The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations, Summer 1998, Vol. 1(3)   Originally Posted: 6/30/98; Last Revised: 11/8/98   Academic Essay

What is Intercultural Relations?   William B. Hart, Editor Department of Communication & Journalism University of New Mexico

This article is a version of a chapter of the author's dissertation (Intercultural Relations: A History of an Interdiscipline).

Intercultural relations is an interdiscipline. Littlejohn (1982) defined an interdiscipline as "a field of scholars who identify with various disciplines but share a common interest in a theme that crosses traditional boundaries"(p.246). A field "consists of the community of scholars who associate with a particular theme" (p.245). A theme , in turn, is "the subject, topic, or focus of the scholar" (p.245). In this framework, intercultural relations is the community of scholars who identify with various social science disciplines, but share a common interest in studying the interaction of people from different cultures. The term "intercultural relations" is used here to provide a broad, neutral term -- a term that would encompass more specific areas of study like intercultural communication and cross-cultural psychology, for example.

Figure 1 further clarifies the theme of intercultural relations. Cultural studies are done at three levels: Monocultural studies, cross-cultural studies, and intercultural studies. Monocultural or single culture studies are common in anthropology and sociology. Cross-cultural studies are studies that compare the characteristics of two or more cultures. Intercultural studies are studies that focus on the interaction two or more cultures and answer the main question of what happens when of two or more cultures interact (at the interpersonal level, group-level or international level). The focus of intercultural relations, as defined here, is with the intercultural studies. Monocultural and cross-cultural studies can not be ignored, however, because they serve as necessary precursors to intercultural studies.

Various disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology) can look at the same human act and focus on different aspects of the act. No discipline, however, can lay claim to the act as entirely their own. All have the right and the tools to study the act. Intercultural interaction is an example of such a human act that can be, and should be, viewed from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. No single discipline has the right to put up a sign saying "private property" or "no trespassing" on the area of study dealing with intercultural interaction.

No single conceptualization of the act is necessarily best. Littlejohn (1982) suggested that any scholar should attempt "a fuller understanding" of the act by "conceptual shifting" among disciplinary perspectives. A scholar should attempt to see their topic of study from different disciplinary (or conceptual) perspectives. Littlejohn (1982) warned, however, that such an undertaking is "an immense task fraught with conceptual puzzles" (p.246). It has the danger of either being too broad and unmanageable or too narrow and incomplete. In any interdisciplinary analysis one has to strive for the Goldilocks middle ground, and not be too broad, nor too narrow, but be just right for its readers.

Any scholar wanting to practice conceptual shifting in an interdisciplinary study faces the division of the social science set up and perpetuated by universities, journals, associations of scholars, and publishers. Interdisciplinary approaches highlight the realistic fuzziness of traditional academic fields, especially in the social sciences. Campbell (1969) stated that "the present organization of content into [university] departments is highly arbitrary, a product in large part of historical accident" (p.331). Paisley (1984) lessened the arbitrariness, but still contended that the "Distinctions that now exist among the social sciences are partly natural, partly arbitrary" (p.4). Whether it is "highly arbitrary" or "partly arbitrary," the fact that there is a degree of arbitrariness in the distinctions between the social sciences can not be ignored. The presence of arbitrary distinction suggests the need for more interdisciplinary work. Interdisciplinary work, however, is not an easy task.

The key to interdisciplinary work is not in who Campbell called "Leonardos who are competent in all sciences" (p.330) or what Sherif and Sherif call "breeding a generation of supermen [sic]" (p.15), who know all the social sciences. With the mass of literature that grows exponentially in each discipline, it is impossible for any single scholar to have the time and aptitude to gain mastery in multiple disciples. Unidisciplinary competence alone, according to Campbell (1969), is a myth. Sherif and Sherif (1969) suggest a more realistic interdisciplinary approach. "The solution to the substantive problem of interdisciplinary relations ... is seen in defining the bearings of one's discipline relative to others, of knowing when and who is needed, and in interchange directed toward borrowing from others what is needed for one's own discipline" (p. 15). Interdisciplinary researchers need not be a specialist in all other relevant disciplines, but must at least be aware of the developments (research results and research methods) in other disciplines that relate to their own research interests. Keeping up with relevant developments in other disciplines is difficult, but it can be facilitated by interdisciplinary seminars on university campuses or by interdisciplinary conferences or organizations, in addition to the efforts of individual scholars.

Sherif and Sherif (1969) proposed two main reasons why interdisciplinary collaboration is a necessity. First, most real-world problems are not often neatly divided along disciplinary lines. Many disciplines study the same social problems. According to Campbell (1969), there is much redundant overlap (Figure 2). Campbell suggests that the ideal disciplinary arrangement would resemble fish scales. In Campbell's ideal "fish-scale model of omniscience" more intellectual territory would be covered by the social sciences with minimal conceptual overlap (Figure 3).
 

A second and important reason for interdisciplinary collaboration is validity checking. Interdisciplinary collaboration provides one means of checking research findings. Such interdisciplinary collaboration used for validity checking is a special type of triangulation. Triangulation uses multiple perspectives to test the validity of results across disciplines or research methods. Campbell was a strong proponent of using triangulation and multiple perspectives (Brewer and Collins, 1981).

Figure 4 shows the study of intercultural relations at the center - the focus of the present study - with each discipline taking a section or plot of the intercultural relations circle. This article proposes that four of the main social science disciplines (anthropology, sociology, psychology and communication study) are the largest contributors to our understanding of intercultural relations.⁽¹⁾ Other disciplines (other social sciences or humanities disciplines) such as education, political science and literature could be included in this discussion. Notice that in Figure 4 there are slots open to other disciplines.⁽²⁾