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This article relates the story of Canadian students who went to India for a field placement and do social work. Grounding on Bhabha's theory of "Third Space", the authors describe the different boundaries (cultural, linguistic, cognitive and emotional) that the student had to face and could or not crossed while being in India basing their research on the different feedback given by them. The Student had to continually negotiate cultural difference which leads to inner and outer tension. This article reflects perfectly what every individual lives when going and living in another country. I think that it relates perfectly to everyone of us in this Master.

Dear Cecile, I am trying to read your article, but I cant open it. I am trying to find the options to register, but I cant find it. Can you send me the text by email. Thanks

This is typical example that shows clearly that you are never prepared enough for culture differences and to find a way how to manage them. From the students discourse, you can see that they know that they will experience culture´s shock, that they are going to encounter culture difference. They have also knowledge about Indian culture. But it´s obviously they know just the top of iceberg. I was reading what the students were saying. It´s very interesting to see their reactions. You have a group of students from the same country, the same context that react differently totally different context. The barriers of culture differences can make us more or more open to know and to share with the others or the totally opposite. Of course you need time and the example of the students is very concrete one. The students were in the process of knowing the culture, exploring it. As everything new that we encounter, we react also differently toward the unknown.

"This review surveys and divides the ethnographic corpus on digital media into three broad but overlapping categories: the cultural politics of digital media, the vernacular cultures of digital media, and the prosaics of digital media. Engaging these three categories of scholarship on digital media, I consider how ethnographers are exploring the complex relationships between the local practices and global implications of digital media, their materiality and politics, and their banal, as well as profound, presence in cultural life and modes of communication. I consider the way these media have become central to the articulation of cherished beliefs, ritual practices, and modes of being in the world; the fact that digital media culturally matters is undeniable but showing how, where, and why it matters is necessary to push against peculiarly narrow presumptions about the universality of digital experience."

relevant to Geanina's presentation on digital media

A "cultural interpreter" is an active participant in a cross-cultural/lingual interaction, assisting the provider in understanding the beliefs and practices of the client's culture and assisting the client in understanding the dominant culture, by providing cultural as well as linguistic links. This model of interpreting service was developed out of an awareness that communication is seriously impaired by insensitivity to the role of culture in the content and manner of communication, particularly in formal interactions (Cairncross, 1989). There are certain ideas about what it means to be a good interpreter. Perfect knowledge of at least two languages, good memory and general knowledge are some of the skills people see as fundamental. However, one of the most important skills seems to be the ability to bridge the gap between two cultures, or in other words, to be aware of certain boundaries, which need to be crossed.

Here is an overview about how we can gain trust within a multicultural environment. The importance of information and knowledge about other cultures and language barriers help to improve the effectiveness of multicultural team´s interaction.

thank you. I wonder what the common values are, if we are to trust each other in multicultural environment.

Thank you Anola for this article. It is very interesting and reflects a lot what is happening in companies nowadays, as well as what we went through in this Master. I follow Dora's comments when saying that this topic should be seen from someone else's point of view. It is very clear that it is only the American's point of view on how to build trust as well as how other's see it. It would be interesting to compare it, and realize that maybe we don't define the concept of 'trust' the same way depending on the culture.

"Here we present findings from the "Religion among Academic Scientists" study, a survey (N=1,646) and initial in-depth interviews (N=150) with natural and social scientists at twenty-one elite US research universities. We examine the attitudes academic scientists at these universities have about the perceived conflict between religion and science and their personal cultural construction of the boundaries between science and religion. Using survey data, results show that field-specific differences, being in the natural or social sciences, are not significant predictors of adopting the conflict paradigm, refuting previous research. Attention to in-depth interviews reveals three mechanisms of boundary-crossing, where boundaries between religion and science are transgressed: institutional pull, boundary pioneering, and environmental push. These results contribute key mechanisms of boundary change and boundary crossing between the specific knowledge domains of science and religion to the growing sociology of culture literature on boundaries."

Werner Heisenberg. Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik. (Piper, 2001) This book is written by one of the foundator and leading scientist of quantum mechanics and physics and is a very light-speaking, anecdoting story telling about Heisenberg's life, education, personal life and development. When he mentiones his awakening interest in physicsm he talks a lot about Platon and it is very interesting to read about his attitude towards religion and the principal questions of religion. It is also him we attribute the famous sentence: The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

merci Dora, let us look at religion & science as two sources of knowledge. In my case, I would be most familiar with the Bahai Faith (www.bahai.org) and I do believe that this Faith has a new contribution in the task of transforming society.

Award-winning reporter Anne Fadiman presents a delectable "fish soup" of a book about the encounter between a Hmong family and the American medical community. This poignant study of the clash of cultural beliefs and practices touches some fundamental issues surrounding scientific progress and humanity. I read this book for my bachelor thesis, looking at it from a more linguistic perspective. It is, however, a very good example of how difficult it can be when two different cultures collide and nobody is really aware of the other culture's customs and traditions. Not being aware of the 'others' worldview makes it difficult if not impossible to crossan existing boundary. If you're interested,I think it is a really nice book to be read.

This a report on a very interesting conference held in May 2004 at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Conference in Bangkok, Thailand. Some keywords for those who might be interested: gender, technology and development. The report provides an interesting insight into several studies on this field. For instance, one of the papers discussed emphasizes the role of vocational training for migrant women regarding their negotiations with the workmarket. One of the aspects discussed: "how do young [migrant] North American women perceive and understand, hear and listen, to the voices of their sisters [native women] across culture, class, status, skin, and language?" It is definitely an interesting issue, where crossing boundaries is a factor of development.

I think you have to be logged in in portail bnu

Unfortunately, this is not the article about the original incident, but I'll explain what happened, I think it can relate to our topics: one area of downtown Seattle is known for its large numbers of transient Native Americans, many of whom are homeless or appear so. Sadly, they are often drunk in public and associate with a drug-using underbelly of the city. Of course this is a stereotype and not all the Indians in the area are like this, but many are. A few months ago, an older First Nations male from Vancouver Island who was a respected woodcarver in his community and was known among this "drunk/drugged out" crowd in Seattle was shot and killed by a Seattle policeman. Apparently the cop approached him and asked him to put down his carving knife. He did not obey, supposedly because he didn't hear because he was listening to music and was deaf in one ear. The cop opened fire and killed the man. Obviously, this generated a lot of controversy and protest especially among the Native American community of Seattle and North America. The man had some psychological issues according to some friends, but is that a reason to have opened fire on him? Do these tragedies have to happen for us to rethink our intercultural comprehension? This opens up wounds and old racial conflicts that have been going on for 150 years. The cop's previous experience with Indians of the area coupled with stereotypes led him to act, in my opinion incredibly irrationally, which resulted in the death of a respected wood carver. Sadly, the boundary present at this conflict was crossed by the cop in a brutal way, and this has resulted in the creation of more boundaries and perhaps a further divide between law enforcement officers and the people of the area. This will create fear and mistrust among the transient community and perhaps the Indian community as a whole, which in turn could lead to even more violence and further propagation of stereotypes. If handled poorly, no positive de