At a time of globalisation and of multiple cross-cultural influences how can we learn to communicate in an effective and culturally sensitive way in our complex societies? Which competencies are required? How can we face and cope with cultural uncertainty?
In the earlier decades of the 20th century interculturalists focussed their attention on national cultural differences and on methodologies to help people of different nationalities to live together and understand each other in a more interconnected world. Cultural systems were often presented as national systems, even if personal differences were acknowledged.
In more recent decades the scene has been made more complex by many new transnational cultural sub-systems, such as groupings by gender, age, sexual orientation and transnational movements in religion, politics, ecology. At the same time, local identities exist on different national territories (Ladin) and urbanisation creates an increasing cultural gap between urban and rural life.
There are also homologising transnational cultural factors, especially in the last 50 years, such as technology (TV, internet), the dominance of English as the world vehicular language, supranational institutions and multinational corporations, and the spread of world myths.
In addition interculturalists have moved away from an essentialist approach to cultures and have recognised the importance of context as a key element in interactions.
Are we moving towards a “liquid” concept of culture? How can young people be educated to cope with so many intertwined cultural differences within a complex society?
To answer these questions, Fondazione Intercultura decided to dedicate the conference to these topics.
The international conferences of Fondazione Intercultura
Every three years Fondazione Intercultura organises an international conference (in Florence or in other Italian cities) around intercultural topics that may be of interest for our societies at large, especially for schools, and also for the Intercultura Association, a volunteer movement which operates on the side of our Foundation promoting international educational exchanges for pupils. The participants, some 300, are both academics and researchers from all over the world, and partly teachers and volunteers who are involved as practitioners in the field of international education and youth mobility. The event lasts three days and it involves an opening plenary session followed by 25-30 parallel workshops of two hours each, where academics discuss their topics with groups of participants (30-50) who have signed up for their workshop when they registered. All presenters give then a very short summary of their work in a recorded statement which is shown in a plenary session at the end of the conference. The proceedings of each conference are published in a volume by the Foundation. The same proceedings can be consulted on our website.
