Introduction

Abstract

Internationalisation drive witnessed in higher education institutions revolves around neoliberal values that position students as strategic consumers to whom conflated international and intercultural issues are presented as added value to their employability. Critical intercultural communication is defined by its emphasis on processes, power inequalities as well as agency associated with the use of culture in discourse and interactions. It is a wide interdisciplinary field of study encompassing research on a variety of topics connected to human relations as well as their mediated representations. Although critical intercultural communication already engages with power inequalities, its research and teaching dimensions could go further in that endeavour by actively tackling the way some core concepts such as culture or diversity have become empty and convenient vessels to (re)produce inequalities across social dimensions and societal contexts. This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.