Shanoor Seervai recently wrote on the Wall Street Journal an interesting article about the History Project, a collaborative peace-building initiative promoted by youth from Pakistan and India that seeks to unveil stereotypes from history textbooks that perpetuate the animosity between people from these two countries over time. The project is devoted to provide “access for youth in their formative years to alternative perspectives on their shared heritage and to encourage a culture of rational and critical thinking.”

The History Project has been successful at publishing its first book with the same title (“The History Project“), which is available online for no fee. The book takes a number of differing narratives extracted from Indian and Pakistani textbooks alike, “juxtapose[d] unadulterated versions of history being taught in text books on either side of the border. We collated versions from history text books and put differing versions side by side, in an attempt to highlight the reality of an alternative perspective with equally convincing foundations.” If you look at the illustrations, you will also notice that the historical figures represented are faceless, in an attempt to detach this alternative narrative from stereotypes of well-known political personalities criticized or praised in other textbooks. Some key historical events such as the Civil Disobedience Movement, the Salt March or the Lahore Resolution are also depicted in the book: “Historical events are politicized to substantiate present events… and textbooks become a tool to bolster a political agenda.” The History Project continues to present initiatives, such as the Twitter feed that they will launch in June.

“But most importantly, we discovered that people laden as enemies in our minds without us ever having met them can be as good friends (or enemies) as anyone back home.” The History Project

This project reminded us of the TED talk video that we wrote about a few months ago “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie, who reflects about the perils of listening to incomplete or non-inclusive stories and narratives that reinforce stereotypes and affect the mutual understanding and co-existence of cultures, communities and individuals.

If you are interested in this area of the world, some further literature can be found here:

• Denizens of Alien Worlds, a study about the educational system in Pakistan by Dr. Tariq Rahman.
• A Pacifist Uncovered, an article about nonviolence activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his influential but also forgotten role in the independence of the region.
• A brief description of activities conducted by Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), a foundation that brings together young people from across South Asia, and specifically from India and Pakistan, who are motivated to engage in nonviolent social change and on issues of peace and security affecting the region.
• A review of ten contemporary South Asian writers who write about various cultural and societal issues in the region.

Although it might seem that the final goal of our efforts to understand the world as others see it is to work towards a “common good” for all, respecting other’s needs and interests, a recent interview on NPR (National Public Radio) suggests that employing the term “common good” may actually disengage people from thinking of other’s needs and in fact have the opposite effect as was intentioned.

This interview by Steve Inskeep is based on a recent speech by US President Barak Obama on gun control in which Obama asked US citizens to think beyond their individual rights to the common good of the society. While the request itself seems straightforward, Standford researcher MarYam Hamedani has found that the result is actually the exact opposite – because US Americans have individual liberty as one of their core values, the collectivist / interdependent term “common good” causes a negative reaction in many people. However, this does not mean that these people are in fact against doing something that will help their communities, neighbors, or entire country. It is simply that the term goes against what they believe. For example, Hamedani presented US American volunteers with two identical policies on an environmental issue – the only difference was that one was written with language emphasizing individual liberty and the other emphasizing the common good. Support among these volunteers for the policy was far greater for the one written with language around individual liberty.

If the underlying concepts were the same, but the language used caused a significant difference in the way the policy was received, what does this suggest about the unconscious language / terminology biases that we all carry around with us? For certainly, this type of situation occurs in all countries and in all languages.

Can you think of situations in which your unconscious biases toward language have influenced your behavior / choices? What does ‘the common good’ mean to you and how is this term perceived in your community? What about the term ‘individual liberties’? Perhaps these two terms have the opposite effect in your community as they did in Hamedani’s research.

How do your cultural values unconsciously influence how you interpret different terminology? (image represents collective vs individualistic tendencies)

In AFS, we aim to provide our audiences with intercultural skills, one of which is the ability to discern when we are acting on an unconscious, culturally-influenced bias. We encourage you to reflect on your core values – how do these influence your choices and beliefs? (both consciously and unconsciously)

Click here to read the full interview on NPR.

Anna Collier (AFS International) presenting a poster on the AFS Intercultural Link Learning Program at the NAFSA (Association of International Educators) Annual Conference in Houston, Texas USA in June 2012.

We hope you will find this new section of our blog helpful for your work and that you will benefit from attending events where you can meet like-minded professionals, make new contacts and learn about the topics interesting to you. As an inspiration, we are sharing with you what conferences we are planning to attend.

All the listed events are organized or co-organized by international platforms, think-tanks, universities and international organizations, including AFS. Is your event missing? Let us know! We are updating this list weekly, so in case you have a suggestion for an interesting conference that we should add, please leave your idea in a comment. We will be happy to add it to our list.

The article first reviews the Cultural Immersion Programs at Indiana University‘s School of Education, which places students who will become certified teachers in an eight-week or semester program where they teach full-time in a new cultural environment. This environment can be abroad, on Navajo reservations in the Southwest of the United States, or in multicultural urban schools in the U.S. The main purpose of this experience is to immerse the future teachers as active participants of the host culture, working with students and other teachers and completing a project and written assignments that allow them to “dig below the surface of that cultural iceberg.” The School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego requires that all students have an international experience during the course of their program. This requirement, which seemed controversial at the beginning, has been accompanied by a wider offer of international programs that do not necessarily equal studying abroad. International experiences can also occur in the San Diego community, in multicultural environments or courses that allow students to explore the impact of international and intercultural relations in the local context, or working with international scholars or partners in the San Diego area. The objectives of the program are to “develop a deeper understanding of another culture; appreciate its differences and similarities; consider its gifts and challenges; and understand the educational and practical implications of cultural diversity and globalization issues.”

Charlotte West also features the efforts of University of Maryland‘s College of Education in developing an infrastructure that allows students, professors and departments to create international initiatives. A key part of this infrastructure is a university-wide international advisory committee that captures cross-departmental dialogue and acts as a hub to share ideas, resources and best practices to enhance international and intercultural programs across the school. This “think-tank” came along with the creation of an Office of International Initiatives, travel funds for students and professors, and an initiative to create an international experience requirement in certain programs. In their view, this intercultural educational experience should be “integrating, rather than adding on, a global perspective across all course content.” At AFS Intercultural Programs, we also want to foster an intercultural learning experience for our AFS Volunteers and Staff by providing the opportunity to understand international and intercultural challenges in our daily work. We value and admire the initiatives of like-minded professionals and organizations that believe that cultural immersion and exchange can enhance our learning experience, not only that of our participants, and can help us grow as professionals and as individuals.

Two AFS Staff members, Anna Collier (AFS International) and Carolyn Rehn (AFS-USA) are collaborating with a session titled “A Global Curriculum for Intercultural Competence Development,” where they will be presenting the AFS Intercultural Link Learning Program. Attendees will learn more about Intercultural Learning and the way in which AFS develops a collective intercultural competence and a language around intercultural topics.

To attend the SIETAR-USA Conference, you can still register on the website and get ready for four days of exciting intercultural opportunities and learning experiences with the keynote speakers, concurrent sessions and other opportunities to connect with professionals and researchers.

Can’t make it to the SIETAR-USA Conference? SIETAR Baltimore (October 17) and SIETAR Metro New York (October 23) are organizing events this month in the US.

If you are in Japan, the Japan Intercultural Institute is celebrating its 2012 Annual Conference on November 11 in Tokyo. The title of the one-day conference is “Developing Global Leaders: Education and Training for Language, Culture and Confidence” and it will cover a wide variety of topics such as intercultural leadership, bilingualism and biculturalism in a globalized world, and intercultural understanding. To check the presentations, the special workshop and the keynote speaker, go to the conference’s website in the previous link and request a reservation.

Wherever you are, we encourage you to connect with Intercultural Education specialists in your area!

The viewer witnesses fascinating footage of intercultural encounters, where questions of power and hierarchy are deeply intermingled with the motives and dreams of all who are involved. Optimistic politicians try to demonstrate how the goals of two Chinese investors, one in the farming business, the other building roads, can benefit both China and Zambia.

Without mutually agreed upon, pre-defined methods of negotiation, however, and only a limited common framework for communicating and relationship-building, it will be difficult to achieve the goal on common grounds, and in collaboration with the local workers.

Few are able to speak a common language well enough to communicate without major problems and neither party has enough knowledge about the other to anticipate the misunderstandings or conflicts before they arise.  Zambians and Chinese use their own frames of reference in this documentary to judge their own and other’s behavior – and so are frequently startled by unexpected behavior of the other. That lack of common expectations impedes trust-building and results in frequent breakdowns of communication and cooperation. The ways in which all parties attempt to deal with the resulting high levels of stress (smoking, yelling, laughing…and more) are highlighted in the story, as is the importance of developing knowledge of general cultural tendencies.

This knowledge can be developed through a reflective intercultural experience, and the AFS year abroad is one way of providing this kind of structured learning environment. As soon as we can understand what is driving  the behaviors of others, we can better understand the thoughts, feelings, and assumptions of those with whom we interact and can have more successful experiences. It is not unnatural to rely on stereotypes in our reactions to unexpected behavior, but if our responses are grounded in culture-general frameworks, we can more constructively approach our differences with others in a way that is likely more productive and pleasant for all.

Watch a video clip here or visit the website to purchase or rent the documentary.

At the end of October, a classmate and I travelled to Slovenia for the Young SIETAR (YS) 2011 Congress.  As Master of Arts students in the Intercultural Relations program at the University of the Pacific in conjunction with the Intercultural Communication Institute (USA), the YS Congress intrigued us because it offered a chance to learn about our field through a European lens and to interact with students from around the world.

Flying from the US to Europe is no small (or cheap) task, so we made the most of the journey by exploring both Vienna and Budapest before taking the train to Ljubljana.  Our conference began at Celica, a former Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslavian prison turned youth hostel.  The setting was an artistic invitation to modern Slovenia:  creative, colorful, and playful in the way it put a new spin on its difficult past.  After a social evening, we began the next morning with getting-to-know-you activities at the city’s Ethnographic Museum.  Next, we divided into teams to complete a scavenger hunt designed to introduce us simultaneously to the city’s history and landscape as well as to Slovenian culture.   It also helped us break through our comfort zones to talk to real Slovenes – and to each other.

That afternoon, a bus took us north to Planica, the Olympic Training Center and home to the second highest ski jump in Europe.  Nestled in beautiful Triglav National Park, the location was stunning.  Many of us opted to participate in a scenic hike; my group walked through fluttering golden and red leaves, and across a hill dotted by traditional Slovenian hay stacks to arrive at the source of the Sava River.  Breathing in the fragrant fresh air as I stared down into a completely clear blue pond, I realized that the hike was a window into the Slovenian spirit.  One of our local hosts explained that Slovenes cherish the outdoors, a healthy environment, and an active life shared with friends.  We were not simply going on a walk, but were, for a short while, living a Slovenian moment.

The Congress itself had a variety of workshops and training sessions.  At one point, my group improvised a sketch on the recent history of the field.   I also attended a workshop on the relationship between gender and culture, and another on issues of humanitarian aid campaigns perpetuating stereotypes about regions and peoples.  During yet another session  we focused on becoming better listeners and exploring the intersection of personality and culture.

Congress coordinators had asked us to bring a small item from home, which we shared in small groups.  The discussions allowed us to appreciate ways in which we are all similar and yet different; many of us admitted to feeling torn between a desire to settle down at some point and wanting to be perpetually mobile across the globe.  The final night brought our best chance for simply socializing and kicking back, as some participants took to the dance floor and others curled up in conference chairs for lengthy conversations. On the morning of our last day, we convened for the General Assembly, where we took care of official business and voted for a new board.  I had decided to submit my name, and was elected Education Coordinator.

Now that I have returned home, a few things stand out about the experience.  One was an appreciation for the enormous task that developing and carrying out an international conference must be.  Another was an awareness of the ways that we are all working in our own frames.  Several times, I was struck by how “European” the event felt.  This made me wonder how our own conferences in the US may feel “American” even when we are trying to be inclusive.  Last, I was heartened that, despite the mistakes that we all make as we attempt to move between cultures, real friendships are possible.  I can’t wait to go back.

Mankell defines knowledge as the interpretation of information, and declares that to obtain knowledge, we must learn to listen. As members of AFS Intercultural Programs, a learning community, we strive to gain new knowledge and to transform that knowledge into meaningful learning through experiential activities and reflection.

This blog was created to share with you – AFS volunteers, staffs, students, host families, natural families and friends of AFS – the online version of our Intercultural Link Newsletter, as well as other interesting materials and resources related to Intercultural Learning (ICL).

These materials will include news, articles, videos, books, movies and more. In the sidebar, we will keep an updated recommendation list of books, films and online resources on Intercultural topics. You can see the complete list of books, movies and online resources that have been published here in the top bar. You’ll also find in the sidebar a link to a calendar to keep you posted on the most important events related to ICL that are going on all around the world.

You are invited to leave your comments and also to send us your suggestions of movies, books, online resources or events.

We hope you enjoy the blog, share it with your friends and come back to visit us…