International Meeting on Interculturality

Interculturael. Balance and perspectives International meeting on interculturality. november 2001 Transversal lines of the debates Yolanda Onghena (+34) 93 302 6495 - Fax. (+34) 93 302 6495 - [email protected] (+34) 93 302 6495 - Fax. [email protected] - Calle Elisabets, 12 08001 Barcelona, España Tel. Fundación CIDOB TRANSVERSAL LINES OF THE DEBATES PRESENTATION DYNAMICS • TRANSFORMATION • COMMUNICATION • DIALOGUE • LANGUAGE • STRATEGIES USES • RECIPROCITY • LIVING TOGETHER • ENCOUNTER • RECOGNITION • RELATIONSHIP CONTEXTS • GLOBAL/LOCAL • POLITICAL • PLURALISMS • CENTRALISMS • DIVERSITY • LIMITS • TRANSVERSAL LINES OF THE DEBATES Yolanda Onghena Head of Intercultural Unit CIDOB Foundation Presentation As a supplement to the report, we have chosen to include portions of the debates, which, through the actual words of the participants, provide a synthesis of the meeting. We have decided to divide up the comments into three areas: dynamics, uses, and contexts. While there is something artificial about dividing up constantly overlapping approaches in this manner, we did think it might be useful for the reader if we created what we might call focal points. This is not a complete transcription but rather a selection of presentations touching on the topics most discussed, even at times from opposing positions. The first group, dynamics, contains comments about transformation, communication, dialogue, language, and strategy. The second group is an attempt to reach a definition of interculturality through thinking about its uses: reciprocity, living-together, meeting, recognition, and relationship. This reflection would be incomplete if consideration were not given to different contexts: global and local contexts, the political context, centralisms, diversity and the limits of interculturality. We hope, in this way, to draw the reader into the debate and allow him/her to carry on with the reflections begun here. 127 TRANSVERSAL LINES OF THE DEBATES Dynamics There are quite a few differences among the definitions given. The debate would be then a matter of pointing up what is different among them. This approach tends to conceive of the intercultural as a kind of study. Or rather, as a methodology that permits studying, describing, and analyzing the dynamic of interaction among different cultures, what is intercultural as the object of research and study. There are two paths interculturality can take: one dangerous and the other, from my point of view, desirable. The dangerous one turns it into interculturalism, that is, a dogmatic ideology, blind and deaf to other intercultural propositions. The intercultural can become interculturalism when it tries show off the truth of interculturality. I believe this is a dangerous path. I feel the other theoretical path came out here much more when one talked about interculturalizing interculturality, when one talked about interculturalities in the plural. I believe one much accept pluralism within interculturality itself. This, in my opinion, means that interculturality is a way of thinking with a tension. It is a way of thinking that leaves one bank and approaches another. In fact, interculturality speaks more of bridges than of banks. Interculturality speaks more of relationships, of dynamics than of the different banks. Transformation We have forgotten an essential datum about interculturality, the concept of cultural dynamic. The concept of cultural dynamic is extremely important. In what is cultural, we will have to keep in mind what we have learned: nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. In the area of culture, the fundamental law is transformation. For this reason, any debate about identity is a debate that we have already gotten past, in that there are no closed identities, they are all plural. In the debate about interculturality we can perhaps no longer speak of large cultures and small cultures, but rather about the dynamic or non-dynamic nature of cultures. There are cultures that are more dynamic than others, more flexible, that adapt more profoundly. TRANSVERSAL LINES OF THE DEBATES 129 The dynamic of culture, of cultural transformation is fundamental. We live in cultures undergoing processes of transformation, but I do not feel that this is incompatible with stressing that possible intercultural consensuses often depend on memories, that agreement is often reached through memory, that is, cultural memory, cultural memory as a source of agreement. Complementing this process of cultural dynamic and transformation one must also ask what we want to preserve, what we really ought to and want to preserve, what we need to think about and remember in order not to get lost. In my opinion, I think that what is important about dynamics, whether in the area of culture and interculturality or in the area of identity, are the evolutions. I believe there are transformations, I believe perhaps not in progress—I would not use this term, which has too many historical connotations—but I believe, that in any case that it does not have to be something immobile. For me, an immobile identity is a dead identity and, for me, is of no interest. The process of dialogue leads us to a profound transformation of our way of approaching things which, in view of the fact that interculturality goes from the margins to the center, forces us to reflect on what law is, if we think of it as an intercultural form, the economy, medicine, accepting that in the dialogue with other cultures we will be forced to give up the framework we started out with, giving it but not completely. As for our culture, we can enrich it based on what others tell us, we can translate, we can open our windows as fas as possible. But we need to be aware that opening our window does not imply the other’s window will open, and that, therefore, the challenge lies in a dialogue between two visions of the world and in the widest possible opening up of our vision of the world so that dialogue can take place. Communication But, in my opinion, interculturality ought to operate as a kind of channel of communication, that is a way in which we can communicate based on tolerance and certain other aspects of our cultures and our behaviors. This is another issue. I believe that the debate on interculturality is extremely important because it raises issues about relationships and permits discussion, permits communication among different cultures. This communication cannot of course be completely rationalized. It will never lead to another form of rationality and scientific precision. But it will then always be a type of approach combining what we know with the desire to do something. If we wish to communicate, if we understand that we are living in the same world, then the relationships that are established will be intercultural and this means that new choices open for us. Interculturality may bring with it certain negative aspects. This is also very interesting. It means that people want to communicate and I believe that the possibility of communicating, in itself, is something very positive. We are exchanging positive values, positive experiences. I would also like to say that interculturality, as it is experienced at times, can create real 130 TRANSVERSAL LINES OF THE DEBATES • problems in the relations between different cultures. This is perhaps related to the choice of identity. If the culture is not capable of defining well or appropriately or in a way suited for communicating its own culture, if we are not capable of defining what is our culture and what culture, then we also find ourselves in a situation in which we can experience negative aspects of our co m m u n i c a t i o n . It is not just a matter of talking about which culture is better or acceptable or less acceptable, it leads us to close off the concept of culture. Parts of your own culture and you believe, given that the channels of communication are not open, and that there is no desire to communicate, you end up thinking that your culture is absolutely the best, or at least the best that you can choose. And this communication, or the results of such communication, may not always be positive. Interculturality can also include a certain type of domination of given values of the culture, and there is no guarantee that relations among cultures are going to be the best. In use, not in the purely abstract concept, in the use of communication, it was pointed out that there is damaging, negative communication. The intercultural would then be a communication but what communication does one use for talking about communication without domination, communication in freedom, this is a use that belongs to the family of interculturality. Interculturality is a desired condition, is dialogue-based communication, contains a recognition of the value of other ethics, leads to cross- fertilization. The mass media can be a serious obstacle to interculturality. And I am not talking about the war journalism we are seeing. It is clear one cannot ask journalism to be what it is not. A journalist is not an anthropologist, a journalist is not a sociologist, a journalist is not a theologian. I believe that one can, nevertheless, achieve a much more understanding journalism in two ways, on two paths. One is professional training, through the professional training of new journalists or the continuing education of current journalists. The second way is through the appearance of other social discourses that reinforce intercultural dynamics. Journalists often pick up forms of discourse present in the society and for this reason, I relate it to theory. Journalists need theoretical discourses that reinforce a different vision of their analysis and their understanding of reality. I believe that, if we do not want our discourse to become a minority discourse, we need to keep the mass media in mind and we need to keep journalists in mind in trying to create a new vision of reality.

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