Researching the Intercultural: Intersubjectivity and the Problem with Postpositivism

Autor/inn/en	Holliday, Adrian; MacDonald, Malcolm N.
Titel	Researching the Intercultural: Intersubjectivity and the Problem with Postpositivism
Quelle	In: Applied Linguistics, 41 (2020) 5, S.621-639 (19 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0142-6001
DOI	10.1093/applin/amz006
Schlagwörter	Intercultural Communication; Postmodernism; Ideology; Neoliberalism; Racial Bias; Cultural Awareness; Commercialization; Foreign Students; Cultural Influences + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Interkulturelle Kommunikation; Postmoderne; Ideologie; Neo-liberalism; Neoliberalismus; Racial discrimination; Rassismus; Cultural identity; Kulturelle Identität; Cultural influence; Kultureinfluss
Abstract	In intercultural communication studies, the positivist preoccupation with objectivist, essentialist, solid large cultures has been replaced by a postmodern recognition that the intercultural is liquid and ideologically constructed. However, a postpositivist resistance to this paradigm change, while recognizing the dangers of essentialism, continues to be objectivist and fails to address the intersubjective nature of the ideological construction of culture. This results in a soft essentialism. This methodological failure of postpositivism is driven by a neoliberal technicalized commodification of quantitative and qualitative methods that does not address the subjective implicatedness of researchers. It therefore prevents an understanding of the liquid nature of the intercultural and sustains the neo-racist implications of essentialism. An example of this is commodifying international students as culturally problematic to serve a quantifiable notion of intercultural competence. The methodological flaws of postpositivism can only be avoided by means of an approach to researching cultural groups in which large culture concepts such as nation are viewed as one of many possible, emergent, ideologically constructed variables rather than as the starting point for research. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01