The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations, Summer 1998, Vol. 1(3) 
Originally Posted: 10/11/98

 

Interviews: On The Past and Future of Intercultural Relations Study

 

Gifts of Wisdom: An Interview with Dr. Edward T. Hall

Interviewed by Kathryn Sorrells
Associate Editor, The Edge

 

It's another beautiful morning in New Mexico. As I swing onto I-25 headed north from Albuquerque, the brilliant sun is well over the Sandia Mountains to the east. I am on my way to Santa Fe where Edward T. Hall has lived for many years. The backbone of the Sandia's bows to the earth and the land opens up in expansive sweeps in the four directions. From mesa to mesa, the road to Santa Fe rises and descends as if the earth, herself, were breathing. The blue blanket of the sky offers a sense of infinite possibilities while the land and places-- Bernalillo, Santa Domingo Pueblo, Cochiti Pueblo-- reflect the dynamics of conquest, resistance, domination and survival; the overlap and confluence of cultures that is New Mexico. Less than an hour later, I make my turn off the highway to Santa Fe. Soon I am in the midst of the old Plaza. I drive slowly past the Palace of the Governor, first occupied by the Spanish, then Mexicans and finally by Anglos, before becoming a museum. Indian artists are already arranging their work to sell to the tourist. Continuing along, I turn in and park at the home of Dr. Edward T. Hall.

I first met Dr. Hall at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Portland, Oregon about four years ago. Since then I have had the opportunity to take a class from him offered by the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. We spent many hours talking about the class, his work, my interests and work and through this, we have become friends. From the beginning, he has insisted that I call him Ned. This is just one indication of how accessible, gracious and unpretentious Ned is as a person and scholar. After the official UNM class ended, Ned came to my house once a month to continue meeting (and eating) with a small group of interculturalists. His passion and wisdom continues to inspire and guide us.

On the morning of the interview, Ned greets me at the door and ushers me upstairs to his office, a wonderful room lined with books and accented by landscape photographs and other works of art. Ned begins our conversation with a gift of wisdom gathered from his life-long observation, analysis and deep understanding of cultures and intercultural relations.

 

Hall: I spent years trying to figure out how to select people to go overseas. This is the secret. You have to know how to make a friend. And that is it!

Sorrells: Yes, how to connect.

Hall: If you can make friends and if you have a deep need to make friends, you will be successful. It's people who can make a friend, who have friends, who can do well overseas. Americans don't know much about friendship. It was very anxiety provoking for my students to make friends. This is why I gave my students the assignment to go out and make a friend with someone from another culture so they could find out what friendship was. Even the whole idea of friendship, of going out and making a friend was a difficult idea for them.

So, what are we talking about today?
 

THE PAST: WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?

Sorrells: We are doing a series of interviews with people who have made a significant impact on the field of intercultural relations. And of course, you are one of those people. We are particularly interested in your perspective on where we have come from and where we are going in terms of intercultural relations. We are thinking of intercultural relations quite broadly, including contributions from the fields of psychology, anthropology, and intercultural communication.

From our current standpoint of moving into the next millennium, how do you see the history of the development of intercultural relations? How do you see the field of intercultural relations starting?

Hall: The essence of what we are talking about has to do with the central question of what is culture. You can never get too far away from that.

And to get to your other question, it started for me by taking a course in anthropology. When I discovered anthropology, I had been doing it already, but I didn't know you could take it in school (chuckle). But when it became most real to me was when I was working as a foreman on the Hopi and Navajo reservations [in the 1930s, see West of the Thirties by Edward T. Hall]. So we had white people without even a high school education. We had Hopis and Navajos and Indian traders. Lorenzo [Hubbell, famous Indian trader] was tri-cultural. The smartest man on the reservation and one of the smartest people I have ever known. He had several posts and he really was the power behind everything that was going on there. Well, I was supposed to be a camp manager and there was really no way of getting them going. I mean, they just didn't know how. And someone had to set the tents up and things like that. So again it has to do with information. The camps were not being built. So I was finally visited by John Collier's people and they said, Collier's wants camps and if you have to carry the tents on your back, why, there's going to be camps! [John Collier was a sociologist and the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1933-1945).]

I knew the government was not going to do anything. I'd been on the reservation, oh I guess, a couple months by then. I knew that Lorenzo was the key to anything that was going to happen. So I went over to Oraibi [in Arizona], thirty-two miles away, and talked to him. Well, he questioned me deeply. Why do they need camps? I explained that when you are building a road, it makes sense to have camps. This road is only going to be a truck trail...about 9 feet wide. And only about 25 miles long. It can't take too long. See, what was really at stake was that we were going to be feeding the Indians. If we didn't feed them, they got an extra dollar a day to feed themselves. So that money would go to the traders. It was thousands of dollars we were talking about. Outside of this money coming into the reservation, there was practically no funding for Indian people.

Sorrells: So that was the critical point.

Hall: Yes, you see. I told Lorenzo how long this camp would go. Once the road was finished, there were alot of other things to be done. Well, within just a matter of days, I had the camp. It worked just like magic. He was the keystone. One not only needs to know the cultural side but also the political side. Power...who has the power? One has to know the information channels. They are almost like wires...who's controlling information? It's a structural thing. I have been studying what one might call meaning. Translating behavior as a form of meaning. Talking about it now, the way we have meaning is tied up with power. Messages, channels, slots and buttons. Is there a slot in the brain to receive the message? What buttons do we push and which ones do we avoid? This is a good breakdown because you have to examine it at each step. Is it the right message? Or the wrong one? Are we sending them the right message? What channel?

Sorrells: The channel you choose really influences the message.

Hall: Everything influences everything else. But if you say, OK, in order to reach so and so...for me, what I did was pick out Lorenzo. He was the channel to Washington. The official government channels were not working. Lorenzo was a Republican but Secretary Wallace [U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1940) and 33^rd U.S. Vice-President] came out to consult with him on agricultural ideas. The political party was not what was important but rather who could get to whom.

Sorrells: Yes, access.

Hall: I was sure the government was not the right channel.

Sorrells: You have always used the word information. As when you describe high context, you say these cultures live in a sea of information. Can you make the distinction clear between information and meaning?