The Realm of Intercultural Nonviolence
In the embedded circles of our research template for nonviolence research, “intercultural” is located between the wider realm of “action” and the narrower realm of “interpersonal.” The Intercultural Realm invites inquiry into the care and cultivation of pluralistic cultural practice and literacy.
The theory and practice of nonviolence activates some group of people that makes demands upon some other group, asserting a world where opponents will eventually come to terms within a new, shared relationship. Therefore, nonviolence raises profound questions about group relations, which are most generally understood in terms of culture.
Working Definitions of Culture
Classic Definition of Culture
In the first sentence of his 1871 book on Primitive Culture, Edward B. Tylor writes: “Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” (see the Google Book)
de Munck, et al.
“We reject the idea of abandoning the concept of culture and instead propose a theory of culture that, in a sense, disciplines the relatively unbridled nature of both of its core features—the individual who expresses culture and the collective that constructs culture.” (de Munck, Victor C., Giovanni Bennardo, Andrea Bender, Christoph Brumann, Dave Elder-Vass, Dorothy Holland, David Kronenfeld, et al. 2019. “Disciplining Culture: A Sociocognitive Approach.” Current Anthropology 60 (2): 174–93.)
Rosunee
“In portraying how culture(s) and identit(ies) are hybrid and ambivalent in the postmodern sphere dominated by global migration, my self-reflective perspectives highlight the influence and relevance of postcolonial history, Diasporic and cultural inheritances in setting cultural markers. Nostalgia for the patria, memories of childhood and lived life experiences are issues that forge identity structures and the enactment of cultures in grounding a sense of belonging, which set one of the boundaries of the ‘liminal space,’ while new exposure and perspectives define the other. The struggles and challenges through migration experiences are articulated within that ‘liminal space,’ where there is room for negotiation, innovation, and even subjectivities. Language barrier, building up a space and sense of belonging next to hegemonic structures are issues that are often overlooked. These issues if unveiled bring a better understanding towards the struggles, challenges, fears, and inhibitions migrant subjects face.” (Rosunee, Nishta D. 2012. “Hybrid Perspectives: Defining the Relativity of Culture and Identity through Migration Experiences.” International Journal of the Humanities 9 (8): 23–43.)
Douglass: “Composite Nation”
He tried to stop a century of Chinese Exclusion Acts before they started. (Teaching American History)
Peirce: “Evolutionary Love”
It’s not the easiest essay to read, but it does inscribe a deep logic of pluralism. On Peirce’s evolutionary account, nature calls into being novel experiments of existence that in turn create novel relationships with the world they emerge into. In the long run, nature transforms possibilities of novelty into reality. Here is a logic that can be extended toward democratic pluralism, quite different from the usual “survival of the fittest.” (Arisbe)
You might also consider this 2024 lecture by Harvard Prof. Martin A. Nowak, which argues that evolution presents a mathematically rigorous model of universal spirituality that beckons for “a science of love.” There are remarkable similarities between Nowak’s insight and Peirce’s “Evolutionary Love,” except that the present-day student may find Nowak’s presentation somewhat more approachable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn79xBlpfWk
Alain Locke: “Values and Imperatives”
As a leading intellectual of The Harlem Renaissance and professor of philosophy at Howard University, Alain Locke is a leading philosopher of cultural pluralism. (here in pdf format)
Nelson: Bases of World Understanding
Lectures delivered at Calcutta [Kolkata] University by William Stuart Nelson, who was taking a year of absence from his position as Dean of Religion at Howard University. In a context of religious violence that scarred the advent of independence for India and Pakistan, Nelson argued in favor of religious pluralism. (Archive.org – registration required)
Ethnographic Futures Research (EFR)
“EFR develops a proactive attitude toward the future and helps people find their place in the future, exploring what they can do to achieve the future they want.” (Heather Sauyaq Jean Gordon)
Textor, Robert. “The ethnographic futures research method.” Futures 27, no. 4 (May 1995): 461-471. Science Direct.
Also, please check your library database for:
Gordon, Heather Sauyaq Jean. “Ethnographic Futures Research as a Method for Working with Indigenous Communities to Develop Sustainability Indicators.” Polar Geography 44, no. 4 (December 2021): 233–54. doi:10.1080/1088937X.2021.1881647.
Topics for followup discussion: pronouns, land acknowledgments.
Follow-up sources on the term “yellow” as used in the Douglass speech above.
“Contact with these yellow children of The Celestial Empire would convince us that the points of human difference, great as they, upon first sight, seem, are as nothing compared with the points of human agreement. Such contact would remove mountains of prejudice.”
Kat Chow. “If We Called Ourselves Yellow.” Code Switch: Race in Your Face. NPR, Sept. 27, 2018. or Katie Davis. “Yellow Peril Supports Black Power.” The Student Movement 104, issue 9 (2.16.24) or Nina Wallace. “Yellow Power: The Origins of Asian America.” Densho, May 18, 2017.
CourseLinks 