The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations, Summer Vol. 1(3)
Originally posted: 6/30/98; Revised: 7/6/98

An Interview with Everett M. Rogers

Interviewed by William B. Hart
Editor, The Edge

The following interview is based on a tape recorded interview conducted on June 15, 1998. Both Hart and Rogers edited the transcript of the interview. It is the edited transcript that follows.

 

Everett M. Rogers
Photo by Miguel Gandert

THE PAST: WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?

Hart: How did intercultural relations study begin?

Rogers: I think it had many roots going back before the Foreign Service Institute from '50 to '55. But that is where the roots converged largely at the hands of Edward Hall, but other people were vitally involved also. The roots go back a long way to Darwin on nonverbal, to William Graham Sumner on ethnocentrism, to Robert Park on race and racism. So there were individual scholars and individual concepts (in some cases theories) well before 1950.

Hart: How did it develop from there? Do you see a pattern?

Rogers: It became a specialty area in a number of social sciences. Mainly in communication and to an equal extent in psychology, in a fractured way within sociology with racism which is typically a course rather than a specialty area in sociology. So a set of scholars took on various pieces of intercultural relations as their thing. Institutionally, mainly, certain departments of communication and certain departments of psychology were especially involved.

Hart: What are the major developments, in terms of theory, etc.?

Rogers: I think there has been progress, at least through the now 45 years of my academic career. The big steps in the progress have been institutionalization. That is, certain departments in which one could specialize, certain journals, certain textbooks, associations (or at least divisions of associations) that have provided something today that is a world different from what we had 45 years ago.

By another measure, how about on the the impacts side? Do we know more about the content of intercultural relations than we did in the past? Yes, I think we do. Although, it is difficult to make any understandable measure of progress. We have nothing like the dooms-day clock of the atomic scientists.

Hart: Do we have theories that capture all?

Rogers: We have theories and I think they are largely in "glumps" and there isn't a total theory of intercultural relations. Although, maybe one emerges when you study each of these main forms of theory (theory groups). So I think we have a long ways to go.

If you look at the practical problem of the world being a more safe and secure place because of better intercultural relations, we certainly have a very long way to go. If we look at how much more we know today than in the past, we know a lot more. So, it is both encouraging and discouraging, in my mind.

Hart: Who has played the important roles?

Rogers: I think the biggest contributors are Edward Hall for recognizing it as a field in itself, for giving it a name, and for seeing the importance of nonverbal communication. Any one of those would be worth a star. So, he has quite a chest full of stars.

I think the most important pair of polar concepts are collectivism and individualism, and they did not originate with Harry Triandis, but he devoted his career to advancing them. So I think that is a very important contribution.

Hart: Anyone more recent?

Rogers: I think there are a dozen (or two dozen) scholars of today each boring a hole trying to find oil. Bill Gudykunst would be one. There are couple dozen of them from [the University of] Minnesota and other places. I would put Young Yun Kim in that same category, coming from different roots. But mostly these are people of about that age - the age of the Minnesota Gang --Mitchell Hammer is one. The Bennetts are another pair, in their own way.

I think these are people we may look back on 20 years from now and say they should have had a star too. But each of them is working in a particular area on a particular theory (or with a particular concept) and it is that set of assigned roles, all with an eye on each other, that makes a field advance. We're now in that era, rather than the one we were in before 1950 when a firecracker went off here and there, but there was no follow-up to it and it didn't add up to a total thing in any coherent way. Coherence, I suppose, is the key word here.

Hart: What role did the social, political and technological context play in the development of the study of intercultural relations?

Rogers: The field largely developed in the U.S., although not entirely (and it might have been better for it if it hadn't, but it did). And so, what was happening in the U.S. at the time [1950s] was very important. This was the era of the "Ugly American" and breaking out of isolationism after World War II -- an era in which foreign policy became the number one political issue in the U.S. All of that made for the right conditions for Hall and FSI. So intercultural relations was indeed a product of the times. 

Hart: What has been your personal story as a scholar in intercultural study? What attracted you to the field? What is your academic background?

Rogers: I've always had an interest in the world outside the U.S. since formative years in late elementary school when I read of far-off places. Rudyard Kipling's books [especially on India] were important. It was also a disappointment later in life to find out that [Kipling's books on India] didn't have a strong basis in fact. But in any event, they motivated in me an interest in life outside the U.S.

When I was in grad work the closest I could get to pursuing these academic interests was to get a Ph.D. in Sociology. I took grad courses in anthropology, history, political science, statistics, and education. So, at the least that shows my dissatisfaction with my major. But, it tolerated my interest in diffusion -- tolerated and encouraged it. And I took these other courses to try to pursue my broader interests -- the international interests. They were international, although not especially intercultural. Although I took a course in sociology in race relations from a scholar named Joseph Gitler, who had gotten his Ph.D. at Chicago and basically taught Robert Park on race in this course.

If there were courses in cross-cultural psychology [at Iowa State University], I certainly didn't know about them. Had I found them I probably would have taken them. So, at that stage I had international interests. I didn't especially have domestic intercultural interests.

Hart: Your interest in international, how did that connect to diffusion?

Rogers: Development programs were in high gear at that time. I got my Ph.D. in '57 and a very important criteria in what job I took was that the university and the department I took a job in had an overseas program. That is largely why I went to Ohio State. As soon as I got there I quickly became aware that it was only the senior faculty members that were going on the project in India (an Indian university had an institution-building relationship with Ohio State). So they were not going to send a young scholar like myself.

That made me apply to all kinds of other places and put feelers out with agencies that were sending individual scholars. Eventually that led me to apply for a Fulbright, and I got to Colombia, and then to India. I said that I had international interests, but I actually had interests in India, in particular.

Hart: There is the Kipling influence.