Tag Archives: Education and Training

Can you read this?

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No? Yes? If you can read the above, quick, tell me what it has to do with culture. If not….

Can you read the next one?

Yes? Perhaps this second one was easier for you? Why? Why is it we can read the above?

Our minds interpret a lot of things every day, constantly. They make sense of the world around us. They do this by recognizing patterns, putting information into templates that are familiar to us.

Obviously when we enter a new culture, the rules are different. The patterns are different, the templates unfamiliar. Our inability to make sense of what’s happening around us can cause us to feel disconcerted, maybe to lose confidence. Our past knowledge, from another place, can cause confusion. It can lead us to think we understand what we really don’t, to fail to see what is really there, or to miss important information.

There are so many interesting photos and images floating around social media networks. How many of them are you able to use to promote cross-cultural understanding, like the two above? Come on, share your favorites!

—

Reading key to the above images is below:

Este mensaje es para demostrar las
cosas tan increibles que puede
hacer nuestro cerebro. si logras
leer esto puedes sentirte
orgulloso de tu inteligencia, ya
que solo ciertas personas lo
logran. esto se debe a que el
hemisferio derecho del cerebro
asocia los simbolos parecidos a las
letras que conocemos normalmente
y asi logramos leer con facilidad.

This message
serves to prove how our minds
can do amazing things!
Impressive things!
In the beginning it was hard but now,
on this line your mind is reading
automatically without even
thinking about it. Be proud!
Only certain people can read this.

Grains of Sand and Cross-cultural Adjustment

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Ever look at something and find it so beautiful or fascinating that it just sort of sticks with you? Perhaps it gives you a gut feeling that it speaks to something you’re working on? Then, maybe in the shower the next day, it hits you?

That’s what happened to me a while ago when our Intercultural Competence News Feed curated Dr. Gary Greenberg’s photos, taken through a microscope, of grains of sand.

While most of us normally think of grains of sand as looking fairly similar — tan or brown, some crystals, shiny — Gary’s photos show us that deep down, once we “get to know” the grains of sand, so to speak, each of them is quite unique! Now if that isn’t a metaphor for diversity, inclusion and cultural differences, what is?

We hope you’ll be pleased with the train of thought Dr. Greenberg’s gorgeous photos produced. We put together a PowerPoint on cross-cultural dynamics that you are most welcome to download and use. It hasn’t been polished and perfected like the grains of sand, but if you read the presenter notes, we are confident you’ll have fun customizing the ppt for your programs.

We all have favorite photos, metaphors, comics, and stories, or even video clips, that we love to use in teaching, training and coaching. If you have something you would be willing to share, please pass it on. We’ll be happy to get it out there for you and link through to your website or contact information. Together we can build a more respectful, understanding and collaborative world!

Fortune 500 Client Prepares to Support Global Clients

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“We have achieved, for the first time in my five years working on the Learning and Development team, a 100% satisfaction rating from our learners. This is quite an achievement, considering that learners spent 12 hours over three days in the classroom. They typically are resistant to being in the classroom for more than two hours at any given time!”

Such feedback from one of our Fortune 500 Learning & Development Managers is so wonderful to hear and just as powerful is what led to these results — it is a great story to repeat. Take a read!

“Our initial plan was to offer strict localization training that would concentrate on such basic details about Australia as spelling, unique business terminology, time zones, and the fact that they use the metric system. We also planned to train basic Australian etiquette: the do’s and don’ts.

In my search for training that we could purchase and customize to our specific needs, I came across Cultural Detective and discovered that we could, using your materials and methodology, offer our learners much more than the basics. In fact, what I found in Cultural Detective was an approach to cross-cultural communication that would leverage and greatly enhance the communication skills that our team already puts to use every day to achieve shared understanding with our U.S. business-to-business customers.

Clearly, Cultural Detective was a natural fit for us—a fact that was driven home when I attended the FOLE (facilitated online learning event) sessions and saw a great example of how the training could be delivered online (something I very much appreciated, since most all of our training will be virtual by next year!). The FOLE sessions put all the pieces of the puzzle together for me and gave me plenty of ideas for conducting the training in a fun and engaging way.

After attending the FOLE sessions, I worked closely with an Australian SME who works on our Customer Services team. His willingness and enthusiasm to share his culture made adapting Cultural Detective to our purposes a real joy. As your methodology strongly suggests, having someone who grew up in the culture directly participate in the development process helped breathed life into the content, and it also added a level of credibility to the training that made it even more engaging and effective.

But what really made the Australian training effective was the fact that we prefaced it with your Self-Discovery course. Learners who may have been a bit skeptical about having to take part in a course on “culture,” when they typically receive “nuts-and-bolts” training on how to meet their customers’ technical and marketing needs, were plainly won over to the idea, at times in moving ways. Members of our team whom I have known and trained for a number of years, and who rarely participate in the classroom, shared powerful childhood stories that demonstrated their ability to connect the personal and the cultural in deep and meaningful ways.

The Self-Discovery course cleared the way for us to dig into the Australian Cultural Detective course and make what in some cases were startling discoveries. One such discovery emerged when my Australian SME, who was in the training session (not only because he is my SME, but because he will be part of this new Australian program), shared his cultural core values with the rest of the group, all of whom are native-born Americans. His values were not only quite different from the rest of the group, but they meshed perfectly with the Australian core values, once I revealed that lens to everyone. The impact on the class, including on my SME, was clear and immediate: they were startled by concrete evidence of fundamental cultural differences.

Because of this discovery, as well as their very personal engagement with their own cultural makeup, learners were able to engage with the Critical Incidents deeply, perceptively, and energetically. We were able to pull out and analyze many “clues” from the incidents, while having a lot of fun doing so!

The other discovery came when I was working with another trainer on my team whose focus was on our new client company’s marketing strategy and how it evolved over many years in Australia. When he shared his extensive research on that strategy, it was immediately clear that the Australian core values I was covering were at the heart of our client’s branding. Based on that finding, we were able to weave our courses together into a powerful and cohesive curriculum.

To ensure that the lessons learned in the classroom stick and continue to grow, our coaching team (who participated in both beta sessions and live training) are now making connections back to the Cultural Detective method, concepts, and terminology as they guide learners through the initial relationship-building process with our customers. And the anecdotal evidence of the overwhelming effectiveness of this coaching is pouring in already.

I have received kudos from my managers and the Vice President of Services for having chosen and successfully delivered the Cultural Detective training. But the kudos should really go to you and your company, Kris. Cultural Detective is a rock solid methodology.

Thanks again for all your help making this training possible. When we take our next step into the global market, we know who we will turn to for training solutions.”

When you take your next step into the global marketplace, who will you turn to?

Dealing with Postcolonialism

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In our last blog post, The Case of Who’s in Charge: Who’s language will we speak, we got a small taste of how African colonialism and slavery have created realities that affect power dynamics and attitudes in our organizations and communities that persist to this day. From the mid-15th century to 1880, roughly twelve million Africans were torn from their homes and families from Senegal to Angola, reaching the Americas as slaves. Other millions died either during the course of enslavement in Africa or en route to the Americas. These are not facts that can or should be forgotten or set aside.

Does post-colonialism exert a negative toll on your organization and people? Is there a way to transform these potentially negative forces into tools for dialogue, understanding and organizational (and societal) transformation?

Our Cultural Detective West Africa (covering Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria) authors, Doctors Emmanuel Ngomsi and Seidu Sofo, have very ably written materials that address these questions.

A short quote from their participant materials makes the main point:

“While it is true that current expatriate employees are not responsible for slavery and colonialism, or for problems linked to colonialism in this region of the world, they may nevertheless sometimes be perceived by local workers as part of the system responsible for repeated abuses. It is important to be aware of this fact, and how individual actions are likely to be understood in this historical context.

We encourage you to seize the opportunity presented by Cultural Detective: West Africa to explore the issues of colonialism and modern-day power dynamics with your West African colleagues. While there is a clear attempt on the part of many scholars (African and non-African) to blame past and current African problems on European colonization, the dynamics of colonialism and neocolonialism are complex issues, and it is crucial that business and non-business people be aware of and sensitive to the history that strongly remains in the minds of professional Africans, and often profoundly affects business relationships.

Today, there are limited forums available to openly address these issues. The workplace constitutes one of the few places in which people may discuss how they feel about historical European intervention on the continent, and perceptions of power dynamics and race relations today. Being prepared to handle these issues constructively is smart business.”

Their facilitator manual contains a section entitled “Facilitating a Discussion of Slavery and Postcolonialism,” which adds encouragement as well as how-to:

“Within the Participant Materials we have included a supplement addressing the issues of slavery and colonialism as they relate to West Africa. People are curious and want to talk about these issues, and while they can be difficult and sensitive issues to discuss, they create an important dynamic in relationships and should not be ignored. The Cultural Detective Model provides a way to explore these issues in a non-evaluative manner that can promote mutual understanding. Remember that no one point of view is ‘the truth,’ and it is rare that a discussion will result in consensus or agreement.

West Africans, Europeans, African Americans, Caucasian Americans, Latin Americans and people in the Caribbean, among others, all have different and sometimes opposing points of view on the causes and outcomes of slavery.

Contrary to a common belief among foreigners, West Africans generally are not uncomfortable talking about slavery and are willing to engage in conversations with people who sincerely and genuinely want to explore and learn about slavery and its effects.

Today throughout Africa, Europeans, Americans and other ‘White People’ may still be perceived as exploiters and neo-colonizers. Resentment remains because some believe that the best minds and bodies of the African continent were transported to the Americas. And while many agree that slavery is wrong, many West Africans also feel that if ‘Whites’ could have their way politically and socially, slavery would still be practiced.

Given the sensitivity toward these issues, foreign business owners need to be particularly mindful of their words and actions. Derogatory acts or sayings by expatriate employers directed toward West African employees are not only unkind but unwise. While private individuals react strongly to such acts, governments may also take swift and decisive action, and some have deported expatriate employers for such misconduct.

Regardless of the economic benefit that a foreign investment might bring to a West African nation, dehumanizing conduct, utterances, or work conditions are not tolerated.”

We eagerly urge you to look through these materials, and put them to good use. We would love to have those of you who work in spaces where you deal with post- and neocolonialism issues to share with us some of your experiences and learnings, so that we might all transform our practices and do our bit to heal this world of ours.

Book Review: Communication Highwire

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by Dianne Hofner Saphiere, Barbara Kappler Mikk, and Basma Ibrahim DeVries
Intercultural Press, ©2005

Communication Highwire: Leveraging the Power of Diverse Communication Styles

Review written by Piper McNulty
Originally published in the The CATESOL Journal vol. 20.1

Communication Highwire, as the circus metaphor implies, explores the balancing act inherent in any intercultural interaction: how to remain true to oneself while exploring aspects of other styles, with a goal of achieving more effective communication.

After decades of teaching and training across, and about, cultural differences, these three authors have found that labels such as “direct,” “low context,” or “polychronic,” while providing initial insights, are not sufficient for their purposes, and that a more “robust, and dynamic” (p. xi) analysis framework is needed. In addition, unlike most books on intercultural interactions, Communication Highwire moves beyond appreciation of cultural difference to suggest ways to leverage diverse styles for improved communication across cultures.

Their model is additive, with a goal of expanding each individual’s communication-style repertoire. The book is divided into four sections: an introduction, five factors affecting communication style, a detailed breakdown of 16 specific styles, and an extensive collection of activities. The authors return throughout the book to the ongoing, often contentious relationship between two businessmen, Mike and Tanaka-san, who struggle to understand each other’s behaviors, articulate their own goals and preferences, try each other’s styles, and ultimately work together productively. Examples from many other cultures and contexts are also used to illustrate the concepts and strategies throughout the book, drawing on the authors’ extensive intercultural experience, both professional and personal.

Saphiere, Mikk, and DeVries explore communication across cultures from different client needs and perspectives, and they argue persuasively that successful communication requires a combination of styles. The best coauthored books present a mixture of ideas, experiences, and analysis and we are the richer for these authors’ extensive collaboration. Each chapter, and the themes that carry throughout the text, appear to be the result of extensive discussion, reflection, and collaboration. The book is full of engaging, highly readable examples, discussion prompts, and skills activities, which take the reader well beyond the obvious and the “common sense” of communication theory. Occasionally the sentences get a bit wordy, but the writing is clear and cogent throughout, and the authors do an excellent job of selectively substituting everyday terms where field-specific jargon could simply distract and frustrate the reader.

The book also stands out for its gentle reminders to consider multiple perspectives, to “hold…individual goals loosely enough to hear, accept and more fully understand each other’s goals” (p. 79). In addition, the analysis checklists are exceptionally thorough. For example, most intercultural communication (IC) texts simply state that in some cultures one should avoid eye contact with authority figures, yet we all know that eye-contact rules are not that simple.

These authors list four different descriptors of eye contact, and while such detailed analyses might seem more than the average ESL/EFL student needs, or can handle, adults in a second-culture context often struggle to adjust their communication behaviors to be more effective with their new interlocutors, and they are often very aware of fine nuances of style. Such students are usually more than ready to embrace this depth of analysis, because they want to understand why their interactions across cultures do not always go as intended.

Of particular interest to TESOL members will be the detailed analyses of functional language. Students trained to analyze miscommunication as these authors suggest will be at a significant advantage when discussing, negotiating, persuading, critiquing, or receiving feedback, skills that can come into play in academic contexts, the workplace, when renting an apartment, or opening a bank account. Also addressed are idea presentation, turn taking, expectations of communication process, use of emotion, permeability of new ideas, apologies, requests, praise and disagreement, feedback, and humor, among others. Language for describing details of both vocal characteristics and nonverbal behaviors are also provided. Making this global range of styles explicit is of great benefit to instructors and students alike.

The authors also emphasize that no individual will be predictably direct, or emotionally expressive, or quick to touch others in all contexts (to name just a few), but that communication styles are a situational tendency, providing a link between behavior and underlying intentions. To leverage our understanding of others’ styles, they present a four-step method: (a) reflecting, (b) analyzing, (c) discussing, and (d) deciding. While these steps might seem easy to carry out, discussing and deciding are not found in most IC literature, and the authors’ engaging analysis of the ongoing relationship between Mike and Tanaka-san helps instructors and clients develop their own version of the suggested analysis strategies.

The book is such a rich source of information and analysis tools to seem, at times, overwhelming, but the outline format and use of charts allow the reader to skim the chapters’ subtopics, selecting the specific communication styles or functions that are most applicable to their client/student population.

As for the activities, we have all read step-by-step instructions of skill-building activities and wondered whether we could achieve the outcomes promised by the author. Intercultural and diversity training can be particularly idiosyncratic and context specific, making it difficult for others to duplicate their success. However, the activities presented here are easy to envision, and the tips and suggested adaptations allay concerns that the exercises are too dependent on the original facilitator’s approach. In addition, the relatively large font, line spacing, and the wide margins leave plenty of room for underlining and notes.

Communication Highwire is an excellent resource for ESL/EFL instructors whether or not they use the activities in their own classrooms, as the tools provided may help them recognize where, and why, their own interactions with their clients, of any age or level, have gone awry, and what may be causing disconnects in their classrooms. The authors explore culturally different communication styles with depth, clarity, and insight.

Communication Highwire would be a useful supplement for teacher-training programs and a valuable addition to any ESL/EFL instructor or trainer’s library, no matter what the level or context of instruction.

Communication Highwire: Leveraging the Power of Diverse Communication Styles is a gem!

Link

Interesting article in Diversity Executive magazine about product naming problems in the global market, some good examples, and a link to an article on the value of intercultural competence.

Kudos to all our interpretation and translation colleagues!

What are you favorite “Cultural DeFective” examples? And your strategies for preventing them?

Sample Half Day Global Competitiveness Program Design

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Many of us have found ourselves in the difficult situation in which people ask us to equip others to be cross-culturally effective and globally competitive – and then give us just a few short hours to do so.

Such was my task recently in Bogotá. The Colombian government had just signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the USA, and I had been invited to work with a lawyer and a business consultant, so that the three of us could, in five hours (ok, we started a bit later than scheduled, so really 4-1/2 hours), better enable local businesses to make the most of this new opportunity. My colleagues were excellent, and thanks to terrific teamwork and generous sharing of expertise, we were able to take a very diverse group of enthusiastic participants a long way in a short time.

I thought some of you might find the design useful for adapting to your own needs.

Session Title: Global Competitiveness and Productivity

Advertised Session Objectives: Learn how to make the most of the new FTA, how to conduct business at international levels of quality and competitiveness, and how to negotiate effectively with US Americans.

Advertised Session Components: Legal context of the new FTA, negotiating with US Americans, and global business ethics.

OUR DESIGN

Legal Aspects of the FTA – one hour

First, a very talented international lawyer, Andrés Forero, based in Bogotá, walked us through the various aspects of the new FTA, including a summary of the opportunities it presents for Colombian businesses. This was a most interesting session; Andrés knows the FTA inside and out, and he knows Colombian business. He took the complex and made it practical and understandable. He motivated those in attendance by explaining about the huge opportunities. And he also scared us a bit, telling tales of cross-cultural failures that he’d witnessed. Of added interest was the fact that he had been involved in translating the text of the FTA into English, and showed the full two volumes to the public for the first time ever.

Negotiating with US Americans – 2 hours

The extremely talented business consultant with whom I was working, Ing. Fernando Parrado, and I decided that we needed to just “jump in” with this group and immerse them in a case study of a typical Colombian-US negotiation. So we did. We told the story, and we debriefed it using the Cultural Detective (CD) Worksheet. This took about 45 minutes.

Once we had the Worksheet completed, we urged the participants to reflect on what they had done. They saw two different world views, two different approaches, both “correct” and both with value. They saw connections between actions and values, and that values and beliefs motivate behavior. And they saw that really effective strategies use the resources provided by all parties. This took another 10 minutes.

From there we introduced the three intercultural capacities on which Cultural Detective is premised (subjective culture, cultural literacy, cultural bridge), and then reviewed instructions for using the CD Worksheet/the CD Method properly. This took another 15 minutes or so.

Focusing on the US American values section of the now completed Worksheet, we began talking about what is important to US Americans. We defined the concept of culture, cultural diversity, and cultures such as regional, ethnic, socioeconomic, gender, and generational. We made sure participants understood that when we generalize we want to talk about central tendencies of a group of people. We don’t want to stereotype, to “box” an individual into the central tendency of the group.

Then we introduced the concept of a Values Lens: that there are core values or central tendencies of a group of people. And that for each value there is a negative perception, that is, a way in which it can be viewed negatively by those who do not share the value or its expression. I told the participants, as I always do, about the danger of the Values Lenses. I cautioned them not to use them as yet another box into which to fit people, but rather as a tool for discovery, as clues for analysis. The values might apply to the situation, or they might not; they are a guide, a place to start.

These last two items took another ten minutes. It was quick. We covered a lot of territory in a short amount of time.

From here we introduced the US American Values Lens, sharing sample behaviors for each value, and sample negative perceptions. We asked participants if the Values Lens provided them any further clues to understanding the behavior of the US American in the case study, and indeed it did. Participants shared their stories of working with US Americans, and we were all able to learn from one another. This part took about 30 minutes.

Then we took a short break to eat some wonderful cheese-filled pastries and drink some of the famous Colombian coffee.

Understanding Colombians – 45 minutes

We came back from break ready to experience the debut of Cultural Detective Colombia. And what a debut it was! Fernando walked us around the Colombian Values Lens, sharing a story about each value, and explaining how to use it as a strength in working across cultures and making the most of the Free Trade Agreement. He also explained the Negative Perceptions for each value, again with illustrations, and positioning them as skills or competencies to develop when working internationally, at global standards.

Participants, who came in feeling that they had to “change” in order to be successful, now glowed with pride that they already held within them a heritage to be proud of, and onto which they could wisely add cross-cultural competence.

We again asked the participants if the Values Lens provided any further insight into the critical incident, and they found that it did. They enthusiastically declared the accuracy of the Colombian Values Lens. I felt very fortunate to be present for its debut.

This portion took about 45 minutes. While it was not requested by the client, it was an aspect we knew was very important if the participants were to achieve their objectives.

Global Business Ethics – 20 minutes

I am not an ethics professional, but the Cultural Detective Global Business Ethics enabled me to be able to define the topic of ethics in an understandable way. More importantly, I was able to explain the difference between compliant and ethical behavior, and the grey areas created by cultural differences: an action might be “non-compliant” yet seen as the ethical or right thing to do, or an action might be “compliant” but seen as unethical or wrong from a cultural perspective.

With the help of Andrés, our lawyer, we introduced the CD Global Business Ethics Values and Negative Perceptions, using real-life examples. We then asked participants if the values from this ethics lens provided further insight into the Colombia-US negotiation case study. Indeed it did! We also asked them to overlay the Colombia Lens with the Global Business Ethics (GBE) Lens, and the USA Lens with the GBE Lens, and the huge contrasts were apparent. They saw the difference that culture makes on perceptions of right and wrong. Unfortunately we were only able to spend about 30 minutes on this portion.

Personal Values Lenses – 30 minutes

Why such a short time on Global Business Ethics? Because I knew that, if these people were to succeed in global business, they also really needed a grounded understanding of who they were as individuals. Thus, we gave participants about 15 minutes to fill in their own Personal Values Lenses, using an exercise and Lens from Cultural Detective Self Discovery. They could then easily compare their Personal Lens to the Colombian Lens and the USA Lens, as well as the GBE Lens.

In closing, we passed out laminated copies of the 75 or so Lenses in the Cultural Detective series, so participants could get a feel for how they might adapt their approach to a German or an Israeli or South Korean marketplace.

All in all, it was a very fast romp across a very broad territory. But, oh, the insights the participants gained! They left the room in the evening standing tall and looking enthused, which I tend to take as a very good sign.

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Fernando and Andrés, thank you so much for this opportunity to work with you both in this way. It is not often I have the pleasure of working with people for the first time and we are able to find such synergy of talents; it was truly a privilege and a joy!

Everyone: what do you think of this design? What are your strategies for doing the impossible in a very short amount of time? I’m eager to hear!

“Interculturalidad” – View on Interculturalism from Latin America

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During my recent and incredibly learning- and success-filled trip to Colombia, a client asked me to do a short presentation on the state of intercultural competence in Latin America. Such a small request, right (asked wryly and facetiously)? I live in México, but after four years I sure don’t count myself a culture-specific expert, and I am surely not qualified to speak for over half the hemisphere! So, what to do? Turn to an esteemed colleague’s expertise, of course. In this case, I turned to Adriana Medina (and her co-author, John Sinnigen).

The beauty of the source article I used, “Interculturality vs. Intercultural Competencies in Latin America,” is that the authors introduce facts and history we all know, but they put them into a context in such a way that makes total sense and creates new meaning. At least for me.

For example, one of their points is how Latin Americans have lived interculturality for hundreds of years if not longer: wars, imperialism and commerce between the many distinct indigenous cultures, then conquistadores, colonialism, slavery and intercontinental commerce. Intercultural competence on this stage is not some new import during the current age of global economic interdependence. Rather, Latin America’s gold, silver, emeralds and such were important to European economies beginning centuries ago. The authors’ point is, one of the valuable contributions that Latin American interculturalidad can add to the largely northern and western-originated notions of intercultural communication or intercultural competence is this: power, specifically power imbalances.

“Interculturality, the preferred term in Latin America, refers to a historic condition, a radical restructuring of the historically uneven relations of wealth and power that have existed between Europeans and their descendants and indigenous and other subordinated groups during the last half millennium. The aim is decolonization of institutions and the sociocultural fabric of the country.”
— A. Medina-López-Portillo and John H. Sinnigen, “Interculturality vs. Intercultural Competencies in Latin America,” chapter 13 in Deardorff 2009, Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence

In their article the authors present six strengths that Latin American interculturalidad can contribute to the intercultural communication and competence field. And, speaking for myself, our field is in huge need of hearing and incorporating these perspectives into our theory and practice! Contributions of interculturalidad, according to Medina and Sinnigen,  include that it:
  1. Is counter-hegemonic; focuses on the balance of power
  2. Starts with the needs of marginalized cultures (diverse indigenous movements from Mexico to Bolivia and Ecuador)
  3. Advocates mutual respect and economic and political equality rather than the acculturation of the oppressed
  4. Incorporates Andean/Amazonian concepts such as respect for Pachamama, good living, communitarian practices
  5. Multilingual integration
  6. Decades of dialogue leading to constitutional specificity

I want to thank this client for making this request of me, as it spurred me to learn more about a colleague’s work, and also to learn more about the work of Nestor García Canclini (more about his work in another blog post). I also want to thank Adri and John, whose work, I feel, is very important. I hope this might spur more of us to read, incorporate and build on their findings.

I have posted three PowerPoint slides summarizing this article, and you are welcome to download and use them if they might serve you. Please be sure to retain all source references, including the authors’ and Cultural Detective‘s. Together we can make a difference!

What do you think about the authors’ premises? How might we help the intercultural field to incorporate the Latin American perspective? How do you handle power differences in your work? I look forward to hearing from you!

—

Born and raised in Mexico City, Adriana Medina-López-Portillo is Assistant Professor of Intercultural Communication and Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics and Intercultural Communication at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She is an accomplished intercultural trainer, having designed and led workshops for higher education, not-for-profit, governmental, and corporate clients in the United States and abroad. Among her favorite appointments are training for The Scholar Ship, a transnational academic program housed on a passenger ship, and offering pre-departure and on site orientations for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. John Sinnigen is Prof. of Spanish and Intercultural Communication at UMBC.  He is the co-editor of América para todos los americanos:  prácticas interculturales (Mexico: UNAM, 2012).

Book Review: Intercultural Communication, Globalization and Social Justice

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by Kathryn Sorrells, Sage Publications, ©2013 ISBN 978-1-4129-2744-4

Intercultural Communication: Globalization and Social Justice provides fresh voice and much-needed current perspective on intercultural communication competence. Written as an undergraduate and graduate level text, as a 30+ year professional I also read it enthusiastically. From Sorrells’ debunking of racial color blindness (p. 62), to the commodification of culture (p. 190), to her closing call for global citizenship (p. 227), her keen intellect and passionate commitment to social justice is evident and unwavering throughout.

From the beginning the author makes clear the need to put intercultural communication in context and with a clear purpose:

“Regrettably, some of the most egregious injustices—exploitation of workers in homes, fields, and factories and violence perpetrated through racial profiling and ethnic cleansing—are performed within intercultural contexts and are enabled by intercultural communication.” (p. xiv)

…”the globalized context in which we live today makes ethnocentrism and ethnocentric approaches extremely problematic. The assumption that one’s own group is superior to others leads to negative evaluations of others and can result in dehumanization, legitimization of prejudices, discrimination, conflict and violence.” (p. 13)

“This text … provides a framework to create a more equitable and socially just world through communication.” (p. xiv)

By page 38, I knew I was in good hands, as Sorrells wove Amy Chua and her World on Fire into the intercultural mix, providing it as counterpoint to Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man.

The author appears to have challenged herself to address each topic, even the most familiar, through at least four lenses:
  • in what ways is the topic complex and contradictory,
  • how does the topic appear from micro, mess and macro views,
  • what are the local and global connections, and
  • how do the complexities and contradictions play out in our world today, particularly in terms of equity and justice?

Sorrells is an excellent teacher, providing rich yet succinct examples—unraveling the various interwoven threads of her stories to enable the reader to more clearly see each thread—while keeping the overall tapestry in mind. Her writing should energize and guide cadres of undergraduates, as well as professionals, to use intercultural communication theory and practice to bring more equity and justice to our world.

Sorrells covers the content you’d typically expect in a basic text on intercultural communication: nonverbal communication, context, dialogue, relationships, communication style, identity theory, use of space. What makes this book different is that she uses important current issues and topics to provide a fresh perspective and powerful, meaningful insight. She examines intercultural communication informed by topics such as power, hegemony, growing socio-economic inequities, the culture of capitalism, race, color-blindness, immigration, glocalization, hip-hop culture, appropriation, hybrid cultures, and online communication. She pulls from a variety of disciplines including feminist theory to address her topic. In the process, she introduced to this practitioner new ideas such as fragmegration (p. 131), culture jamming (p. 144) and polysemic space (p. 91).

The book begins by looking at why the intercultural field has not been able to settle on one definition of culture, tracing definitions of culture from anthropology, cultural studies, and globalization. The author next guides us through a much-needed review of the history of intercultural communication, doing so crisply and meaningfully. Revisiting the origins of the field may help us return to our collaborative purposes and away from the overly analytical comparative studies trends of today.

Each chapter concludes with discussion activities and questions, which for a trainer or coach will be invaluable. And they’ll make lesson planning for the classroom easy.

To enable students to navigate the complex intercultural spaces they inhabit, the author introduces a process of critical, reflective thinking and acting. She calls this “intercultural praxis.” Via six interrelated points of entry (inquiry, framing, positioning, dialogue, reflection, and action), “intercultural praxis uses our multifaceted identity positions and shifting access to privilege and power to develop our consciousness, imagine alternatives, and build alliances in our struggles for social responsibility and social justice.” (p. xvi)

Obviously the text is not intended for a basic-level reader of English! And, while this praxis model is definitely conceptually sound, it is far from easy to put into practice.

What were some of the points in this book that stood out for me? The concept of “positioning” is important:

… “how our geographic positioning is related to social and political positions. As you read these sentences, where are you positioned socioculturally? The globe we inhabit is stratified by socially constructed hierarchical categories based on culture, race, class, gender, nationality, religion, age, and physical abilities, among others. Like the lines of longitude and latitude that divide, map and position us geographically on the earth, these hierarchical categories position us socially, politically and materially in relation to each other and in relation to power.” (p. 18)

Sorrells explains that positioning “directs us to interrogate who can speak and who is silenced; whose language is spoken and whose language trivialized or denied; whose actions have the power to shape and impact others and whose actions are dismissed, unreported and marginalized.”

The author’s reference to modern-day anthropologists Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo was also valuable. Their premise is that culture, in the context of globalization, has been “deterritorialized.” What this means is that “cultural subjects (people) and cultural objects (film, food, traditions, and ideas) are uprooted from their ‘situatedness’ in a particular physical, geographic location and reterritorialized, or relocated in new, multiple and varied geographic spaces,” (p. 43).

Hence, we find Hindi films and Amitabh Bachchan posters worldwide, with wildly different meanings attached. “Similarly, a person’s or group’s sense of identity, who migrates from Iran to Israel to the United States, for example, is reinscribed in new and different cultural contexts, altering, fusing, and sometimes transforming that identity.”

There were two very minor disappointments for me, amidst all the positives in this text. The first is that while this volume includes a great deal of content that other intercultural texts omit, Sorrells does not adequately address religion and its role in society today. The clash of religious and spiritual beliefs, the gaps between believers and non-believers, the judgments one to another, the fact that religion can provide access to power or motive for distrust, are important. Religion can divide or unite communities, nations, and continents. A chapter or at least a couple of pages devoted to the topic, as seen through Sorrells’ keen perspective, would be a valuable addition.

Second, while the book is overflowing with examples from all over the world, it is unnecessarily US-centered. Perhaps a US publisher wanted the book to sell to US universities, and thus preferred it be written that way. This could so easily have been a non-nation-centric book—with an even bigger market. It comes so very close that it seems a shame not to have gone the extra step.

Intercultural Communication: Globalization and Social Justice is a must-read for any intercultural professional or serious student of the field. And if you have the pleasure of teaching an intercultural communications class, this is a terrific new text.

Mashing-it-Up in Hong Kong: International Schools

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By Barbara Schaetti, co-author of Cultural Detective Blended Culture
Reposted from Personal Leadership May 2012 Newsletter

International educators have historically assumed that K-12 international schools are, by default serving multinational and multicultural expatriate communities, providing students with experiences that result in intercultural competence. But are international schools truly teaching students to make meaning of their unique cultural experiences or, when it happens, is it more by good-fortune than by design?

I recently had the honor of being invited to HKISpresent a series of half-, one-, and two-day programs, at the Student Services Summit sponsored by the Hong Kong International School (HKIS). HKIS is among the top tier of K-12 international schools worldwide, and enjoys a well-deserved reputation as a premium institution. Although it was my first time at HKIS, working with and at the School had a quality of home-coming for me: I grew up attending international schools in West Africa and South East Asia, and consulted extensively with international schools throughout Europe and South Asia in the 1990’s. Although each international school varies from the next, the culturally diverse environment they typically offer is very much home territory for me.

And so what a joy to be asked to facilitate a two-day program for international educators titled Deepening Intercultural Competence: Developing an Intercultural Practice. Participants were international educators from across Asia and beyond, mainly developmental guidance counselors (with a couple of administrators too), who share a common passion for preparing their students to participate successfully in a globalized world. They were very ready for a professional development program focused on strengthening their own abilities to role model moment-to-moment intercultural practice.

I centered our time together on The MashUp: A Professional Toolkit for Developing Intercultural Competence. The MashUp (MU) is a natural and powerful combination of two leading processes in the development of intercultural competence: Cultural Detective (CD) and Personal Leadership (PL). Where PL provides a process to disentangle from automatic judgments, emotions, and physical sensations, and to open to the unique possibilities of the present moment, CD provides a process for deconstructing the intercultural dynamics at play, considering the values, beliefs and personal cultural sense that may be motivating people’s words and actions, and developing cultural bridges to close the gap. As an integration of the two, the MashUp offers a proven and exceptionally effective way to successfully strengthen intercultural competence in individuals, in teams, and across organizations.

In Hong Kong, the MashUp was very well received by participants who immediately saw its relevance and practical service to the daily situations they encounter – as international educators and as expatriates themselves. As one person put it:

“How thrilled I am to have experienced these past 2 days – I feel excited and energized, ready to begin a new journey! This has been everything I had hoped it would be, and more. I am leaving today with great ideas to enrich my practice, and steps to move towards this goal. I also believe that I have a group of colleagues who have a similar mindset and interest in adding value to their practice.”

I too left the session inspired. These international HK BAYeducators are ready to intentionally provide their students (no longer simply to trust to good-fortune) with the role-modeling, orientations, and practices that develop intercultural competence. And if that’s true of the educators in my session, then we can know it’s true of many more!

You have two opportunities to learn more about this developmental MashUp of PL and CD.

  1. The first opportunity will be live and in-person at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication, July 16-20. Developing Intercultural Competence: An Integrated Practice will be conducted by Dianne Hofner Saphiere and myself, Barbara F. Schaetti.
  2. The second opportunity will be a blended learning course to be held September-December 2012. Developmental Intercultural Competence: Cultural Detective, Personal Leadership, and the DMIS, a transformative professional development course is an avant garde blended learning course focuses on how best to use the MashUp to support the development of intercultural sensitivity as illustrated by the DMIS (Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity). This course will be conducted by Dianne, Heather Robinson, and me.