Strategies for Living Together-in-Difference - Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Strategies for living together-in-difference
This module introduces you to the theory of border crossing. You will have opportunities to learn about strategies that enable you to border cross.
This includes engaging in dialogue, which is different from a conversation or even a debate. Dialogue is about increasing understanding between speakers, which depends upon an openness to modify your own beliefs and convictions. Therefore dialogue is a tool for successful border crossing. Many of us struggle to differentiate having a dialogue with just communicating.
Border crossing requires a different kind of communication, where dialogue between individuals supports you to understand more about yourself and others. This is important because the more people understand themselves, but then choose to move outside their own frame of reference (ethnocentrism) to include divergent perspectives, the more likely it is for problem solving, innovation and negotiation to occur.
You will also be introduced to empathy, mindful compassion, and how to talk about cultural differences with others. These concepts, combined with the theory of border crossing are needed to live together-in-difference in a culturally diverse world.
This module will help you:
Talk about cultural differences with others
Apply empathy and mindful compassion to your communication
Develop skills and abilities to navigate dialogue and conflict
This module will cover:
The concept of border crossing, through dialogue, as a strategy for living together-in-difference
The difference between sympathy and empathy and compassion
How to be more comfortable with conflict to harness the potential for problem-solving, innovation and creativity
By the end of this module should be able to:
Reflect upon, identify, and articulate the importance of cultural awareness and understanding of intercultural competence.
Explain and apply a range of theories needed to successfully live together in a culturally diverse world.
Identify and apply skills in mindfulness and critical reflection and awareness that supports your own development of intercultural competence.
MODULE 5
Strategies for living together-in-difference
Living together-in-difference
There is no getting around it- there is only one planet that humans can currently live on. Planet Earth is the place that we call home, and we have no other choice but to co-exist together here.
Ien Ang’s (2001) work on the concept of living together-in-difference reminds us that this task is not necessarily an easy one- there is an inherent uneasiness in our global condition. Yet Ang (2001) counsels that ‘we no longer have the secure capacity to draw the line between ‘us’ and ‘them’- in which difference and sameness are inextricably intertwined in complicated entanglement’ (p. 201).
Survival is the connections between things (Said, 1993). What connects us is the world we share. We need to find ways to connect to each other across our differences, for our sakes, and for future generations.
Reference
Ang, I. (2001). On not speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West. London & New York, NY: Routledge.
Said, E. (1993). Culture and imperialism. London: Chatto & WindusMODULE 5
Strategies for living together-in-difference
Border Crossing
The concept of border crossing, as theorised by Henry Giroux (1992) is particularly salient for our task to live together-in-difference. Giroux refers to the often-invisible borders in our minds that we use to separate: race, social and economic class, gender and ethnicity.
Border crossing is to come to understand “otherness” in its own terms. It requires us to let go of the categories and classifications that we usually rely on to help us make sense of "us" and "them". This means leaving behind the simplified notion of cultures as they relate to things we can see (food, clothes, art, rituals).
We need to be aware of our own lens that colours how we view the world before we can even try to border cross. Border crossing also requires us to make a conscious effort to engage with others, so that we can understand who the “other” is and what the world looks like to them. This does not come from our imagination or what we perceive the world is like for another, but from getting to know another perspective intimately.
References
Giroux, H. (1992). Border crossings: cultural workers and the politics of education. New York, NY: Routledge.
MODULE 5
Strategies for living together-in-difference
Dialogue
One strategy that is useful for border crossing is to engage in dialogue. Dialogue is a collaborative communicative activity. It’s different from a conversation as it is focused on communication with the primary aim to increase understanding between speakers. Dialogue is about:
Addressing problems, and questioning thoughts and actions. It engages the heart as well as the mind. It is different from ordinary, everyday conversation in that dialogue has a focus and a purpose. Dialogue is different from debate, which offers two points of view with the goal of proving legitimacy or correctness of one of the viewpoints over the other. Dialogue, unlike debate or even discussion, is as interested in the relationship(s) between the participants as it is in the topic being explored. Ultimately, real dialogue presupposes an openness to modify deeply held convictions. (Romney, 2005, p. 2)
When we dialogue, we must be willing to embrace all parts. That means that miscommunication, conflict, and tension may arise and when they do, they are not to be avoided. Indeed,
It’s when we let our guard down and allow our differences and doubts to surface and interact that something authentic and original can begin to emerge, tentatively, in the spaces between us…it’s often in these fleeting and complicated moments that the heart and mind can come into synchrony, pointing to altogether novel educational possibilities. The key is to remain alert to those moments and to move with them when they arise. (Chapman Walsh, 2006, p. 26)
And because dialogue rests on an openness to learn about self and other, humility, again, is essential. Paulo Freire (1970, p. 71) writes:
How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own? How can I dialogue if I regard myself as a case apart from others…? How can I dialogue if I consider myself a member of the in-group of “pure” men, the owners of truth and knowledge, for whom all non-members are “these people” or the “great unwashed”? How can I dialogue if I start from the premise that naming the world is the task of an elite and that the presence of the people in history is a sign of deterioration, thus to be avoided? How can I dialogue if I am closed to- and even offended by- the contribution of others? How can I dialogue if I am afraid of being displaced, the mere possibility causing me torment and weakness?
In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change. And this is perhaps tricky, because just as we are responsible for ourselves, others are responsible for themselves and what they bring to the world. Sometimes it may not be possible to engage in dialogue with others- there might be incompatibilities that are impossible to move past, and the barriers towards working through dialogue could be constructed by the other person. For example, Holliday (2015) acknowledges that there are people in the world who actively promote huge walls of cultural and religious division, using violence and extremism.
Another consideration for dialogue relates to issues of power. In colonial contexts, the incorrect application of the concept of dialogue, as primarily a way to “get to know the Other”, can result in one-way sharing that benefits only non-Indigenous people (Jones & Jenkins, 2008). You should attempt to border cross without any expectation for reciprocal border crossing and keeping in mind that failure in dialogue does not mean it is not worth trying.
To attempt to dialogue across difference is not to presuppose either understanding or reconciliation; nor is the only goal of dialogue to reach a convergence of meaning. To attempt dialogue is not to presuppose the attempt will succeed; nor is it to be naïve regarding the risk of further harm. Failed dialogue or conflict might still produce greater understanding. Certainly, it is not aimed at eliminating difference or the domination of one particular perspective. (Land, 2015, p. 128)
It must also be admitted that border crossing is extremely difficult, challenging and requires a lot of effort, energy, and self-reflection. Even if you can’t manage to do it often, if you can at least develop an understanding that your knowledge of others and the world, and the ‘right thing to do’ will always be partial, and often centered on your own needs and desires, which can unconsciously lead towards oppression of others (Ellsworth, 1989), you will be better placed to build relationships with others. When interacting with others, consider:
What’s life like for you?
How does the way I am, impact that life?
How do my unconscious beliefs and actions impact you? (Brach, 2015).
 

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