Cultural identity, representation, and Othering

Globalisation is not a new experience. The anthropologist N.P. Pieterse (2004) maintains that anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists and sociologists see it as a long-term historical process, which has witnessed, amongst others, the ancient population movements across and between continents and the diffusion of technologies (military technologies, numeracy, literacy, sciences... ). All these have led to intense intercultural encounters. Yet, under the pressures of contemporary globalization, meanings are multiplied and being put into question more than ever before. Consequently individuals and groups experience bigger uncertainty as to who they are and where they belong (Hermans 2001). For the fields related to intercultural communication, and the social and human sciences as a whole, this means that objects, theories and methods have to be reviewed in order to scrutinize this new episteme. Many concepts, that have been central to the study of the Human, and the interdisciplinary domain that concerns us here, have been questioned over the past thirty years: culture, identity, community and society. The French anthropologist Maurice Godelier (2009: 7) goes as far as asking if these concepts, whose meanings and usages are more and more complex, are still useful for the production of scientific knowledge. Let us try to see how this burning issue applies to intercultural communication.