Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publications, 2018
Lecture Notes
Chapter 14: Future Challenges
Learning Objectives:
14-1: Identify the challenges for intercultural communication presented by each of the
Regulators of human life.
14-2: Explain how the regulators of human life help our understanding of today’s
global conflicts.
14-3: Identify the major threats individuals perceive to their sources of identities.
14-4: Discuss what can be learned from taking a global perspective on the world’s
identities and conflicts.
14-5: Identify the major points in this textbook that highlight ways to improve
intercultural communication.
I. Religion
A. Cannadine (2013) argues that religion is the oldest source of human identity and
conflict.
1. Conflict between Hindus and Muslims in the Indian subcontinent has a history
that could date back to the 8th century.
2. Today’s conflict started when Britain gave up control of the Indian
subcontinent, splitting it into a predominantly Hindu India and a predominantly
Muslim Pakistan.
3. In Israel, the Arab world, the former Soviet Union, and any number of other
places where religious identity is a central part of many individuals’ identity,
any threat to one’s religious beliefs is a threat to one’s identity.
B. Oftentimes religious conflict becomes intertwined with ethnic and nationalist
causes, as with Catholics in Northern Ireland and Hindu nationalists in India.
II. Class
A. Cannadine (2013) identified class, as developed by Marx, as a source of identity;
yet since the collapse of Communism, it is no longer pervasive nor is it an all-
encompassing source of identity.
B. Several studies have linked class, now defined as economic position in society, to
important parts of one’s identity.
C. A Credit Suisse Research Institute study has shown 1% of the world’s population
controls 46% of the world’s money, property, and other material resources.
D. One consequence of the disparity of wealth is world hunger.
1. Today, the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet in sub-Saharan
Africa, Central and Southeast Asia, parts of Latin America and the Caribbean,
millions live on the edge of starvation.
2. Worldwide nearly 1 billion people can’t afford to buy food and can’t grow
enough on their own.
Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publications, 2018
E. Large-scale conflicts based solely on economic class are not seen. The pressures of
income disparity are more likely to result in migration, which then can become a
source of conflict.
III. Gender
A. Every culture treats genders differently.
B. In 1979, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. According to the convention,
discrimination against women is any distinction, exclusion or restriction.
1. Incorporating the principle of equality of men and women into their legal
systems, abolishing all discriminatory laws, and adopting appropriate ones
prohibiting discrimination against women.
2. Establishing tribunals and other public institutions to ensure the effective
protection of women against discrimination.
3. Ensuring elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons,
organizations, or enterprises.
C. In July 2010, the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to create a single UN
body tasked with accelerating progress in achieving gender equality and women’s
empowerment.
1. Promoting gender equality and empowering women as essential to the
achievement of development goals.
2. Strengthening the full integration of women into the formal economy.
3. Boosting national and international efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of
violence against women and girls.
4. Improving access to health systems for women and girls.
5. Creating a new vision for conserving earth’s biological diversity that must
encompass gender.
D. Woman’s economic status—related to fertility rate; areas of high income disparity
also tend to be areas of high fertility rate.
E. Typically, countries with young populations tend to experience poverty,
unemployment, and unstable governments.
IV. Race, Skin Color, and Ethnicity
A. Many argue that race, however defined, skin color, and ethnicity are major
regulators of human life and identity.
B. 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis included an exhibit of living “foreign people”, the
head anthropologist at the fair wrote: humans “are conveniently grouped in the four
culture grades of savagery, barbarism, civilization, and enlightenment.”
C. This historic ranking of individuals has resulted in othering, or the labeling and
degrading of cultures and groups outside of one’s own.
D. When people create a category called “us,” another category of “not us” or “them”
is created. The collective pronouns us and them become powerful influences on
perception.
E. Abuse/killing of another human being has been justified based on labels placed on
groups.
1. Segregation was justified when Blacks were considered “chattel” or property.
2. The Nazis labeled Jews “bacilli,” “parasites,” “disease,” “demon,” and
“plague.”
Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publications, 2018
3. The subjugation of American Indians was defensible when the word “savage”
was used.
F. Civilization
1. Samuel Huntington (1993, 1996, and 2004) defined civilizations as the
broadest level of cultural identity people can have that are distinct from one
another.
a. Huntington identified eight civilizations: Western, Confucian, Japanese,
Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, and African.
b. Some argue that he has oversimplified the concept of civilizations.
2. Huntington (1996, 2004) asserts that the clash of the Western and the Islamic
civilizations dates back 1,300 years and has become “more virulent” due to the
1990 Gulf War.
3. In 2006, the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project released the
results of studies that investigated how Muslims and Westerners regard each
other. Some results are troubling:
a. “The war on terrorism . . . has never been accepted as legitimate by
Muslims. It has been seen as the United States picking on Muslim
countries” (para. 7).
b. “There has been substantial support for terrorism and terrorists among
Muslim publics” (para. 8).
c. “Each side has a mostly negative image of the other people” (para. 17).
d. “Western publics . . . do not think of Muslims as respectful of women. …
Muslim publics surveyed say the same thing about people in the West”
(para. 18).
e. “Both Muslims and Westerners are convinced that relations between the
peoples are generally bad. … Many Europeans and Americans point their
fingers at the Muslims, but many in the West also accept some
responsibility for the problem” (para. 16).
4. Some have argued that today’s conflicts are not clashes of civilizations, but
clashes and competitions between modernity and forces opposed to modernity.
V. Nation
A. Threats to Culture
1. Cultures feel threatened by spread of products and ideas from one culture to
another when those products and ideas are perceived as weakening the
receiving culture.
2. The imperialism of nations a century ago is today seen as the imperialism of
modern multinational corporations.
3. Frank (2000): “the corporation [is] the most powerful institution on earth.”
4. In 2002, the Pew Research Center surveyed some 38,000 people speaking 46
languages around the world. In country after country where people liked U.S.
technology and popular culture, they were displeased with the spread of U.S.
ideas and cultural values.
5. In a 2016 Pew survey, the authors concluded that U.S. image is linked to
impressions of the people.
B. Threats to the Environment
1. Easter Island is an example of how a civilization may disappear because of
overexploitation of environmental resources.
2. The World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), also known
as the Brundtland Commission, defined sustainable development as
development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.”
3. People fill every ecological niche on the planet, from icy tundra to rainforests
to deserts.
4. In some locations, societies have outstripped the carrying capacity of the land
leading to chronic hunger, environmental degradation, and large-scale exodus
of desperate populations.
5. Agriculture accounts for more than 90% of all the fresh water used by humans.
Farmers in the top three cereal-producing countries—China, India, and the
United States—are pumping water from aquifers faster than rainfall can replace
it.
6. Ecoimperialism refers to global governance that protects the existing power
structure at the expense of poor countries.
7. China is the best example of economic development as a severe threat to the
environment.
a. Sixteen of China’s cities rank among the 20 most polluted in the world.
b. In major cities, much of the water is too toxic to drink; only 1% of the
surface water in Shanghai is safe.
c. Some 700 million Chinese people drink water contaminated with animal
and human waste.
d. The Gobi Desert is growing by about 4,900 square kilometers (1,900
square miles) annually, resulting in millions of refugees.
e. Within 15 years, almost 130 million cars will be on China’s roads.
f. In 2009, coal-dependent China emitted 50% more greenhouse gases than
the United States (Zuckerman, 2008, p. 94). However, with growing
public backlash, since 2011 China has become a world leader in renewable
energy investments and pollution control plans. By 2014, China’s coal
consumption dropped.
8. On Earth Day in April 2016, China, the United States, and 173 other countries
signed a global climate agreement reached in Paris the previous December.
C. Threats from Immigration
1. In both poor and rich countries, people are concerned about immigration.
2. Large majorities in nearly every country express the view that there should be
greater restriction of immigration and tighter control of their country’s borders.
3. Immigration issues in Europe and the United States are distinct.
a. In Europe, the issues focus more on concerns over Islam and cultural
differences.
b. The issues in the United States focus more on Hispanic immigrants and
employment.
4. Putnam (2007): the greater the diversity in a community, the less civic
engagement it shows; fewer people vote, fewer volunteer, less is given to
charities, and less cooperative work is done on community projects.
5. Putnam was concerned that his research would be used to argue against
immigration, affirmative action, and multiculturalism, and that has occurred.
6. Putnam’s research, in total, argues the following:
a. Increased immigration and diversity not only are inevitable in modern
societies but over the long term are desirable; the history of the United
States demonstrates that, over the long run, ethnic diversity is an important
social asset.
b. In the short to medium run, immigration and ethnic diversity challenge
social solidarity and inhibit the strength of relationships that bond similar
people together and bridge people of diversity.
c. In the medium to long run, successful immigrant societies create new
forms of social solidarity, and dampen negative effects of diversity by
constructing more encompassing identities.
7. Consider India’s approach. On August 15, 1947, the new independent state of
India was born on a subcontinent with a history of bloody divisions. Its very
survival was in doubt. No other nation-state has ever had such diversity. Six
decades later, India is the world’s largest democracy, with years of rapid
economic growth.
D. The Promise of New Media
1. E-mail, mobile phones, text messaging, and social media are now enabling
individuals to connect across cultures in ways that were not possible only a
couple of decades ago.
2. Hamdy and Gomaa (2012) compared the use of semiofficial newspapers,
independent newspapers, and social media postings in the January and
February 2011 uprisings in Egypt.
a. Social media postings depended on the activists themselves for
information.
b. Social media were more likely to focus on the “suffering and resiliency of
ordinary Egyptians in the face of a repressive regime” and label the
uprisings as a revolution.
3. New media may challenge the traditional definition of cultural identity by
weakening or strengthening the importance of the relationships between people
and communities.
VI. A Final Word
A. The world has changed dramatically since 1405, when the Chinese eunuch admiral
Cheng Ho commanded 62 ships and explored the world and since 1768 when the
British captain James Cook sailed in the Endeavour.
B. Has our understanding of the planet changed over the centuries?
C. Neil Armstrong observed: From our position on the Earth it is difficult to observe
where the Earth is and where it’s going, or what its future course might be.