Un-writing Interculturality in Education and Research

This highly original and stimulating edited volume focuses on ways of un‑writing the polysemous, controversial and highly political notion of interculturality in research and education.

The authors argue that no ‘critical’ perspective on interculturality can do without revising, exploring and creating ways of engaging with different and potentially new aspects and forms of inquiry of the notion in writing. They also claim that un‑writing interculturality can serve an emancipatory function towards an epistemic re‑appraisal of the mainstream(s) and the dominant(s). While critiquing problematic perspectives, as well as the ‘taken‑for‑granted’ and ‘things as usual’ within interculturality scholarship, writing about interculturality is epistemically significant and indicative of change in the ways the notion is used. Each chapter reflects on how to un‑write, un‑do and un‑learn interculturality in research and aims to provide some answers to the following questions: What could un‑writing interculturality mean? What are the pros and cons of un‑writing in research on intercultural communication education? and How does constant work on languaging around interculturality contribute to enriching the notion globally?

The book is aimed at students and scholars who wish to push the boundaries of scholarly engagement with interculturality, especially in relation to their modalities of writing, reasoning and critiquing.

Fred Dervin is a renowned scholar in the field of intercultural communication education and research, serving as a Professor of Multicultural Education at the University of Helsinki (Finland). Over his illustrious career, Dervin has contributed significantly to analyse, interrogate and disrupt discourses of interculturality with over 200 articles and 80 books. Recent books published with Routledge include Communicating around Interculturality in Research and Education (2023), The Paradoxes of Interculturality: A Toolbox of Out‑of‑the‑Box Ideas for Intercultural Communication Education (2022), and Flexing Interculturality (with Hamza R’boul; 2023). Dervin is included in the Stanford Elsevier List of the world’s best scientists (Top 2%).

Hamza R’boul is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of International Education at the Education University of Hong Kong. His research interests include intercultural education, (higher) education in the Global South, decolonial endeavours in education and cultural politics of language teaching and postcoloniality.