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Journal of Intercultural Communication

Research
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Intercultural Communication in the

Global Village: How to Understand “The
Other”
Min-Sun Kim & Amy S. Ebesu Hubbard
Published online: 29 Nov 2007.

To cite this article: Min-Sun Kim & Amy S. Ebesu Hubbard (2007) Intercultural Communication
in the Global Village: How to Understand “The Other”, Journal of Intercultural Communication
Research, 36:3, 223-235, DOI: 10.1080/17475750701737165

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 Journal of Intercultural Communication Research
Vol. 36, No. 3, November 2007, pp. 223–235

Intercultural Communication in the

Global Village: How to Understand
‘‘The Other’’
Min-Sun Kim & Amy S. Ebesu Hubbard
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Intercultural communication scholarship is poised to be a powerful force in the

communication field as well as social sciences in general. In this paper, we focus on
four main areas which we hope will spur creative academic inquiry in the future.
More productive efforts will move beyond the ethnocentrism that permeates current
communication research and will entail a thorough redefinition of personhood. Future
work will move beyond discussions of how cultures assimilate to include how other
cultures interact in a host culture to sustain multiple cultural identities. Additionally,
research will move beyond examining linguistic and cultural differences, to also recognize
the social-action nature of communication. Finally, future endeavors will move beyond
the study of culture-typed identities and question the very notion of cultural boundaries.
We predict that the inevitable challenges posed by multiculturalism will allow
intercultural communication studies to play a more central role as an interdisciplinary
‘‘clearing-house’’ within the social sciences.
Keywords: Intercultural Communication; Ethnocentrism; Multicultural Perspectives;
Communication Research

There is, perhaps, no more important topic in the social sciences than the study of
intercultural communication (Young, 1996). Understanding between members of
different cultures was always important, but it has never been as important as it is
now in the twenty-first century. Formerly, it was necessary for empire, or trade.
Today, it is a matter of survival for our species.

Min-Sun Kim (Ph.D., 1992, Michigan State University) is a Professor and Amy S. Ebesu Hubbard (Ph.D., 1996,
University of Arizona) an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech at the University of Hawai’i at
Mānoa. Correspondence to Professor Min-Sun Kim, Department of Speech, University Hawai’i at Mānoa,
George Hall 331, 2560 Campus Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA. Email: kmin@hawaii.edu

ISSN 1747-5759 (print)/ISSN 1747-5767 (online) ß 2007 World Communication Association

DOI: 10.1080/17475750701737165
 224 M.-S. Kim & A. S. Ebesu Hubbard
The field of intercultural communication has intrinsic interest for diverse
people and offers new frontiers to cross and explore. Our field is increasingly
playing a central role, not only in communication, but also in the social sciences as a
practical response to contemporary social changes, such as cultural diversity and
widespread demands for equitable participation in the construction of ‘‘knowledge’’
(M.-S. Kim, 2007a). The work of many scholars also reminds us that the
global village is a community, a place where people come together to share
their lives, for better or for worse. Human society is in the middle of the most
profoundly disorienting transition since the dawn of the Neolithic period. As conflict
intensifies between culturally defined groups of people, there is general agreement
that culture is an indispensable component in the understanding of human behavior,
including communication.
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In the summer of 1993, the Journal of Communication published a series of

articles trying to see the ‘‘ferment of change’’ in communication. Despite all the
different points of view, proposals, and approaches of the authors, fragmentation,
uncertainty, isolation, lack of ontological status, a sense of crisis, and a lack of
confrontation and cooperation were some of the terms used to characterize the field
in its current state. Quoting Rosengren, for example,
It is as if the field of communication research was punctuated by a number of
isolated frog ponds—with no friendly croaking between the ponds, very little
productive intercourse at all, few cases of successful cross-fertilization. (Rosengren,
1993, p. 9)

The purpose of this essay is to point out the unique role of the intercultural
communication field in correcting this situation. Specifically, rather than focusing on
the frog (even with some fruitful cross-fertilization) which will end in monocultural
myopia, intercultural communication helps us move beyond mere cross-fertilization
among frogs in a pond.
Overall, communication scholars have long ignored ‘‘culture’’ as a source of
influence on human communication behavior and still take little account of
the theories and data from other than Euro-American cultures. Just as quickly as the
fish-out-of-water discovers its significance, so too must communication scholars
contend with culture as an important foundation for the discipline (e.g., M.-S. Kim,
2007a; 2007b). Craig (2007), in his introduction to the issue forum on Cultural Bias
in Communication Theory, asked ‘‘when viewed from the standpoint of particular
cultures, does mainstream communication theory appear to be culturally biased?’’
(p. 256). The answer is a definitive, ‘‘yes.’’ In the related discipline of psychology,
the problem seems entrenched. Segall, Lonner, and Berry (1998) commented
that psychology has been extremely reluctant to recognize culture. According to
them, ‘‘perhaps the answer lies in an observation (attributed to Marshall McLuhan):
‘‘It is a cinch [that] fish didn’t discover water’’ (p. 1101). Just as clearly, mainstream
communication researchers did not discover culture.
However, with national societies becoming more diverse and international
contacts becoming common, communication researchers can no longer assume an
 Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 225
acultural or a unicultural stance. People are more frequently involved in situations
where intercultural communication is required, and when intercultural commu-
nication is neglected, its difficulties are painfully recognized. In this paper, then, we
will focus on some creative perspectives and discussions and propose several future
research directions to rectify this situation. Our aim is to take inventory of recent
developments in the communication field and demonstrate the central and essential
role of intercultural communication scholarship.

Understanding ‘‘the Other’’

Not so long ago, the world was (still is?) ‘‘us’’ versus ‘‘savages’’ (‘‘noble’’ at times).
The ‘‘others’’ were ‘‘foreign devils’’ or ‘‘barbarians,’’ and we ‘‘the center of the
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universe and civilization,’’ making ‘‘the other’’ lesser human beings than ‘‘us.’’
Understanding strangers’ communication styles, a fundamental part of intercultural
communication, constituted an essential step to go beyond the dichotomy of ‘‘us’’
versus ‘‘them.’’ In this section, we outline the emerging concerns/developments
of intercultural communication research in our attempts to understand ‘‘the other’’:
(a) Beyond Ethnocentric Theorizing; (b) Beyond Assimilation, (c) Beyond Linguistic/
Cultural Differences; and (d) Beyond the Study of Culture-Typed Identities.

Beyond Ethnocentric Theorizing

S. G. Sumner (1906) introduced the concept of ‘‘ethnocentrism’’ early last century;
it refers to the tendency that most people see their own culture as the ‘‘center of
the world.’’ Frequently this phenomenon was seen as the result of ‘‘naı̈ve’’ thinking,
following from the assumption of the world in itself being like it appears to
the individual: a set of ‘‘self-evident’’ rules, roles, categories and relationships, seen
as ‘‘natural.’’
Ethnocentrism leads to misunderstanding of others. We falsely distort what is
meaningful and functional to other people through our own tinted glasses. We see
their ways in terms of our life experience, not their context. Many of us feel this
kind of ethnocentrism may plague ‘‘common’’ folks, but not the sophisticated
scientists. However, as human beings, when social scientists ask a research question,
they have to interpret, store, retrieve, and behave in response to internal and
external stimuli, based on the set of norms, traditions, expectancies, and theories in
which they were socialized, enculturated, trained, and acculturated. That is, in spite
of their ‘‘scientific’’ theories and sophisticated methodologies, social scientists
(including communication scholars) still run the risk of being ‘‘naı̈ve’’ egocentric
individuals (see Diaz-Loving, 1999, for a similar argument for the field of
psychology). This is problematic when the ultimate goal of science is the production
of general statements about all relevant phenomena, using appropriate theoretical
and methodological tools (Berry, 1978).
The field of human communication was largely developed in the US, promulgating
the themes of research and the contents of the theories that served its own society.
 226 M.-S. Kim & A. S. Ebesu Hubbard
However, communication theories also have been exported from the US to other
societies, and the topics investigated were usually those already identified in the
established literature. In other words, the study of human communication in another
society has had little regard for what is actually happening in that other society or has
paid little attention to how communication may best be studied in that other society.
American scholarship has occupied an unchallenged predominance in shaping
the development of our discipline. This intellectual hegemony of US communication
science has evoked a certain generalized resistance or resentment. As scholars begin
to expand the concept of multiculturalism, they are also seriously questioning
the uncritical, wholesale acceptance of US communication research worldwide.
Clearly, the two problems are (a) its importation and use in other cultures and
subgroups in a culture, and (b) its masquerading as universal human communication
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(see Berry, 1978, for a similar argument in social psychology).

Cultural bias is interpreting and judging phenomenon in terms particular to one’s
own culture. This is a danger in any field of knowledge that clams objectivity
and universality. In M.-S. Kim’s 2002 book, Non-Western Perspectives on Human
Communication, she pointed out that our current ideal of personhood is achieved
through self assertion, by displaying ‘‘yang’’ communication behavior: confronting,
demanding, talking, being assertive, being aggressive, being competitive,
bragging, and expanding in human (communication) behavior. Integration is
furthered by ‘‘yin’’ behavior: being responsive, indirect, cooperative, intuitive,
yielding, and aware of and considerate of the other’s feelings. Both yang and yin,
self-assertive and integrative tendencies, are necessary for harmonious social and
ecological relationships.
The preference for yang-focused human communication is rooted in contempo-
rary, modern Western philosophical traditions, which have repeatedly made the
case for ‘‘natural’’ self-interest or competitiveness of the individual. Modern Western
ideas, such as the natural rights and free will of each individual or a market consisting
of free members who choose to enter it via mutual consent and contract,
have played a dominant role in forming many aspects of cultural practices, everyday
discourses, and institutions (e.g., Bellah et al., 1985). The scientific study of human
communication in the West has not been value-free, but has tacitly incorporated this
individualistic ontology into its theories and models. The model of the person
in most Western social sciences, including psychology, sociology, and economics,
and most of biology as well (Lillard, 1998), is that of an autonomous, independent
free entity. This is hardly surprising.
In the dominant mentality of contemporary Western culture, ‘‘self’’ is equated
with the autonomous or self-sufficient individual. Therefore, in Western cultures,
relationality is often constructed as undermining the ‘‘right’’ of the most powerful
kind of selfhood (Klein, 1995). This analysis helps explain why there exists an
uncanny resemblance between many theories and focal issues of contemporary
human communication and the individualistic model of the person. These theories
and issues place a high premium on communication directness over equivocation,
 Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 227
confrontation and approach in conflict over avoidance, talk over silence, tendency
to presuppose fixed attitudes over situation in predicting behavior, independence
over conformity, internal locus of control over external locus of control, boastful
self-disclosure over negative self-disclosure, and many more. Although diverse
and obviously different in detail, all these processes are consequences of having
repeatedly participated in a cultural world framed in terms of the independent view
of the self (M.-S. Kim, 2002).
Our ultimate goal must be nothing less than a thorough redefinition of
personhood and human nature. This will have a profound effect on the further
evolution of our culture, and on our understanding of human communication.
As Parks (1982) has recommended in his commentary on the ideology of intimacy
embedded in interpersonal communication scholarship, we should consider two
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questions when assessing the usefulness of a particular value: ‘‘(1) can its empirical
claims be supported by research (2) does it include phenomena of interest to
researchers and theorists?’’ (p. 100). Self-conscious reflection about our ideologies
serves as a useful heuristic to expand research on human communication.
Reflexivity opens the door to opportunities to explore different ideologies that
may reflect other cultures and populations and may offer additional revelations about
our own familiar ideologies.
When using multicultural perspectives to seek new ways of experiencing the self
and the world, we still have to keep in mind the fact that general trends in culture
do not affect every person to the same extent. Even within the highly individualistic
Western culture, most people are still much less self-reliant, self-contained, or
self-sufficient than the prevailing cultural ideology suggests that they should be.
Perhaps Western models of the self are considerably at odds with actual individual
social behavior, and should be reformulated to reflect the substantial interdepen-
dence that characterizes even Western ‘‘individualists’’ (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Sampson (1988) has argued that the reality of globalization and a shrinking world
will force just such a rethinking of the nature of the individual.
These and other innovations are only now beginning to emerge, to be
conceptualized, and to be integrated into human communication literature.
The consequence will be an intellectual synergy that will enable us to transcend
the limitations imposed by our cultural origins. As society changes, often in
unforeseen directions, social scientists frequently have difficulty keeping pace,
let alone getting ahead of the curve, lacking clear scientific paradigms for the most
part. In our opinion, attention to culture will help to remedy this. Already the
fruitfulness of this endeavor is growing. For example, there was a recent debate in
the communication discipline regarding whether culture was blind or blank (see
M.-S. Kim, 2007b). This debate has brought a new and welcome awareness of culture
and sensitivity to issues of cultural diversity and to the representation of ‘‘the other’’
in the field of mainstream communication. The positions taken in this debate
will have far-reaching implications for the future of the communication discipline
in general.
 228 M.-S. Kim & A. S. Ebesu Hubbard
Beyond Assimilation
There are two broad domains of interests in intercultural communication: the
comparative examination of communicative similarities and differences across
cultures, and the communicative adaptations made by individuals when they move
between cultures. The former is the preeminent line of inquiry in cross-cultural
communication, which attempts to link variations in communication behavior to
cultural contexts. The latter is a relatively new area, which seeks to understand
changes in individual communication behavior that are related to the process of
acculturation and that have communicative implications. It is the latter domain that
we are concerned with in this section.
The discipline of intercultural communication has much to contribute to our
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understanding of immigrants and the process of immigration. In a world where the

populations of most countries are increasingly diverse, both ethnically and racially,
researchers should examine the psychological impact of such diversity. Although
attitudes of the majority toward minority cultural groups have received most
attention, we must also focus our efforts on understanding how people deal with
cultural challenges and subsequent changes in communication patterns. Currently,
scholars can offer few answers to these questions because of widely differing
approaches to the study of cultural identity and bicultural communication com-
petence, including lack of agreement on what constitutes its essential components.
Traditionally, it has been claimed that the power of individual strangers to
change the host environment was minuscule, when compared with the pervasive
influence that the host culture has on them. Clearly, a reason for the essentially
one-sided change is the difference between the size of the population sharing a
given stranger’s original culture and the size of the population sharing the host
culture. To the extent that the dominant power of the host culture controls the daily
survival and functioning of strangers, it presents a coercive pressure on them to adapt
(Gudykunst & Kim, 1997).
Thus, according to Gudykunst and Kim (1997), strangers must almost exclusively
bear the burden of making adjustments themselves. The direction of acculturative
change in strangers is toward assimilation, that is, a state of a high degree of
acculturation into the host milieu and a high degree of deculturation from the
original culture. This state reflects a maximum convergence of strangers’ internal
conditions with those of the natives and a minimum maintenance of the original
cultural habits. Indeed, studies of historical change in immigrant communities
have demonstrated the long-term assimilative trend of the cross-cultural adaptation
process, particularly across generations (e.g., Y. Y. Kim, 1988; McGuire &
McDermott, 1988). As Y. Y. Kim (1988) argued, ‘‘although both the individual
and the host society undergo adaptive changes as a result of prolonged intercultural
contact, the influence of the individual on the host society is incomparably smaller’’
(p. 37). Because assimilation means achieving membership in the dominant
culture by learning to communicate within, Y. Y. Kim’s approach can almost
certainly be viewed as ‘‘assimilationist’’ (Young, 1996).
 Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 229
The consequence of this is that assimilation theorists, who include the
corresponding host communication competence, state that identity acquisition is
only complete after an individual becomes a member of the dominant group and
acquires host communication competence. Regarding this model, Fox (1997) argued
that
such an approach implies an orientation not to reaching a mutual understanding
(two-way process), but rather to ‘‘successful’’ change on the part of only one of the
participants. This creates a disequilibrium in the relationship between participants.
(pp. 91–92)

However, emphasis should be given to the alternation model, which posits that
individuals are able to gain competence within two or more cultures without losing
their cultural identity or having to choose one culture over the other.
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Minorities have struggled to define and counter the polarized oppositions on

which this marginalization is often based. The expanding proportion of minority
group members in the US and other countries has resulted in escalating
concerns with issues of pluralism, discrimination, and racism (Phinney, 1990). Yet,
communication research on the impact of these issues on the individual has
been slim. The emphasis of most of the research has been on the attitudes
of members of the majority or dominant group toward the minority group members.
A far less studied aspect of diversity has been the psychological relationship of ethnic
and racial minority groups and their communication patterns.
The essential strength of the alternation model, as opposed to the assimilation
model of acculturation, is that it focuses on the cognitive and affective processes that
allow an individual to withstand the potentially negative impact of acculturative
stresses. Several authors have noted that the additive element of biculturality or
multiculturality suggests that the acculturation process need not be the substitution
of new cultural values for old. Rather, acculturation may add new behaviors
that allow for cultural-frame-of-reference shifting (Dyal & Dyal, 1981). Bennett
(1993) claimed that two potential responses to living on cultural margins are
constructive marginality and encapsulated marginality. Encapsulated (‘‘trapped’’)
marginals are people who are buffeted by conflicting cultural loyalties and unable to
construct a unified identity. In contrast, by maintaining control of choice
and construction of boundaries, people may become ‘‘constructive’’ marginals
(‘‘biculturals’’). Constructive marginals are people who are able to construct context
intentionally and consciously create their own identity. Saltzman (1986) captured
this idea by stating that the ‘‘150 percent person’’ represents just such a culturally
expanded individual.

Beyond Linguistic/Cultural Differences: A Vacuum of Power and Interest

According to Shi-xu and Wilson (2001), mainstream intercultural communication
theorists have been, by and large, focused on individuals’ knowledge and skills—
‘‘competence’’—in the relevant linguistic and cultural systems, and have failed to
recognize, or perhaps more correctly, were reluctant to acknowledge the power
 230 M.-S. Kim & A. S. Ebesu Hubbard
interests and power practices involved. For example, cross-cultural competence
normally refers to knowledge about and skills in the host culture’s language and
associated culture. Scollon and Scollon (1995) assumed that
communication works better the more the participants share assumptions and
knowledge about the world. When two people have very similar histories,
backgrounds, and experiences, their communication works fairly easily because the
inferences each makes about what the other means will be based on common
experience and knowledge. (p. 11)

Shi-xu and Wilson (2001) disputed this idea by noting that the two sociocultural
communities in Northern Ireland can be said to share the same language and cultural
history and know each other perfectly well. But their communication has been as
troubled as any human communication can be (Shi-xu & Wilson, 2001). Their point
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is that mere linguistic and cultural knowledge is not a necessary, not even a sufficient,
condition for the success of intercultural communication.
The ‘‘linguistic/cultural difference’’ perspective is merely a difference in
describing things (e.g., reference, evaluation) between members of two cultures.
But the social-action nature of communication is ignored. A vacuum of power and
interest within communication is presumed (Shi-xu & Wilson, 2001). Reducing
(mis)understandings or (mis)communication to particular linguistic and/or cultural
structures, or even to individuals’ incompetence, is not only to collude with the
existing power relations, including the dominant socioeconomic power, but also to
potentially obscure and legitimate the existing power structure.
For instance, stereotypes are not merely inaccurate mental perceptions, but are
inextricably bound with a desire for control and domination of others. Intercultural
conflicts in an acculturative process are enabled not simply by misunderstanding
of the language and culture of the other, but far more importantly, by power
and politics (Keesing, 1991). If intercultural communication/discourse is a form of
social interaction, then it necessarily involves power; power is an integral part
of human action (Giddens, 1984). Thus, Shi-xu and Wilson (2001) recommended
that the social conditions under which we live can be analyzed in terms of
differential power relations, where one group is dominated by another, through
different power resources which are available to some groups or individuals but
not to others.
Various marginalized groups are challenging the adequacy of the science-based
research paradigm to provide a truly accurate and complete understanding of their
respective cultures and communication behavior. The ‘‘other’’ is gaining a voice and
becoming more actively critical about the process of sharing knowledge about his or
her culture.
In a broader context, existing theoretical assumptions and cultural dimensions
can be seen as a model for producing and maintaining disciplinary power.
According to Foucault (1991), power is exercised to produce and control
individual subjects through a system of knowledge, and subjectivity is produced by
disciplinary discourse. Arguably, then, national culture may not simply be out there
 Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 231
for everybody to learn about and adjust to, but may be brought into being by a
prevailing discursive system.
For instance, in analyzing the very words of Hofstede in his second edition of
Culture’s Consequences (2001), Martin and Agneta (2007) focused on Hofstede’s
colonial discourse leading to sharp binary oppositions between a ‘‘developed and
modern’’ side (mostly ‘‘Anglo-Germanic’’ countries) and a ‘‘traditional and
backward’’ side (the rest) (p. 4). According to Fabian (1986), ‘‘the other is never
simply given, never just found or encountered, but made’’ (p. 208). The description
of Western people as developed and modern and non-Western people as traditional,
irrational and prone to mysticism is a discursive construction based on colonial
thinking (Martin & Agneta, 2007). Similarly, Moreno (1997) claimed that the
modernist principle of inevitable progress and its culmination in Western culture,
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as the standard to measure the rest of the cultures, is the philosophical base for all
those comparisons illustrating these dimensions. In the particular case of the
individualist-collectivist dichotomy, needless to say, the individualistic standard
tends to be more related to the ‘‘civilized’’ cultures and the collectivist standard
tends to be related to the ‘‘primitive’’ ones. Martin and Agneta (2007) called to open
up an alternative knowledge production which includes rather than excludes and
criticizes the other.
There is increasing recognition of knowledge as a historical force and Western
culture as the culmination and the standard of judgment of other cultures. Through
scientific discourse, we are participating in society by producing discourse
which is permeated by ethics and relations of power because scientific discourse is
only one kind of discourse among others (Moreno, 1997). We need to recognize,
in our scientific activities that produce ‘‘knowledge’’ (e.g. in developing theories
and applying methodologies), that there are power issues as well as inter-theoretical
and extra-theoretical interests embedded in our thinking and reasoning.

Beyond the Study of Culture-Typed Identities

The instinct for distinguishing the in-group (‘‘us’’) from the out-group (‘‘them’’)
operates with traditional force for individuals who have been raised in monocultural
environments (Coon, 2000). So-called culture-typed individuals (as opposed to
bicultural or multicultural individuals) have insulated views of what they see and
suffer from the ‘‘us versus them’’ syndrome, which implies a denigration of the
‘‘other.’’
A bulk of intercultural communication research has focused on the preferred
communication styles of ‘‘culture-typed’’ individuals. This conceptualization of a
culturally embedded sense of self can lead to the dangerous dichotomization of
individuals as either independent or interdependent. What we need, however, is
more attention to the bicultural identity, which has the potential to be recognized
as a resource that can be harnessed for professional and social advantage. Still,
at present, there is a paucity of research on the effectiveness of bicultural individuals
in their communication behavior. There are important research questions to be
 232 M.-S. Kim & A. S. Ebesu Hubbard
addressed, such as the role of bicultural identity on communication flexibility and
changes in communication patterns in the development of personal identity.
When a whole culture or society is pigeonholed in dichotomous categories
such as masculine/feminine, active/passive, or loose/tight, subtle differences and
qualitative nuances that may be more characteristic of these social entities are glossed
over. Also, when cultures and individuals are presented in black-or-white terms,
not only does this cloud our understanding of them, but it inevitably leads to our
making good/bad comparisons.
In discussing the non-Western self, we always want to remember that, though
the construct of a dualism between Western and non-Western notions of the self as
individuated and sociocentric respectively, is a useful heuristic, the constructs of
the self are certainly more complex than that. Markus and Kitayama (1991) pointed
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out that the theories on the non-Western cultural sense of self are often simplified,
declaring that people in non-Western societies merge their individuality with others
within the society. They argued that an interdependent view of self does not always
result in a merging of self and other, nor does it imply that one must always be
in the company of others to function effectively, or that people do not have a
sense of themselves as agents who are the origins of their own actions. Thus the
literature on culture and the self draws an oversimplified contrast between West and
non-West.
We also want to note here that empirical research has demonstrated the
co-existence of both independent and interdependent self-construals in individuals
(Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Gudykunst et al., 1996; M.-S. Kim et al., 1996; Singelis &
Brown, 1995). Furthermore, there is a growing awareness of the identity challenges
and communication patterns in the life of the bicultural and multicultural person.
Whether through immigration, sojourning, marriage, adoption, or birth, a wide
range of people are actively carrying the frame of reference of two or more cultures
(see Bennett, 1993). Thus, in discussing the two types of self-construals, for instance,
we do not wish to stereotype or classify individuals. Rather, the descriptions illustrate
two types of self-construals, in the extreme, that co-exist in each individual.
The strength in the tendencies are, in part, enabled and developed according
to cultural background.
Multicultural or multiethnic groups live in the same country, and cultural or
subcultural diversity can be found within ethnic groups, and different ethnic groups
can share elements of the same culture. These accelerated changes in the modern
world compel us to take cognizance of the dynamic nature of individuals’ cultural
identity. A contemporary view of self-culture relations suggests that this relationship
is much more complex than previously thought, and certainly more complex than a
generalized view of self that pits individual and group needs in opposition to
each other. Research on cultural identity encourages psychological work that
is sensitive to ‘‘hybrid’’ identities. Such identities are shaped by migration,
discrimination, poverty, and minority ethnic, racial and religious statuses.
The findings alert us to aspects of the ‘‘other,’’ marginalized cultural identities.
Clearly, there is a need for more fine-grained analyses that capture the subtlety of
 Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 233
particular outlooks and the heterogeneity and overlap that exists between and within
different cultural communities. Increasing cultural connections, with subsequent
hybridization and the emergence of a world system that implies an interpenetration
of the global and the local, further amplify the complexity of ‘‘culture’’ (M.-S. Kim,
2002).

Conclusion
With the changing demographics occurring in the US, communication research
must make substantive revisions in its curriculum, training, research, and practice.
The changing social situation in which communication is theorized, demands for
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new ways of thinking about communication.

We predict that the inevitable challenges posed by multiculturalism will allow
intercultural communication studies to play a more central role as an interdisci-
plinary ‘‘clearing-house’’ within the social sciences. This is natural because ‘‘human
behavior is meaningful only when viewed in the sociocultural context in which
it occurs’’ (Segall, 1979, p. 3). We live in a diverse society. The richness of this
diversity should be exemplified by the diversity of our intellectual approaches,
which will ultimately help in attempts to anticipate and respond to human needs.
In this paper, we focused on four main areas which we hope will spur creative
academic inquiry in the future. Although those areas are separate, they collectively
lead the way toward ‘‘a more radical democratization of knowledge . . . while serving
to help recover ideas and practices from other points of view—whether marginal
or oppressed people, whether close to home or geographically and culturally remote’’
(Rose, 1990, p. 11).
Intergroup relations is arguably the most serious of all the problems confronting
humankind, and is the single most vital domain in which intercultural communica-
tion has important ideas, theories, and facts to contribute. American scholarship
has occupied an unchallenged predominance in shaping the development of
our discipline. This intellectual hegemony of US communication science has evoked
certain generalized opposition or bitterness. We think that it is our intercultural
responsibility to intensify research endeavors to continue a dialogue with the goal of
understanding ‘‘the other.’’ The path of intercultural communication, ultimately, is
aligned with the path of compassion which may lead one to move from ‘‘Revenge to
Justice to Mercy, and ultimately to Love’’ (John Nash).1

Note
[1] From a TV program about the mathematician John Nash called The American Experience:
A Beautiful Madness, in which one of Nash’s postcards had written the phrase: ‘‘revenge—
justice—mercy—love.’’
 234 M.-S. Kim & A. S. Ebesu Hubbard
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