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I have enjoyed reading Emmanuel Larty's, In Living Colour: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling, in which he seeks to explain the difference between mono-cultural, cross-cultural, multicultural and intercultural approaches:
Monoculturalism as a social perspective is not neutral - the monoculturist universalises a particular set of norms, values cultural beliefs and practices. Everyone, regardless of preference or background, is assumed or expected to function in accord with these universals. Monoculturists at best deny and at worst suppress cultural expressions which do not appear to conform to this mould.
The cultural violence and coercion of multiculturalism is often not recognised by practitioners.
Cross-culturalism's difficulty is that it encourages a 'them' and 'us' mentality that creates problems in any pluralistic society.
A very real danger in the cross-cultural approach is the encouragement of division through the essentializing of cultural difference. Essentialising occurs when we make particular characteristics the only true or real expressions of a people. Cross-culturalism represents a serious and valuable critique of mono-culturalism's presumption of universal values. However, it operates on the basis of an overemphasis on the identity, difference and homogeneity of cultural or ethnic groups.
Multiculturalism adopts a commendable information-based, scientific, data-oriented approach to the multicultural. However, like cross-culturalism, it fails to avoid stereotyping, reductionism, individualising, placing groups in hierarchical order and perpetuating myths that, when imbibed can induce self-hatred within the subdominant groups.
An intercultural approach is premised upon the maxim Every human person is in some respects (a) like all others (b) like some others (c) like no other. Intercultural experience helps us realise that no matter how different culturally or personally people are, there are features of their lives that resemble those of other persons. Here, knowledge and information about specific socio-cultural, historical, economic and political matters of relevance to the cultures represented in the caring relationships may be valuable. But perhaps more germane to the process will be the exploration of the ways, as perceived especially by the clients, in which culture has in the past exerted and continues to exert an influence on the experience or issue in question. No matter how embedded one might be in one's social or cultural grouping, there will be characteristic ways in which one experiences or faces issues that will need addressing.
The strength of his approach seems to be in the affirmation of both individuality and communality in each person's identity, such that we are all seeking to create and mould an identity against the backdrop of our own (often multiple) backgrounds in culture and family, and continue to act as members of a community.
Emmanuel Y Larty, In Living Colour: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 2003
Posted by gary at October 26, 2006 03:51 PM
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