Lise Paulsen Galal, Kirsten Hvenegard-Lassen Organised Cultural Encounters

Annotation

This book explores a particular genre of intervention into cultural difference, used across the globe. Organised cultural encounters is an umbrella concept referring to face-to-face encounters that are organised across a wide variety of social arenas in order to manage and/or transform problems  perceived to stem from cultural difference.  The authors base their focus on empirical contexts either located in Denmark or related to a Danish organisation, investigating interfaith work, training sessions in diversity management, volunteer tourism, a youth diversity project called the Cultural Encounters Ambassadors, and a community dance project. Through different theoretical approaches, and careful analyses of the micro-level practices occurring within the time-space of specific encounters, Galal and Hvenegard-Lassen demonstrate how both the interactions and their outcomes are considerably more complex - and contradictory - than evaluative and instrumental accounts of success or failure may capture.  This book will provide a valuable resource for practitioners and scholars of intercultural relations working in the fields of cultural geography, anthropology, cultural studies, and migration studies.