Embodied others and the ethics of difference. Deterritorialising intercultural learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the embodied character of the relationship self-other in intercultural communication. I review Levinasian characterisations of the face of the other that are adopted in intercultural ethics to counteract cultural essentialism and I argue that these do not fully address the embodied relationality underpinning intercultural encounters. Employing the notion of a carnal hermeneutics, I look at the relation self-other to consider the implications of the epistemic erasure of ‘othered’ bodies and their struggles for recognition. In doing this, I interrogate the effects of positioning the body at the centre of intercultural learning space to deterritorialise intercultural education and to problematise the separation between body and mind, self and other, and intercultural communication understood primarily through the medium of English language learning.