FLNG 101: Intercultural Communication and Global Citizenship (Klekovkina)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is the United Nations’ specialized agency working within the fields of education, social and natural sciences, culture and communication to promote international cooperation in these fields in order to ensure a more peaceful world.

This is the website of a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving intercultural communication. It contains a lot of valuable information aimed at a broad audience, including businesses. The most interesting aspect of the website is that it is full of actual training materials used by intercultural practitioners in helping their clients develop a greater intercultural proficiency.

This website explores the topic of refugees. Many people consider intercultural communication in the business setting, but intercultural communication due to refugee migrations is actually rather common. The site includes information about many refugee crises including the 220,000 Burundi refugees in Tanzania, many female, and the Myanmar Rohingya refugee crisis where as many as 1,000 people died in the Andaman Sea—because no country would permit them to disembark from their boats. What special intercultural issues are present when considering refugees?

This is a “quick-tip” guide to intercultural communication. There are some good tips on this page, like encouragement to reflect on the practices you engage in while communicating in an intercultural context. It is worth considering that this is the type of information many people use when engaging in intercultural business, and so forth. What types of information or analysis are missing from its list of tips?

This is the State Department’s website for the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). The FSI is the primary mechanism the federal government uses for training individuals to go overseas to serve, in some capacity, as representatives of the U.S. government. Check out the “Youth and Education” link, which has useful information about studying and working abroad and information about how to be a “smart traveler” (preparing travel documents, what to do in emergency situation when traveling abroad, etc.).

This is the home page for the Peace Corps. Volunteering in the Peace Corps is a way that many young people travel overseas and experience different cultures. It is worth considering how traveling abroad is portrayed differently by the Peace Corps and the State Department.

Refugee stories is website sponsored by the nonprofit Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA), a national umbrella body for more than 200 organizations and over 900 individual members. Read about the various refugee programs sponsored by Australians. Click on “Get the Facts” and read about refugee stories–those who have found a new life in Australia. Click on “News & Events” and compare the national discussion about immigration in Australia to discussions on the same topic in the U.S. media.

This Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions website provides a description of Hofstede’s cultural values dimensions and the specific value scores for a variety of countries and regions of the world. For those of you who may be studying, working, or traveling abroad, you may find it useful to compare the values scores of your home culture and host culture to better understand how the two cultures are similar and different according to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.

The Power of Culture website provides a review of art and cultural expressions, along with information on human rights, education, the environment, emancipation, and democratization. The website provides links to themes, such as cultural exchange and culture, conflict and culture, and ethics, with news stories and articles related to the subject matter.

This UNESCO Culture Sector website provides links to relevant news and events along with general background information about the changing realm of culture, both regionally and globally. The website also provides links that describe the culture and people from different regions worldwide, such as the Arab states, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America.

The Global Voices Online website is sponsored by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The site provides blogs, podcasts, photo-sharing sites, and videoblogs from around the world. There is a site search available along with an index of countries and topics. You can select a topic, such as racism or politics, and select the country you wish to read and learn more about in terms of that topic.

The American Radio Works has compiled information and documents relating to segregation in the United States and posted them online. Students can listen to accounts of segregation and retrospective analyses as well as read many detailed accounts. There is also a section that outlines key laws of the Jim Crow era.

The National Archives has set up this webpage to help you research your family history. You can see what kinds of records they hold and how you might go about doing this research.

This is a website about the Japanese diaspora in the Western Hemisphere, hence it is available in English, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. The entire website is worth exploring, but this particular page makes important connections between Asian Americans and Arab Americans. It underscores the ways that the United States has Page 157changed and remained the same regarding race, racial profiling and stereotyping, and national security.

This webpage explores the evidence and controversy over the possible sexual relationship between Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings. Here you can read about the DNA evidence, as well as the reaction from historians and descendants. Here you can see an example of a contested intercultural history and its importance for the contemporary world.

The museum website offers many exhibits related to the Holocaust that are viewable online. The webpage is specifically designed for university students. This section includes a searchable database for tracing Holocaust survivors and archiving information.

Whitney Dow’s Whiteness Project is an ongoing project to interview whites about being white. The project has a webpage with the interviews posted in which whites speak about being white. There is also a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/whitenessproject), if you are interested in reading what others are discussing about the interviews or adding your own comments.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life website provides research, news, and discussions regarding topics related to religious identity, for example, college students’ beliefs about religion, the role of religion in debates on gay marriage, science education, politics, and so forth. The site also provides religious demographic profiles for different countries.

This website provided by PBS is a comprehensive exploration of myths and constructions of race. It has some interesting interactive links, such as “Sorting People,” which allows a person to categorize pictures of people based on contemporary U.S. racial categories and then see how the government would classify the pictures. It also provides a “race timeline”—how the notion of race developed through history.

This British web page was developed to benefit mixed-race families and multiracial individuals. It contains news stories about Mariah Carey, Halle Berry, Craig David, and other multiracial celebrities.

This web resource is an interactive guide to understanding the relationships between language and culture. The site contains information on a variety of language topics. It also includes audio files that highlight regional differences in pronunciation and dialect and flash cards to test your mastery of the material.

This website is an example of one of the ways that technology is changing translation. The “Babel” feature, which can be added to web content, translates from a great number of languages to a great number of languages. A similar feature is also available in the Online Community of Second Life. What opportunities and challenges does automated translation present for intercultural communication?

This website provided by the University of California–Santa Cruz allows students to explore and test their ability to read and interpret nonverbal communication. The site provides videos that examine nonverbal codes, including personal space and gestures, to better understand cross-cultural communication.

This webpage is dedicated to providing information pertaining to the color symbolism that exists throughout different cultures. Its purpose is to allow Web page designers to understand how their usage of color might be interpreted by different groups and world regions. The page also provides informative links on how gender, age, class, and current trends also play a factor in the meaning of color.

“The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide.” Their webpage has a wealth of information on migration.

This website offers advice, information, and support for transitioning to the United States. It provides insights on the migration experience and also describes the types of support systems that are available for migrants and travelers.

This Army Reserve Family Programs webpage provides various links that offer services for army personnel and their families. Among these links you will find the “Army Family Action Plan” and “Child and Youth Services.” It provides extensive information and guidelines for both returning soldiers and their families to facilitate the often stressful time of homecoming and reunion.

Immigrant Stories at the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. Listen to some of the stories of people who have immigrated to Minnesota.

This website has links to other materials, articles, and a bibliography of resources. It is run by a professor at Washington State University. It has sections on class, gender, sexuality, censorship, race/ethnicity, cultural imperialism, and popular culture.

National Public Radio hosts a webpage devoted to identifying and commenting on popular culture trends. This resource is not specifically about intercultural issues, but these issues are covered. The website is a good mix of information and political commentary for students doing research on emerging popular culture issues.

This is the web resource for the bell hooks video on "Cultural Criticism and Transformation," a 1997 edited interview with cultural critic bell hooks. The video is not available in its full form online (though sections are available on YouTube), but this site does contain related articles and a section for comments.

This website is dedicated to the legal histories of interracial relationships. There is an interactive map of the United States that gives a visual feel for interracial legislation. The site contains stories of interracial couples and their trials and triumphs. Most importantly, the site works to promote June 12 as “Loving Day” in commemoration of the 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia that formally legalized interracial marriage.

This is a National Public Radio podcast about negotiating intercultural relationships. The experts provide practical advice with an academic foundation for couples dealing with the tribulations of intercultural issues. The podcast is part of a series of NPR productions revolving around culture.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has laws that regulate international relationships (whether marriage, adoption, family members, etc.) This webpage answers many questions that may affect people in these relationships.

This report covers the anti-gay violence in Russia. How do different societies create conditions that make gay relationships difficult or impossible? Should others respect these conditions as cultural differences? Or should others pressure these nations to change?

This is a website of a for-profit consulting firm, based on Dr. Mitch Hammer’s work in intercultural conflict resolution. The website describes the research results and validation studies that led to the development of the Intercultural Conflict Styles inventory, as well as a list of relevant resources and also organizations that have used the program. A YouTube video (https://youtu.be/s3-Zmj3sTt8) gives a presentation about the conflict resolution program.

The whole Mideast website contains valuable information about conflict and progress in the Middle East. However, this timeline is especially valuable in trying to understand the context of current conflicts. Information here details key moments in the Arab-Israeli conflict from over 3,000 years ago to the present. Many of these events and issues form an invisible context for current conflicts and negotiations. It is worth considering what histories inform other cultural conflicts around the world.

This is the website of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Its focus is on international policy. There are a lot of great resources on this site, including reviews of practitioners and detailed descriptions of the group’s efforts in hotspots like Iraq and Haiti.

The Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) offers information about overseas study and work programs (including volunteering and teaching) for young people on its website, with resources for individuals, employers, communities, and educational institutions.

This website links to different kinds of dialogue groups (intercultural, interfaith, etc.); resources on how to start such groups; and articles, books, and frameworks for understanding and implementing dialogue groups.

The website of Global Exchange, a membership-based international human rights organization “dedicated to promoting social, economic, and environmental justice around the world,” provides news on current global issues, organizes “reality tours” that take participants on education tours to various regions of the world, and offers opportunities to get involved in efforts to build international partnerships and affect change.

Culturelink lists worldwide cultural “E-resources” on its site. They include intergovernmental organizations, national institutions, research institutions, art organizations, and publications.

The government of Canada hosts the Centre for Intercultural Learning. There are resources for different kinds of audiences, for example, government employees, human relations workers, and international teams.