Transculturalism

Description

Hanzi Freinacht:

"The view we shall be exploring here, and which I hold can and should be a part of an effective Gemeinschaft Politics. The transculturalist position holds that it is both true that diversity is good, that racism, inequality, and discrimination are real issues with their own respective (often postcolonial) historical roots, and that there are real problems of integration and inter-cultural relations, as well as real limitations to and problems inherent in the cultures of different ethnic groups and cultures in society. As such, it takes a transformational view on ethnic groups (whether these happen to be constructed along the lines of race, nationality, ethnic denominations, or religious practices) and holds them responsible vis-à-vis one another as parts of “the whole” of society that results from their interactions. This sometimes involves making a value judgment of or comparison between the ethical desirability of cultures.

It should be noted that these four positions largely line up around four different “value-memes” prevalent in late modern societies (value-memes being the overall structures of people’s values and ways of making sense of the world): Traditionalists tend towards Nationalism, Moderns (“mainstream people”) towards Non-Nationalism, Postmodernists towards Multiculturalism, and Metamodernists towards Transculturalism."

(https://metamoderna.org/the-failure-of-multiculturalism-and-its-resolution-transculturalism/)

Characteristics

Hanzi Freinacht:

"The “rules of engagement of cross-cultural development”, is a too complex issue to be done justice in a single article. But let me introduce three concepts to get us started: The Parallax View, The Cultural Hybrid, and Ethnic Inter-Creativity. Both of these hold within them great potential to unlock a more self-aware and co-creative relationship with cultures around the world.

The Parallax View

... is the critical view of one’s own culture that comes from deeply immersing oneself in the perspective of “the other”. It is a form of “triangulation”, and so often requires not only the two meeting cultures to have facilitated meetings of negotiation, but also the presence of representatives of one or more other cultures who can comment upon the positions, critiques, and demands made by either side. As such, the self-critique within each culture is empowered and corroborated by the views of outsider observers. This affords stronger vectors of critique and cultural evolution on both sides — while balancing the demands in manners that attempt to counteract the power relations between the two cultures. The aim here is a kind of cross-cultural fairness or justice: that cultures are treated as equals, and thus that their members feel more respected and dignified, which allows for lesser defensiveness and greater openness to challenge own practices and biases.

The Cultural Hybrid

...is the person who is deeply immersed in more than one (usually two) cultures and can thus serve as a bridge and interpreter during Transcultural negotiations. Often, they may have one parent from each of the cultures in question, or at the very least have lived in and identified with both of them. They thus feel responsible for and loyal towards both sides. Tyson Yunkaporta, the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, can serve as an emblematic example, here in the case of the intersection between Aboriginal and Australian (Anglo-Saxon) cultures. The Cultural Hybrid is thus an invaluable resource in cross-cultural development — in Transcultural processes. They are better situated than others to adopt The Parallax View of the interactions of cultures. Again, this underscored the profound value of deep inter-cultural interactions: without close relationships, fewer such hybrids are born and socialized.

Ethnic Inter-Creativity

... is a concept I explored (albeit under different names) in my own earlier work with the role of race and ethnicity in police work. The idea is that members of one culture (usually the majority culture) should become as aware as possible of their own role of co-creating the ethnic identities of members of other communities, by virtue of how they interact with and treat them. People define their own ethnic and racial identities to a large extent by how they are met by members of other cultures. For instance, the treatment a minority group member receives by law enforcers that represent the hegemonic culture will lead to identifications with the own culture in more or less antagonistic terms. By extension, the same argument holds across all such interactions: Part by part, we shape how the culture of “the other” is expressed, which parts of it are emphasized, embodied, and enacted. This leads to greater self-reflection and to a greater sense of empowerment in regard to how “other cultures” play out in society. You come to realize that you have more power to shape how other cultures evolve than you might think, and you begin to take greater responsibility for how your own actions mold them. Taken together, these are steps towards creating institutional practices that serve as a Transcultural Arbiter. One culture can never fully grasp and judge another culture. But this very paradox can be turned on its head and be made to work in favor of mutually desirable developments across cultures."

Discussion

Hanzi Freinacht:

"I thus hold that societies need to increasingly cultivate and establish institutional practices informed by Transculturalism. This is in keeping with the idea that societies around the world would do well to develop more “metamodern” institutions in order to thrive and survive in the face of mounting disruptions that come with systemic shifts. Transculturalism is a social process (or set of social processes) that manages and develops the quality of ethnic and racial relations. If we seek to resolve the culture wars of today, Transculturalism is our best bet. If we seek to create harmonious relations between groups in society, Transculturalism, the same holds true.

In brief, it can be argued that Nationalism exacerbates ethnic division while only momentarily soothing the grievances of the in-group, Non-Nationalism fails to address ethnic realities and treats the issue with a naïve belief in the progress of society through economic transactions, while Multiculturalism leads to some inescapable paradoxes: More cultures are added and strengthened besides one another, but they fail to interact productively across their cultural divides, and the relativism of “you cannot judge one culture on the premises of another” leads to impasses when it comes to challenging and transforming cultures into better versions of themselves, with better interactions across cultures."

(https://metamoderna.org/the-failure-of-multiculturalism-and-its-resolution-transculturalism/)

Shifting Gear to Transculturalism

Hanzi Freinacht:

"It is these paradoxes that must be addressed for the current societal impasse to be surmounted. The fundamental shift of perspective from Multiculturalism to Transculturalism is the following one:

If cultures are to have the right to exist and gain recognition in an environment of other cultures that they interact with, they must also be charged with the obligation to develop and transform into versions of themselves that are — not subjected to, but — compatible with the other cultures.

In terms of majority cultures, this very often comes down to increased tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance. It comes down to curiosity towards “the other” and strong norms against discrimination, as well as increased self-awareness of how privileges can shape biases and prejudice. This is not to say, in the case of for instance Western majority populations, that self-defeatism and shame should become the norm, or that the cultures should cease to express themselves through traditions, customs, and values. It simply means that, in order for these cultures to live up to their own values, racism should be viewed as entirely unacceptable — and that histories of oppression (colonial, genocidal, or other) are owned up to. You have the right to express pride in your own culture, but also the obligation to embody the best version of that culture in a manner that respects other cultures. In other words, nationalist and chauvinist reactions must be questioned and condemned. On a day-to-day level, it’s not okay to refuse to rent your summer house family to another family-based only on their Arabic family name, for instance. Hence, real work with transforming dominant cultures and owning up to the postcolonial heritage must be worked with until the norms are conclusively shifted towards tolerance and inclusion. As argued in last week’s article, cultivating the psychological capacity for Acceptance among the population may be an effective lever to pull in this regard.

This struggle with postcolonial ghosts of Christmas’ past undeniably even has geopolitical consequences. If Western cultures retreat into Nationalism or default to Non-Nationalism (largely ignoring issues of race, still the majority position in Western cultures), this will only feed the revanchist tendencies of new global powers, from China, to India’s Hindu nationalism, to the public Russian support for Vladimir Putin’s warmongering. The Global South, in Africa in particular, is increasingly turning away from the West’s attempt to uphold a liberal world order, and often questionable regimes are colluding increasingly with the powers of Russia and China in what seems to be amounting to a new Cold War.

Simply said, Western cultures, in their failure to take up the obligations that come with their own values, are fanning the flames of hurt pride around the world, of peoples trampled over decades and centuries. Whereas the dark clouds on the geopolitical horizon cannot simply be reduced to this one issue, it is very likely a strong contributor to the situation. “We” Westerners need to evolve our cultures, swallow some pride (which is often disowned shame and guilt), and be humble towards the rich contributions of others. But the hurt pride of other cultures lives on even within our own societies — from the experience of being Black or Latino in the United States to being Arab or African in Europe, people are feeling downtrodden, and understandably so. When riots arise in our banlieues or ghettos, or when ISIS emerges as a specter of our cultural dynamics, we shouldn’t be so surprised.

For other cultures, the demands upon their evolution naturally vary from case to case. Indian culture has a grim heritage of the caste system, which is viewed as largely unacceptable in other parts of the world. Honor killings, antagonistic isolationism, and limitations on the freedom of women are unacceptable aspects of many Muslim communities in the West. In each of these cases, the answers do not lie in denial of one’s own heritage, but in creative redefinitions of the culture.

A similar position has been explored by the sociologists Michael O. Emerson and George Yancey in their 2010 book, Transcending Racial Barriers: Toward a Mutual Obligations Approach. While I don’t support everything in the book, and while the study they base their reasoning on is much too small and limited, I do feel that they capture something essential in their “mutual obligations approach”. Groups have a right to be mutually respected, yes, but they also have obligations towards one another. And those obligations can only reasonably be negotiated mutually. There need to be institutional practices that facilitate such mutual expectations of obligations to develop, to evolve, to transform. That is marital counseling functions, and cultures of the world are, in an interconnected world, stuck with one another. We’re collectively married, whether we like it or not.

Today, such institutional practices and skillsets of facilitation hardly exist. But it could certainly motivate people to change their own cultures and positions — in keeping with their own traditions and customs — if people see corresponding work to change on the other side. Again, just as the two individuals of a marriage are reasonably obliged to help both parties become the best versions of themselves, so cultures can and should be charged with the task to help one another improve, to live up to our own ideals, to become cultures more worthy of respect and recognition.

And that’s the real wealth of multiple cultures co-existing. It’s that each culture is a parallel perspective, a weird mirror through which we can see new aspects of ourselves. The promise is not perfect harmony or the resolution of all ethnic tensions. The promise is increased collective intelligence. As a global community, we’re ultimately lucky to have each other, even if it hurts, even if there are clashes and misunderstandings.

Without each other, we are culturally blind. With the right processes — arduous as they must be—we can see our own cultures from the outside, and work to honor our respective cultural heritages by cultivating cultures that we are proud of and command the liking and respect of others."

(https://metamoderna.org/the-failure-of-multiculturalism-and-its-resolution-transculturalism/)

Cases

The Transcultural Policies of the Belgian City of Mechelen

Hanzi Freinacht:

"An Example of Transculturalism: Mechelen

Mechelen is a Belgian town of some 80,000 inhabitants. In the early 2000s, the city had high unemployment, a large immigrant (mostly Muslim) minority, and high crime rates, with ethnic tensions as a result. This development was turned around with a comprehensive plan to adjust ethnic relations, which arguably serves as a case of Gemeinschaft Politics and Transculturalism. When ISIS exploded across Europe, Belgium had the highest per capita prevalence of people joining the organization — but Mechelen impressively had no recorded instances.

Under the leadership of Mayor Bart Somers, a program was introduced that took the following steps, in sequence:

• Restoring order through increased police presence in key areas, increasing the sense of safety.

A wide public information campaign that set up a sort of “mutual obligations” social contract: Ethnic Flemish Belgians were asked to show tolerance to minorities but have zero tolerance of the discrimination of minorities, while minorities were asked to take steps to make their families conform with law and order.

• Middle-class families of ethnic Belgians were reached out to, one by one, in the hundreds, to get them to accept having their own children in the same schools as immigrant children, tackling each of their concerns with safety and quality of education on a case-by-case basis. This broke up the segregation and re-zoning of school districts that had accumulated, increasing the number of positive interactions between ethnic groups.

• Most controversially, perhaps, the Muslim youths of the municipality were all offered trips to Cordoba in Spain, where the Cordoban Caliphate of the 10th century has been a Muslim center of learning, science, pluralism, and tolerance of Europe in the Middle Ages. This thus tilts the expression of Muslim minority identities — towards pride, and also towards a real historical heritage of progressiveness and cosmopolitanism. Arguably, this was key to creating an alternative local Muslim identity, one that proved resistant to the lure of ISIS propaganda and chauvinism.

Simply stated, a rather advanced version of a “mutual obligations approach” was adopted over a number of years. And indeed, ethnic tensions were reduced, while still honoring the cultures and heritages involved. Mayor Somers was awarded the World Mayor Prize in 2016.

This is just one simple example of the potential inherent in the Transcultural stance. It’s not perfect and can certainly be critiqued. Much still needs to be invented by movement leaders, grassroots, and public officials on a case-to-case basis."

(https://metamoderna.org/the-failure-of-multiculturalism-and-its-resolution-transculturalism/)