tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/intercultural-exchange-8611/articlesIntercultural exchange – The Conversation2021-10-25T19:24:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1597962021-10-25T19:24:52Z2021-10-25T19:24:52ZVirtual exchange: What are students signing up for?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427032/original/file-20211018-25-n024ix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C119%2C5000%2C2619&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Since the pandemic introduced travel restrictions and disrupted campus life, some students are searching for alternative ways to get international learning experience.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many students are drawn to culturally immersive experiences that support their personal growth and academic performance. Offering students the chance to study abroad is an integral part of how many post-secondary programs have developed globally responsive curriculum. </p>
<p>Studying abroad, when well-planned, can expand students’ perspectives of the world and provide a platform to explore their academic and professional desires.</p>
<p>Since the COVID-19 pandemic introduced <a href="https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/as-travel-restrictions-ease-people-discover-pent-up-desire-to-travel-again-1.5512750">travel restrictions</a> and disrupted campus life, some students and faculty members have been searching for alternative ways to experience international learning without having to travel.</p>
<h2>Models of virtual exchange</h2>
<p>Virtual exchanges are technology-based, classroom-to-classroom programs that connect students located in different geographical locations to develop intercultural and project-based learning. Many of these exchanges are designed and facilitated by course instructors for students to <a href="http://www.slrpjournal.org/item/205">establish dialogue and collaborate</a> on various tasks or projects. Virtual exchanges vary in length as some last for a few weeks and others for a semester or longer. </p>
<p>In some models of virtual exchange, <a href="http://www.slrpjournal.org/item/202">students communicate and work autonomously in pairs or small groups, while in others they are expected to do so in bigger groups</a>. Many instructors, however, mix between different models when designing their virtual exchange. </p>
<p>While virtual exchanges have been implemented <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1902201">for at least three decades now</a>, the COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged many practitioners and administrators in different academic disciplines to build online global partnerships. </p>
<p>Since the pandemic started, education practitioners and education administrators have acknowledged virtual exchange as <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/07/29/virtual-exchange-will-be-key-part-internationalizing-education-even-after-covid">a valuable way of allowing students to make international connections and enhance soft skills in both kindergarten to Grade 12 and higher education contexts</a>.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oFB7ooV6lWQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video about virtual exchange from a the Evolve project, dedicated to achieving the aims of the European Union strategy for higher education.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Addressing critical issues</h2>
<p>When instructors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09588220902778369">effectively plan tasks</a>, and when students successfully negotiate them, partnerships enable students to connect to learn about each other’s cultures, engage in rich intercultural discussions and collaborate <a href="https://www.stevensinitiative.org/projects">to address critical issues</a> such as human rights, social justice, socio-political and environmental issues.</p>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/0ee233d5-cbc6-11ea-adf7-01aa75ed71a1">organizations such as the European Commission</a> and other <a href="https://www.stevensinitiative.org/ways-to-engage">international government-sponsored organzations</a> have been funding virtual exchange initiatives at different educational institutions. </p>
<p>They have connected students from regions of North America, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to encourage intercultural dialogue and international collaboration across cultures. Many participating students have shared the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1902201">value of virtual exchange, as a unique educational setting</a> to help them learn.</p>
<h2>Gaining communication skills</h2>
<p>Participants in virtual exchanges find opportunities to learn not only how to use technological tools, but also to explore ways to engage and collaborate effectively with peers from different socio-cultural contexts. </p>
<p>With remote employment and digital economies emerging as strategies for economic development, intercultural competence and digital literacy continue to stand <a href="https://news.ets.org/stories/6-key-skills-for-remote-work">as core soft skills in future careers</a>. Participating in virtual exchanges can support the development of these skills, in addition to students’ ability to problem-solve in remote professional environments.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4NICoL2GZKU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video about the Palestinian American Youth Civic Engagement (PAYCE) project which brought together Palestinian and American university students through a shared curriculum to create podcasts about civic engagement, by the Stevens Institute.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Gaining intercultural competence</h2>
<p>In my research about virtual exchange, one of the benefits students report is developing the ability to recognize diversities in the partners’ cultural groups. Participants often start to realize the variety of thinking processes and sets of beliefs and values of individuals and subgroups, their different perspectives on everyday practices, sociocultural issues and more. </p>
<p>Virtual exchange discussions can deepen intercultural awareness and, in some cases, the exploration of one’s self and capabilities. In an interview for one of my programs I co-ordinated, a student from Jordan shared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I never imagined talking about this issue [forced migration] with real refugees in my country and others in the United States. What I never imagined also was how challenging yet effective it was to talk using technology. It makes you think a lot. You start with one idea to share but you end up sharing a different one sometimes.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Overcoming communication challenges</h2>
<p>As much as virtual exchange has potential for enhancing students’ learning development, it is not flawless. Using technologies and connecting interculturally are all experiences not exempt from challenges due to technical issues, intercultural misunderstanding and stereotyping, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444821000069">well as language-related challenges</a>. </p>
<p>Mediating intercultural miscommunication is one of the most stressful issues observed in virtual exchange discussions.</p>
<p>The first step to working with intercultural conflict is acknowledging that it exists. Avoiding conflict accumulates frustration and disappointment and is likely to lead to communication breakdown. Reflecting on questions like, “How do I feel about my partner’s post? Why do I feel this way?” marks a good start for examining both the content and language used that might have led to this miscommunication. </p>
<p>Identifying factors that might have created the misunderstanding is crucial to determining what to do next. For instance, students can have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10125/25200">different learning expectations from participating in virtual exchange or use different communication styles when expressing themselves online</a>. Different levels of language proficiency can also lead to anxiety and communication stress. </p>
<p>Investigating such factors can help all parties develop an attitude of openness towards difference and conflict resolution and perceive miscommunications as rich departure points for intercultural learning rather than simply barriers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427021/original/file-20211018-22-1ua8s43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427021/original/file-20211018-22-1ua8s43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427021/original/file-20211018-22-1ua8s43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427021/original/file-20211018-22-1ua8s43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427021/original/file-20211018-22-1ua8s43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427021/original/file-20211018-22-1ua8s43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427021/original/file-20211018-22-1ua8s43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students involved in a virtual exchange may bring different learning expectations than their learning counterparts in another place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>When technical or communicative aspects of virtual exchange seem challenging or overwhelming, or students aren’t motivated or positively engaged, creating an interpersonal space to share reflections with the group strengthens a sense of community, trustworthiness and reliability.</p>
<p>Online collaborative tools shouldn’t be used only for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.04.012">completing tasks, but also for sustaining peer emotional support and guiding intergroup work</a>.</p>
<h2>Growth and professional development</h2>
<p>Today, virtual exchange has caught more attention as a strategy to sustain access to quality education, inclusion and achievement of intercultural goals in the curriculum. </p>
<p>Further research about this form of learning will be needed to explore its potential in providing students with the critical skills and intercultural experiences they need for personal growth and professional development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hiba B. Ibrahim recently received the ACTFL Research Priorities 2021 Award to support her doctoral research on examining learner experiences of interculturality in virtual exchange. </span></em></p>There are both benefits and challenges of building relationships and skills online with students abroad, but students can learn how to make the most of this ‘travel without travel.’Hiba B. Ibrahim, PhD Candidate in applied linguistics, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1639682021-07-26T02:50:20Z2021-07-26T02:50:20ZFor too long, research was done on First Nations peoples, not with them. Universities can change this<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412798/original/file-20210723-27-12xha8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Warlpiri person showing a honey ant after hunting.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/">shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For too long, “research” was an activity done <em>to</em> or <em>on</em> Indigenous people; it was something imposed from the outside. This was especially the case for people who came from communities that were oppressed or marginalised in the colonialism of the 19th and 20th centuries.</p>
<p>Indigenous people throughout the world feel they have been the subjects of endless measurement, recording, and invasion of privacy with <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-015-2052-3">little or no apparent benefit</a> except for the scholars who make careers out of it. Māori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith calls this approach “research adventures in Indigenous lands” in her book <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/decolonizing-methodologies-research-and-indigenous-peoples">Decolonising Methodologies</a>.</p>
<p>Our collaboratively edited volume, <a href="https://open.sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/9781743327579.html">Community-Led Research: Walking New Pathways Together</a>, represents a substantial step towards redressing power imbalances that continue to characterise much academic research.</p>
<p>The book asks how to move research done <em>to</em> and <em>on</em> people towards <em>for</em> and <em>with</em> people. It features both <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7xbFNiyDLlGwDjHDZmWkGhVTcpcjPZ0R">community and academic voices</a> and reflects on research that foregrounds non-academic priorities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-scholars-struggle-to-be-heard-in-the-mainstream-heres-how-journal-editors-and-reviewers-can-help-157860">Indigenous scholars struggle to be heard in the mainstream. Here's how journal editors and reviewers can help</a>
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<p>Since the global Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and beyond, academic researchers have recognised the political and moral responsibilities we have to those impacted by our studies. </p>
<p>To meet their responsibilities to different communities, researchers have incorporated methodologies such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>participatory action research, in which members of the community affected by the research actively participate in different parts of the project</p></li>
<li><p>public patient involvement, in which non-academic people work as employees or volunteers in organisations’ high-level work</p></li>
<li><p>community-based participatory research, which aims to equitably involve community members and others in research projects.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Each of these are slightly different, and are used variously in different disciplines, but their increasing presence affirms that involving communities in research is crucial for good research outcomes.</p>
<p>However, we have found approaches putting community at the centre of research beyond disciplinary siloes have not yet been documented in a comprehensive way. Our book builds on previous research by bringing together various community-led approaches, including from education and social work, health and medicine, and archaeology.</p>
<h2>Stories, not blueprints</h2>
<p>The chapters in our book reflect on community-led approaches to research in different spaces. They consider questions of identification of a community, appropriate protocols, and how to build positive collaborations. </p>
<p>The authors do not attempt to provide a template that can be applied in all research situations. Nor should they. As several chapters point out, there is a risk to “community-led” becoming another buzzword that ends up being appropriated for marketing or institutional propaganda. </p>
<p>We found community-led research must be built on a foundation of real relationships, mutual respect, and true reciprocity. We have all come into community-led research from different disciplinary perspectives and research experiences, as well as personal experiences. </p>
<p>As the editors of the volume, we were inspired by working with young people, Pacific Islanders and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Each of us has our own ideas about community-led research because of who we work with and where our interests lie. We reflect on our own work individually below to give a sense of different experiences in the field.</p>
<p><strong>Rawlings:</strong> While young people clearly make up a large and important part of our community, they often don’t get a seat at the table, even when research is “about” them. They can be seen as not critical or sophisticated enough to partner in research, or as needing “protection”, where they are seen as too innocent to take part in research about sensitive issues. </p>
<p>Imagine, then, co-designing research with LGBTIQA+ young people about their experiences of self-harm and suicide. While some young people may baulk at participating in this kind of discussion, research shows they benefit from conversations about their distress and trauma, particularly when they feel it might benefit others. </p>
<p>We found this to be the case as we co-designed our research in partnership with a youth advisory group. Not only did the young people benefit, but our research was higher quality, too.</p>
<p><strong>Flexner:</strong> My first trip to Vanuatu, in 2011, was almost a parody of cultural and linguistic misunderstanding, and geographical disorientation in the remote southern islands of <a href="https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JCA/article/view/9797">Erromango</a> and Tanna. </p>
<p>However, that initial fieldwork experience proved formative. It taught me how to work with community through the chiefs, elders, and knowledge holders facilitated by the Vanuatu Cultural Centre <em>filwokas</em> (fieldworkers). It set up intellectual engagement with cultural traditions encapsulated by the Melanesian term <em>kastom</em> (which translates as customs or traditions).</p>
<p>After a decade of research in Vanuatu, I still find myself learning new things, and finding new ways to work with the people who call these islands home.</p>
<p><strong>Riley:</strong> A huge concern in First Nations communities is in having no control over what research is undertaken or the right to veto the interpretation of data and findings. This is due to the fact much past research has helped to form government policies and practices concerning First Nations lives with little life improvement. This is clearly evidenced in current <a href="https://www.closingthegap.gov.au/closing-gap-targets-and-outcomes">Closing the Gap</a> statistics.</p>
<p>Often, First Nations peoples find they are called upon when the government and researchers arrive at an impasse and they do not know what else to do. Let us change this approach and ensure First Nations peoples are asked what research they want undertaken first and what benefits they want from the research. </p>
<p>That is, how can research improve First Nations people’s lives and enhance community development?</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerian-academics-weigh-in-on-the-faults-and-frustrations-of-managing-covid-19-163896">Nigerian academics weigh in on the faults and frustrations of managing COVID-19</a>
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</em>
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<h2>New pathways and old limitations</h2>
<p>Although we are inspired by the contributions in Community-Led Research: Walking New Pathways Together, we also need to recognise and acknowledge the limits of what we do. Universities remain institutions that many people, especially Indigenous people, associate with colonialism. </p>
<p>Besides our work in the communities, one of our great <a href="https://mediterraneanworld.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/an-archaeology-of-care/">challenges</a> is how to make the places where we work as academics more welcoming, inclusive, and egalitarian. Further, there are very real differences that regularly map onto differences in class, nation, geographical region, and identities.</p>
<p>It is impossible to dismantle 500 years of history in a single project, no matter how much goodwill the researchers and community establish together. Community-led research is in part about <a href="https://www-cambridge-org.ezproxy.library.sydney.edu.au/core/journals/archaeological-dialogues/article/is-archaeology-conceivable-within-the-degrowth-movement/B3A29F1EFD318612B9F1250BD1A65265">changing academic research</a>, but it is also about changing other kinds of relationships in the world we all live in. </p>
<p>There is great promise in so many new approaches people are taking in their research, and their understandings of the groups of people they work with both inside and outside of academia. Community-led research is, however, a type of research that is still developing and we do not believe our work is finished. Rather, our pathway is just beginning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Rawlings receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DE210101619). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James L. Flexner receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DE130101703, DP160103578, LP170100048). He works for the University of Sydney. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynette Riley receives funding from NSW Aboriginal Languages Trust and an ARC Linkage Grant for SSESW, Research Centre for Children and Families. Lynette has also received past funding from SSESW, Research Centre for Children and Families.
Lynette is a member for the Labor Party, is a NAIDOC Committee member and is a board member for the Aboriginal Languages Trust.
Lynette is also affiliated with Aboriginal Affairs OCHRE Committee and is the chairperson for Yirigaa.
Yirigaa – Chairperson.</span></em></p>Historically, research has been imposed upon Indigenous people, instead of conducted with them. This is an exploration of more collaborative ways to research when working with Indigenous communities.Victoria Rawlings, Lecturer, University of Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of SydneyJames L. Flexner, Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology and Heritage, University of SydneyLynette Riley, Senior Lecturer, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1319652020-03-06T12:36:45Z2020-03-06T12:36:45ZBrexit has made town twinning a battleground – but it’s always been political<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317780/original/file-20200228-24685-15pyg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3809%2C2861&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sign-yeovil-somerset-england-twinned-herblay-422286034">Imran's Photography/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The practice of twinning towns and other communities has often been viewed as a cultural or leisure-based activity. Now though, Brexit has drawn the political side of twinning into <a href="https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/12/britain-twin-towns-brexit-european-union/579124/">sharper public focus</a>. Some people are pressing <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/harbury-in-warwickshire-signs-to-remove-french-twinning-town-1-6497865">to erase</a> their towns’ longstanding relationships with European partners. Others have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/aug/19/brexit-wont-influence-our-friendship-twinned-towns">doubled down on their international commitments</a>, trying to show that their community remains open and inclusive. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/1309/oxford_city_council_flies_twin_city_flags_following_uk_s_brexit">Oxford City Council</a> marked the 31 January Brexit date by raising the flags of its European twin towns and launching a new campaign to facilitate community cohesion in the wake of the UK’s exit from the EU. </p>
<p>The tussle over Brexit reveals the ways that twinning functions as a site of everyday politics, in this instance a struggle between nationalist and regionalist identities. But we shouldn’t be surprised that twinning has become the focus of such debates. <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FR004137%2F2">My ongoing research</a> shows that twinning is a practice that has always been <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/europe-from-the-bottom-up-town-twinning-in-france-during-the-cold-war/A17E2724F434B0EFFAE341301F4AAE66">rooted in politics</a>. </p>
<p>Twinned towns participate in a community that extends <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_RI9uH2sQJgC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=civil+society&ots=3i_-LHP893&sig=ctfXcoCvs03PubvCic5h9NKaBuQ#v=onepage&q=civil%20society&f=false">beyond national borders</a> while retaining local identity. The twinning process and organisations provide an alternative way to engage with politics, and offer opportunities for learning, connecting, organising <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718510001296">and caring</a>. </p>
<p>Simply defined, twinning involves establishing sustained links between communities, usually located in different countries. It may involve members of diaspora groups connecting with home, teachers looking to promote learning about other cultures, artists pursuing collaborations with counterparts abroad, or students taking part in exchanges.</p>
<p>The first case of twinning in Europe is thought to be the link established in 1920 between Keighley, West Yorkshire, and Poix du Nord in northern France. The French village suffered a great deal of damage during the First World War and residents of Keighley <a href="https://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/13422833.keighley-officially-adopts-the-small-battle-scarred-french-town-of-poix-du-nord/">made donations</a> to help fund a new community centre.</p>
<p>Twinning blossomed after World War II, as national governments in Europe sought to promote peace and goodwill among towns torn apart by recent conflict. These post-war links were experiments in cultural diplomacy, aimed at <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08865655.2016.1244648?src=recsys&journalCode=rjbs20">building peace</a> between beleaguered, fragile and divided national communities.</p>
<h2>A range of agendas</h2>
<p>UK twinning practice has further transformed since the late 1970s. It is no longer just towns or cities that twin with each other but <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/features/WCMS_075574/lang--en/index.htm">trade unions, cooperatives,</a> schools, hospitals, and other public services or technical bodies. Twinning is now not just a reflection of the <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198714897.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780198714897-e-22">“high” politics</a> of peace and diplomacy, but has become more democratic and open to a range of different agendas. This has occurred as local and municipal governments, community and grassroots campaigns have all weighed in and taken initiative.</p>
<p>Civil society groups have used the practice of twinning to contest or challenge the actions and policy positions of domestic and foreign governments. My ongoing research has shown that during the early 1990s, temporary links were established between Scottish towns and African National Congress regions in South Africa, with the aim of supporting black communities in the transition away from apartheid. Glasgow, for instance, linked with Transkei as the latter was incorporated into the Eastern Cape province of the new South Africa. The legacy of this is still felt today through <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-11-30-00-universities-link-into-a-common-good/">partnerships</a> between the Nelson Mandela and Glasgow Caledonian universities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317782/original/file-20200228-24651-v1e21j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317782/original/file-20200228-24651-v1e21j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317782/original/file-20200228-24651-v1e21j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317782/original/file-20200228-24651-v1e21j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317782/original/file-20200228-24651-v1e21j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317782/original/file-20200228-24651-v1e21j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317782/original/file-20200228-24651-v1e21j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2019, Oxford in the UK twinned with the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ramallah-palestine-landscape-cityscape-night-1180595374">Ahmad Odeh/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Twinning also took place between communities in the <a href="https://internationalfriendshipproject.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/report-friendship-solidarity-and-mutual-assistance1.pdf">UK and Nicaragua</a> against the backdrop of the latter’s Contra War in the 1980s. These “solidarity twinnings” played an important role in mobilising opposition to foreign-backed intervention in Nicaragua as well as calling attention to the harsh realities of day-to-day life in a conflict setting. Similar examples today would include efforts to link with communities in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, such as the recent twinning between <a href="https://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/1027/historic_moment_as_oxford_and_ramallah_in_palestine_become_twin_cities">Oxford and Ramallah</a>.</p>
<p>In all cases, one thing came across strongly in my research interviews: close contact with a community overseas tends to shift worldviews and shape lifestyle choices. It also produces deep and lasting friendships. </p>
<h2>Challenges of exchange</h2>
<p>In recent years, the UK has seen a huge tightening of border controls. It has become much harder for those travelling from countries outside of Europe to acquire visas. These travel restrictions have made it difficult for equal exchange to take place between linked communities such as <a href="https://www.mbg.org/about-mbg">Marlborough in the UK and Gunjur in the Gambia</a>. For many years these towns ran a programme of reciprocal visits enabling engineers, teachers and students to carry out placements where they could gain new skills. </p>
<p>Much of the assistance provided by local government to formally twinned towns, such as help with administration, access to meeting rooms or photocopying, has dried up as a result of austerity and cuts. This means the twinning associations – which are largely led by volunteers – have had to take on more of the costs and labour involved.</p>
<p>While Brexit has highlighted opposing views on twinning, the truth is that some councils, responding to austerity and Euroscepticism, have effectively been silently “untwinning” for years. My ongoing research suggests that sometimes they do this without even telling the partner community – they just remove resources, staff and thereby any institutional memory of the link.</p>
<p>Twinning has evolved over time to respond to communities’ concerns. It remains to be seen how exactly it will develop in response to the challenges of dwindling resources and rising Euroscepticism. Whatever happens, one thing is for certain: twinning will continue to reflect the creativity, conflicts and commitments of civil society. In other words, it will continue to be political.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Holly Eva Ryan receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for a research project examining twinning and linking practice.</span></em></p>The creation of links with twin towns can challenge governments and show solidarity.Holly Eva Ryan, Lecturer in Politics & International Political Sociology, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073422018-12-20T21:37:13Z2018-12-20T21:37:13ZUnderstanding apocalyptic events through literature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251031/original/file-20181217-185255-3crs08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The movie 'Children of Men,' based on the book of the same name by P.D. James, shows how people come together in a tragedy. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>In recent years, we have seen an epic scale of destruction caused by <a href="https://www.globalpolicy.org/war-on-terrorism.html">war, terrorism</a>, <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/">global warming</a>, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/05/united-nations-world-food-program-body-declares-famine-conditions-in-parts-of-yemen-conflict-humanitarian-crisis-middle-east-congress-trump-saudi-arabia-mohammed-bin-salman-jamal-khashoggi-pressure-en/">famine</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/erasing-history-why-islamic-state-is-blowing-up-ancient-artefacts-78667">obliteration of human cultural artifacts</a>.</p>
<p>These events could be considered apocalyptic — either on a global scale, or as threats to specific communities.</p>
<p>When I began studying apocalypses in literature four years ago, my focus was on events like <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wxDw7y0l0mYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=holocaust+apocalypse&ots=WP5ZB2bIBv&sig=-MxaqD2tkQO2DEqE-L81kcdLFZU#v=onepage&q=holocaust%20apocalypse&f=false">the Holocaust</a> and <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/twins-of-the-apocalypse-what-hiroshima-and-the-climate-threat-have-in-common-excerpt/">the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki</a>. I wanted to understand what sense we could make of humanity when the world has seen such apocalyptic situations. </p>
<p>But I discovered the study of apocalypse is a deeper well than most people can fathom. The root meaning of “apocalypse,” means “uncovering” or “lifting of the veil,” which indicates that a revelation may be made at the end. </p>
<p>As a student of both Western and Eastern literatures and cultures, I benefit from the cultural differences in the readings of apocalypses. In subcontinental Indian, especially Hindu, culture and texts, <a href="https://medium.com/@ak.merchant/eschatology-and-messianic-expectations-as-found-in-the-scriptures-of-hinduism-and-their-fulfillment-4c4a835671b7">apocalypses are not linear but cyclical</a>. South Asian literature may offer different connotations in cultural terms for personal apocalyptic events as well. </p>
<p>The end of times has a special quality: that of sifting what is important from what is superficial and unnecessary. This distillation is not limited to material things that one carries across the final calamity. And apocalypses don’t necessarily have to be all-encompassing in terms of destruction. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Apocalyptic stories can be small-scale and personal as in ‘The Great Gatsby,’ which reveals much more than the surface glitz and glamour.‘</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">source</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Apocalyptic events can even be smaller in scale, both destroying and revealing at a very personal level. Small-scale personal apocalypses also push us to re-evaluate and streamline our ideas and conceptions about our lives. </p>
<h2>Revelations</h2>
<p>Opposing ideas exist about how to deal with apocalyptic events in a literary sense. Literary and cultural critic <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/">Jacques Derrida</a>, in a glib statement about catastrophe, said that a total annihilation of human species, especially by nuclear fallout, is “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/464756?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">fabulously textual</a>.”</p>
<p>Derrida meant that while text looks like innocent marks on a page, in fact texts can have an explosive and unpredictable impact on readers. He was also pointing out a political and existential conundrum: while we find ourselves waiting for an absolute, final annihilation, all we can do is talk and write about it. </p>
<p>Philosopher and cultural critic <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/">Theodor Adorno</a> presents an opposing school of thought with his much-debated idea that “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jan/11/poetry-after-auschwitz">it is barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz</a>.”</p>
<h2>An apocalyptic reading list</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Things They Carried.</span>
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<p>My upcoming course, “Reading the End of the World,” taught simultaneously in Saskatoon and in Ahmedabad, India, will look at both micro- and macro-level apocalypses. Our Saskatoon students will communicate with <a href="https://ahduni.edu.in/">our Ahmedabad students</a> taught by my colleague, Chirag Trivedi, via video-conferencing technology. The model allows for students across continents to generate ideas for research and discuss texts across cultures in new ways.</p>
<p>Our course’s reading list explores what can be revealed through threats, destruction or personal crisis. Here is a list of some of the texts we will be studying:</p>
<p><strong>“Bullet in the Brain” in <em>The Night in Question</em> (1996)</strong></p>
<p>Tobias Wolff’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/09/25/bullet-in-the-brain">“Bullet in the Brain”</a> is one of the <a href="https://www.theodysseyonline.com/bullet-the-brain-tobias-wolff">most remarkable short stories in contemporary North American literature</a>. This story is a testament to what revelation and destruction can do simultaneously for one life; absolute destruction is intricately linked to ultimate epiphany.</p>
<p><strong>“A Temporary Matter” in <em>The Interpreter of Maladies</em> (1999)</strong> </p>
<p><a href="https://lithub.com/what-am-i-trying-to-leave-behind-an-interview-with-jhumpa-lahiri/">Jhumpa Lahiri’s</a> story is about a couple realizing it is time to call an end to their relationship. </p>
<p><strong>“Squatter” in <em>Tales from Firozsha Baag</em> (1987)</strong> </p>
<p>Rohinton Mistry’s “Squatter” is a classroom favourite, about the importance of bowel movements.</p>
<p><strong>“We So Seldom Look on Love” in the collection of the same title (1992)</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.barbaragowdy.com/">Barbara Gowdy</a> explores necrophilia in the short story “We So Seldom Look on Love.” </p>
<p><strong>“The Things they Carried” in the collection with the same title (1990)</strong> </p>
<p>Tim O’Brien’s “The Things they Carried” gives heft to all the objects that soldiers carry in time of battle. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin</span></span>
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<p><strong><em>Walking with the Comrades</em> (2011)</strong> </p>
<p>Arundhati Roy’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/walking-with-the-comrades-by-arundhati-roy/2011/11/07/gIQAIPR2yO_story.html?utm_term=.fc0a3570bd91"><em>Walking with the Comrades</em></a>, first <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/walking-with-the-comrades/264738">published in 2010 as an essay in <em>Outlook</em> magazine</a>, is in-depth understanding of what underground anti-capitalist revolution and disenfranchisement mean.</p>
<p>I anticipate multi-dimensional, revivifying and boundary-pushing conversations with my students and my colleague, discussions in which we will explore how we might behave, what we may learn from, and what we can do about the threats that we face.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sheheryar Badar Sheikh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The end of times, and any small-scale apocalypse, has a special quality: that of distilling what is important from what is superficial and unnecessary.Sheheryar Badar Sheikh, Graduate Student and TSDF Fellow, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/859952017-11-07T19:25:40Z2017-11-07T19:25:40Z‘Australia has no culture’: changing the mindset of the cringe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192972/original/file-20171102-26456-zzvgvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from Bangarra Dance Theatre's Lore: the oldest continuing culture in the world resonates with overseas audiences.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeff Tan/Newzulu</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Australia has no culture, so why would anyone overseas be interested in us?” says a young MA student at a University of Melbourne forum as part of a discussion about Australian “culture” being promoted seriously and strategically overseas.</p>
<p>Her peers joined in. “Yes, it’s a cultural cringe”. “Yes, Australia is so young, compared with other countries”. “Yes, Australia has no clear sense of identity”. “Yes, Australia’s film industry is just in its fledgling stage”. All feeling free, in 2017, to utter such statements. The only one to offer any counterpoint said this was to be expected as there is no central Arts policy.</p>
<p>They were saying no-one would or should be interested in us. They added the Canadians were in a similar position. One speaker from the Confucius Institute said it was an issue of money, but he had also just said that the Australian Government paid funds for his Chinese organisation.</p>
<p>I know these students’ sentiments are wrong. I’ve spent my life working with Australian culture overseas, particularly in Asia. I’ve seen how the oldest continuing culture in the world resonates with overseas audiences; I’ve seen how poets and painters have evoked Australian love of space and land and made it real for people elsewhere; and I’ve always felt assured that my fellow Australians would always treat people of all social classes in other lands with grace and fairness.</p>
<p>The (pejorative) comment about being a “young” country (with no time to build “culture”) always gets to me. It’s the old mantra that Europeans and Asian cultures, like China, use: an argument that suits cultures which have remained in one place for a long time. It of course denies (forgets about?) Australian Indigenous culture - which is an issue in itself.</p>
<p>Even accepting this argument as cogent, it also simplifies all cultures with significant migrant populations (like the USA or Singapore or Malaysia for that matter) down to the time those people have spent in the new geographic site, as if none of their histories come with them. They do come with what they have, and often use that in their new environment to make something highly prized: think of Bangarra Dance’s melding of elements of Western ballet with Indigenous forms or Paul Grabowsky’s musical Indonesian inclusions in projects like The Theft of Sita.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Paul Grabowsky in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>So, why is this group of bright students so quick to bring up these old furphies (a good Australian word of course) about our “lack of culture”? Is it some easy mantra of a long-gone age that never gets challenged and addressed?</p>
<p>Where is the Australia Council in this? After nearly 50 years why has its work of “promoting” Australian culture so spectacularly failed to resonate with these young people? Has the Council been ineffective in telling Australians of its work or has its work been less effective than it could have been? </p>
<p>The Council was founded at the time of Gough Whitlam’s great enthusiasm for and confidence in Australian culture. It had, and has a role in international engagement, but we still have no specialist agency for international cultural engagement that might be strategically focused in this area – unlike Germany and Japan, which have the Goethe Institute (founded in 1951) and the Japan Foundation (founded in 1972).</p>
<p>Is the subtext to little strategic focus on our role internationally (and awareness of the interest of our culture overseas) perhaps that the powerful in Canberra also, like these students, think we have nothing to offer? As a side comment, I never think it is a matter of money: it is belief and focus and strategy that are wanting.</p>
<p>Nearly 30 years ago, when I was envisaging the Asialink Arts program (always supported by Asialink director Jenny McGregor), I pushed for an “export” role, rather than what seemed to me to be an easier “import” focus, based on the idea that we Australians were poor at promoting ourselves. I would always be asking artists we sent to Asia to think about further international projects they could be creating; always asking curators to be looking out for further opportunities. But Asialink Arts has always been a small agency, not in the league of the German or Japanese nationally-supported institutions. </p>
<p>What of our universities? Despite the University of Melbourne having an Australian Centre, decades of teaching Australian literature, visual art, theatre, history, politics and film, and its own practical arts faculty, it still allows a group of students like this to be so blasé. Do these students think so little of the books and art works and films and activities they learn about that they must be of no value or interest to anyone else?</p>
<p>Is there a lack of consciousness at best, or, worse, to use a phrase of these students, still a cringe within the institution? It certainly has been so in the past. <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/3914959">Ann Stephen, Andrew McNamara, and Phillip Goad</a> have recorded the relatively passive reception of modernism in Australia rather than any celebration of its transformation here. Co-head of the Australian Centre, Professor Denise Varney’s ARC-supported research discusses the unacknowledged modernist period of the post-war period in Australian theatre studies.</p>
<p>Still today, in mainstream arts subjects, Australian and indeed Asian art can be sidelined for the big names of a single-line, Euro-American history. We can still fail to acknowledge some of our own bright thinkers: Margo Neale, one of our leading experts about Indigenous culture, curator of the current Seven Sisters exhibition in Canberra, has been in Melbourne recently, but was she asked to speak about her work in the tertiary sector? You know the answer. If such is our mindset, how will these students see their own culture as equal to these others, and how will they think of themselves as capable of leading in their field?</p>
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<p>We can change our thinking. An example of such “success” is the widespread consciousness of the need to include equal numbers of women as men in our research and teaching practices. We could, for instance, undertake an audit of the level of inclusion of Australian cultural material in our tertiary sector. We could revisit our international strategies and assess how successful they have been.</p>
<p>This isn’t a discussion about what Australian culture is but about the things and ideas we value and how they might be of value to others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Carroll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why do students still describe Australia as a ‘young’ country lacking culture? Are our universities doing enough to to teach Australian films, artwork and books?Alison Carroll, Founding Director (1990-2010), AsiaLink Arts, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787332017-06-16T00:41:10Z2017-06-16T00:41:10ZThe Fresh Air Fund’s complicated racial record<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173654/original/file-20170613-10363-19f1baf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fresh Air host Mark Stucky of Newton, Kansas shook hands with Thomas Flowers from Gulfport, Mississippi, as Doris Zerger Stucky – Mark’s mother – watched in this 1960 photo.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mennonite Library & Archives, Bethel, Kansas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New York City’s <a href="http://www.freshair.org/cts2017">Fresh Air Fund</a> has sent city kids, most of them low-income, to suburban and rural neighborhoods for two-week summer vacations for the past 140 years. Originally intended to restore malnourished, sickly and white immigrant children to health, the fund expanded its mission in the 1960s to focus on – as director Frederick Lewis put it in 1969 – “bridge-building and unifying” across racial lines.</p>
<p>While studying the history of the Fresh Air Fund and more than 60 similar programs across North America between 1939 and 1979, I found a significant gap between their racial aims and what the kids who took part experienced. My new book, “<a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100386560">Two Weeks Every Summer</a>,” examines the experiences of African-American and Latino children who traveled in those years from cities like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia throughout the Northeast and Midwest and to points as far West as Hawaii to stay with host families. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173650/original/file-20170613-30097-1lzr9hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two boys from Harlem pitch in at milking time on a Hinesburg, Vermont farm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York Public Library, Schomburg Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nearly all these “guests” encountered bigotry or racial naiviete. Since many <a href="http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/top_10_strategies_for_reducing_prejudice">well-intentioned responses</a> to racially charged <a href="https://theconversation.com/uncovering-the-roots-of-racist-ideas-in-america-71467">violence and rhetoric</a> still follow the same assumptions as those of the Fresh Air movement, it’s important to spot the model’s flaws. </p>
<h2>A long history</h2>
<p>Willard Parsons, a Presbyterian minister bent on saving “little tenement prisoners” from the Big Apple’s “squalid homes and sun-baked streets,” founded the Fresh Air Fund in 1877. His interest in immersing city children in the “pastoral peace” found in nature presaged concerns voiced by Richard Louv and others about urban children’s “<a href="http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/">nature deficit</a>.” </p>
<p>Beginning in the 1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, the kids taking these trips became more diverse, and more than 80 percent were black or Latino by the late 1970s. Fresh Air programs operated in 20 states by that point, sending children from more than 35 cities on vacation. They had served more than 1.5 million children.</p>
<p>Many hosts relished these intimate, home-based exchanges across racial lines. Arnold Nickel, a pastor and host from Moundridge, Kansas, even claimed in 1961 that bringing urban children into his community did more to quell racial tensions than <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=C2DjEl5MnxQC&pg=PA79">the Freedom Riders</a> – activists who faced violence and intimidation while integrating interstate bus travel in the South. “We work toward creating better relationships and better understandings,” he said.</p>
<p>Some guests had such positive experiences that they eagerly returned when invited. Despite dealing with awkward questions about their home life, they enjoyed the chance to travel, swim in backyard pools and try new foods. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173657/original/file-20170613-30107-5h71zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This map identifies more than 1,100 Fresh Air hosting sites active between 1939 and 1979, drawn from archival sources, newspaper accounts and publicity materials.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Map designed by Bill Nelson, based on data compiled by Molly Williams</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our interviews</h2>
<p>My team interviewed and collected memoirs from nearly 50 former hosts, guests and program administrators who participated in the program in the mid-20th century. Those interviewed represented the major sending communities including New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia and popular hosting sites. Their stories confirmed what we found in thousands of letters and other documents. Nearly all the hosts and administrators we interviewed were white, consistent with the program’s demographics back then. Although we interviewed a few white former guests, most – also reflecting the demographics – were African-American and Latino, and personally recalled instances of racial tension and overt racism.</p>
<p>Throughout this research, the Fresh Air Fund <a href="https://timeline.com/fresh-air-fund-race-3eaa365a741b">denied me access to its records</a>, so I relied instead on thousands of regional newspaper reports, oral histories and other archives. Asked to address the Fund’s racial history, its director declined, saying, “We have never been about race.”</p>
<p>All 15 of the African-American former guests we interviewed remembered their hosts committing some form of racial harassment, expressing prejudice or being naive about bigotry. Most of the former Latino guests had similar experiences, but not the white children – even those with strong ethnic identities. </p>
<p>I frequently give lectures about this research at academic conferences and universities. Interestingly, audience members always tell me that they or people they know who took part in the program as guests in the 1980s or later also encountered overt prejudice and racial naivete.</p>
<h2>Coping mechanisms</h2>
<p>Many kids of color taking part in the Fresh Air programs told their friends who later participated what to expect – and how to deal with racial epithets. For example, Thomas Brock, an African-American man who took part in the program while growing up in Virginia in the 1950s, recalled playing ball with the children in his host family as they called him the “N-word.” </p>
<p>Not only did Chicagoan Janice Batts have to deal with feeling like she was at a “slave auction” when the white Iowan hosts came to pick up the tag-wearing African-American children in the 1960s and 1970s;, her host siblings would ask questions like “Why is your nose so wide? Do you sunburn? Why is your hair curly?”</p>
<p>She experienced severe trauma as well; a host father sexually abused her over the course of two consecutive summers. After a series of <a href="http://www.davidhechler.com/books/the-battle-and-the-backlash/">sexual abuse lawsuits</a> in the early 1980s, the Fresh Air Fund finally began to vet hosts to screen out potential abusers.</p>
<p>Another concern to many of the people who participated in the program as children in my study – a concern that Fresh Air alums who took part in the program more recently have shared with me – was the assumption that, because they were from the city and nonwhite, they were not “equal” to their rural host families.</p>
<p>For example, Cindy Vanderkodde, a Fresh Air guest from New York hosted by a Michigan family in the 1960s, remembers thinking at the time, “Oh wow, this is family, they love me.” But when she moved into the hosting community a dozen years later as a college-educated social worker, things changed. “Once I became an equal … there was just no interest there,” she told me.</p>
<h2>Some progress?</h2>
<p>Fresh Air Fund administrators told me that hosts today rarely disparage the nonwhite children staying in their homes and that more nonwhite hosts take part in the program. Images of white families hosting children of color, however, <a href="http://www.freshair.org/host">dominate its website</a>. More importantly, the model remains unchanged: short-term, one-way exchanges billed as rescuing kids of color from the inferior conditions of their urban life.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173659/original/file-20170613-10363-36zrmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tennis player Althea Gibson shows two New York City children the first tennis racket she used in 1942, in the summer of 1973. Participation in Fresh Air ventures has declined in recent years, partly due to growing numbers of urban-based alternatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/c9f5615667e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/11/0">AP Photo</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As psychologist <a href="https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/gordon-w-allport">Gordon Allport</a> articulated in what he called a “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Nature_Of_Prejudice.html?id=q2HObxRtdcwC">contact hypothesis</a>” in the 1950s, social scientists have long recognized that short-term contact between disparate groups can actually reinforce stereotypes and prejudices <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.1974.10571409">when participants are not on equal terms</a>. </p>
<p>In 1971, a black nationalist critic of the program, John Powell, called for a <a href="http://raceandreligion.com/JRER/Volume_2_(2011)_files/Shearer%202%207.pdf">complementary “stale-air” program</a> and suggested that Fresh Air ventures be “terminated” because its racially paternalistic assumptions were a recipe for failure. Most of these programs folded because of this kind of criticism, changes in family dynamics with host mothers increasingly working outside the home, and urban alternatives like free day camps. The Fresh Air Fund is by far the largest and most robust of the few remaining.</p>
<p>Despite their good intentions, I don’t believe that one-way, short-term cultural exchanges like the Fresh Air programs can wipe racism off the map – especially given the economic and social gaps between the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35255835">segregated communities</a> in which we live.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78733/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tobin Miller Shearer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many urban children who took part in a program that was supposed to enrich their lives dealt with racism instead. Why can’t this cultural exchange become a two-way street?Tobin Miller Shearer, Director of the African-American Studies Program and Associate Professor of History, University of MontanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/766862017-05-30T01:39:52Z2017-05-30T01:39:52ZThe US and Mexico: Education and understanding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171146/original/file-20170526-6402-1eubcmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University of California-Mexico Initiative Education Working Group created Project SOL, an online curriculum program that teaches students in their native language.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/30308/teacheredithissakhanian-helps-bryanlima">University of California, Riverside</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, officials from the U.S. and Mexico revitalized their commitment to fight cross-border smuggling of drugs, arms and money. U.S. officials recognized America’s demand for drugs as “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/politics/tillerson-mexico-drug-trade/">the magnet</a>” that feeds drug smuggling, and Mexico committed to tackle jointly the elements of the cartels’ business model.</p>
<p>While illegal immigration and drugs dominate much of the public discourse around U.S.-Mexico relations, the partnership between these countries is vital and dynamic in many other ways. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/growing-together-economic-ties-between-the-united-states-and-mexico">two neighbors</a> trade over US$1 million a minute, employ many millions in good jobs on both sides of the border, have over a million legal border crossings each day and have over 35 million citizens of shared heritage.</p>
<p>We have devoted years of our professional lives (in government, academic and social sectors) to developing and implementing strategies for improving our countries’ relationship. As such, we’ve been taken aback by the sharply critical U.S. rhetoric about Mexico in recent months and the anti-American sentiment that quickly rekindled in Mexico.</p>
<p>Our most recent work, however, shows that educational and research exchanges can bridge the widening divide, while also building workforces that can help the two nations thrive in the technological revolutions ahead.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171046/original/file-20170525-23251-1hxzabl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171046/original/file-20170525-23251-1hxzabl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171046/original/file-20170525-23251-1hxzabl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171046/original/file-20170525-23251-1hxzabl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171046/original/file-20170525-23251-1hxzabl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171046/original/file-20170525-23251-1hxzabl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171046/original/file-20170525-23251-1hxzabl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Attendees of the Anaheim Convention Center rally in 2016 show support for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/anaheim-california-may-25-2016-thousands-426989245?src=1lXnivognR_nJxudfQwQJg-1-2">Mike Ledray/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Academic exchanges as long-term bridges</h2>
<p>We have seen firsthand the impact of programs on young Mexicans who returned from U.S. stays with pride, enthusiasm and improved English. We’ve also witnessed how American students interacting with their counterparts in Mexico enhance the appreciation and respect for each others’ countries.</p>
<p>Yet, <a href="https://www.iie.org/en/Research-and-Insights/Project-Atlas/Explore-Data/United-States">student exchange numbers</a> are not encouraging. Mexico ranks 10th for the number of full-time students studying in the U.S., placing it far behind China and India, and also trailing Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Vietnam, and northern neighbor Canada. The story is worse in <a href="http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors/Data/US-Study-Abroad/Leading-Destinations/2013-15">the other direction</a>: Only 4,712 U.S. students were studying in Mexico in 2014-15, 12th among destinations for U.S. students.</p>
<p>There are many reasons for the low numbers, but here is the bottom line: Two such interconnected neighbors should be doing better.</p>
<p><iframe id="OFTy7" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OFTy7/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In 2013, we were a part of launching an initiative aimed at tackling this problem. The <a href="https://mx.usembassy.gov/education-culture/education/the-u-s-mexico-bilateral-forum-on-higher-education-innovation-and-research/">Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation and Research</a> (known by its Spanish acronym, FOBESII) gathers educators, private citizens, companies and officials from universities and government. Their aim is to expand long-term investments in education and research partnerships between the U.S. and Mexico.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://mex-eua.sre.gob.mx/images/stories/PDF/AchievementsUSMexicoBilateralForumonHigherEducationInnovationandResearchFOBESII.pdf">past four years</a>, FOBESII has fostered more than 115 new agreements between Mexican and U.S. universities.</p>
<p>Mexico’s federal government allocated an unprecedented $42.9 million for these programs during 2014-16. More than 100,000 Mexican students – many of them from low income families – came to the U.S. as full-time graduate students, as single-semester researchers or in summer programs designed to improve English proficiency. These experiences changed the way students (and their families) viewed <a href="https://comexusfulbright-garciarobles.tumblr.com/">their future potential</a> and, importantly these days, their opinion about the United States was greatly improved.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the U.S. public funds to support these exchanges were more limited than the investments made by Mexico. Private sector sponsors, however, have worked with the U.S. government to develop <a href="http://www.100kstrongamericas.org/">32 academic projects with Mexican universities</a>, ranging from engineering, physics, geology and health to environmental sciences.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171037/original/file-20170525-23245-1nw93ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171037/original/file-20170525-23245-1nw93ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171037/original/file-20170525-23245-1nw93ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171037/original/file-20170525-23245-1nw93ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171037/original/file-20170525-23245-1nw93ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171037/original/file-20170525-23245-1nw93ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171037/original/file-20170525-23245-1nw93ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2015, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Earl Anthony Wayne visits students, who participated in the Fulbright-Garcia Robles program in the U.S., from The Technological University Retoño.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/USCGGuadalajara/photos/pcb.10153205193770129/10153205192465129/?type=3&theater">Consulate General of the United States Guadalajara</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Building things together</h2>
<p>While targeting such exchanges provides opportunities to young scholars and promotes cultural understanding, it can also produce better educated workforces.</p>
<p>Mexico and the United States literally and figuratively <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/growing_together_economic_ties_between_the_united_states_and_mexico.pdf">build things together</a>, with pieces crossing the border many times before a finished product emerges. American parts and products make up, on average, about <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/growing_together_economic_ties_between_the_united_states_and_mexico.pdf">40 percent of the value</a> of a finished manufactured product from Mexico. That’s much more than the U.S. contributes to other countries’ manufacturing and positively impacts U.S. jobs and profits.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://theoutline.com/post/1316/fourth-industrial-revolution-developing-economies">fourth industrial revolution</a>” is unfolding: digital technologies are leading to faster and more complex advances in practically all facets of life. Both countries are going to need better equipped labor forces to maintain this highly integrated production network and to compete with others in the world.</p>
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<p>Several ongoing initiatives within the framework of FOBESII will support the goal of better-equipped labor forces. The University of California has raised around $15 million to support <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-napolitano-mexico-20170323-story.html">programs linking their universities with Mexican institutions</a>. Universities in <a href="http://www.contex.utsystem.edu/">Texas</a> and <a href="https://global.arizona.edu/unam-ua">Arizona</a> have developed similar programs, focusing on research in energy, the environment and other common topics in science and technology. The U.S. <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/">National Science Foundation</a> and Mexico’s <a href="http://www.conacyt.mx/">National Council of Science and Technology</a> have created 12 more joint projects.</p>
<p>Michael M. Crow, President of Arizona State University, described the rationale behind <a href="https://mexico.asu.edu/">his school’s partnerships</a> this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We share a border and many common interests with Mexico. It’s natural that we seek stronger ties through education, research and innovation so we can help each other prepare for the challenges and the changing nature of the advanced workforce of the 21st century.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every year, we’ve seen many more students and universities who want to participate than the current funding allows.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171045/original/file-20170525-23241-far5e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171045/original/file-20170525-23241-far5e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171045/original/file-20170525-23241-far5e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171045/original/file-20170525-23241-far5e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171045/original/file-20170525-23241-far5e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171045/original/file-20170525-23241-far5e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171045/original/file-20170525-23241-far5e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2016, The University of Texas and Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology launched ConTex as a collaborative effort to foster scientific training and research between the U.S. and Mexico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/university-texas-ut-against-blue-sky-221247628?src=Zs_09zwewWXn9z1ZcvH_ww-1-14">f11photo/shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Investing in the future of North America</h2>
<p>Historically, other neighbors in the world have made similar strategic decisions to invest in educational partnerships. The <a href="http://www.erasmusprogramme.com/">European Erasmus</a> program, for instance, has been supported by billions of dollars of funding since it was established in 1987. Over <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-1110_en.htm">three million students</a> have studied in other countries at over 4,000 post-secondary institutions. Aside from the academic value of the program, it has contributed to crafting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2016.1210911">a more robust European vision</a> among the youth.</p>
<p>As with European cooperation, the comparatively modest U.S.-Mexico efforts are not about charity – or even just education. They concern the strategic interests of neighbors in the face of global competition, technological revolutions, and persistent prejudices that strain relations between neighbors.</p>
<p>Mexico and the United States will remain neighbors. Their shared challenges will not disappear, but shared opportunities could be missed. We should double down on overcoming our misunderstandings and solving concrete problems together. Learning and researching together will definitely help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Earl Anthony Wayne is affiliated with the Wilson Center, the Atlantic Council, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the American Foreign Service Association. He is an advisor to HSBC bank on countering illicit finance.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sergio M. Alcocer is affiliated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), México Exponencial, the Mexican Council for International Affairs (COMEXI), the US National Academy of Engineering and the Mexican Academy of Engineering. </span></em></p>Despite hard work by both governments to overcome mistrust, more is needed to build mutual understanding between Americans and Mexicans. Educational partnerships may hold the answer.Earl Anthony Wayne, Visiting Professor of International Affairs, Hamilton CollegeSergio M. Alcocer, Research Professor, Institute of Engineering, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/779202017-05-18T14:54:20Z2017-05-18T14:54:20ZBraid rage: is cultural appropriation harmless borrowing or a damaging act?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169955/original/file-20170518-12217-1dx4y9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/black-woman-flying-long-hair-braided-314489042">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month, <a href="http://www.selfridges.com/GB/en/">Selfridges</a>, one of London’s oldest and best-loved department stores, found itself embroiled in a political <a href="http://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/selfridges-braid-bar-under-fire-lila-moss-campaign-images-10882398/">tangle</a> over accusations of <a href="http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cultural-appropriation">cultural appropriation</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://thebraidbar.co.uk/">Braid Bar</a>, part of the store’s Beauty Workshop, released its summer campaign, featuring Lila Grace Moss and Stella Jones – the daughters of supermodel Kate Moss and Clash guitarist Mick Jones respectively. With their hair styled in multiple braids with colourful extensions, the famous offspring were promoting the latest trends in festival fashion and beat-the-heat summer hair. </p>
<p>At first glance, such an enterprise might appear just to be fun, even frivolous. But fashion and beauty are never as superficial as they seem. Upon the release of the ad campaign, the Braid Bar found itself dealing with a knotty dilemma.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169956/original/file-20170518-12254-a6mcpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lila Moss (front) and Stella Jones caused a storm on social media when they appeared in an ad campaign for Selfridges’ Braid Bar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=braid+bar+lila+moss&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhpaD7q_nTAhWIAcAKHX4TACEQsAQIMg&biw=1440&bih=669#imgrc=nzvvO0K7057gJM:">Braid Bar</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With white British models Moss and Jones as the faces of the ad campaign, Selfridges’ Braid Bar has been accused of endorsing a white standard of beauty. Across social media, critics are calling out this lack of diversity while crucially noting Selfridges’ additional miscalculation: the appropriation of black culture. The point being that this style of hair braiding is central to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michaela-angela-davis/braids-will-always-be-a-powerful-black-girl_b_9563134.html">black female identity</a>.</p>
<h2>A sorry tale</h2>
<p>Following the outcry, the Braid Bar released an <a href="http://thebraidbar.co.uk/blog/news/an-open-letter/">apology</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It has come to our attention that we have not given enough consideration to the cultures that we have drawn from in creating The Braid Bar, particularly black culture. Having been naive, our eyes are now open to the issues… We would like to reach out and apologise to all of those who have been offended by our lack of cultural sensitivity… The Braid Bar is a welcoming and fun place for people of all races, ethnicities, genders, and ages; an environment that is all-inclusive and accessible to everyone. We are going to ensure that this ethos is reflected in everything we do and post from now on. We understand that it is our responsibility, as a company with a broad social media following, to teach and spread the knowledge of where these ideas, practices and skills originally come from and the stories that come with them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Braid Bar <a href="https://www.instagram.com/the_braid_bar/?hl=en">Instagram account</a> was swiftly updated to include a photo of Janet Jackson in box braids (ironically, perhaps, from the 1993 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107840/synopsis">Poetic Justice</a>), and several more photos of braid-sporting black women. Adding to the irony, the account also showcases a poster that states “never apologise for being who you are”. </p>
<p>The Selfridges’ Braid Bar controversy has not been confined to social media. Nor is it a one-off. Last year, the clothing brand Free People got into trouble for its <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/09/free-people-cultural-appropriation-native-clothing_n_9649926.html">Native American-inspired designs</a>. Additionally, High School Musical actress Vanessa Hudgens recently came under scrutiny for <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/vanessa-hudgens-box-braids-cultural-appropriation">wearing box braids</a> as well. </p>
<p>Prompted by the buzz online, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme hosted a short <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p052lv6m">debate</a> between <a href="https://www.spc.ox.ac.uk/alumni-friends/notable-alumni/afua-hirsch">Afua Hirsch</a> and <a href="https://tiffanyjenkinsinfo.com/about/">Tiffany Jenkins</a>. Hirsch, a writer, broadcaster and barrister of Ghanaian <a href="https://www.africaguide.com/culture/tribes/ashanti.htm">Ashanti</a> and English heritage, argued that cultural appropriation occurs when objects or practices of one culture are taken up by a different culture without acknowledgement of their source – or of their history. She suggested that this can lead to invisibility or financial exploitation.</p>
<p>In contrast, Jenkins, a British white writer and sociologist, argued that cultures borrow from one another out of respect and curiosity, and that to imply otherwise can lead to anxiety about everyday cultural exchange. </p>
<p>When taken up in mainstream media circles, the debate around cultural appropriation is often reduced to the following question: is cultural appropriation really just another name for cultural appreciation? Unfortunately, this is often where the discussion stops. Before we tease out the social and political implications of cultural appropriation, we need to take a look at the issues involved.</p>
<h2>Cultural cannibalism</h2>
<p>Critics of cultural appropriation are not denying cultural exchange. Nor are we suggesting that differences should not be celebrated. Cultures are in constant dialogue, and there is always exchange that ensures an abundance of variety and fluidity in language, food, dance, music, fashion, and so on. This is inevitable. And, of course, diversity ought to be appreciated. </p>
<p>But what should we make of it when this type of exchange happens on an un-level playing field? With a history of racism, discrimination and empire that has a legacy in present day society, cultural appreciation starts to look more like what feminist scholar, bell hooks, author of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f2_fBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Bell+Hooks+feminist+author&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Bell%20Hooks%20feminist%20author&f=false">Ain’t I a woman?: Black women and feminism</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Black_Looks.html?id=80SxQgAACAAJ">Black Looks</a> calls “cultural cannibalism”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169960/original/file-20170518-12231-c2ujqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Historically, in African culture, braids were a way of signalling your tribe and your status.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ouidah-benin-jan-10-2017-unidentified-592579895">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That is, when there is a lack of racial equality in a society, romanticising a marginalised group’s objects, practices and modes of expression doesn’t go both ways. The cultural, historical, religious or political significance of objects, practices and modes of expression gets lost or obscured; meaning is not what tends to matter here. This not only leads to cultural invisibility, but can also promote further marginalisation and oppression. </p>
<p>Within a week of the Braid Bar summer ad campaign, two African American sisters in Malden, Massachusetts, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-students-punished-for-wearing-box-braids-to-school_us_5919eb04e4b0809be156f7fa?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=bv_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000047">faced detention and suspension</a> from their high school for wearing <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=box+braids&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW0L_2m_nTAhXlIsAKHa5oD30QsAQIJQ&biw=1440&bih=669">box braids</a>. One was banned from attending the school prom, while the other was removed from the school track and field team.</p>
<p>So, when a hairstyle like box braids or <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=box+braids&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW0L_2m_nTAhXlIsAKHa5oD30QsAQIJQ&biw=1440&bih=669#safe=off&tbm=isch&q=cornrows">cornrows</a> becomes trendy for mainstream white consumers only because a white model or celebrity wearing it makes it acceptably fashionable, then such a practice erases the cultural and historical origins of that style. It trivialises that culture and reduces it to a fashion fad.</p>
<p>As the ever-insightful <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/coachella-cultural-appropriation">Teen Vogue notes</a>: “When Kylie sports cornrows at <a href="https://www.coachella.com/">Coachella</a>, it’s considered ‘edgy’ and ‘cool’. When black people wear cornrows, they get passed over for jobs and are asked to leave their classrooms.”</p>
<p>That, in a nutshell, sums up the essential problem that cultural appropriation throws up, and why we need an honest, critical and high-profile discussion about it. Few would argue there is anything wrong with cultural exchange. What is wrong is when that exchange makes no reference, credit or acknowledgement to the culture it is borrowing from.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Whitney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Few would argue that exchanging cultural ideas could be construed negatively. But what happens when the influence and origins of that culture go unacknowledged and ignored?Jennifer Whitney, Lecturer, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728742017-03-21T00:13:54Z2017-03-21T00:13:54ZInterculturalism: how diverse societies can do better than passive tolerance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158672/original/image-20170228-29924-2quqlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interculturalism emphasises interaction between members of diverse communities, rather than 'groupism'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harmony_Day_(5475651018).jpg">Wikimedia/DIAC Images </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Western liberal democracies are again embroiled in debates about the value of multicultural policies. In Australia, the federal government has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-20/policy-statement-on-multiculturalism-calls-for-unity/8367844">just released</a> its own <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/settlement-and-multicultural-affairs/australian-governments-multicultural-statement">statement on multiculturalism</a>. The current debates are unfolding in the context of the election of Donald Trump, the Brexit vote and the rise of far-right parties like One Nation. </p>
<p>In Australia, such debates have historically conflated multiculturalism – a term that describes the <a href="https://www.mia.org.au/documents/item/232">policy framework</a> established in the 1970s and 1980s – with the idea of racial or ethnic diversity. </p>
<p>Four decades after the end of “White Australia”, however, diversity is simply an established – and irreversible – <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/face-facts-cultural-diversity">social fact</a>. When the debate on immigration is added to the mix, the result is a tangled mess of issues that can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/perspectives-on-migrants-distorted-by-politics-of-prejudice-65550">difficult to tease apart</a>.</p>
<p>One result of this conceptual confusion is that policy debates about <a href="https://theconversation.com/perspectives-on-migrants-distorted-by-politics-of-prejudice-65550">immigration</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/citizenship-discussion-paper-offers-a-misleading-take-on-this-right-42763">citizenship</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-multicultural-policy-looms-as-a-senate-bargaining-chip-62696">multiculturalism</a> often escalate into toxic arguments. At their most trenchant, they have turned into arguments for cultural supremacy – including the idea that certain groups of Australians should not have access to rights enjoyed by other citizens.</p>
<h2>Overcoming ‘us and them’ mindsets</h2>
<p>In Australia, most common strategies for countering “us and them” sentiments consist of public statements defending “multiculturalism” and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ideas-for-australia-bipartisanship-on-immigration-does-little-to-counter-racism-suspicion-and-division-56356">immigration</a>. But these strategies reinforce the conflation of multicultural policy and cultural diversity. This leaves little room to challenge the assumptions of multiculturalism without being seen as challenging diversity itself.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia’s diversity of people is simply a fact, but has been politicised in debates about migration and refugees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lundyk/5449910217/in/photolist-9iAdrg-AUUHn-8vU5LF-jWeAVk-921Dh8-hNhFYL-8Peace-dCxUKD-C2oD9-924Kzf-rkX3LP-broUV6-broFmr-qHtmW-9srSuC-c29bzj-mkFYtp-brpMJP-dCxY3t-ptnZ5t-mkG4rD-oyDJJ5-mkFWhZ-mkLTUy-4sFDGa-mkFYHa-fbSvqe-mkHuxR-bvP2iU-mkH19W-9wFCJo-broFMn-oLmKSa-mkGVeA-8vU6vM-brSkDK-brSm6g-mkGnvW-gHQpx4-r4vVnW-qc3t5M-dgkQHq-qtszAB-jWghtN-sazGkM-ou9rVf-mkGpwu-qkNuAd-mkEZQV-oucHzY">Kate Lundy/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet, in the last ten years or so, an important new policy framework has emerged in the northern hemisphere. It’s one that might help Australians debate these issues without descending into rancour. </p>
<p>This approach attempts to steer policy debates past this difficult impasse by drawing on decades of humanities and social research. </p>
<p>Known as “<a href="http://tedcantle.co.uk/publications/about-interculturalism/">interculturalism</a>”, it prioritises active and equitable interaction between groups over passive tolerance. </p>
<p>Interculturalism has strong policy advocates in <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/quebec-group-pushes-interculturalism-in-place-of-multiculturalism/article569581/">Canada</a> and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ali-rattansi/from-multiculturalism-to-interculturalism-%E2%80%93-reply-to-british-political-elite">Britain</a>. Its strongest institutional base, however, is in continental Europe. The Council of Europe has supported the <a href="http://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/">Intercultural Cities Program</a> for more than a decade. </p>
<p>Bypassing the unproductive debates raging at the national level in many member states, this program tackles issues of cultural diversity and migrant settlement at the city level. More than 100 cities, mostly in Europe but also in Canada and Mexico, are adopting its pioneering approach. </p>
<p>Many of these cities operate in political environments that are even more obviously polarised than Australia’s. Strategies they have adopted include anti-rumour <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/anti-rumours">campaigns</a>, participatory campaigns around urban cultural <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/cultural-heritage-and-diversity">heritage</a>, and promotions of intercultural interaction in segregated urban <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/housing-and-neighbourhoods">spaces</a>.</p>
<h2>The Australian experience</h2>
<p>In Australia, there has long been a disconnection between the national political discourse and the implementation of multicultural policies on the ground. </p>
<p>Implementation has often been the responsibility of local government authorities. On one side, support for the ideology of “multicultural Australia” in official versions of Australian identity has waxed and waned. On the other, local governments must look for answers to new tensions in their communities, such as growing protests <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-15/bendigo-mosque-high-court-challenge/7511690">against the building of mosques</a>.</p>
<p>The Intercultural Cities model offers important ideas and resources for councils looking to respond to these challenges in creative and positive ways. In December 2016, Ballarat became the <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/-/ballarat-joins-the-council-of-europe-s-intercultural-cities-network">first Australian city</a> to join the Intercultural Cities Network. </p>
<p>Joining the network has opened up many new opportunities for Ballarat’s work in this area. As a member, the city has access to a wealth of best-practice intercultural programs and strategies. And with more than 100 cities sharing their experience, the network’s evidence base for making policy choices is growing. </p>
<p>At the same time, Australian cities can make an important contribution to continuing European efforts to develop and spread intercultural principles. The <a href="http://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/about-the-index">Intercultural Cities Index</a> – the program’s monitoring and evaluation tool – shows Ballarat is already doing very well compared to its European counterparts. The city ranks fourth among network members.</p>
<p>In an effort to further international cross-fertilisation around intercultural principles and practice, a group of academics and practitioners have collaborated to create an Australian affiliate of the Intercultural Cities Program. <a href="http://interculturalcities.com.au/">Intercultural Cities Australasia</a> has worked with the Council of Europe to reformulate its diagnostic index for the Australian context. </p>
<p>We have also authored a set of Australian intercultural standards and indicators to support local governments seeking to adopt an intercultural approach to respond to increasing levels of cultural diversity. </p>
<p>This approach could provide some practical means for responding to the federal government’s <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/03/20/government-release-statement-multiculturalism">policy statement</a> on multiculturalism. </p>
<h2>Reforming multicultural practices</h2>
<p>Interculturalism builds on key principles already present in Australian multicultural policy. These include public recognition of diversity and difference, protection from discrimination, and consultation across perceived cultural divides. But it also signals a shift from the way these principles have been institutionalised in Australia. </p>
<p>At the local level, interculturalism puts more emphasis on programs that bring minorities together and into direct engagement with the majority culture and mainstream organisations and institutions. </p>
<p>It also asks members of the majority culture to question their own assumptions and open channels of communication and interaction with minorities. It is therefore a “whole of society” framework, rather than a device for managing minorities. </p>
<p>Our aim in fostering this shift is to encourage all Australians to recognise the importance of intercultural competence. The aim is to re-orient our consultative structures so that we can engage directly with each other – in our policy settings as much as in our daily lives. </p>
<p>We need to equip all of us – and our political system – to navigate cultural difference. This might help to protect social cohesion as debates about immigration and multiculturalism pick up momentum. It should also improve our capacity to relate to our Asia-Pacific neighbours.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading</strong>: <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-governments-multicultural-statement-is-bereft-of-new-ideas-or-policies-why-74838">The government’s multicultural statement is bereft of new ideas or policies – why?</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenda Ballantyne teaches and researches at Swinburne University in the areas of migration, interculturalism and cultural diversity. Her current research projects include New Media, Aging and Migration, and Zooming In: Multiculturalism through the lens of the next generation, in conjunction with the Victorian Multicultural Commission. She is an author of the Australian Intercultural Standards and Index through Intercultural Cities Australasia, a policy initiative in collaboration with the Council of Europe.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Amrita Malhi is a Visiting Fellow in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at The Australian National University and in the School of Social Sciences at The University of Adelaide. She is an author of the Australian Intercultural Standards and Index through Intercultural Cities Australasia, a policy initiative in collaboration with the Council of Europe. In 2015, she received funding from the Department of Premier and Cabinet in the Government of South Australia for the policy co-design and action research project, InterculturAdelaide: Cultural Adaptivity for the Asian Century.</span></em></p>A relatively new approach to diversity prioritises active and equitable interaction between various groups within local communities.Glenda Ballantyne, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Swinburne University of TechnologyAmrita Malhi, Visiting Fellow, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/699482016-12-07T09:25:34Z2016-12-07T09:25:34ZA century after his death, a Japanese literary giant is returning as an android – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148920/original/image-20161206-25768-1bhtcjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the more unexpected consequences of Brexit was the closure of a small museum in south London dedicated to the life of Natsume Soseki. As one of Japan’s most revered writers, the centenary of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Natsume-Soseki">Soseki’s</a> death this year is being marked by numerous events in his home country, not least a <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/06/08/national/android-version-literary-giant-natsume-soseki-return-alma-mater-lecture/#.WEC1OLTfWhA">resurrection in robotic form</a>. But in the English-speaking world <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.act2080.0040.301">he remains comparatively unknown</a>. This is surprising, given the key role that English culture played in his life, and the fact that he spent two formative years living in London.</p>
<p>Soseki came to the UK in 1900. At the time, Japan was going through a period of rapid modernisation after two centuries of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sakoku">self-imposed political isolation</a>. In the country’s only two universities, classes were all being taught in English by Western professors.</p>
<p>Soseki was sent abroad as part of a government scheme to train Japanese scholars so they could take over these teaching duties on their return. Arriving in England, he studied briefly at UCL, was tutored by the <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/04/23/books/book-reviews/search-japans-shakespeare/#.WEC4srTfWhA">Shakespearean scholar William James Craig</a>, and witnessed the funeral of Queen Victoria. He wrote in his <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/exhibitions/natsume-soseki/soseki-pamphlet.pdf">diary</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All the town is in mourning. I, a foreign subject, also wear a black-necktie to show my respectful sympathy. “The new century has opened rather inauspiciously,” said the shopman of whom I bought a pair of black gloves this morning.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148918/original/image-20161206-25742-gswrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148918/original/image-20161206-25742-gswrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148918/original/image-20161206-25742-gswrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148918/original/image-20161206-25742-gswrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148918/original/image-20161206-25742-gswrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148918/original/image-20161206-25742-gswrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148918/original/image-20161206-25742-gswrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natsume Soseki.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the most part, his time in England wasn’t a happy one. “The two years I spent in London were the most unpleasant … of my life,” he later wrote. “Among English gentlemen I lived in misery, like a shaggy dog in a pack of wolves.” He suffered from depression, from isolation, and spent most of his time hidden away in his room, reading. </p>
<p>Yet, it was while living in London that he formulated the ideas for his seminal <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/itheory-of-literature-iand-other-critical-writings/9780231146562">Theory of Literature</a> (1909), which takes a scientific approach to the study of literature, aiming to find universal values by which to evaluate literary works and so “challenge the superiority of the Western canon”. <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/11/26/books/hidden-heart-natsume-soseki/#.WEPm73ecZHZ">Damian Flanagan writes</a> that the “alienation that Soseki initially experienced in London allowed him to view both himself and Japanese society in general with fresh eyes” – and that he channelled this into his later creative work.</p>
<p>On his return to Japan, he became professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University. He also began writing novels. In 1905, he published his celebrated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Cat">I Am a Cat</a>, and two years later resigned from his teaching post to dedicate himself full-time to his writing.</p>
<p>For over 30 years, Soseki’s time in the UK was commemorated in a small museum in south London. Run by Ikuo Tsunematsu, a professor from the southern city of Kumamoto, it was an unobtrusive little place in a suburban street in Clapham. If you weren’t aware of its existence, you could walk straight by without noticing it. The only clue to its presence was a tiny sign indicating which doorbell to press. Upstairs, sandwiched between two other flats, a couple of rooms were crammed with paraphernalia about Soseki’s life in the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148921/original/image-20161206-13648-a9s22x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soseki’s Clapham house.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Spudgun67/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Due to financial uncertainties following the Brexit vote, however, Tsunematsu decided to <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/30/national/brexit-vote-prompts-year-earlier-closure-soseki-museum-london/#.WEC0YrTfWhA">shut the museum this summer</a>. Its closure is a great loss to the city. It was one of those small curiosities – along with places like the <a href="http://www.craftysewer.com/acatalog/London_Sewing_Machine_Museum.html">Sewing Machine Museum</a>, the <a href="https://www.aagbi.org/education/heritage-centre/anaesthesia-museum">Anaesthesia Museum</a>, and the <a href="http://www.museumofbrands.com">Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising</a> – that give London its particular character. But more importantly, it was also a fascinating memorial to the cultural relationship between Japan and the UK.</p>
<p>Next year, in Tokyo, <a href="http://www.japanbullet.com/news/soseki-museum-planned-at-author-s-former-home-in-tokyo-s-shinjuku">a new museum to Soseki</a> is due to open. Throughout this year, there have been a string of events to celebrate his life and work. The most eye-catching of these is his return as <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/06/08/national/android-version-literary-giant-natsume-soseki-return-alma-mater-lecture/#.WEC1OLTfWhA">an android</a>. A collaboration between Soseki’s old university and the robotics expert <a href="http://www.geminoid.jp/en/index.html">Hiroshi Ishiguro</a>, with a voice supplied by Soseki’s grandson, the idea is that the android will teach classes and give readings from his work. In an era of digital humanities, <a href="http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201606240006.html">Ishiguro</a> sees in this the possibility of a whole “new research method [for] literature” opening up.</p>
<p>Soseki’s development as a writer began as a consequence of his country’s embrace of the international community; his centenary happens at a time when many countries are moving in the opposite direction. What his story illustrates are the striking benefits of dialogue between cultures, even if at times these are born of a sense of anxiety and disquiet. In his centenary year, it seems as important as ever to celebrate this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Seargeant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The centenary of Natsume Soseki’s death this year is being marked by numerous events, not least his resurrection in robotic form.Philip Seargeant, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/345992014-12-09T01:12:41Z2014-12-09T01:12:41ZDon’t mention the war: teaching The Reluctant Fundamentalist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66479/original/image-20141207-8667-byl9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What do school students bring to their understanding of Mohsin Hamid's post-9/11 novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/88815.The_Reluctant_Fundamentalist">The Reluctant Fundamentalist</a> has been on the VCE text list for four years in a row. For me, it has been an eye-opener to teach this novel to secondary school students who have grown up post-9/11. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66051/original/image-20141202-20588-1kbx2rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Books</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I took Hamid’s novel into the classroom as part of my university’s Education Partnership Program, I wanted to see whether literature has the power to influence the way we feel or communicate about foreign policy at a time when Australia was preparing for military action against <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/islamic-state">Islamic State</a>. The experience of teaching Hamid’s novel confirmed my belief that literature can bring some nuance to public discourse which, without it, often descends into Us and Them polemics. </p>
<p>The VCE text advisory panel consists of between five and 12 members who are either academics, school teachers or others from the training sector. The <a href="http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/Principles_Guidelines_Texts.pdf">guidelines</a> are detailed and precise. It is no surprise that their decisions on recommended texts sometimes provoke criticism and debate. </p>
<p>For example, there was a controversy in late 2012 surrounding alleged obscenity in Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9712.Love_in_the_Time_of_Cholera">Love in the Time of Cholera</a> (1985). Even though Hamid’s novel has been on the VCE text list for four years now, it has escaped such criticism despite its potentially contentious subject matter. </p>
<h2>A post-9/11 novel</h2>
<p>The Reluctant Fundamentalist is told from the point of view of a Princeton-educated Pakistani, Changez. It is a dialogue between an Easterner and a Westerner which insists on a Muslim perspective. Even the Westerner’s contribution is told entirely by Changez. </p>
<p>Changez declares himself “a lover of America”. Having said that, he is not particularly put out by the US being brought to its knees through the attack on the Twin Towers. For reasons that remain unclear, he lets his beard grow. Soon, he finds authorities treating him as an Islamic fundamentalist. He eventually leaves his well-paid job at a valuation firm and returns to Pakistan.</p>
<h2>In the classroom</h2>
<p>We began by looking closely at the opening pages of the novel. I asked the students to consider words or phrases that seemed unusual or foreign to them. </p>
<p>The students quickly picked up on the qualities of Changez’ voice. They remarked on his vocabulary and spoken mannerisms. These seemed unusual compared to more familiar speech patterns from film and other media. Arguably there is a Western narrative voice; at least we know when it’s missing. </p>
<p>The students’ close reading produced fascinating results. They noted that the politeness and kindness of Changez’ voice was “weird” as well as “suspicious”. After looking at what was most evident – clothing, the exotic setting, the tea – we moved on to other aspects of the reading. The mood was noticeable: the heat, the tattered upholstery and other features of the novel’s exotic setting. The students then mentioned the narrator’s hesitation, the fear of causing offence and his wanting to impress as examples of the foreign.</p>
<h2>The elephant in the room</h2>
<p>I then asked the students to apply some more pressure to this idea of the foreign. I suggested that they try to put into words what is only inferred in these pages. </p>
<p>Suddenly, the discussion became far more outspoken. It was obvious, some said, that the two men, one American and one Muslim Pakistani, were on different sides. One looked like a fundamentalist terrorist, they said, and the other a CIA operative.</p>
<p>In fact, there is very little to suggest anything other than that the novel is about a polite conversation between a Muslim and a non-Muslim. I began to suspect that the novel relies on readers to bring something into the scene to fill out what it does not mention. </p>
<p>So, what could that something be to those growing up in the shadow of the “War on Terror”? </p>
<p>These secondary school students live in a world in which the novel’s presentation of generosity and kindness mixed with deferential caution between strangers is suspicious. The students came to this conclusion via a short humorous detour in which the headmaster pointed out what was possibly suspicious about his own beard. “That’s not the same thing,” I heard someone say.</p>
<p>Hamid’s novel refuses to mention explicitly the all-too-familiar preconceptions of a post-9/11 world. Instead, as some students discovered, the novel draws attention to what we feel but rarely put into words. It’s almost as if there is so much unmentioned within the novel, and so much silence in the community, that something has to give. </p>
<p>I’m wondering if, by not mentioning the war, the novel actually provokes us to think about what we need to be discussing and debating more fully. This is an especially urgent task as Australia considers increased military involvement in the Middle East. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Sofia will answer questions between 11am and noon AEDT on Wednesday December 10. Ask your questions about teaching The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the comments below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sofia Ahlberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist has been on the VCE text list for four years in a row. For me, it has been an eye-opener to teach this novel to secondary school…Sofia Ahlberg, Lecturer in Contemporary Literature, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/286042014-07-25T02:15:37Z2014-07-25T02:15:37ZWhen migration meets creation: Australian design in Beijing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54162/original/xsg8cnxn-1405645661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Palludarium Shigelu by Azuma Makoto and marmoreal engineered marble designed by Max Lamb for Dzek.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UCCA/ Asialink</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What happens to design when it migrates? This is the question posed by Australian design studio <a href="http://broachedcommissions.com/">Broached Commissions</a> which opened its latest exhibition, <a href="http://ucca.org.cn/en/exhibition/broached-retreat/">Broached Retreat</a>, at the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing recently, shifting the location of their social, political and cultural explorations off shore.</p>
<p>While the studio’s designers use historic narratives as their starting point for projects, the question of design migration is both important and uncomfortably contemporary. </p>
<p>It raises issues of nationalism, multiculturalism and asylum and immigration politicking. </p>
<p>When placed into a Chinese context, this becomes even more intriguing …</p>
<h2>Australian design in China</h2>
<p>China’s thirst for all things global after its opening up in the late 1970s to foreign investment and entrepreneurs allowed for the sudden mobility of bodies and ideas across its previously iron-clad boundaries. </p>
<p>Australian artists and art students were among the first to take advantage of this. </p>
<p>Australians have been adept at developing personal connections. In the art world key individuals such as Brian Wallace who founded <a href="http://www.redgategallery.com/">Redgate Gallery</a> in Beijing and Judith Neilson who owns <a href="http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/the-gallery/about/">White Rabbit</a> in Sydney have promoted cross-fertilisation between the two countries. Similarly, Australian architecture firms such as <a href="http://www.woodsbagot.com/">Woods Baggot</a> and <a href="http://www.hassellstudio.com/">Hassell</a> have established offices in China.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54208/original/mnrfv4zq-1405658560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chen Lu’s Dream Lantern.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UCCA/ Asialink</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interest in product design has been slower to catch on, but with the growth of a sophisticated and internationally educated middle class this is starting to change. </p>
<p>The proliferation of design and lifestyle magazines in China promote the value and branding of design to a wider audience. The search for an authentic or quintessential sense of being Chinese continues to be foregrounded – despite the tantalising onslaught of consumer branding from outside its borders.</p>
<p>When I spoke with Broached Commissions founding director <a href="http://louweis.com/">Lou Weis</a>, he described interior design as a formal manifestation of one’s identity. In this way our choice of furniture, interior design or everyday objects become symbols of who we wish to be, as much as who we are. </p>
<p>The challenge of interior design is in the creation of a unique set of symbols that connects individuals to their collective traditions and histories. </p>
<h2>Broached Commissions</h2>
<p>Broached Commissions is a strange beast in the Australian design landscape. Committed to the production of bespoke designer collections, they operate as both a commercial gallery and a research-led design practice. </p>
<p>It is a rare design studio that engages historians as consultants – and such rigorous thinking outside of conventional design practice leads to some fascinating results.</p>
<p>Led by Lou Weis and Vincent Aiello, the <a href="http://broachedcommissions.com/designers/">core members</a> include some of the most talented designers currently working in Australia; <a href="http://www.daao.org.au/bio/adam-goodrum/biography/">Adam Goodrum</a>, <a href="http://www.daao.org.au/bio/charles-wilson-3/">Charles Wilson</a> and <a href="http://trentjansen.com/">Trent Jansen</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54198/original/zskrxz2d-1405654580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trent Jansen’s Chinaman’s File Rocking Chair in the feminine space looking back through the courtyard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Asialink</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The studio’s shift offshore with Broached Retreat is important because it challenges their conceptual frameworks to be relevant beyond Australia.</p>
<p>Alongside core members, curator Lou Weis invited an international array of designers that included <a href="http://www.keijidesign.com/">Keiji Ashizawa</a> (Tokyo), <a href="http://azumamakoto.com/">Azuma Makoto</a> (Tokyo), <a href="http://www.3deep.com.au/our-world/our-family/susan-dimasi/">Susan Dimasi</a> (Melbourne), <a href="http://maxlamb.org/">Max Lamb</a> (London) and <a href="http://naihanli.com/who-we-are/jingjing/">Naihan Li</a> (Beijing).</p>
<p>When people migrate they may not bring things with them, but they will carry particular ways of doing things, particular kinds of thinking, particular kinds of stories. What is so tantalising about this current exhibition is the way it shows how objects are transformed by cultural memory and social practices.</p>
<p>The work is sited in a pavilion built within the gallery by Sydney designer Chen Lu, which creates two opposing interior typologies – the feminine boudoir and the masculine study. These gendered, personal retreats from the world heighten the uncanny nature of the objects themselves, creating a kind of Freudian dreamscape. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54203/original/8m7x5c7t-1405656136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The objects of the feminine space, Trent Jansen’s Briggs Tea Service, Naihan Li’s Armillary Sphere Whisky Bar, Chen Lu’s Dressing Table, Susan Dimasi’s Loom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Asialink</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The objects are eloquent storytellers; take the elegant timber rocking chair that mimics the movement of an infant hung around a Chinese mother’s back as she makes the long trek from Robe to the Victorian goldfields (Chinaman’s File Rocking chair). </p>
<p>Or the tea service whose formal, porcelain conventions give way to bull kelp and wallaby fur in memory of the marriage of George Briggs, a free settler to Tasmania, to Woretermoeteyenner of the Pairrebeenne people (Briggs Family Tea Service).</p>
<p>Contemporary China is grappling with the twofold desire of regional specificity and locating itself on the international stage. While this tussle is hardly unique in the world, it is one that Australia has been fighting for some time, distinguishing itself from its colonial “masters” or American “friends”, and re-examining itself through its natural landscape, indigenous culture and its regional neighbours. </p>
<p>What Australia can offer to China is not an answer to these complex questions, but processes in which alternative, contemporary identities can be developed. Broached Retreat shows how design has the capacity to present tangible outcomes of these processes, where shared histories and creative crossovers can be experienced.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><a href="http://ucca.org.cn/en/exhibition/broached-retreat/">Broached Retreat</a> is an Asialink Arts exhibition currently showing at Ullens Center for Contemporary Arts until August 29 2014.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Spurr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What happens to design when it migrates? This is the question posed by Australian design studio Broached Commissions which opened its latest exhibition, Broached Retreat, at the Ullens Centre for Contemporary…Sam Spurr, Research Fellow, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/290122014-07-11T09:21:05Z2014-07-11T09:21:05ZNever mind football, perhaps the scientists from Brazil can revive national pride<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53547/original/6ypgp2p6-1404999040.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Brazilian PhD student in Canada as part of the Science without Borders programme. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/97079436@N04/9734503888/in/photolist-e5YCuL-e5YCrm-e5YCts-e5SZ8i-e5YCjL-e5SZdp-e5SZdz-e5YCu5-e5YCnL-e5SZcK-e5SZja-e5SZjp-e5YCx5-e5SZcF-e5YCkm-e5SZd6-e5YCmU-e5YCry-dUmxYW-fqmKmV-dUfWqn-dUmy6u-dUfWPi-dUfWwx-fQcSRW-fqonnc-fqCBWu-fqonmD-fqB1gw-dUfW3p-dUmxw1-dUmxHG-dUfVXn-dUmxi1-dUmxPw-dUmyph-dUfVQ8-dUfWZt-dUfVV2-dUfX3v-dUmxo7-dUfWTV-dUfWJH-dUmyau-dUmyzQ-dUmxT3-dUfXcz-dUmxC3-dUfW8T-dUfXa8">Canadian Light Source</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the reasons <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-cup-humiliation-gives-brazil-a-chance-to-move-on-from-football-29004">Brazil took its loss to Germany</a> in the World Cup semi-finals so hard was because many Brazilians wrongly believe the rest of the world only looks up to them for their footballing skills. Brazil has many world leading projects, but they can be overshadowed by the beautiful game.</p>
<p>During the opening ceremony of the World Cup there was a moment when the <a href="http://virtualreality.duke.edu/project/walk-again-project/">Walk Again Project</a> of Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis was supposed to be showcased – it received less than three seconds of coverage. It is a world-leading project in which paraplegics are able use their thoughts to control an exoskeleton. But Nicolelis went to <a href="http://www.viomundo.com.br/entrevistas/nicolelis-lanca-manifesto-da-ciencia-tropical-vai-ditar-a-agenda-mundial-do-seculo-xxi.html">develop the project in the US</a> because the right environment was lacking in Brazil for his research. </p>
<p>When it comes to higher education, Brazil is <a href="http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?area=0&category=0&region=all&year=2012&order=it&min=0&min_type=it">ranked 13th for global scientific productivity</a> of papers published, but in terms of scientific innovation <a href="http://tecnologia.terra.com.br/negocios-e-ti/falta-cultura-de-inovacao-no-brasil-diz-presidente-da-capes,cff8be0d1faea310VgnCLD200000bbcceb0aRCRD.html">it is a very low performer</a>.</p>
<p>There is a clear mismatch. Brazil <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/the-impact-gap-south-america-by-the-numbers-1.15393">produces very few patents</a> – a surprising problem as Brazilians are known for their inventiveness in terms of getting around red tape. They even have a special word for this <em>jeitino</em>, or the little way. The government’s response to the lack of scientific innovation has been the most ambitious and largest scientific exchange project undertaken in the world – known as <a href="http://sciencewithoutborders.international.ac.uk/">Science without Borders</a>.</p>
<h2>Lack of innovation</h2>
<p>It’s worth explaining where the roots of the problem lie. I spent 12 years teaching in Brazil, and taught scientific method at PUC Minas university in Brazil about four years ago. I used a problem-solving approach, rather than the talking head and Powerpoint approach. At the end of the class, a young female student came up and thanked me for the class and commented that today was the first time she had had to think during her education. She was 19 years old. </p>
<p>When I asked her to elaborate, she told me that at school all learning was essentially done by rote. This, among other factors, explains why the Brazilian school system is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/leaguetables/10488555/OECD-education-report-subject-results-in-full.html">consistently rated as one of the worst in the world</a> in international rankings. Unfortunately, rote learning is common at undergraduate level as well as in school, meaning the education system in Brazil produces great technicians but not great innovators. Brazil has not produced one <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/">Nobel Prize winner</a> despite being the scientific powerhouse of South America. </p>
<p>In response to this, the Science without Borders programme started in 2011 with 101,000 scholarships for undergraduate, postgraduate and post-doctoral researchers to study abroad in a fully funded scheme. Tuition fees, research costs, flights, medical insurance and generous scholarships are all paid for by the government.</p>
<p>The programme has just been renewed, and will provide another 100,000 scholarships from 2015. This is a massive investment in the future of Brazil. The idea is not simply for students to study abroad, but for them to learn the culture and language of the countries they study in and bring back knowledge to change Brazil for the better. Previously, Brazil <a href="http://interessenacional.uol.com.br/index.php/edicoes-revista/cem-mil-bolsistas-no-exterior/2/">only paid for approximately 400 students</a> to do their PhDs abroad per year – now the number is thousands.</p>
<h2>Independent thinking</h2>
<p>My academic colleagues back in Brazil have been giving me feedback on the returning students, especially from the UK. At first, the students were surprised by how little contact time they had in the form of lectures. In Brazil, a typical science degree will have 30 or more contact hours per week. The importance of independent learning is something new for these undergraduate students. </p>
<p>Not being able to pass a module by only attending lectures was quite a shock. In Brazil, students <a href="http://portal.mec.gov.br/cne/arquivos/pdf/pces224_06.pdf">must attend </a> a minimum of 75% of their lectures by federal law. For many young adults this situation does not develop self-discipline – especially as many live at home with their parents while studying.</p>
<p>The undergraduate students on this scheme that I have met here in the UK have all been highly enthusiastic about their experiences. Many tell me they have come to see how things could be improved in Brazil – such as by fostering a greater sense of citizenship. But they also now appreciate the things that Brazil does well – such as putting the CVs of all Brazilian students and academics on a single government database called <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7288/full/464488a.html">Curriculum Lattes</a>. </p>
<p>I hope that Science without Borders will create conditions in Brazil where innovative minds will thrive and stay – and the Brazilian population will be as proud of their scientists as they (once) were of their footballers. Now that is a goal to applaud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29012/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Young teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students on the Science without Borders scheme. </span></em></p>One of the reasons Brazil took its loss to Germany in the World Cup semi-finals so hard was because many Brazilians wrongly believe the rest of the world only looks up to them for their footballing skills…Robert John Young, Professor of Wildlife Conservation, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220402014-01-17T05:30:24Z2014-01-17T05:30:24ZSydney Festival review: Chi Udaka<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39284/original/fq4m6fcv-1389932398.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chi Udaka isn't a "fusion" show, it's a performance in which intercultural exchange flourishes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Filigree Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is speculation that the taiko drum was first used by soldiers in battle. At its best, <a href="http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2014/Music/Chi-Udaka/">Chi Udaka</a>, currently playing at the Seymour Centre as part of the Sydney Festival, recalls the ritualised diffusing of that battlefield energy, transferred, tamed and controlled (even made useful) through art. It’s a process also found in martial arts as performance – from contemporary Brazilian based Capoeira to the practices of China’s Shaolin Monks.</p>
<p>In Chi Udaka, the cracking rhythms produced by the Australian ensemble <a href="http://taikoz.com/">TaikOz</a>, practitioners of the Japanese tradition of taiko drumming, meet the articulate and constrained, strength and delicacy of the Indian dancers of the Sydney-based <a href="http://www.lingalayam.com/">Lingalayam Dance Company</a>.</p>
<h2>Cross cultural engagements</h2>
<p>In this work, the potential of battle is turned into a field of vibrant exchanges: respectful conversations, dynamic dialogues, and exhilarating competitions, some executed with a touch of tease about them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39285/original/5z4g5vg3-1389932484.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39285/original/5z4g5vg3-1389932484.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39285/original/5z4g5vg3-1389932484.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39285/original/5z4g5vg3-1389932484.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39285/original/5z4g5vg3-1389932484.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39285/original/5z4g5vg3-1389932484.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39285/original/5z4g5vg3-1389932484.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chi Udaka at the York Theatre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">TaikOz/Karen Steains</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cross discipline and cross cultural engagements have been the site of the some of the most powerful (and painful) experiments in art practice for quite a few decades. </p>
<p>At worst these exchanges are meaningless – a fusion of elements that miss the efficacious potential of rattling the cages of audience expectation. At their best these negotiations between form and practice have produced performances that astound, move and challenge local audiences.</p>
<p>Anadavalli, internationally-renowned dancer, choreographer and teacher of Indian dance forms Bharatha Natyam and Kuchipudi (and artistic director/choreographer of the Lingalayam Dance Company) has been experimenting with collaboration across forms for some time. This experimentation culminated most recently in the amazing <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/414801795267955/">Kaal</a> (2013), with Narelle Benjamin, an Australian choreographer who mines yoga for choreographic inspiration, and singer, dancer and storyteller, Parvathy Baul, from India. </p>
<p>Anadavalli does not like the word fusion. </p>
<p>Trained and influenced in and by multiple Indian dance styles she considers her use of various forms in dance as a bringing together of vocabularies “<a href="http://sydhwaney.com/dance/interview-with-director-of-lingalayam-dance-company/">onto the same platform</a>” but “respecting each style”. </p>
<p>Chi Udaka stays true to this vision. This is not a fusion. It is not a combination of forms melded to make something new, but a juxtaposition of expertise that affect each other as they work together. I can’t explain the relation any better than [Anandavali herself](http://www.lingalayam.com/node/134](http://www.lingalayam.com/node/134):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>earth and water form the core theme of this collaborative partnership, where separate entities are formed and transformed, creating a kaleidoscope of aural-visual energy, which can be identified as moving configurations. These constantly changing formations create lines and shapes of movement vocabulary that synthesise to form music in dance or dance in music.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>TaikOz, also engages regularly in cross disciplinary collaborations – the recent Origin of O (2013) with <a href="http://tokyolovein.tumblr.com/post/14719632782">media and sound artist Tokyo Love In</a>, and local contemporary dancers, is a good example.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ViVPUCF_5_o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">TaikOz performs Origin of O.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such examples of intercultural exchange can offer contemporary models that mark out, at least in the safe space of a performance space, a place where cultures – their people and practices – can come “together in difference”, in the words of cultural studies scholar <a href="http://www.uws.edu.au/ics/people/researchers/ien_ang">Ien Ang</a>.</p>
<h2>A space for intercultural exchange</h2>
<p>The Seymour Centre’s York Theatre, where Chi Udaka was performed, was one such space. </p>
<p>In this circular expanse with a raked seating bank for 700, which fans out around a sunken stage with a platform proscenium behind (a shape that resembles, in miniature, the theatre spaces of Ancient Greece such as the Temple of Apollo at Delphi), different practices met, their rhythmic similarities and contrasts negotiated. </p>
<p>That negotiation, between a Japanese and an Indian art form, was brokered by other artists who act as conduits, translators, and buffers in this exchange. </p>
<p>There was Riley Lee, with the haunting strains of the long Japanese shakahachi flute, who opens the piece. Aruna Parthiban, an Indian singer whose voice joins Lee’s flute to introduce us to the similarities and contrasts between each tradition. These artists are also joined by the warm, thick sounds of the European cello, played by John Napier. </p>
<p>Together these musicians/ singers reminded me of a ferry master (or the ferry itself), carrying and stabilising us, the audience. Giving us time to pause and recalibrate, even catch our breath, as each section of Chi Udaka engaged us in a new conversation between drummers and dancers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dancer from Lingalayam Dance Company onstage in Chi Udaka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Filigree Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the challenge of collaborations such as this. </p>
<p>How do you bring an audience along with you, an audience perhaps aware of none, or at best only one, of the forms of practice that have made up this collaboration? </p>
<p>You do, I think, exactly what Anadavalli and Ian Clemworth did: you offer us “ferry-masters” to engage us and give us pause. You present a means of framing or translating the work of the major contributors, so we can bring our emerging understanding of those principles with us at the peak of the performance. </p>
<p>Which in this case was a rattling percussion and dance spectacle which saw the drummers descend from their platform, mix with the dancers, who rose to these rhythmic intrusions and provocations with style – their own stamping, head-wiggling, gestural finesse re-occupying the space. </p>
<p>For my money, this was every bit as exciting as a well-staged hip hop battle between opposing crews; I was won over; we were in experienced hands.</p>
<p><em>Chi Udaka is playing at the York Theatre as part of the Sydney Festival. More details <a href="http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2014/Music/Chi-Udaka/">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Visit the University of Sydney’s festival hub <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/sydney-festival/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Card does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is speculation that the taiko drum was first used by soldiers in battle. At its best, Chi Udaka, currently playing at the Seymour Centre as part of the Sydney Festival, recalls the ritualised diffusing…Amanda Card, Senior Lecturer/Chair of Department of Performance Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.