The importance of going abroad to study/work

The students who travel abroad to learn a new language and new culture, this deprivation and/or alteration of the self comes as with the shock of using the second language. The learner’s self becomes trapped behind the communication barrier that results, and only an altered picture of the self, one filtered through this new, incomplete language, is projected by the learner. Moreover, the cultural frame of the new environment causes the presented self to be reinterpreted through yet another filter of meaning. Learners become disadvantaged in their ability to assimilate new information, develop their social networks and present their self, when their own frame of reference becomes marginalized by the prominent frame of the new culture.

From Pellegrino Aveni, V (2005) Study Abroad and Second language Use Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 9-16

In Intercultural Communication: Identity by Holliday A, Hyde M and Kullman J, p.121

Are we all in pursue to acquire high statuses, to impress people around ourselves and to self advertising when we travel through cultures and religions of the world?

"Despite these structures, there is often the effort to bring into one's social world what Pierre Bourdieu terms 'cultural capital': knowledge from the cultural supermarket that one can display to one's social credit, justifying and bolstering one's social position. One's interest, at least within some segments of American society, in Indian ragas as apposed to top 40 hits, or in Tibetian Buddhist writings as opposed to evangelical Christian tracts, is a way of advertising cosmopolitan discernment: my far-flung tastes may well be the servant of my local strategy of impressing the people around me. The matter of what from the cultural supermarket can provide status in a given social milieu is highly complex. Each social milieu has its rating system for information and identities from the cultural supermarket; individuals seek to attain maximum credit and credibility, not only through consumption within the existing cultural rating system, but also through bringing in new information and identities, whose high status they seek to establish. The criteria for the establishment of such status are thus highly specific and flexible. Individuals play the game with an extraordinary acute sense of its implicit rules and strategies.

But all this is not to claim that there is absolutely no room for individual choice from the cultural supermarket. Why does one person thrill to Bach, another to juju? Why does one person become a Christian, another a Buddhist? Why does one person revel in their ethnicity, while another spurns that ethnicity? Why does one person travel the world while another stays at home? Much can be predicted about our choices by considering such factors as social class, educational level, income, gender, and age, as well as personal histories, but not everything can be predicted. We are not slaves to the world around us, but have (in a social if not philosophical sense) a certain degree of freedom in choosing who we are. This freedom may be highly limited, but it cannot be altogether denied.

From Intercultural Communication: Identity by Holliday A, Hyde M and Kullman J, p.99

The power of cyberspace

"Community on a global scale.  Think of it: a cross-cultural, cross-functional,
globally dispersed team, linked by a continuity machine, driven by a common
enterprise vision, sharing in the common values of the emerging global culture,
and producing out of their cultural, organizational, and technical richness and
complexity a constant flow of wisdom.  A true global cosmopolis in cyberspace".

O'Hara-Devereaux & Johansen, 1994, p. 420 
Globalwork: Bridging Distance, Culture, and Time

Notes on Art Education

Cultural Sustainability, cultural engagement and visual culture plays a big role in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaning making, the real world and audience. It presents a platform for critical self reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship.

It would have been interesting to explore how art making affirms our consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing. How can we develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a citizen of the world, or as a member of none’s national or local community. It is identifying and reflecting that an understanding of one’s world is dependant on knowing how contemporary society communicates its values and beliefs informed by economic, environmental, cultural and political forces. In a world dominated by the triumpth of the image, multi-modal practices and visual culture (Duncum, 2003), being visually literate is fundamental, and having the skills to creatively engage with communicative knowing within the dominant discourse is essential to the active construction of an individual’s values, beliefs and identities.

Source: Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and ContemporaryVisual Art Education 
Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Fundamentals of intercultural communication

“The many factors that divide us are actually much more superficial then those we share. Despite all of the things that differentiate us – race, language, religion, gender, wealth and so on – we are all equal concerning our fundamental humanity”. Dalai Lama

It is more important to concentrate on what unites humanity rather then divides. All of the imagined customs, religion, language, cultures, were all invented by us, humans, to differentiate ourselves from each other, but also to make it easier for ourselves to make sense of our complex world. They are all models, artificial paradigms that direct people through life.

By studying intercultural communication, we can help reduce xenophobia that exists across cultures. We also share inter-nationally and inter-culturally our love for beauty and love.  By using our existing international language of love and beauty (i.e. art, music) it can provide us with a common ground to establish an understanding across cultures. Humans are incredible creatures. They share similar values everywhere, but name them differently.

Xenophobia is defined as “an unreasonable Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning “stranger,” “foreigner,” and φόβος (phobos), meaning “fear.”

Comments from Paulo Coelho’s blog:

“Life means adventure, change, things that not everybody has the courage to face and accept. When one sees someone who is unfamiliar, a subconscious fear springs up” (Ruth)

“Xenophobia isn’t just the fear of strangers, it’s being afraid of what happens between different generations. Most people are afraid of today, they prefer to live in the past. My country (Russia) is an excellent example of this”. (Dasha)

“Here in Denmark we have a festival that lasts about a week and attracts 100,000 strangers to celebrate life, share common interests and learn from the differences. People embrace for no reason except being on the same path, they sing and get drunk together. When the festival is over, a strange atmosphere takes over the town again, and strangers are once more seen as a threat”. (Warrior of Running Water)

“People in my country (Poland) lived through the tyranny of Hitler and the Soviet oppression, and they don’t seem to have learned anything. It terrifies me to see people who experienced the horrors of Nazism behaving the same way today, avoiding everything that is unknown or different. The worst of it all is that they use religion to justify their acts, arguing that all those who aren’t Christians should be banished from society. This blind faith is worse than having no faith at all”. (Radek)

A MESSAGE FOR ALL OF HUMANITY Inspirational speech by Charlie Chaplin

I'm sorry. But I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile, Black Man, White.

We all want to help one another - human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone - the way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate. Has goosed us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little.

More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities life would be violent and all will be lost.

The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together - the very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world. Millions of despairing men, women and little children; victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

For those who can hear me I say - do not despair - the misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed. The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictator's die. And the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes! Men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives - tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel. Who drill you, dives you, treat you like cattle, use you as canon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men. Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate. Only the unloved hate. The unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of St. Lucas it is written, the kingdom of God is within man - not one man, not a group of men, but in all men - in you! You the people have the power - the power to create machines, to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. And in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world; a decent world, that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill their promise. They never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world. To do away with national barriers. To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason. A world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

The power of communication

Communication can act as a process of free and equal exchange of meaning, development of epistemic communities, and advancement of social solidarity, and hence of peace and harmony among individuals and nations. Conversely, however, communication can also systematically distort perceptions by creating phantom enemies, manufacturing consent for wars of aggression while stereotyping and targeting particular ethnic groups or nations into subhuman categories. Communication empowers, but it empowers more those with greater competence and access to the means of communication. The ethical choice in communication is therefore focused on whether the communicator is aiming towards power-free understanding or systematic distortions and powerful manipulations (Habermans 1983)