Het werk van deze auteur duikt in het ingewikkelde samenspel tussen het individu, de cultuur en maatschappelijke structuren. Zijn uitgebreide betrokkenheid bij het Midden-Oosten heeft hem een scherp besef gegeven van de wereldwijde politiek die deze dynamiek vormgeeft. Met zijn schrijven benadrukt hij het diepgaande westerse misverstand van niet-westerse realiteiten, zelfs te midden van een wijdverspreide mondiale informatie-uitwisseling. Zijn proza biedt kritische inzichten in hoe hedendaagse communicatie onze perceptie van de wereld en de plaats van het individu daarin beïnvloedt, en weerspiegelt een diep begrip van sociale structuren en hun impact op de menselijke ervaring.
In this book we wish to find a new way of talking about, connecting and operationalising the third space, narratives, positioning, and interculturality. Our purpose is to shake established views in what we consider to be an urgent quest for dealing with prejudice.
Through an auto-ethnographic lens, the author recounts their experiences in 1970s Iran to challenge the dominance of essentialist grand narratives in intercultural discourse. The narrative highlights the complexities of cultural interactions and the ongoing struggle against oversimplified representations of identity, emphasizing the importance of personal stories in understanding intercultural dynamics.
In this book we wish to find a new way of talking about, connecting and operationalising the third space, narratives, positioning, and interculturality. Our purpose is to shake established views in what we consider to be an urgent quest for dealing with prejudice. We therefore seek to draw attention to the following: How Centre structures and large culture boundaries are sources of prejudice How deCentred intercultural threads address prejudice by dissolving these boundaries How, in everyday small culture formation on the go, the cultural and the intercultural are observable and become indistinguishable How agency, personal and grand narratives, discourses, and positioning become visible in unexpected ways How we researchers also bring competing narratives in making sense of the intercultural How third spaces are discordant and uncomfortable places in which all of us must struggle to achieve interculturality This book is therefore a journey of discovery with each chapter building on the previous ones. While throughout there are particular empirical events (interviews, reconstructed ethnographic accounts and research diary entries) with their own detailed analyses and insights, they connect back to discussion in previous chapters.