look outwardly we try to understand and
figure out others cultural practices and
beliefs and although this can be
important another crucial part of
intercultural communication is to look
introspectively at our own assumptions
values and norms and as global
integration and emigration continue at
it to increase at an exponential rate
never has there been a more important
time to focus on our relationships and
our communication in intercultural
spaces over the next few minutes I will
describe some techniques for enacting an
introspective approach to culture this
is an approach in which we continually
and critically question our assumptions
and work to deconstruct the stereotypes
which we might have so over the past 40
years or so there’s been this large
large number of industries that have
come up with these cultural competency
programs in response to rapid
globalization many of these programs are
designed to make practitioners more
competent in their knowledge of others
cultural practices and beliefs such as
appropriate hand gestures and personal
space boundaries however in recent years
scholars and practitioners have begun to
notice the shortcomings of such
approaches for instance in one training
that tried to train medical
practitioners about Latino culture it
was found that latina patients on Latino
patients received less pain medication
than other patients with similar
ailments based on the assumption that
their pain was over exaggerated and so
in response to these cultural competency
trainings authors and researchers
Melanie toulebonne and John Marie Garcia
contend that instead of learning some
fixed body of cultural know-how we need
to enact cultural humility these
processes of ongoing self-reflection and
so building on the notion of cultural
humility the first strategy for working
introspectively involves
working with others and coming over our
cultural know-how going beyond our
cultural know-how and so in order to do
that first we must resist the urge to
essentialize and generalize culture
post-colonial writer Gary at Steve axe
turns terms essential izing as the
process through which we reduce a
culture down to a select number of
traits we’ve all done that right I mean
at some point in time so for instance
you might think about French culture and
you might think about sitting in a cafe
in the middle of the day and drinking a
glass of wine and smoking a cigarette
but is that all there is to French
culture and if the culture is not our
own we’re predisposed to use stereotypes
about those cultures to inform ourselves
about it and sometimes that can lead us
into making some crazy assumptions the
other thing is with essentializing so
reducing down we also generalize we lump
people together from particular places
and we expect them to conform to our
stereotypes and so ponder for a minute
we’re all we’re all here in the United
States of America if someone were to ask
us what is American culture can you
define that for me we would likely
provide a variety of responses based on
our own personal experiences here in the
United States stereotypes would also
likely inform our different orientations
and ideas about cultural practices in
the United States so an example that
highlights this is one time I was
teaching a English culture class English
ESL and culture class to a group of
refugees and we came on the topic of
sports and at that time the Cape
Cleveland Cavaliers were in the National
Basketball Association finals and some
of the members of the class were really
curious about this they started hearing
there was big hype around the Cleveland
Cavs and they said you know hey how’s
this game work I can only name LeBron
James you know and I know absolutely
nothing about basketball I’m like can
you pick it up and like throw it in the
air I have no idea so so to their dismay
I had no idea about these things and and
something that really stuck
me is when one of my students said to me
he said but Daniel aren’t you American
and from there the class began to
question whether or not I was Swedish so
they thought that and it wasn’t quite
true and so although this instance is
humorous and light-hearted the problem
is that sometimes these assumptions can
be very presumptuous and fraught with
racist you know racist notions and we
don’t know that we’re doing it and so we
need to think about that and so surely
we’re all going to generalize and
essentialize this is inevitable and so
this inter called introspective approach
to culture that I’m talking about tells
us that we don’t need to adhere to some
pristine cultural morality in which we
no longer generalize that’s not going to
happen but rather such an approach asks
us to continuously question our
assumptions and look introspectively
at the ways in which our personal
experiences and our personal knowledge
can create and perpetuate stereotypes
and so this leads into the second
fundamental strategy to this
introspective approach and it’s called
reflexivity
and reflexivity goes beyond evading
stereotypes and prompts us to reflect
and think during our cultural
interactions and after and so on one
level reflexivity is enacted in fleeting
moments where we just take a moment to
stop and pause and we don’t do that
often enough and but then on another
level we can practice reflexivity before
and after interactions in intercultural
spaces and we can do this through
jotting down notes you know just musing
for a while journaling talking with a
friend about our experiences um and so
we need when we’re doing this we need to
silence the assumption making demons our
head the other important part is we need
to ask our questions more humbly and
whoever said there are no bad questions
they were very very wrong I’m under the
belief that they were and so for
instance a professor of history and
political science
Curtis kiemce he notes that when
Americans meet people from Africa
oftentimes the very first question they
ask is what tribe are you from and so
Curtis Keene goes on to point out the
ways in which this can be really
offensive and loaded with assumptions
first Africa is an incredibly diverse
continent it’s huge and to describe the
social and political structures in that
continent and reduce it down to just
tribe is completely incorrect and then
the other part is sometimes we think
about tribe and its associated with
primitiveness and it perpetuates
falesha stereotypes of Africa is savage
or backwards and this is not true and so
although these kind of questions are
formed with curious intentions it’s very
fun to learn about where other people
are from we all want to do that right
like that’s that’s what’s fun about
living in an intercultural world but
what we need to do is we need to look
more introspectively
at how our assumptions can hinder us in
the way that we can add those
assumptions into our intercultural
communication and so the next thing is
we need to get rid of this learned
cultural expertise in this day and age
we like to learn about culture and I do
it all the time I’m so guilty of it all
the time and I noticed myself thinking
like I’m the expert and people will ask
me they’ll say oh you’ve been Africa
tell me about what they do in Africa and
I’m like well I don’t really know
because I’ve been to like five cities
you know and so when we’re thinking
about this when we relinquish our selves
of expertise we need to go beyond what
we read on the internet so I have this
story is when I went to Morocco I went
to Morocco and before I went I went on
the internet to learn about the taboos
and culturally appropriate customs of
Morocco and in many ways this served me
well I learned that you eat with your
right hand and you put your hand on your
heart to say nice to meet you and these
things were really helpful because
people were very happy that I took the
time to learn
but sometimes it sent me astray and so
an instance of this is in Morocco dogs I
read on the internet on this website
should never be in the house they’re
considered dirty they are considered
dangerous
you shouldn’t go and touch a dog on the
street this is just a bad bad thing to
do
so I was like alright I’ll see a dog I’m
not touching it like get out of there
and there’s a lot of stray dogs and so
one day my friend invited me to his home
for dinner and he’s like alright come
over to my house Daniel we’d love to
have you I want to introduce you to my
father and I walk into the house and the
first thing I see is my friend’s father
sitting on the couch with this tiny
little dog on his lap and he’s petting
it and I think the thought I forget what
the dog’s name was but so like I go up
to him and with curious tension in
tension I go up and I say hello and I
say why do you have a dog in your house
isn’t that taboo in Morocco to which he
responded for some people yes but for me
I really like my dog so I go to my
friend’s house for dinner and the first
question I even say like how are you I
just say to him isn’t that taboo and
Morocco based on something that I had
read on the Internet and so although
like this wasn’t super detrimental to
the relationship sometimes when we
impose our assumptions and put them into
our questions they can and so through
practicing reflexivity this really
crucial part of an introspective
approach we can take the time to make
pauses in our communication and think
you know just thing is that is there an
assumption in there and then so an
introspective approach can be
drastically helpful in improving our
relationships in intercultural spaces
and now more than ever in a social and
political climate that demonizes
refugees and immigrants we need to look
inside of ourselves for ways to support
and welcome people from diverse cultural
backgrounds and ultimately an
introspective approach looking inside of
ourselves lacks us to focus less on
culture and more on individuals as you
and beings thank you so much [Applause]