Tag Archives: Intercultural communication

Postcultural Communication? – Intercultural communication from a postcultural position

Introduction

According to practice theory, our actions produce and maintain social reality (Schatzki 1996). Through practice we are trained as researchers, teachers and debaters. Within practices in the education system, students are trained by us and by our practices. Because of this we are accountable for how the concepts we teach maintain social differences. Every time we use the concept of intercultural communication in its classic definition, as communication between people with different cultural backgrounds, we perpetuate the notion that national differences influence communication more than other differences. These could be social categories such as gender, class, age, or e.g. differences in relations between a teacher and her student. When cultural and national differences are granted status as the most important differences – ethnic minorities in multicultural societies are silently/verbally excluded from national communities.

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