Who is my neighbour? Who is my “stranger”

1. Who is my neighbour? Who is my “stranger” Living in intercultural-community life

2. My neighbour is……

3. “Stranger” is It could be anyone whom you are unconcerned, whom you have kept outside of the domain of your care and concern, even if he lives under the same roof… roof of your community, or the congregation.

4. Our call, in conformity with Christ, is to broaden our hearts to include all into the circle of our love As Abiding love that keeps on in different moments of life

5. World population 2007 6,605 million Africa: 935 million Asia:4004 million Europe: 727 million N. America: 523 million S. America: 380 million Oceania: 33 million God created the world and all in it….God found that it was good.Gen.1

6. World Religions Christianity: 2.1 billion Islam: 1.3 billion Secular, atheist, agnostic: 1.1.b Hindus 900 million Buddhism: 376 million Chinese traditional: 394 million Africa traditional: 100 million Sikhism. 23 million Judaism. 14 million Bahai. 7 million Jainism. 4.2 million Zoroastrian. 2.6 million

8. Diversity of cultures Unity in Diversity

9. Inter-creational communication and communion

10. God created unity in diversity

11. Diveristy is celebration of God’s creativity

12. Catholics: 1.100 Orthodox. 225 Angicans. 77 Assemblies of God. 55 Ethiopian Orthodox. 35 Iglesia ni Cristo. 27 Seventhday adventist. 16 Southern Baptist.16 Yahveh witness: 15 Methodists: 11 Diversity in Christian World in millions

13. Jesuits. 20.170 Salesians. 16,682 OFM. 16,013 OFM Cap. 11,321 Benedictines. 7,860 Dominicans. 6137 SVD. 6051 Christian bros. 5,875 CSSR. 5,676 OMI. 4,587 OFM Conv. 4,565 FMS marist. 4,470 CM Lazarists. 4,063 OCD. 4,039 CMF. 3,090 Spiritans. 2,985 Men Religious in the Church (2003)

14. Cultural Differences and conflicts • Ethnic violence claims more deaths each year. • Rwanda Hutus-Tutsis: estimated: 800,000 • Srilanka: Tamil-Simhala: 80,000 • Indo-Pak tension:80,000 • Irak: Sunni.Shiite: 14000 civilians in 2006 • Chad. Last week: 100 • The list is endless

15. It costs to humanity terribly, if we do not know how to benefit from and build up together with our differences

16. Intercultural Religious communities Witness, hope and challenge

17. Intercultural communities: Graces • Witness to God the Father • Visibile expression of gospel love • Personal and community growth • Richness of variety, creativity and complementarity • Apostolic fecundity • Universal brotherhood

18. Intercultural community: challenges • Usually no physical violence or open fight, but…. • Prejudices, stereotypes • Cultural Domination • Communication failures • Misunderstanding, aleanation • Goup conflicts, unhealthy division • Minority discount, Cultural shield • Majority homogeneous cultural amnesia • Confusion of cultural relativism and moral relativism. Cause serious erosion of apostolic energy and ineffective witness

19. Some theoretical considerations

20. Perception in communication Look at this picture and observe the changing perception in a different perspective… Percpetion is our individual mode of viewing others and the world, mediated by our senses, attitudes, values, needs and emotions

21. Human: our view of ourselves that we believe we share with all other humans. Our identities in communication Social: view of ourselves that we share with others in our ingroups. Group identity. • Personal. The view of ourselves that differentiates from other group members. Uniqueness as individuals

22. Our vocational identity is linked to the purpose of our life on earth It integrates all our identities into a meaningful whole

23. Your ethnic group? What are the groups do you feel more identified with? Your nationality ? Your church? How do you perceive the outsiders of your preferred group? Where do you place those whom you have relational conflicts with? YOur congregation? The culture of the people of your mission? YOur family, kith and kin?

24. Ethnic identiy It influence our identity when we interact with another ethnic person Gender indentity Differences in the way men and Women interact. Men: differentiation, assertion Women: relational processes Our social identities in communication Age related social identiy Age differenes cause unxiety and uncertainty. Generation gap. Elders, young, children Social class Social class to which we belong and identify with affect behaviour.

25. The group that we identify with influences our communication with “strangers” If your group’s values are openness, respect, inclusion and universal fraternity, communication with members of outgroups tend to be mutually rewarding.

26. We affiliate to the group that supports our self esteem If needs such as affection, aggression and inferiroty are predominant in us, we tend to identify with those groups that support it. If vocational values are predominant in our self-defenition, there is more openness to relate with strangers fraternally. Identity and affiliation

27. How much do you tap on your vocational identity for your self esteem? Is your Claretian Vocation a source of meaning of your life? How much do you value your community for your need for belongingness and vocational living?

28. Polarized communication: tendency to view oneself as right and other as wrong. Moral exclusiveness: the other does not deserve fairness and equity. Spiritual deprivation: tendency to view oneself as a superior to others, or a victim of maltreatment. Reserve for onself the right to be aggressive and hostile. Lack of communication skills resulting in misunderstanding and misinterptetation Relational problems in intercultural groups

29. Uncertainty and anxiety in relating with strangers Predictive uncertainty: about predicting other’s attitudes, feelings, beliefs, values etc. Uncertainty Explanation uncertainty: about explaining the other’s behaviour Feelings of uneasiness, tension, worry about what might happen. It could be about it: Loss of esteem, discomfort and awkwardness about intergroup communications. fear of others behaviour, being dominated etc. negative evaluation of others. Rejection, redicule. fear of the reactions of ingroups.disapproval Anxiety

30. Learning effective inter-cultural communication How to Understand, appreciate and effecitvely communicate with the strangers?

31. It is important Know cultural similarities and differences Cultures fall along different polar dimensions Individualism: emphasis on individual goals, promotes self-realization, subjective sense of rightness and personal well being. “I” precede over “we”, horizontal relationship prevalent. Collectivism: group goals important. Individuals are to fit into their groups. Group activities are dominant. Shared responsibility and accountability. “we” precede over “I”. Emphasis on group belongingness. Vertical relationships prevalent. Individualism Collectivism High context messages: most information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person. Very little is in the coded, explicity, transmitted part of the message. You have to guess a lot. Hight context Low context: much of the message is vested in the explicit code. Messages are more clearly communicated. Direct, clear and to the point. Low context

32. Cultural differences Low in uncertainty avoidance avoidance. Low stress levels. Accept dissent and take risks. “What is different is curios” High in uncertainty avoidance: Low tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity. Great need for Formal rules, consensus. Structure,, organizationas refuge. High power distance Authority is placed high Low power distance Authoirty closer, dialogical Masculinity: gender roles Important. assertiveness Feminity: value equality Fluid sex roles, interdependence mutuality

33. Cultural identiy It is our social identiy that focus on our membership in our cultures and exert influence on our communication Strength of cultural identity: degree to which our cultures are important to define us. Content: our individualistic or collectivistic tendencies. Collective self esteem is the degree to which we generally evaluate our social groups positively. When we fight, put down, or defeat outgroup members, our collective self.esteem is boosted.

34. What is predominant in you: individualistic or collectivistic trend? • Is your culture individualistic or collectivistic? • Hight context or low context culture? • High power distant or low power distant? • Hight in Masculine culture or feminine culture? • Do you try to understand the culture from where your brother hails from?

35. Expectation: our anticipations and predictions about how others will communicte with us. Based on social norms and communication rules, our attitudes and stereotypes Our expectations from ingroups tend to be positive and those from outgroups negative Ethnocentrism, prejudice and stereotypes affect our expectations Expectations in communication

36. It is the view of things in which one’s own group is the measure of everything and others are rated in reference to it. We all have some degree of ethnocentric attitudes A highly ethno centric person sees one’s own group as virtuous and superior, others as inferior. Ingroup values as seen as applicable to all Ethnocentric speech: talk that distances outgroup members. Eg., derogatory comments, Speaking one’s own dialect etc. Ethnocentrism

37. Often we display prejudice and racism in our everyday actions, though we are not aware of it. It can be reduced by cultivating universal values in personal life and mindfulness in our communication. Making pre-judgement based on membership in a social category. It can be positive or negative, low or high. Negative ethnic prejudice is an antipathy based on faulty and unflexible generalization Prejudice

38. Pictures we have in our heads for the people whom we place in various social categories. It is a natural part of communication process 3 aspects We categorize others based on identifiable characteristics We assume that certain attributes apply to all in that group. We assume that individual members of that group have these atributes Stereotypes

39. Attributing meaning to others’ behaviour Based on perceptual process Our perceptions involve our awareness of what is taking place in our environment Our Perceptions are selective: we attend only to selected stimuli based on our cultures, ethnicities, age, sex, past experience and needs Perceptions involve categorizations. We categorize information into meaningful patterns. Rigid categories inhibit accurate perception because it does not see individual variations.

40. Attributions are your attempts to explain your own and other’s behaviour especially with regard to reasons for the behaviour. You try to determine if the individual or some outside factor is responsible for the behaviour. Accordingly you hold the person responsible. Attribution Consider the following: - A priest left religious life to live with a nun he was working with. -A nurse did a wrong injection and the patient died. nurse is your sister. -A nurse did a wrong injection and the patient died. The patient is your brother. What do you think why they behave this way?

41. Consensus: Do the otherpeoplebehave the same way? Ifnot, attributionis to internalcauses Consistency: Does the personbehave the same way in similarothersituations ? If yes, atributionis to internalcauses. Distinctiveness: Does the personbehave the same way in differentsituations? If yes, atributionis to internalcauses. Attributionprinciples: We tend to attribute ours/ingroup’s negative behaviors to situational or external factors and deny responsibility. But we may easily attribute our positive behaviors to internal factors and take credit for them

42. When strangers behave negatively, we tend to atribute it to internal factors and hold them responsible. We tend to treat their positive behaviours as “exceptions to the rule” and attribute them to situational factors. Attribution in inter-cultural context Halo effect If you have positive impression of someone, you do not perceive the negative in that person

43. Emotion expression and recognition Cultural rules control the expression of emotions. Meaning of emotional expressions too are different. Eg. Smile may express fruendliness, but may be seen as insolence Non verbal communication: Cultural differences

44. Contact: interpersonal distance & space Distance: people stand from each other Sensory involvement: (smell etc.) Touch: high touch, low touch cultures Eye contact: avoidance of eye contact or make contact. Voice: loud talk, soft talk Use of Time Plychromic time people: more talk, relational, less schedules Monochromic: time schedules, task oriented, respect privacy, appointments Other Cultural differences

45. Practical Part Learning to improve skills for effective communication

46. Improve the quality of messages 1. Being assertive and not aggressive • Being assetive • State your wants • Honestly describe the stranger’s behaviour (not interpret them) • Use direct language to express what you mean • Use “I” messages • Be listening and caring • Not Aggressive by • Attacking the self-concepts of others • Attack character, competence, background, appearence. • Insult, tease, ridicule, threat

47. 2. Being confirming Recognize, Acknowledge, and endose the person and views of the stranger. 3. Create inclusive messages Treat them as one of you and use inclusive language. “We”, “our mission”.

48. Skills for effective communication Ability to be Mindful, To be Aware Ability to manage anxiety Control body symptoms Control worrying thoughts Ability to tolerate ambiguity To bear with uncertainity To face reality as it comes

49. Skills for effective communication Ability to Empathize Takes the perspecitive of the other Have insight into his/her emotions Communicate Understanding and concern Ability to make accuate predications and explanations Unbiased perception Realistic prediction And explanation of others behaviour

50. How to improve perceptions? • Recognize your role in perception. Your emotional and physiological state will influence the meaning you give to perceptions.