In the Name of Interculturality: On Colonial Legacies in Intercultural Education

This essay scrutinises the ways in which students who have completed a university course on interculturality distinguish between sameness and otherness in attempts to integrate, relate to, and build a bridge to those deemed culturally different. It makes use of interviews to analyse the factors that shape the interpretation of otherness and difference in the students’ definitions of interculturality, as well as their statements about the relationships between us and them, and descriptions of instances of learning and teaching that have taken place between parties in different parts of the world. Theoretically, the essay is based on a postcolonial framework, highlighting the continuing influence of colonialism and Eurocentric ways of reasoning inside as well as outside the classroom in today’s society. One of the main conclusions of the essay is that in the process of transferring knowledge, there is a risk that the history of modern Europe will be sanctioned as the historical trajectory for the rest of the world to follow, with the accompanying supposition that this can only be made possible by extending a helping hand to the Other.