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We are told that with enough ‘intercultural competence’ or ’cultural intelligence’, empathy and training, we can succeed in any intercultural encounter. This is a lie. In this provocative and deeply honest book, Fred Dervin argues that intercultural encounters are necessarily failures – not because we are incompetent but because the structure of understanding itself makes perfect communication impossible. The author does not offer a recipe for success but a framework for living more gracefully with the failure that is inevitable. Through narratives, interdisciplinary conceptual analysis and concrete pedagogical strategies, this book will help you fail better, fail more honestly and maybe even learn to appreciate the sweet grapes you cannot reach. For educators, students and anyone exhausted by the performance of ‘intercultural competence’, this book urges us to put down the mask and step frankly onto the uncrossable bridge of interculturality.
Fred Dervin is Professor of Multicultural Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has published extensively on the hidden complexities of intercultural encounters, drawing on critical and post-critical perspectives. He is also a failed pianist and a devoted Moomin reader.