Culture instead of politics: negotiating ‘Otherness’ in intercultural educational activity

Abstract

Programmes based on intercultural encounters with the ‘Other’ place culture and cultural difference at their centre. ‘Cultural discourse’ has even been defined as a new epistemology and praxis that plays a key role in the process of recognition. In the light of these assumptions, this study used ethnographic field work to examine the ways culture was employed by Palestinian and Jewish students who took part in an intercultural programme in a large academic institution in Israel (2006–2010). The findings reveal two major discursive practices that were used during the meetings: individuation and collectivisation of culture. Individuation was used mostly by the Jewish group and served to emphasise the particularity of the participants. Collectivisation was used mostly by the Palestinian group and served to emphasise the particularity of the group. The different ways both practices used culture served to position majority–minority rhetoric outside national political contexts. Thus, by revealing the way power relations were discursively re-produced by the use of culture, these findings problematise the role and authority given to culture in encounters with the ‘Other’.