HISTORY AND
INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER 4
CONTENTS
1. FROM HISTORY TO HISTORIES
2. HISTORY, POWER, AND INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
3. HISTORY AND IDENTITY
4. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND HISTORY
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
• After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Identify six different types of history.
2. Define “the grand narrative.”
3. Explain the relationship between history, power, and
intercultural communication.
4. Describe the role of narratives in constructing history.
5. Describe the relationship between history and identity.
6. Identify four types of hidden histories.
7. Identify four antecedents that influence intercultural contact.
8. Explain the contact hypothesis.
9. Identify eight contact conditions that influence positive attitude
change.
10. Describe a dialectic perspective in negotiating personal
histories.
1. FROM HISTORY TO HISTORIES
FROM HISTORY TO HISTORIES
• Political
• Intellectual
• Social Histories
• Family Histories
• National Histories
• Cultural-Group
POLITICAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND
SOCIAL HISTORIES
• Political: Written histories that focus on political
events
• Intellectual: Written histories that focus on the
development of ideas.
• Social Histories: Written histories that focus on
everyday life experiences of various groups in the
past.
FAMILY HISTORIES
Histories of individual families that
are typically passed down through
oral
NATIONAL HISTORIES
A body of knowledge based on
past events that influenced a
country’s development.
CULTURAL-GROUP HISTORIES
The history of each cultural group within a
nation that includes, for example, the
history of where the group originated, why
the people migrated, and how they came to
develop and maintain their cultural traits.
2. HISTORY, POWER, AND
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
THE POWER OF TEXTS
• The stories about the past in
textual.
• People do not have equal access
to the writing and production of
these texts
Once texts are written, they are available for
teaching and learning about the past?
• Modernist identity: The identity that is
grounded in the Western tradition of scientific
and political beliefs and assumptions—for
example, the belief in external reality,
democratic representation, liberation, and
independent subjects.
THE POWER OF OTHER HISTORIES
• Grand narrative: A unified history and
view of humankind.
• Apartheid: A policy that segregated
people racially in South Africa.
POWER IN INTERCULTURAL
INTERACTIONS
• Power is also the legacy, the remnants
of the history that leaves cultural
groups in particular positions.
• Long histories of imperialism,
colonialism, exploitation, wars,
genocide, and more leave cultural
groups out of balance when they
communicate
3. HISTORY AND IDENTITY
HISTORIES AS STORIES
• Storytelling is fundamental to the
human experience.
• Faced with these many levels or types
of history, you might wonder how we
make sense of them in our everyday
lives
NONMAINSTREAM HISTORIES:
• Hidden histories: The histories that are hidden
from or forgotten by the mainstream
representations of past events.
Ethnic histories: The histories of ethnic groups.
Racial histories: The histories of
nonmainstream racial groups.
Gender Histories: The histories of how cultural
conventions of men and women are created,
maintained, and/or altered.
NONMAINSTREAM HISTORIES
(CONT)
• Sexual orientation histories: The historical
experiences of gays and lesbians.
• Diaspora :A massive migration often caused by war,
famine, or persecution that results in the dispersal of a
unified group.
• Diasporic histories: The histories of the ways in which
international cultural groups were created through
transnational migrations, slavery, religious crusades, or
other historical forces
• Colonial histories: The histories that legitimate
international invasions and annexations.
• Socioeconomic Class Histories
• Religious Histories
THIS LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES
To all of the surviving Japanese American
internees who were in U.S. concentration
camps during World War II.
• If you were to compose this letter,
what would you write?
• How should we deal with the past
to construct better intercultural
relations in the future?
4. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
AND HISTORY
ANTECEDENTS OF CONTACT
We bring our personal histories to each
intercultural interaction:
People bring childhood experiences to
interactions
People may bring historical myths to
interactions
The languages that people speak influence
their interactions.
People tend to be affected by recent, vivid events
THE CONTACT HYPOTHESIS:
The notion that better communication
between groups is facilitated simply by
putting people together in the same
place and allowing them to interact.
NEGOTIATING HISTORIES DIALECTICALLY IN
INTERACTION
• To be important to recognize that we all
bring our own histories (some known,
some hidden) to interactions.
• We should understand the role that
histories play in our identities, in what
we bring to the interaction