The ‘intercultural field’: interrogating context in intercultural education

Abstract

ABSTRACTResearch on the intercultural is challenged by the contextuality of the object of the research. While theories on intercultural learning generally acknowledge that the ‘context’ of the individual learning experience plays an important role for intercultural learning processes, a detailed understanding of what it is we call ‘context’ in the twenty-first century is mostly missing – as are studies that focus particularly on the role of out-of-class learning environments for intercultural encounter. The contextuality of intercultural learning experiences is demonstrated by the role locations play for intercultural learners while forming complex and interwoven networks, involving human actors, practices and objects. As such, the contribution context makes to intercultural practice, often remains unnoticed, with context representing merely a backdrop of the researched activities. In order to make the locality of context and its highly networked, dynamic nature more accessible to research in the intercultural education field, the ‘intercultural field’ metaphor is revisited and discussed on the basis of a mobile methods study and three emerging themes: the role of relationality, the production of the ‘intercultural field’ and the relevance of spatial–global transformations.