Multiculturalismo a lavoro: processi interculturali e comunicazione in contesti lavorativi interculturali Lecce, 15 e 16 novembre 2013Sandro Mazzi
Laboratorio dal Basso: “LAVORARE IN GRUPPO? UN’IMPRESA!
CONFLITTI, COMUNICAZIONE E COOPERAZIONE PER L’IMPRESA SOSTENIBILE”
Argomenti venerdì
Presentazioni e introduzione concetti chiave
Comunicazione
Cultura
Comunicazione interculturale
La competenza per la comunicazione interculturale
L'importanza dell'interpretazione
Programma venerdì
15:00 Presentazioni e introduzione concetti chiave
16.30: Pausa
16.45: Slides concetti chiave:
Comunicazione
Cultura
Comunicazione interculturale
La competenza per la comunicazione interculturale
L'importanza dell'interpretazione
NB Tutte le slides di questa sezione - quelle in lingua inglese – sono elaborate dal volume: Myron W. Lustig, Jolene Koester, Intercultural Competence. Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures, Pearson Education (US) Upper Saddle River 2012.
Argomenti sabato
Modelli e politiche per l'integrazione
Stereotipi, pregiudizi e discriminazioni
Strumenti per accrescere la competenza per la comunicazione interculturale
I sei blocchi della comunicazione interculturale (Barna)
Lo strumento D.I.E.
La consapevolezza culturale
Il lavoro sui valori e l'identità
Dalla compassione all'empatia
AUM e mindfulness (Gudykunst)
Questioni etiche
Esempi/domande
Programma sabato
10.00 Recupero modelli e altri concetti chiave
10.30 Consapevolezza culturale e identità
10.45 Dalla compassione alla empatia
11.00 Esercizio “Guardare l'altro come se…”
11.30 Pausa
11.45 Neuroscienze e l’importanza di esercitarsi al cambiamento
12.00 I sei blocchi alla comunicazione interculturale e il loro superamento: AUM e mindfulness
12.15 Esercizio riflessivo in gruppo/coppie: esperienze precedenti e strumenti presentati
13.00 chiusura
§ In the post-millennium world:§ Communicating with people from many cultures is no longer a choice§ It is our choice to learn to do it well
§Worldwide there is a heightened emphasis on culture§ Some forces encourage accommodation and understanding with diverse people§ Some forces discourage it
§ Intercultural encounters are now ubiquitous
§Forces that bring other cultures in our life are dynamic, potent, ever present
§Competent intercultural communication has become essential
INTRODUCTION TO INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
1. The Demographic Imperative
2. The Technological Imperative
3. The Economic Imperative
4. The Peace Imperative
5. The Interpersonal Imperative
IMPERATIVES FOR INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
There are too many ways for defining communication. We will adopt a definition useful for our purpose:
“Communication is a
Symbolic
Interpretive
Transactional
Contextual
Process in which
People Create
Shared meanings”.
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
§Symbols represent the shared meanings
§A symbol is a word/action/object that stands or represent the unit of meaning.
§Meaning is a perception, thought or feeling
§Meanings are shared through messages
§Messages are packages of symbols created to create shared meanings
COMMUNICATION IS SYMBOLIC
§When people communicate they have to:§Interpret the symbolic behaviors of others§Assign significance to some of them
§ Understanding and reaching agreement are two different outcomes.
COMMUNICATION IS INTERPRETIVE
§Actional view of communication: Bowling; Challenge in sending the message; I can win
§ Interactional views: Ping pong (feedback); Challenge in receiving; I can win or lose
§Transactional view: Sharade; Groupwork; Fun; No losers§All participants in the communication process work together to create and sustain the meanings that develop
§Communicators are simultaneously sending and receiving messages at every instant they are involved in conversations
COMMUNICATION IS TRANSACTIONAL
§ All communication take place in a context§ The context can be:§Physical: actual location§Social: widely shared expectations about the kind of interactions§Interpersonal: expectations people have about the behaviors of others as a result of differences in the relationships between them
COMMUNICATION IS CONTEXTUAL
§Communication is not static, fixed, unchanged
§A process is a sequence of many distinct but interrelated steps
§It can change over time
§Heraclit “You can’t stand in the same stream twice”
COMMUNICATION IS A PROCESS
§Meanings are not just “out there” to be discovered
§Meanings are created and shared by groups of people as they participate in the ordinary and everyday activities
COMMUNICATION INVOLVES SHARED MEANINGS
We take things for granted…When living within our own culture, we are never really reminded of it. When I am walking down the street, people just don’t stop to say, “Hey, it is an American”. In
other words, we don’t talk about our own culture too much, because we are living it. (A student from U.S.)
Also for culture, there are too many ways for defining it
We will adopt a definition useful for our purpose
WHAT IS CULTURE?
“Culture is aLearned
Set of shared interpretations aboutBeliefsValues
Norms andSocial practices which
Affect the behaviors of aRelatively large group of people”
A DEFINITION OF CULTURE
• Your family racial/ethnic makeup, and their racial attitudes
• where and when you were born and grew up
• your friends and social acquitances
• where you went to school, and your level of education
• Previous diverse cultural experiences in everyday life, the workplace, social and or professional context
• Attitudes and impression from the media
WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF CULTURE?
• “Intercultural Communication is a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, contextual process in which people from different cultures create shared meanings”
§ People are from different cultures whenever the degree of§ difference between them is sufficiently large and important
that it creates§ dissimilar interpretations and expectations about what are
regarded as§ competent communication behaviors”
A FIRST DEFINITION OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Therefore:
“Intercultural communication occurs when
large and important cultural differences create
dissimilar interpretations and expectations about how to
communicate competently”
ANOTHER DEFINITION OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
People in all cultures face common human problems for which they must find solutions
The range of alternative solutions to a culture’s problems is limited
Within a given culture, there will be preferred solutions, which most people within the culture will select, but there will also people who will choose other solutions.
Over time, the preferred solutions shape the culture’s basic assumptions about beliefs, values, norms and social practices – the cultural patterns
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURAL PATTERNS
People from different cultures differ in:
Obvious ways/clearly visible differences: food, clothing etc. Subtle ways/less visible differences
Cultural patterns are related to subtle differences that are taken for granted in a culture
Cultural patterns are therefore shared interpretations
CULTURAL PATTERNS
Shared interpretations are very important and they result from:
the culture collective assumption about what the world is: believes
shared judgments about what it should be: values
widely held expectations about how people should behave: norms
predictable behavior patterns that are commonly shared: social practices
CULTURAL PATTERNS
Understanding differences in cultural patterns is a basic requirement to develop ICC
Cultural patterns are the basis for interpreting the symbols used in communication
That is how we can explain many misunderstandings in IC (and not only…)
They are stable over time
They lead to roughly similar behaviors across similar situation
CULTURAL PATTERNS
There is a strong relationship between the foundations of cultural patterns and intercultural competence
The patterns of a culture create the filter through which all verbal and nonverbal symbols are interpreted
Not all cultural members of a society necessarily match the profile of the typical cultural member
The patterns of a culture shape but do not determine the mental programming of its people
Other cultures’ ways of believing and their preferred values are not crazy or wrong, just different
CULTURAL PATTERNS AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
Understanding of ICC is based on studies on communication competence in intracultural contexts
A definition of communication competence:
“Competent communication is interaction that is perceived as effective in fulfilling certain rewarding objectives in a way that is also appropriate to the context in which the interaction occurs” (Brian Spitzberg)
NB we cannot write a prescription guaranteed to ensure competence in intercultural communication
We can try to understand the many ways that a person can behave in interculturally competent manner
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE
1. Context2. Appropriateness and Effectiveness3. Knowledge,
(culture-general information and culture-specific information),
Motivations and(feelings and intentions)
Skills(the actual performance)
THE 3 COMPONENTS OFINTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
Description
Interpretation
Evaluation
BASIC TOOLS FOR IMPROVING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE: D-I-E
•“Anxiety that results from losing all of our familiar signs and symbol of social intercourse”
Kalervo Oberg (anthropologist)
•“The emotional and physiological reaction of high activation that is brought about by sudden emersion in a new and different culture”
LaRay M. Barna (communication studies)
•“A set of intensive and evocative situations in which the individual experiences himself and other people in a new way distinct from previous situations and is consequently forced into new levels of consciousness and understanding”
Alfred Adler (psychologist)
CULTURE SHOCK – DEFINITIONS
Sei ostacoli alla comunicazione interculturale (Barna)
L'assunto di similarità
Differenze linguistiche
Fraintendimenti non verbali
Preconcetti e stereotipi
Tendenza a giudicare
Forte ansia
"Sulle dispense stava scritto un dettaglio che alla prima lettura mi
era sfuggito, e cioè che il così tenero e delicato zinco, così
arrendevole davanti agli acidi, che ne fanno un solo boccone, si
comporta invece in modo assai diverso quando è molto puro: allora
resiste ostinatamente all’attacco. Se ne potevano trarre due
conseguenze filosofiche tra loro contrastanti: l’elogio della purezza,
che protegge dal male come un usbergo; l’elogio dell’impurezza,
che dà adito ai mutamenti, cioè alla vita."
Primo Levi - Il sistema periodico
Esericizio in piccoli gruppi
Analisi situazioni personali:
Come posso usare gli strumenti presentati per
alcune delle situazioni "interculturali" nelle quali
mi sono trovato/mi trovo/so che mi troverò?
Condivisione e confronto
Un modello per gestire efficacemente le
relazioni/discussioni/conversazioni Topic
Goal
Reality
Options
Will
Due strumenti davvero importanti...
Consapevolezza (culturale, della nostra identità, delle nostre premesse e aspettative)
Mindfulnes/presenza qui ed ora