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SEIS Academic Forum Series

Forum on Intercultural Studies

The interview situation as a trigger for criticality about interculturality?

 Speaker: Professor Fred Dervin

Time: 15:00-16:30

Date: December 5th, 2017 (Tuesday)

Venue: Room 115, English School Building, BFSU

Introduction

This paper is a methodological reflection on researching the intercultural experiences of international students. Interculturality is a polysemic and ideological notion that needs (deserves?) to be negotiated between interlocutors. Research interviews about the meanings and experiences of interculturality often rely on a seemingly straightforward approach, whereby what a respondent says about it must represent a ‘truth’. Starting from a critical and reflective approach, I show in this paper how the interview situation about interculturality can 1. help researchers complexify the way they represent their participants’ perceptions of interculturality, 2. give more space for exploring the complexities of intercultural discourses for the participants, 3. allow researchers to take full co-responsibility for constructed discourses on interculturality. Based on interviews with Chinese students involved in an international programme, the presentation shows how conflicts, provocation and renegotiation of meanings in the research situation can make research on the intercultural more meaningful and multifaceted.

About the Speaker

Fred Dervin (文德) is Professor of Multicultural Education at the University of Helsinki (Finland), where he leads the TENSION Research Group (Criticality, Interculturality and Bias in Education). Dervin has been awarded several honorary titles in Australia, Canada, China, Luxembourg, Malaysia and Sweden. He is a leading authority on multicultural/intercultural education in the world.