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Intercultural Leadership Coach/Trainer, Co-founder Superbloom Studios (Start-up Coaching & Consulting)

How did we, intercultural professionals, think about culture before we learnt the current vocabulary of interculturalism? This was a question posed by Jane Everett at the tail end of a very interesting talk by Prof. Carlos Antonio González-Carrasco at a SIETAR Polska event. And that gave me pause! It was such a profound question, especially for someone like me, who landed in intercultural coaching through accident and serendipity. My journey to becoming an intercultural coach was less about planning and more about creating an opening wherever I spotted a sliver of light.?If you look at my profile, you can see it has been a convoluted path from a girl fleeing civil war to Aerospace Engineering to software development to intercultural coaching! So how did I think about cultures and their interactions? I don't have a brilliant answer to that. Actually, it is slightly embarrassing for an intercultural/diversity coach to admit: I probably didn’t think too much about the word "culture" at all, let alone the complex role culture plays in moulding us. I grew up in a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual environment with a family that was respectful of differences. I just assumed everyone is different anyway. Did I some times think that “they” are weird and we are “better”? Honest answer is, sometimes, yes ?? In my defence, I was a teen and I thought even city people were weird compared to us small town people! Growing up in India, I quite often heard the phrase “Unity in diversity” but didn’t always understand what it meant.?It took me years through school and college, meeting people from various societal backgrounds and cultures to appreciate the word “diversity”. That is why, when I hear “wish we had known this earlier” at the end of my intercultural workshops, it doesn’t surprise me at all! We just don’t know what the challenge is, till we actually sit with it and take it apart.?Unfortunately most of the times, the trainings and workshops are requested only when misunderstandings have already occurred ?? But, better late than never! Whatever maybe our starting point, the only way to move forward is finding a way to build real human connections and work together as equals. I always end my workshops with the motto: Cultures can be complementary! As one of my favourite comedians Wanda Sykes says: “No, we are not all the same, but we are equal”. Now I would like to put this question to you (expanding Jane’s question to include all kinds of diversity topics)? ?? How did you think about [insert diversity topic] before you adopted the vocabulary? ? #InterculturalCompetency #Diversity

Kalaivani Mattern

Intercultural Leadership Coach/Trainer, Co-founder Superbloom Studios (Start-up Coaching & Consulting)

3 个月

Thank you Jane, for allowing me to answer in long form ??

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Diversity Vocabulary/language/meanings are "belief systems" of POWER RELATIONS. WE HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMED?TO DISEMPOWER OURSELVES. BY "FREELY" GIVE OUR POWER AWAY AND EMPOWER "OTHERS" "Diversity is intrinsic to all living systems / organisms, everything is energy our inner-micro-cosmos is intertwined with our outer-macro-cosmos (the universe is spiritual - oneness-wholeness). All?cultural, social,?ideological,?political, environmental, financial,?economic, scientific, technological?crises, are interconnected and all have spiritual roots causes". "Interculturalist professionals" are totally unaware/unconscious they are intellectually / culturally programmed /framed with obsolete dogmas, and as such adopt reductionist, fragmented, mechanics, binary western centric (Anglo-Saxon) narratives of separation, of divide and rule. They do not seek to focus on HUMAN DIMENSIONS, they do not design to STAY HUMAN and BE HUMANE.

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