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Call for Chapters "Interculturality at stake" Edited Book by Anne Lavanchy, Fred Dervin and Anahy Gajardo __________________________________________________ Since 1970s, a profusion of terms such as pluri-, multi-, inter- or crosscultural have been used to describe the instruments permitting the resolution, by means of adequate communication and translation, of social and political problems defined as intrinsic to the interaction of people/groups of different cultures. Often indifferently understood as the study and management of relations in a social sphere qualified as multi- or pluricultural, interculturality is considered a priori positive and is rarely questioned as a term or a practice. In this call for chapters, interculturality is understood as a shifting set of phenomena, techniques and representations related to the meetings of people from different countries. Under cover of the term interculturality or its synonyms, many collective entities, whether NGOs or public institutions, have been encouraged to take measures aimed at promoting and developing interculturality through the creation of meeting spaces or the development of educational tracks leading to specialization in intercultural mediation as is the case, e.g., of the EUs 2008 Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Sometimes relying on an ad hoc juridical apparatus, interculturality functions as a multitudinous process whose function would be to facilitate the integration of minority groups defined as « culturally different » within national societies implicitly perceived as homogenous and to help their interlocutors to communicate with them. In this sense, interculturality participates in a discourse on Otherness that presents cultures as discrete and essentialized entities. These entities thus appear to lead a clean, disembodied, autonomous existence, which in turn places communication and intercultural relations on an abstract level, functioning apart from social actors, contexts of interaction, historicity of relations and intertextuality. The present work intends to add to critical reflection on the concept of interculturality, beginning with the analysis of contemporary practices claiming to be just that intercultural. These contributions will be based on theoretical reflections and field studies carried out in different contexts. In order to understand the presuppositions and stereotypes that this scientific and societal concept conveys, to the extent that we can consider it as such, we wish to expand available knowledge on the following questions: 1. What logic can be located in the (educational, scientific, theoretical, media...) discourse and the policies of institutionalization of practices called intercultural? 2. What is the effect of these discourses and policies, their symbolic and practical efficacy, notably in the reproduction of social inequalities? Our objective is to encourage reflection through the comparison of different apprehensions of interculturality, its potential interest and its limits. Any new approach to interculturality is favoured. From this perspective, we wish to promote a discussion between specialists from different disciplines: for example, those from the educational sciences, anthropology, sociology, communication sciences, linguistics and political science. Potential authors are invited to submit a 300-word proposal (including a few lines about the author(s)) in English or French to the editors by April 1st 2009. The proposals should clearly explain the theoretical framework and concerns of the proposed chapter, and include a short description of a corpus (where applicable). A basic bibliography may also be added. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by May 15th 2009. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by September 15th 2009. The book is scheduled to be published in spring 2010 by an international publisher. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a blind review basis. Contact: Anne Lavanchy Maître-assistante & researcher Anthropology MAPS University of Neufchatel Switzerland Email: [email protected] Fred Dervin Senior Lecturer & researcher Linguistics, Intercultural education & communication Department of French Studies University of Turku Finland Email: [email protected] Anahy Gajardo Research assistant & lecturer Education & anthropology Université de Genève & Université de Fribourg Suisse Email: [email protected] __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
