‘Intercultural competence’ as an intersubjective process: a reply to ‘essentialism’

Zhou, Vivien Xiaowei; Pilcher, Nick

Abstract

In this paper, we problematise a competence-oriented reflective approach to intercultural education by drawing on four students’ reflective essays about their experiential learning experiences on an ‘Intercultural Competence’ (IC) module. Their reflections sometimes evidence much-vaunted IC attributes such as ‘tolerance’ and ‘empathy’, but often indicate individually-developed, non-teleologically based IC criteria. Furthermore, reflection was often painful and at times led to a ‘falling back on’ essentialist notions of culture. We suggest that rather than reject essentialism as a ‘simplistic’ starting point, it should be recognised as existing symbiotically with non-essentialist notions and could be used critically throughout intercultural learning.

Citation

Zhou, V. X., & Pilcher, N. (2018). ‘Intercultural competence’ as an intersubjective process: a reply to ‘essentialism’. Language and Intercultural Communication, 18(1), 125-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1400510

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 24, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Dec 13, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 2, 2018
• Deposit Date: Oct 27, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 14, 2019
• Journal: Language and Intercultural Communication
• Print ISSN: 1470-8477
• Electronic ISSN: 1747-759X
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 125-143
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1400510
• Keywords: intercultural competence; essentialism; non-essentialism; reflection; experiential learning
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1003071
• Contract Date: Oct 27, 2017