Cultural Diversity and Critical Dietetics: A Scholarship of Cross-Cultural Engagement

Abstract

As every human society has developed its own ways of knowing nature in order to survive, dietitians can benefit from an emerging scholarship of “cross-cultural engagement” (CCE). CCE asks dietitians to move beyond the orthodoxy of their academic training by temporarily experiencing culturally diverse knowledge systems, inhabiting different background assumptions and presuppositions of how the world works. Although this practice may seem de- stabilizing, it allows for significant outcomes not afforded by conventional dietetics scholarship. First, culturally different knowledge systems including those of Africa, Ayurveda, classical Chinese medicine and indigenous societies become more empathetically understood, minimizing the distortions created when forcing conformity with biomedical paradigms. This lessens potential for erroneous interpretations. Second, implicit background assumptions of the dietetics profession become more apparent, enabling a more critical appraisal of its underlying epistemology. Third, new forms of post-colonial intercultural inquiry can begin to develop over time as dietetics professionals develop capacities to reframe food and health issues from different cultural perspectives. CCE scholarship offers dietetics professionals a means to more fully appreciate knowledge assets that lie beyond professionally maintained parameters of truth, and a practice for challenging and moving boundaries of credibility.