The term interculturality is used to describe the process of mutual comprehension among people who belong to different cultures or who ascribe themselves and to each other different identities that are marked as culturally singular. Such persons either do not share the same value orientations, systems of meaning, and bodies of knowledge, or they ascribe or deny them to one another, thus legitimating group identities, boundaries, and special treatment of others (usually positive and negative discrimination). Interculturality, both as a factual cultural difference and as instrument of distinction to be negotiated in globalized contexts, has recently come to affect more and more individuals, both outside and within their own life-worlds (Busch 2021a). In intercultural contexts, persons experience not only similarities and commonalities, but also differences and irritations that require understanding (Barmeyer 2012). In private and professional contexts, people are challenged to understand intercultural interpersonal interaction and to manage it peacefully and purposefully within and between contexts of action. This places different demands on actors in contexts of interculturality, given the different theoretical understandings and operationalizations of culture: Social actors need to be empathetic and sensitized to the various challenges associated with the topic of culture. They also need to know and understand cultural systems, the people involved, and how these are operationalized. This also includes sensitivity to and knowledge of the forms of strategic instrumentalization of culture in the discourses of everyday life.

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Introduction: A Biographical History of Intercultural Research, or—Who or What Is an Interculturalist?

  • Christoph Barmeyer,
  • Dominic Busch

摘要

The term interculturality is used to describe the process of mutual comprehension among people who belong to different cultures or who ascribe themselves and to each other different identities that are marked as culturally singular. Such persons either do not share the same value orientations, systems of meaning, and bodies of knowledge, or they ascribe or deny them to one another, thus legitimating group identities, boundaries, and special treatment of others (usually positive and negative discrimination). Interculturality, both as a factual cultural difference and as instrument of distinction to be negotiated in globalized contexts, has recently come to affect more and more individuals, both outside and within their own life-worlds (Busch 2021a). In intercultural contexts, persons experience not only similarities and commonalities, but also differences and irritations that require understanding (Barmeyer 2012). In private and professional contexts, people are challenged to understand intercultural interpersonal interaction and to manage it peacefully and purposefully within and between contexts of action. This places different demands on actors in contexts of interculturality, given the different theoretical understandings and operationalizations of culture: Social actors need to be empathetic and sensitized to the various challenges associated with the topic of culture. They also need to know and understand cultural systems, the people involved, and how these are operationalized. This also includes sensitivity to and knowledge of the forms of strategic instrumentalization of culture in the discourses of everyday life.