Edited by Diane Powell & Fiona Sze Interculturalism: Exploring Critical Issues Edited by Diane Powell and Fiona Sze Oxford, United Kingdom Dr Robert Fisher Series Editor Advisory Board Dr Margaret Sönsor Breen Professor Diana Medlicott Professor Margaret Chatterjee Revd Stephen Morris Dr Salwa Ghaly Professor John Parry Professor Michael Goodman Dr David Seth Preston Professor Asa Kasher Professor Bernie Warren Mr Christopher Macallister Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E Volume 8 A volume in the Critical Issues project >Interculturalism= First published 2004 by the Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom 8Inter-Disciplinary Press 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN: 1-904710-07-7 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION INTERCULTURAL CONTEXTS Search for senses of connection and possibilities in counselling interculturalism Katy Batha ............................................................................................................... 5 Interculturalism and migrant workers in Israel Leonard Hammer..................................................................................................... 9 Integration of female domestic workers in Italy Nada Bucat & Cristina Finocchiaro ..................................................................... 13 AESTHETIC INTERCULTURALISM Intercultural visuality: image and memory in the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Sandra Song &Minh Nguyen................................................................................. 21 Living souvenirs: intercultural memory, longing and nostalgia Diane Powell ......................................................................................................... 25 INTERCULTURALISM EAST/WEST The Mediterranean and Asia: a history of their intercultural encounters and related issues in comparative philosophy Lenart Skof............................................................................................................. 33 East Asia in the art of Roy Lichtenstein Karen Bandlow...................................................................................................... 39 Independent Travellers and Southeast Asia Samantha Chen...................................................................................................... 43 INTERCULTURALISM, PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS AND RELIGION Gadamer and interculturalism: ethnocentrism or authenticity Helder De Schutter ................................................................................................ 51 Silent East: how can we give a voice to Asian theology? Kiyoshi Seko .......................................................................................................... 59 vi Moral perfectionism as a challenge to human rights 63 Marjaana Kopperi ................................................................................................. 63 INTERCULTURALISM, CULTURE AND EVERYDAY LIFE L’Auberge Espagnole: interculturalism in the European melting pot Olivier Béguin........................................................................................................ 71 The elusive truth: intercultural music exchange in Addictive Tamara Roberts ..................................................................................................... 83 Epistemological displacements in the media and literatures of the Americas Patrick Imbert........................................................................................................ 87 Intercultural everyday life via Henri Lefebvre Jones Irwin ............................................................................................................ 91 INTERCULTURALISM AND EDUCATION Interculturalism and the crisis of value advocacy in education Mark Brasher, Ph.D. ............................................................................................. 99 Decolonizing methodologies: intercultural research ethics at stake. Eleonore Wildburger ........................................................................................... 105 Intercultural education in a divided school system Tony Gallagher.................................................................................................... 111 CREATIVITY, CULTURE & PERFORMANCE The ownership of cultural hybrids Eric Chek Wai Lau .............................................................................................. 121 How interculturalism performs: performativity, performability and theatricality of interculturalism Fiona Siang Yun Sze............................................................................................ 127 Creative contexts: culture as an agent of change Simone Griesmayr ............................................................................................... 135 INTRODUCTION The Critical Issues: Interculturalism is an electronic collection of papers presented at the First Global Conference on Critical Issues in Interculturalism, held in Milan, Italy from 30 October to 1 November 2003. The conference was organised to explore the meaning and implications of interculturalism, from a practical and political perspective as well as in a theoretical sense. Truly global, the conference included participants from Brazil, Australia, Nepal, Singapore, Canada, USA (New York, Hawaii, California and Illinois), Europe (Belgium, Austria, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Finland), Israel, and Slovenia. Topics were wide ranging: interculturalism and education; migrant workers; creativity (performance, art, film, music, literature); everyday life; memory; philosophy; religion and human rights; war and peace; ethnocentrism; travel; cultural hybridity; intercultural dialogue in Europe, the Americas and Asia. In this respect, the conference was significant in bringing together such a diverse range of scholars from varying areas and interests to share ideas, as well as explore numerous innovative and invigorating discussions. Interculturalism is an increasingly crucial and contested issue in a world of circulating populations. Like migration in the twentieth century, today's migrants are generally moving from economically or politically perilous circumstances to more prosperous and liberal countries. In the current dissemination, however, people are coming from numerous different countries and regions, and at the same time moving in all directions across the globe. There is hardly a country in the world today that does not have to deal with issues of cultural differences within its society. Despite attempts at ethnic cleansing in some areas, none can yet, in history or in our present times, claim a cohesive national identity of 'pure' racial or ethnic pedigree. Why the issue of interculturalism rather than multiculturalism? As Leonard Hammer indicates in his paper, multiculturalism is a policy based on the notion of personal autonomy. Interculturalism, in contrast, recognizes that in a society of mixed ethnicities, cultures act in multiple directions. Host or majority cultures are influenced by immigrant or minority cultures and vice versa. Multiculturalism tends to preserve a cultural heritage, while interculturalism acknowledges and enables cultures to have currency, to be exchanged, to circulate, to be modified and evolve. Understanding how cultures move around in a society, introduce social changes, and facilitate cultural integration requires an interdisciplinary approach: one that includes the obviously primary concerns of human rights, citizenship, work, education, health and housing, one that also develops inclusive policies and supports the development of creative expression. This collection of papers broaches a diversity of concerns related to understanding and living in an intercultural world. Section one presents three different perspectives on cross-cultural awareness: in Australia, Israel and Italy. Taking the concept of cultural incompetence from the theories of Lyotard, Derrida, Kristeva, Gergen and Foucault, Katy Batha puts them into practice as a school counsellor in an area of Sydney made up of 130 nationalities with diverse languages and religions. Leonard Hammer examines national policies of multiculturalism and interculturalism, and their effectiveness in delivering rights to migrant workers in Israel. Women migrant workers in domestic and care-giving roles within Italian households are the subject of research undertaken by Nada Bucat and Cristina Finnochiaro. In addition to outlining recent cultural changes in the role of women in Italian families, their paper shows that contrary to popular stereotypes, female migrant domestic workers were often well-educated and had been employed in their home countries. Section two depicts interculturalism in aesthetics, the latter being an effective channel representing different conceptions of cultures. By means of artistic artefacts, aesthetics grasps the codification of a culture, maps out its rhetorical and stylistic figures, rethinks its narrative strategies, and renders a semiotic model that allows one to redefine interculturalism. Sandra Song and Minh Nguyen explore the politics of intercultural representation vis-à-vis the visual works of Asian-American artist, Theresa Hak Kyung. Examining her visual aesthetics of decolonisation, displacement and disidentification, Song and Nguyen problematize interculturalism