer to the question of what this literature, implicitly or otherwise, defines in terms of sameness vis-à-vis otherness, and thereby to chart the conditions for becoming intercultural. This question is especially important because the self in interculturality has to be, in principle, generalizable: it should signify a position available for occupation by anybody with proper training in this approach. Starting from the assumption that different experiences, languages and identities, already intersect and are indeed already intercultural before being subjected to study under the auspices of ‘interculturality’ as an educational topic, the essay goes on to problematize the way in which interculturality tends to construe sameness and difference along national lines and does little to cater for multiple, as opposed to national, or other unified, identities.

Keywords:

• Interculturality
• Otherness
• Education
• Multiculturalism
• Diversity
• Border Crossing

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my gratitude to Andreas Fejes, Stefan Jonsson, and the journal's reviewers for their generous assistance.

Notes

[1] This quotation is mentioned by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1990: 60) in an interview with Sneja Gunew in which she comments on identity politics, representation, and the dangers of homogenizing when discussing multiculturalism, stating that ‘Proust in A la recherche, when someone is criticizing Françoise's French, writes, “What is French but bad Latin?” So from that point of view, one can't distinguish, you can't say that this is a French position or a Roman position.’

[2] The following texts are included in the analysis: Developing Intercultural Awareness: A Cross-Cultural Training Handbook; Cultural Encounters: An Introduction to Intercultural Studies (title in Swedish: Kulturmöten: En introduktion till interkulturella studier); Intercultural Pedagogy in Theory and Practice (title in Swedish: Interkulturell pedagogik i teori och praktik). It is necessary to add that I do not regard the material as homogenous by any means. The mere fact that the texts under scrutiny are published in the USA and Sweden raises questions about the codification of interculturality depending on context. Although it is not ignored, it is not the main aim of this essay to trace contradictions and differences in interpretations of interculturality. No matter the context; however, an indispensable ingredient of interculturality is the construction of sameness and otherness. Thus, the critical analysis performed in this essay operates on a general level.