International Encounters Research Articles

Engaging critical cultural awareness through video mediation during online intercultural encounters

ABSTRACT Online international collaboration projects provide students with valuable opportunities to apply their critical cultural awareness (CCA), which involves evaluating the values of one’s culture and other cultures using a systematic approach. In such projects, mediation tasks can play a crucial role by facilitating participants’ access to the meaning of a text that would otherwise be inaccessible due to linguistic, semantic, or cultural barriers. However, the potential of using videos for mediation in online collaboration projects to engage CCA remains underexplored. This exploratory study addresses this gap by investigating the mediation efforts of Colombian and German university students who utilised English as a lingua franca during online intercultural encounters. The results showed that using videos for mediation stimulated critical evaluation and reflection on students’ and their partners’ cultures. Interacting and mediating in a virtual environment encouraged students to explain stereotypes and share their thoughts on different cultural aspects, including social injustice issues, thereby fostering a deeper engagement with culture-related concepts. Findings demonstrated that the choice of videos influenced the depth of evaluation and analysis. Consequently, employing certain types of videos as a foundation for mediation activities proved a powerful tool for engaging students in CCA during international encounters.

Renarrating China-Africa relations: perspectives from new Chinese immigrants in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Drawing on China’s rising population outflows and the theory of everyday geopolitics, this study discusses how the daily international encounters of emerging Chinese immigrants (re-)write international relations. The study was conducted through fieldwork with new Chinese immigrants in Zimbabwe and reveals two findings. First, Zimbabwean political elites have been knitting a geopolitical discourse through the well-known nationalism and patriotic histories between China and Zimbabwe constructing ‘successful and mutually beneficial’ Zimbabwe-China relations. However, this elite geopolitical discourse has been facing great challenges among ordinary people in post-2000 Zimbabwe due to the influx of Chinese immigrants. Second,the new Chinese immigrant have been becoming key players in (re-)narrating Zimbabwe-China relations for their unbalanced trade relations with locals, inappropriate behaviours, their precarities, and investment in local public services. This migrant group not only incurs a Sino-phobia sentiment in post-2000 Zimbabwe, but also contributes to the maintaining of the public opinion on the Chinese presence here, articulating a complex and diverse set of geopolitical discourse. This study provides persuasive evidence that everyday practice has a stronger role in knitting together geopolitical discourse than traditional narratives and provides insights for transnational geopolitics to examine heterogeneity, complexity, and diversity of the geopolitical players in more details.

Co-text, context, and listening proficiency as crucial variables in intelligibility among nonnative users of English

AbstractResearch on intelligibility in international encounters has long focused on issues of pronunciation to the detriment of factors such as linguistic co-text and extralinguistic context, which are comparatively well-studied variables in intelligibility research concerning L1 listeners. This paper seeks to expand the scope of international intelligibility research in this respect by reporting on a large-scale study involving 423 nonnative listeners at different proficiency levels, who transcribed words spoken with another nonnative accent under four conditions that varied in the availability of syntactic, semantic, and schematic cues. The results suggest that co-text and context as well as listening proficiency are crucial variables that ought to receive greater attention in research on international intelligibility. The pedagogical implications of these findings are addressed as well.

Acculturation expectations of German majority members in relation to their intercultural competence and identifications

Economic internationalisation and refugee movements entail that many Western societies are characterised by ethnocultural diversity to an increasing degree. For the relationship between ethnocultural minority groups and the respective societal majority, acculturation strategies and preferences are of high pertinence. Since following a specific acculturation strategy is not only at the discretion of ethnocultural minorities, but also depends on the opportunities granted by the respective society majority, the expectations of the majority for a specific acculturation strategy is a central limiting factor. In the present study, we examined associations of intercultural competence dimensions and group identifications with the acceptance of multiculturalism by German majority members. We found that two intercultural competence dimensions – cultural empathy and flexibility – are associated with the acceptance of multiculturalism. Thus, the ability to understand other cultures and the ability to adapt to unfamiliar situations might be beneficial for the acceptance of lived cultural diversity. We also observed that European identification was associated with the acceptance of multiculturalism. European identification is likely to function as a superordinate identification which embraces a variety of ethnocultural groups, so that these ethnocultural groups are part of the wider, superordinate ingroup. While common group memberships tend to foster positive attitudes towards ingroup members, a high European identification also appears to be an indication of a generalized acceptance of cultural diversity or multiculturalism. Our demonstration that superordinate identification and both dimensions of intercultural competence are associated with the acceptance of multiculturalism suggests possibilities of fostering multiculturalism via intercultural trainings and international encounters.

Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia

Despite independent Kazakhstan’s close ties to Russia based on geographic proximity, economic interdependence, formal treaties of mutual cooperation, and a shared linguistic and historic heritage, the viability of these ties is being tested by events of the past year and in particular, by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Due to the widespread proficiency in the Russian language in all three countries, through internet access and social media, the people of Kazakhstan are able to access not only the Russian perspective of the war, but also that of the Ukrainian people. Internationally, Kazakhstan’s leaders are attempting to maintain a delicate balance vis-à-vis Russia, ensuring on the one hand that their alliance based on mutual interests and a common history is not endangered, yet needing on the other hand to appear credible and responsible in the eyes of European and Western powers in view of their long-term strategic plans for Kazakhstan’s development as a major player in Eurasian affairs. The analysis by Maerz (2019) posits that autocratic regimes such as those in Russia and Central Asia tend to use democratic terms in a way which only simulates pluralism by camouflaging their actual intent. All parties to international negotiations, including interpreters, need to be aware of these linguistic practices to properly understand and convey the actual message. The delicacy of this balancing act highlights the need for translators and interpreters employed at international negotiations and encounters to be aware of the historical precedents as well as the current ideologies and contemporary status of relations between the parties involved. Translations cannot be rendered solely according to linguistic equivalents, as identical terms can transmit divergent meanings when seen through the lens of a different heritage or ideology. The stakes at such international encounters are extraordinarily high: nothing less than stability, prosperity, and world peace. This argues for the importance of offering professional development opportunities for translators and interpreters to maintain their awareness of the nuanced issues in play. There is a need to acknowledge the crucial role and need of these professional communicators to constantly maintain their knowledge of the social and political context.

The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature ed. by Tomasz Bilczewski; Stanley Bill, and Magdalena Popiel

Reviewed by: The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature ed. by Tomasz Bilczewski; Stanley Bill, and Magdalena Popiel Kasia Szymańska Bilczewski, Tomasz; Bill, Stanley and Popiel, Magdalena (eds). The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature. Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2022. xix + 450 pp. Illustrations. Notes. References. Index. £160.00; £35.99 (e-book). This is an unprecedentedly busy time for Polish studies abroad. In the past few years, at least three different English-language textbooks and companions to Polish literature and culture have offered new perspectives on its history and reception. To start with, the monumental textbook, Being Poland: A New History of Polish Literature and Culture since 1918 (eds T. Trojanowska, J. Niżyńska, P. Czapliński, Toronto, 2018), marked the centenary of Poland's regained independence and brought into discussion a wide range of new genres, topics and approaches (graphic novels, film, mass media, multilingualism, translation). In turn, Polish Literature as World Literature (eds P. Florczyk and K. A. Wiśniewski, London, 2023), looks at a relatively modest selection of sixteen essays concentrating only on explicit contributions of Polish authors to world literature. Somewhat bookended by these two volumes, The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature strikes the middle ground between the formats of the other two publications. On the one hand, this heavy tome replicates the panache and broad sweep of a comprehensive textbook of Polish literature. The editors have assembled a series of thirty-three case studies, all neatly divided into traditional literary epochs across an impressively long time-span from the Middle Ages to the present day, and incorporating many different literary genres (e.g. poetry, the novel, the short story, memoir, travel writing). On the other hand, the book offers a focused selection of case studies and close readings guided by the interests of world literature. By tracing the meandering history of how some authors and their works were transplanted into different languages and read by international audiences, the book aims to tell a different history of Polish literature: that written by its readers, translators and aficionados abroad. The key strength of the volume lies in its kaleidoscopic overview of micro-stories, as the volume treats its readers to a wide array of international encounters. Some of its more successful approaches stem from the following strategy: where a Polish author has engaged with intercultural material (e.g. Ryszard Kapuściński travelling to China, or Mariusz Wilk writing Polish-Russian prose), let us see the other side of the coin by examining how the work has been received in that other cultural realm. It is thus rewarding to read about the Italian fascination with Henryk Sienkiewicz's vision of Nero's Rome in his novel, Quo vadis (1895–96); to discover the Lithuanian counterpart of poet Adam Mickiewicz who completes his otherwise Polonized picture in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; and to see how Dutch poets engaged with [End Page 747] Zbigniew Herbert's Mr Cogito (1974) in response to his essays on seventeenth-century Dutch art. While other combinations were more serendipitous, some of them proved equally fruitful, especially when foregrounding the role of translation and rewriting in the transfer. Who would have thought that Mickiewicz's poems could be reimagined and read against the historical backdrop of slavery in Brazil; that the so-called '9/11 poem' by Adam Zagajewski has travelled far and wide, resonating with so many distinct audiences; that dialogues between Jewish and Polish characters in Bolesław Prus's The Doll (1890) were translated into Japanese by means of katakana and hiragana scripts to render the novel's linguistic variation; and that one missing phrase across different translations and editions of Miron Białoszewski's Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising (1970) could bear such significance for its interpretation alongside other war testimonies? These literary excursions not only give us insight into how Polish works are circulated and read beyond their original context of publication, but they also reveal which of their themes and qualities lend themselves to sometimes surprising and unconventional readings. While I am largely enthusiastic about the ideas underpinning the volume, I would like to raise a few caveats related to its presentation...

Food, multiplicity and imperialism: Patterns of domination and subversion in the modern international system

This article mobilises the notion of global food regime to explore ways in which modern International Relations are reproduced through distinctive patterns of alimentary domination and subversion. It considers three ideal-typical international encounters – the Spanish conquest of the Americas, British rule in South Asia and the US occupation of Japan – to offer a stylised historical-sociological comparison of how food becomes a powerful site of interaction between conflicting dynamics of social differentiation and incorporation, segregation and admixture, and domination and subversion. The Spanish, British and Americans deployed different strategies of alimentary domination in these contexts, which can in large measure be explained with reference to their prevailing mode of production. But they also unleashed equally potent forces of culinary adaptation, transculturation and innovation which, in bringing together a multiplicity of foodways, subverted both the rigid structures of imperial rule and notions of a pristine pre-colonial or national cultural traditions.

Traces of Solidarity in Liberation Training Sites in Angola

From the mid-1970s until the late 1980s, Angola hosted guerrillas fighting for the liberation of other southern African states, as well as Cuban and Soviet military advisors and civilian professionals. As the study of Cold War era liberation struggles has developed from nation-centred narratives towards both global and local perspectives, the international encounters that took place in the ambit of these struggles have attracted attention from several historians. In particular, the military training camps have come to be seen as an environment that nurtured specific kinds of social and political relationships, although little physical evidence of these camps remains. This article is based on photographs taken at Camalundu and Caculama, two sites in the Angolan Malanje province where the remains of camps are still visible. At Camalundu, Portuguese colonial architecture points to the original function of the site, while slogans painted in English and Spanish, variously referencing South African history and global revolutionary movements, bear witness to the presence of Cubans and South Africans, and provide evidence of how they saw their own role within the international politics of the day. At Caculama the secluded and defensive nature of the site and its installations provides evidence of the South African role in relation to Angolan strategic thinking. The photographs complement the existing memoirs and oral testimony about the politics of exile and about life in the camps, providing diverse evidence about the presence of liberation fighters and their relationships with the wider world. They also enable the preservation of a visual and tangible historical record which, in the absence of preservation measures, is in danger of decay beyond recognition.

Memorials and the Mine Disaster in Monongah, West Virginia: From Trauma to an Italian Global Memoryscape

Memorials and the Mine Disaster in Monongah, West Virginia: From Trauma to an Italian Global Memoryscape

The Musical Diplomacy of Metternich

Abstract That festivities are woven into the historical image of the Austrian diplomat, foreign minister, and state chancellor Clemens von Metternich (1773–1859) is in part the byproduct of his investment in music. As an amateur performer, passionate connoisseur, attentive patron, and frequent host, Metternich cultivated an international soundworld that presented opportunities for cooperative performances. Ensemble music and collective listening provided experiences of international concert that gained significance in the context of multilateral congresses and meetings. Musical exchanges, sustained through the activity of women and professional musicians, contributed to fostering diplomatic relations and international presence. In the context of the Restoration’s competing soundworlds, Metternich deployed a patronage of Rossini’s work and Italian opera music, with increasing intensity but mixed effect. This history speaks to the function of music in the presentation of self in international encounters and the resources to be found in the plurality of roles diplomats perform.

Seeing the Futures Past, and Futures yet to Come

By comparing the dominant media and academic readings of the visual archive of Yugoslav non-aligned internationalism with the interpretations of the corresponding visual archive of the Bandung Conference, I reflect on the impossibility of recognizing the futurity, solidarity, and alternative modernity in the photographs depicting Yugoslav international encounters in the context of the Non-Aligned Movement. I outline a number of reasons for this impossibility, some of which are related to the nature of photography itself, while the others are shaped by the specific temporality of post-Yugoslav post-socialism and the limits that this temporality imposes on political subjects, their imagination, and aspirations.

European solidarity patterns during a pandemic

Culture, Practice and Europeanization (CPE) is an open access peer reviewed platform for publishing research-based articles predominantly dealing with research into the multiplicity of social processes, interactions, and policies relating to Europeanization and international encounters in Europe. Perspectives may be interdisciplinary. Empirical, theoretical and conceptual texts of significant originality will be considered for publication. CPE publishes foremost full-length original articles, but will also consider original reviews, conference speeches, and notes in order to inform the research community of most recent developments. CPE welcomes contributions that seek to enhance understanding of social processes relating to internationalization and further trans-national activities and processes in Europe.

The revival of solidarity in disasters — a theoretical approach

Culture, Practice and Europeanization (CPE) is an open access peer reviewed platform for publishing research-based articles predominantly dealing with research into the multiplicity of social processes, interactions, and policies relating to Europeanization and international encounters in Europe. Perspectives may be interdisciplinary. Empirical, theoretical and conceptual texts of significant originality will be considered for publication. CPE publishes foremost full-length original articles, but will also consider original reviews, conference speeches, and notes in order to inform the research community of most recent developments. CPE welcomes contributions that seek to enhance understanding of social processes relating to internationalization and further trans-national activities and processes in Europe.

Who cares for what? Care networks and new urban activisms in Madrid: Restating solidarity

Culture, Practice and Europeanization (CPE) is an open access peer reviewed platform for publishing research-based articles predominantly dealing with research into the multiplicity of social processes, interactions, and policies relating to Europeanization and international encounters in Europe. Perspectives may be interdisciplinary. Empirical, theoretical and conceptual texts of significant originality will be considered for publication. CPE publishes foremost full-length original articles, but will also consider original reviews, conference speeches, and notes in order to inform the research community of most recent developments. CPE welcomes contributions that seek to enhance understanding of social processes relating to internationalization and further trans-national activities and processes in Europe.

Our Suffering Brethren: Foreign Captivity and Nationalism in the Early United States by David J. Dzurec III

Reviewed by: Our Suffering Brethren: Foreign Captivity and Nationalism in the Early United States by David J. Dzurec III Sarah Sillin (bio) Our Suffering Brethren: Foreign Captivity and Nationalism in the Early United States david j. dzurec iii University of Massachusetts Press, 2019 236 pp. David J. Dzurec III's Our Suffering Brethren traces a history of white American captivity from the American Revolution to the end of the Barbary War. Throughout this era, the British navy and Barbary corsairs repeatedly captured American ships—whether to impress, imprison, ransom, or enslave those aboard—thereby evoking a sense of American vulnerability (7). Dzurec's history demonstrates that captivity profoundly influenced early US politics by eliciting widespread public concern; it thereby became a source of nationalism that served complex, sometimes contradictory interests. Americans' loss of freedom offered a key justification first for the Revolutionaries' cause and then for a stronger federal government. Yet rather than simply unifying the country, captivity became the subject of fierce political debates. Indeed, Dzurec argues that Federalists' and Republicans' responses established a key pattern in US politics: each party asserted its unique ability to provide national security, even as both invoked the same nationalist rhetoric by playing on fear of a foreign threat (194). In examining such rhetoric, Dzurec develops a nuanced reading of how international encounters shaped the government's relation to citizens. Federalists and Republicans alike located political capital in American captives' suffering, as they claimed authority to enter into new wars, negotiate for US captives, or forge treaties. But even as politicians played on voters' anxieties, he suggests, so too did public discourse inform US politics. The apparent arbitrariness of captivity, which elicited concerns that "any American could be taken captive," also thereby fostered a sense that "any American could join the debate about the nature of Independence" (38). Though the nation's early presidents responded to this sentiment with [End Page 300] calls for limiting public involvement—like the private fundraising efforts to redeem Americans captive in Algeria—public opinion and political policies continued to shape one another. To understand the reciprocal influence of public opinion and political rhetoric, Dzurec explores a rich historical archive. His readings of sailors' letters and narratives (with particular attention to Ethan Allen's and John Dodge's memoirs) highlight the influential role of their accounts in circulating news of captivity and shaping Americans' impressions of these events. Moreover, he delves into Americans' responses to such accounts by analyzing the more official discourse of political policies and representatives' correspondence, alongside public commentary in news editorials, plays, and printed accounts of local festivities. Together, these texts allow him to argue that politicians' and private citizens' responses informed one another, while considering how they shifted over time. Captivity became first a touchstone in arguments for American independence and confederation in the late eighteenth century and then a lightning rod in early nineteenth-century political debates as the Federalist and Republican parties both purported to be the party of national security. Dzurec moves chronologically, so that the first half of Our Suffering Brethren identifies how captivity fostered American nationalism, starting with British impressment. Of course, captivity was not a new experience or trope; rather, Dzurec contends, colonial-era captivity narratives provided revolutionaries with "a historical precedent for the type of threat they faced" (37). Moreover, he suggests that stories of captivity became a means for revolutionaries to claim sympathy. Yet rather than halt captivity, the end of the war left Americans unprotected by British treaties with Barbary states. When Algerian corsairs captured American merchant ships in 1785, captivity took on new importance in US politics by fostering interest in a stronger federal government. Even as Americans' captivity strengthened arguments for the federal government, though, it also raised new possibilities for individual Americans to participate in foreign relations. Dzurec explores how such private involvement ebbed and flowed. In the 1780s, Americans began fundraising to help ransom their countrymen, then paused this involvement when the Constitutional Convention afforded the government more power to act on their behalf. Although Washington and the Federalists believed "public sentiment ought not play a role in politics outside of election" (63), the [End Page 301] formation of Democratic...

Exploring reproduction (or is it procreation?) over language boundaries: the challenges and hidden opportunities of translation.

This article addresses the challenges and benefits derived from having to present social science research in another language than one’s usual working language. As objects of study are, in part, moulded by language, translation becomes an invaluable opportunity for critical reflection on our epistemic choices. The article thus proposes a brief inquiry into the words we use, in French and in English, to describe and discuss issues in assisted reproductive technology, or medically assisted procreation as one would say in French. The article first explores similarities and differences in the generic terms used in each language to refer to this area, and discusses the verbs used to describe different facets of the reproductive process. It then proposes a short discussion of two terms often used interchangeably in both languages, ‘reproduction’ and ‘procreation’, and introduces a third term, engendrement (‘engendering’) that has recently emerged in France as an alternative concept. The conclusion points to the impact that technology may have on the issues considered worthy of attention, and on the meaning of certain words, as reproductive acts are displaced from the body to the laboratory. It also urges greater attention to how language affects the way we conceptualize reproductive practices and issues, and to how we deal with these differences in international encounters.

International Encounters

In light of the exponential rise in international student numbers for decades—a rise that has narrowed in the last 2 years—many higher education institutions around the world have been called to consider questions around the value of the internationalization of higher education. A changing view of internationalization’s benefits was identified in a global survey conducted by the International Association of Universities. The results indicated that “enhanced international cooperation and capacity building” has become a more important benefit, and neither “increased international awareness of/deeper engagement with global issues” nor “quality of teaching and learning” were in the top three benefits at the global level (Marinoni et al., 2019). Therefore, it is more important than ever for higher education professionals to rethink current pedagogy around international student instruction. International Encounters is among the newest contributions to ongoing discussions of international students’ learning experiences in higher education.

Review of International encounters: Higher education and the international student experience

Review of International encounters: Higher education and the international student experience

International Encounters

Throughout International Encounters: Higher Education and the International Student Experience, the authors encourage faculty, program administrators, and institutional leaders to challenge the deficient model that is often associated with international student experiences, and instead employ those in higher education to recognize the human, social, mobility, cultural, and identity capital that international students bring to universities and colleges. The editors are to be applauded for the unpacking and problematizing of terms such as “foreign student,” “cosmopolitanism,” “foreignness,” and “international” and for recognizing the assemblance of international education research and literature as somewhat haphazard, although prolific.

A century with and against the market. The ILO and ‘global social justice’

Culture, Practice and Europeanization (CPE) is an open access peer reviewed platform for publishing research-based articles predominantly dealing with research into the multiplicity of social processes, interactions, and policies relating to Europeanization and international encounters in Europe. Perspectives may be interdisciplinary. Empirical, theoretical and conceptual texts of significant originality will be considered for publication. CPE publishes foremost full-length original articles, but will also consider original reviews, conference speeches, and notes in order to inform the research community of most recent developments. CPE welcomes contributions that seek to enhance understanding of social processes relating to internationalization and further trans-national activities and processes in Europe.