Understanding Intercultural Communication

Table of contents

1. Cover
2. Half Title
3. Title Page
4. Copyright Page
5. Table of Contents
6. Contents by concept
7. List of figures and tables
8. Preface
9. Acknowledgements
10. 1. The grammar of culture
    1. Particular social and political structures
    2. Underlying universal cultural processes
    3. Particular cultural products
    4. Cultural negotiation
    5. How the grammar is used throughout the book
       1. Categories of cultural action
    6. Summary
    7. Further reference
11. 2. Cultural practices
    1. Foreigners and newcomers
    2. Examples and factors
    3. How to behave
    4. Anna visiting Beatrice’s family
       1. Being successful
       2. Global trajectory
       3. Dealing with being Othered
    5. Dima and Christoff: future in-laws
    6. Dima and Christoff: the issue with Facebook
    7. Misunderstanding and Othering
       1. Negative understanding: prejudice and easy answers
       2. The problem with ‘values’
       3. Seductive statements about culture
       4. Positive understanding: appreciating complexity
    8. Working things out
    9. Summary
    10. Notes
    11. Further reference
12. 3. Investigating culture
    1. Approaching the unfamiliar and foreign
       1. Against understanding
       2. In favour of understanding
    2. Francisca, Gita and Hande: looking for an intercultural methodology
    3. A critical qualitative approach
       1. The problem with stereotypes and a top-down approach
       2. Making the familiar strange and putting aside easy answers
    4. Ivonne preparing to go abroad
       1. Unresolved issues
       2. Opening up to complexity
    5. Ivonne, Jung and Lan: using previous experience
       1. Asking ethnographic questions
    6. Ivonne and Lan: complex views about eating
    7. Ethnographic narrative writing
       1. Guidelines for writing an ethnographic narrative
    8. Summary
    9. Notes
    10. Further reference
13. 4. Constructing culture
    1. The constant process of forming culture
    2. Abi and Tomos making a cultural event
       1. Collaboration in small culture formation
       2. Cultural travel and building
       3. Routinisation
       4. Rituals
    3. Engineering conformity in the workplace
       1. Reification
       2. Dualities
    4. Self and Other
       1. Idealisation and demonisation
    5. Small culture formation on the run
       1. Cultural travel
       2. What we imagine
    6. Summary
    7. Notes
    8. Further reference
14. 5. Dialogue with structure
    1. Rumour vs. observation
    2. How this works with Protestantism
    3. The case of Confucianism
    4. Jenna and Malee: critical thinking
    5. Essentialism
    6. Jenna, Bekka and Malee: the problem with ‘Westernisation’
    7. Loss or development
       1. Modernisation and globalisation
       2. Cultural traps
       3. Creative cultural behaviour
       4. Duality
    8. Summary
    9. Note
    10. Further reference
15. 6. Historical narratives
    1. Ivonne, Chung and Ning: simple things about food
    2. Invention
    3. Stefan, Alicia and Roxana: ‘it’s what you wear’
    4. Kay and Pushpa: sociological blindness
    5. Types and solutions
    6. Alicia: critical reading
    7. Taking stock
    8. Orientalism
    9. Summary
    10. Notes
    11. Further reference
16. 7. Discourses of culture
    1. Discourses
       1. Gains, losses and power
       2. Agency and control
       3. Discourses as social constructions
    2. Ramla, Ed and Jonathan: sticking to principles
       1. Projecting strong essentialist statements
    3. Nada, Jahan and Osama: getting it wrong?
       1. Suspicion towards well-wishing
       2. Cultural resistance
       3. The objectivist myth
       4. A discourse of science
    4. Nada, Osama, Theobald and Jahan: ‘shall we share our cultures?’
       1. Festivals and food
    5. Managing and undoing discourses
    6. Summary
    7. Notes
    8. Further reference
17. 8. Prejudice
    1. Cultural prejudice and race
    2. Innocent beginnings
    3. Martha and Katya: meeting behaviour
    4. Francisca, Hande and Gita: missing home, belief and disbelief
       1. Polarisation
       2. Ambivalence and struggle
    5. Alicia, Stefan and banter
    6. Summary
    7. Notes
    8. Further reference
18. 9. Cultural travel and innovation
    1. John abroad: politeness and space
    2. Cultural change
    3. Wary of relativism
    4. Safa and her friends: cherries, paying and serving
    5. What works
       1. Contestation, acceptance and rejection
    6. Safa: ‘when are you going back?’
       1. Cultural belief and disbelief
    7. Achieving intercultural communication
    8. Summary
    9. Notes
    10. Further reference
19. 10. Epilogue: theoretical perspective
    1. The grammar and small cultures
    2. Dealing with national culture
    3. The need to account for social action
    4. Representing a bottom-up reality
    5. Learning from the margins
    6. The potential for crossing intercultural lines
    7. Cultural realism
20. Glossary
21. References
22. Index