INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE, INTERCULTURAL SENSITIVITY
A key societal value of culture is its ability to connect people. But cultures also differ among themselves and are sometimes opposed regarding some central features, such as fundamental beliefs, relevant symbols, and historical and collective memory. Cultures can differ in a number of other variable elements, including languages and linguistic variations. These differences create distances and sometimes real obstacles to communication and shared identity.
Intercultural dialogue is the basic process of overcoming cultural distances and differences. It facilitates removing obstacles to common identification and shared values or representations. However, this kind of activity not only implies declarations of interest in dialogue but also requires concrete institutional settings and enhanced mechanisms for facilitating communication.
From a cultural policy point of view, the objective of intercultural dialogue should be to develop intercultural sensitivity among citizens. The main prerequisite for this is a sensitivity to the languages and collective memories of others. Such sensitivity can be built based on concrete interactions and exchanges and further developed, especially through education and the media.
To be socially inclusive, intercultural dialogue should not be limited to narrow sectors of cultural production such as literature, theatre, or particular musical genres but should become part of a general strategy of cultural policy directed toward inclusion.
Developing intercultural sensitivity requires particular attention to all sorts of cultural variations potentially dividing societies between ethnic and social groups, generations, or across various principles of differentiation. (FL)