Framing Conversations: Intercultural Dialogue as a Democratic Process by F. Matarasso

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This paper was written for the PLATFORM FOR INTERCULTURAL EUROPE
Framing conversations: Intercultural dialogue as a democratic process
François Matarasso, Version 2.0 (5/2010). June 2010

Summary

This paper has been written as a contribution to the Platform for Intercultural Europe’s Forum meeting in Brussels on 8 June 2010. It draws on the past year’s work, including the Practice Exchanges in Malmö and Vienna, commissioned papers by writers with relevant expertise and formal and informal discussions with Platform members and the Secretary General. It considers the lack of consensus about what is meant by intercultural dialogue and the implications this has
for the Platform, which has a clear sense of purpose and aims to influence others in its field. It argues that this lack of consensus is both inevitable and unproblematic, since intercultural dialogue provides a framing device that those involved understand and use to enable safer discussions about controversial issues. In this context, the association with culture – the systems people use to make sense of their experience – is helpful since the tensions evident in European society are not only produced by observable change but by perceptions and interpretations of change. People’s values, beliefs and feelings are central to their experiences and their conduct. The paper concludes that intercultural dialogue is much more than the everyday interaction between people or even the cultural exchanges now often promoted: it
is a conscious, demanding and focused process which requires and develops democratic capacities. It suggests a tentative set of principles that might be adopted to guide future Practice Exchanges in intercultural dialogue.

“‘They came upon a vast castle, on which could be read: ‘I belong to no one and I belong to
everyone. You were here before you entered and you will still be here after you leave.”

Denis Diderot, Jacques le Fataliste et son maitre (1769)1

European Forum 2010
Background document
Framing conversations: Intercultural dialogue as a democratic process 2 | 12
Platform for Intercultural Europe, EU Forum 2010: Background Document 2

Defining intercultural dialogue

Intercultural dialogue has become, in a quite short time, an established concept in European public discourse. The European Union designated 2008 the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (EYID) and supported various activities to raise awareness of the idea: the formation
of the Platform for Intercultural Europe is one lasting outcome.

Intercultural dialogue is one of the EU’s Culture programme’s current objectives and recent research has shown that it is a goal of 73% of selected projects.(1) Also in 2008, the Council of Europe published a White Paper on intercultural dialogue within a context of continuing
work on this issue. (2) Many individual states have become engaged in intercultural dialogue, in partnership with European bodies, with other states or internally. As a result, policy statements, research and examples of good practice are increasingly available online. (3)

And yet, despite its evident importance to policy and programmes, there is still no single definition of what is meant by intercultural dialogue. Public opinion research undertaken for the European Commission in the run up to 2008 found that 36% of citizens ‘could not attribute any particular meaning’ (4) to it, while the parliamentary decision behind the EYID did not provide any definition5. The Platform’s recently conducted research into the EU Culture programme found that, even among those receiving funds to promote it, ‘Intercultural Dialogue has a myriad of meanings’. (6) As the authors of one recent report put it:

Some Europeans interpret ICD as a concept for peaceful dialogue of or among civilizations, others see it mainly as a tool to improve internal (domestic) security, others would characterise it as describing relations between majority and minority groups in a given population while yet another faction use the term to describe cultural cooperation, in general, and cultural diplomacy, in particular.7 (Cliche & Wiesand 2009:5).

At face value, this would seem to be a problem, especially for an organisation, such as the Platform for Intercultural Europe, whose purpose is to promote intercultural dialogue. How can we make progress if we cannot even reach a common understanding of what it is we are trying to progress? However, there are two distinct issues here. The question of whether there is a clear, shared concept of intercultural dialogue should be separated from asking how the Platform should pursue its mission as ‘a legitimate and effective interlocutor between European institutions and civil society organisations committed to the values of intercultural dialogue’. (8)

This paper argues that the lack of a shared concept of intercultural dialogue is both unproblematic and inevitable. It is unproblematic because the concept is an enabling framework that permits certain types of important debate to take place and because, within the context of
those debates, the interlocutors necessarily have or develop a shared understanding appropriate to their immediate purposes. It is inevitable because people do not agree about how they understand and make meaningful their experiences: that is why intercultural dialogue is necessary.

An expectation of consensus about how and why to discuss the absence of consensus belongs in Wonderland.

Establishing and developing the Platform’s position

But the Platform needs to know what it thinks – even provisionally – in order to act. It has to take a position within the crowded field of actors promoting intercultural dialogue and it must be able to articulate the rationale behind its choice, both to its diverse membership and to the
institutions it seeks to influence. Finally, as a small organisation it must focus its limited resources and energy where they can have the most effect. It has therefore formulated an understanding of intercultural dialogue as:

A series of specific encounters, anchored in real space and time between individuals and/or groups with different ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic backgrounds and heritage, with the aim of exploring, testing and increasing understanding, awareness, empathy, and respect. The ultimate purpose of Intercultural Dialogue is to create a cooperative and willing environment for overcoming political and social tensions. (9)

This is the definition it has used to rally support, to attract members and to guide its work. It is also the definition it has tried to encourage other institutions and organisations to adopt. As such, it serves its purpose well, not least in establishing a concept that is demanding and
has intellectual and political integrity. It resists the idea of intercultural dialogue as a bland palliative rather offering a more challenging but more realistic route to lasting change.

In the twelve months since the Forum meeting in June 2009, which established it as an independent organisation, the Platform has undertaken a programme of Practice Exchanges, research and advocacy, the details of which will be reported by the Secretary General at the 2010 meeting. Part of that work, and the focus of this paper, has been concerned with building on the Rainbow Paper’s thinking, practically and conceptually, so that the Platform has the strongest basis to argue for approaches to intercultural dialogue that can lead to more just and inclusive societies.

Building on the foundation of the Rainbow Paper

That work has been taken forward in two strands. First, practical experiences of working on intercultural dialogue have been shared and analysed in formal meetings held in Malmö, Vienna and Rome, under the title of Practice Exchanges. These have involved members and non-members of the Platform in structured dialogue about their ideas, values and work: they have, in themselves, been experiences of intercultural dialogue. Focusing on cultural institutions, the situation of migrants and diversity in the workplace, these meetings have added to our knowledge of intercultural dialogue in everyday reality and opened up fruitful contrasts of understanding and purpose. The results have been summarised as reports that are available on the Platform’s website. (10)

The second line of work has focused on developing the thinking in the Rainbow Paper to reflect the changing context of the Platform’s work and its role as a recognised civil society interlocutor as part of the EU’s Structured Dialogue process. Early in 2010, the Secretary General

commissioned new discussion papers on intercultural dialogue from Dr. Joel Anderson (Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University) and Sukhvinder Kaur-Stubbs (former Chief Executive of the Barrow Cadbury Trust and chair of the European Network Against Racism). Initial drafts of these papers were discussed at a meeting in February 2010, with the authors, the Secretary General, members of the Platform’s Steering Group, the present writer and other stakeholders. Both Anderson and Kaur-Stubbs valued the work that the Platform had already done and sought, from different perspectives, to take it forward by articulating a conceptual framework that connected the human and organisational competencies required for intercultural dialogue with a rights-based agenda for inclusion and participation. These ideas were summarised at the conclusion of the February meeting in the following statement: Intercultural dialogue develops competencies, which advance social Inclusion that enables free, full and equal participation in an Intercultural Europe.

Following the meeting, both authors revised and amplified their texts; they will be published by the Platform later this year as the first in an occasional series of commissioned papers. This work is a cornerstone of the Platform’s stated objectives of ‘developing understanding of the concepts and intercultural dialogue and action’ and ‘providing a space for reflection, dialogue and learning in our field’. (11)

The Platform is active, then, in developing its own position towards the complex concept of intercultural dialogue. But if that work clarifies and advances the Platform’s work, it does not resolve the complexities, ambiguities and tensions inherent in the concept and evident in the wide range of uses to which it is put. As already observed, it is beyond the power of the Platform, or anyone else, to do so. So it is worth reflecting a little on what it means to operate, with principles, in a territory of such widely competing values and claims.

Intercultural dialogue as a framing device

One starting point for this reflection is to ask whether the diversity of interpretations for intercultural dialogue arises because people find the very looseness of the term useful. It might be, for example, that the word ‘culture’ is being used here as a euphemism for things that are
seen as much more controversial. Perhaps ‘intercultural dialogue’ is just a less risky way of speaking about interracial, interethnic or interreligious dialogue, a way of articulating key political issues without causing offence. Culture is still widely seen as positive, which may partly account for its growing importance in European societies where the strength of other ideologies, notably Christianity and Marxism, has been waning. Its recent questioning by philosophers and theorists has not yet had much impact on a political and public discourse that still sees culture fairly simply as a good in its own right and as an asset through which a range of social and economic benefits can be acquired.

So culture may be being used in this context as cover for a range of issues that currently trouble European societies, including ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality and class. If so, it may be wiser to see ‘intercultural dialogue’ as half an idea: something that acquires a full meaning only in context. Like a frame, it is changed by and changes any picture it is placed around. So a universal or consistent definition of intercultural dialogue is elusive: its meaning is different each time it is used, though it may be perfectly well understood, in that context, by those who are using it. It should therefore not be surprising to find such a range of interpretations of
the concept. Nor should it be seen as a problem, if we understand it as a way of enabling important but difficult discussion to take place. Like a frame, it has little importance in itself: few things are less interesting than a stack of empty picture frames at the back of a junk shop, waiting to be brought to life through use. The interest of intercultural dialogue lies in the processes that it enables and how those processes can build more tolerant, more resilient and more democratic societies.

But that is in the nature of all dialogue, since it is through discussion that groups seek to resolve differences. Democracy itself depends on it, which is why the parliament – from the French parler, to speak – is both the symbol and the reality of democratic government. Why then
should it be necessary to qualify the foundational democratic idea of dialogue with the word ‘intercultural’? To see why the link with culture is more than an enabling euphemism, we need to look again at the concept of culture itself.

Reflecting on ‘culture’

Raymond Williams described ‘culture’ as one of the most complex words in the language. (12) That is almost the last straightforward thing one can say about it. It is not coincidental that the term should be interpreted at least as widely as intercultural dialogue itself. For some, culture means the creative products of human ingenuity and principally the arts in their various forms. But even here, culture’s boundaries are contested and some people restrict its application to the so-called high arts, consigning domestic craft and commercial art to a separate category of less value. This is Matthew Arnold’s idea that culture is ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’ (13) and it connects with an ancient equation between culture and civilisation. Classical Greece’s legacy includes the word ‘barbarian’ which, then as now, designates a
person who lacks culture and is therefore uncivilised. (14)

The common alternative to the idea of culture as the best of the arts is anthropological: it sees culture in the variations between how different human groups conduct their lives. So, while all people prepare and eat food, they do it differently according to their social group, place or
time. In this conception, culture may be described as everything that human beings choose to do as distinct from what they are obliged to do to stay alive. Mostly, we need to protect our bodies by covering them: culture results from the endless choices we make about how to do that.

At first sight, the idea that culture includes everything people do that is beyond the basic needs of survival seems less judgemental than the idea of culture as fine art. But it does not follow that, just because the cultures of all people are recognised as such, they are all seen as
equal. It was because the Spanish recognised the culture of the people they conquered in Mexico that they went to such trouble to destroy it, burning every Mayan book they could find.15 So if all people can be considered to have cultures, not all cultures are considered equally
valuable by all people: a comparison of 17th century Spanish and Mexican cultures from a 21st century human rights perspective might be surprising.

Making sense: the necessary function of culture

But, whatever we think of these alternative conceptions of culture, neither explains why people produce cultures. What is it that makes every person choose certain ways of doing things in preference to others when, objectively speaking, there is often no advantage in their
choice? Why does Barack Obama wear a suit and tie to make a big speech and Bill Gates an open-necked shirt? The answer is because it makes sense to do so. It makes sense for the President addressing Congress to dress in a particular way, both to himself and to his audience.
A suit and tie is what they expect: if he were to appear in a shirt and jeans, analysts would interpret his choice of clothing, not his words. We know where we are when there is consistency between someone’s words and what they communicate through other cultural signals, such as their dress. We also feel comfortable where there is consonance between the cultures of speaker and listeners, as there is when Bill Gates addresses an audience of computer journalists in his
shirtsleeves. It makes sense.

Making sense is part of what makes us human. It also makes us the kinds of humans we are because we do not all make sense in the same way. From birth, our survival depends on being able to understand the signals we receive: food satisfies hunger, hot things burn and so on.

Babies quickly move from basic, animal feelings to more complex behavioural understandings. They learn what is approved and disapproved of by the adults on whom they depend. They learn what is normal and what is valued and they learn the language, stories, pictures and sounds that express those values. They acquire, in short, a culture that interprets the world and makes of it a meaningful reality.

The creation of meaning – making sense of experience – is the purpose and pleasure of culture, whether that concept is restricted to art or extended to food, dress and religious ritual. Culture enables people to form useful understandings of the otherwise inexplicable experience of being alive and – and this is crucial to humans as social beings – to share those understandings with others. Groups, communities and nations are formed on the basis of – and again this is crucial – an imagined commonality externalised in a shared culture. Fundamental feelings of identity and belonging are rooted in the meanings expressed in culture and given greater force by being substantially unconscious and unexamined.

So dialogue through and about culture takes people to the heart of identity, to what shapes whether, how and why they empathise with others or alternatively to the language and imagery of their fears. It is because culture is about how people make sense of life that the word
can frame so many other ideas, including those controversial issues that it is hard to bring openly into public discourse.

Objective change and subjective perception

Intercultural dialogue then is dialogue about meanings and values, about how people make sense of their experience in the world. It has always been necessary, as anyone familiar with the writings of Classical Athens or Rome will know. And it has always been necessary because
Europe, contrary to what is often suggested, has been continuously inhabited by a fantastically diverse range of peoples, each with their own cultures and ways of interpreting the world. Before the First World War, the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was extraordinary, with Christians, Muslims, Jews and people of other and no faith living side by side. Genocide and ethnic cleansing, the defining disasters of Europe’s 20th century, created
an illusion of national homogeneity whose unreality has crumbled under the pressure of democratisation, post-colonialism and globalisation.

Today’s Europeans do include people with cultural roots in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere but that is only part of the reason why intercultural dialogue has become both more normal and more necessary. The other factor is the democratic recognition of the many
marginalised cultures whose roots and origins are European, including national minorities, Roma peoples and – depending on how cultures are understood – social groups such as disabled or gay and lesbian people.

Objectively, the demographic profile of Europe has changed. But subjective perceptions of change – how people feel about the places and communities in which they live – is at least as important to how they act. The interethnic conflict that scarred former Yugoslavia in the
1990s was the cause not the result of population movements: its origins lie in the much cloudier waters of perception, feelings and beliefs.

The anxieties of today’s Europe – whose symptoms may be seen in the rise of populist politics, conflict about religious symbols, and even violence – are certainly rooted in observable change but they are also inextricable from how that change affects and is interpreted in people’s
culture, their mechanisms for making sense. Visible change, such as increased migration, draws attention to itself. Less visible change, for instance in ideas of social cohesion, is both harder to see and understand: yet it may have a decisive influence on how people interpret and respond to their experience.

Competencies for dialogue

In his discussion paper for the Platform meeting in February 2010, Joel Anderson wrote of a European society that is becoming not only more globalised but also much more individualised. As a result, citizens are required to exercise ever-greater responsibility and choice but without
always having the social structures to support that increased autonomy: Where social problems arise, in cultural contexts and elsewhere, is when a gap emerges between the levels of competence these transformed contexts demand of us and the levels of competence we actually have. (16)

The Rainbow Paper had already highlighted the issue of competences, arguing that: The development of intercultural competence is a pre-requisite for any fruitful interaction between cultures. (17)

Goodwill, where it exists, is not enough: intercultural dialogue makes new, unfamiliar and different demands on both sides. And both sides will need to acquire new competencies if they are to meet the challenge of conducting an open and honest intercultural dialogue. The centre of this dialogue is culture, that system for making sense and defining value, and to make oneself open to the possibility that alternative meanings are as valid, even more valid, than one’s own is naturally risky, even threatening. Doing so requires technical competencies, for instance in managing meetings or resolving verbal conflict, and human competencies, such as courage, sensitivity and tolerance. These can no more be taken for granted than the competencies
required for the effective and equitable democratic governance.

Dialogue is a skill that develops with use. Participation in dialogue requires competencies; but it also builds them. So developing intercultural dialogue is not only a matter of increasing understanding between groups; it is also a direct contribution to building the processes
of democracy and the capacity of people to engage fully in them.

Dialogue and the willingness to change

Dialogue is, by definition, a process with two equal actors in so far as its starting point must be acceptance of the possibility of a change of position on both sides. If one actor believes she is ‘right’ and is therefore not prepared to adjust her position as a result of the process then
the discourse not dialogue but instruction. Unfortunately, the reality of intercultural relations in Europe and elsewhere is not obviously characterised by equality. On the contrary, it is typically asymmetrical, with one party having much greater power, authority, resources and capacity
than the other. Again, good will cannot wish these inequalities away. A minority group will always feel weaker when faced with a majority.

Sukhvinder Kaur-Stubbs is clear about the limits of this kind of approach: In the Northern towns of England, following the violence between Asian and White communities, women from both families were encouraged to spend more time with each other. This involved activities where they were taken into each other’s kitchens to share their cooking styles. But learning how to make popodams or pancakes is hardly a recipe for overcoming the entrenched hostilities of such deprived and poorly resourced communities. (18)

So intercultural dialogue – as opposed to the kind of cultural exchange that is part of everyday social life, including experiences characteristic of a globalised media industry – requires terms of engagement that formally recognise parity between those involved, at least for the duration
and conduct of that exchange. However, it does not follow that either side will actually change their views or positions: the necessary starting point is only that they are truly open to doing so.

Dialogue focused by purpose

That openness to the possibility of change also implies that dialogue must be about something. As Joel Anderson puts it: Dialogue is thus always a three-part relation between speaker, listener,

and what it is that they are trying to figure out together. Dialogue may be aimed at resolving disputes over facts (such as how a riot started) or over policy decisions (such as what policies to have regarding a country’s official language) or over accusations of wrongdoing (such as whether a refusal to allow a particular religious observance counts as offensive or denigrating). Whatever the particulars of the case, however, dialogue is not just a matter of two parties exchanging perspectives for the sake of exchange alone, but for the purpose of figuring out how to move forward. (19)

This potential for change is another reason why culture is such an appropriate basis for the kind of dialogue that European societies are now engaged in. It is a central characteristic of culture that it is not fixed. Much of what defines human beings cannot be changed: place and date of birth, biology, parents, formative experiences – all remain more or less fixed. But culture is fluid and evolving: it can be acquired, by choice and often at the cost only of effort.20 Indeed, one aspect of the information and communication technology revolution we are living through is that access to new cultural ideas and products has never been easier. People leave the cultures they were born into and adopt others, choosing the meanings that make sense to them. European culture in the widest sense is central to its attraction to many of those who come to live here from other parts of the world. (21)

So dialogue about culture, the negotiation between individuals and groups of what they consider to be meaningful, is essential to democracy, enabling culture itself to evolve with the society it reflects and supports. Cultural institutions and individual artists can choose to play a distinctive role in intercultural dialogue because creating, examining and re-creating the discourse of culture is their everyday work. They have particular skills and capacities in that domain, which is why people pay to enjoy what they produce. But it would be a mistake to think therefore that they are more objective or somehow separate from the cultural ideologies that shape all our thinking. They are not, merely by virtue of being cultural professionals, wiser or better guides through
the maze of competing human meanings than others. That is a distinction than may be earned through participation in dialogue.

The developing concept of Practice Exchanges

Intercultural dialogue does mean different things to different people. It is certainly open to a wide range of interpretations. But it should not therefore be dismissed as a confused if worthy ideal of the well meaning.

On the contrary, as understood and articulated by the Platform for Intercultural Europe, the concept recognises the urgent need to enable and facilitate dialogue about how different people and groups make sense of their experience. It seeks to establish legitimate spaces within
which sharply controversial issues can be aired. In using cultural means to enable dialogue, it opens other ways of knowing. For the Platform at least, intercultural dialogue is a democratic process that requires and enhances participants’ competencies for democratic engagement.
This ideal finds its practical expression in the Practice Exchanges, which are one cornerstone of the Platform’s thinking. In developing these, it has not only begun to find ways of understanding the necessary conditions for intercultural dialogue and the human, conceptual and organisational competencies it requires: it has also enacted intercultural dialogue in facilitating those meetings.

Drawing on the experiences of these Practice Exchanges and the complementary insights of
Sukhvinder Kaur-Stubbs and Joel Anderson, it is possible to reflect on the critical conditions for such meetings, if they are to fulfil the aspirations expressed in the Rainbow Paper and elsewhere.

To conclude, therefore, here are some suggested principles for future meetings:
The Platform’s Practice Exchanges should always:
• Involve people from different cultures as equal discussants and participants;
• Adopt clear, agreed terms of reference for the meeting beforehand;
• Focus on specific issues where disagreement exists
• Recognise the legitimacy of people’s differences
• Accept the possibility of change, without an obligation to do so
• Provide the necessary support to enable all participants to engage on equal terms
• Reflect the obligations and aspirations of the European Union

The Platform’s own legitimacy depends on its ability both to embody its own ideals and to challenge and develop its own thinking to meet the changing needs of European society. Setting its own standards, and being able to show how it meets them, will help it meet its ideals. It will
also help it provide authoritative advice and guidance on conducting such interchanges to its stakeholders at European and national level. In doing that with clarity, rigour and humility, it will continue to advance the cause of intercultural dialogue as applied democracy: society in formation.

Intercultural dialogue, like Diderot’s castle and Borges’ Congress, includes everyone simply because they are human. What matters is how we conduct ourselves within these all-inclusive frames.

Notes:
1. PIE 2010, Intercultural Dialogue as an objective in the EU Culture Programme, Summary of
Study and Recommendations, Platform for Intercultural Europe & Culture Action Europe, Brussels,
p.1
2. COE, 2008, White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, ‘Living Together As Equals in Dignity’,
Strasbourg, Council of Europe.
3. See for example, the EU website on intercultural dialogue:
http://www.interculturaldialogue.eu/web/icd-good-practice.php?aid=44; the Council of Europe’s
Compendium site: http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/intercultural-dialogue.php or
the Platform’s own Panorama project: http://panorama.intercultural-europe.org/index.php
4. EC, 2007, Intercultural dialogue in Europe, Flash Eurobarometer Series #217, Conducted by
The Gallup Organization Hungary upon the request of DG Education and Culture, p. 4.
5. EU, 2006, ‘Decision No 1983/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18
December 2006 concerning the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (2008’), Official Journal
of the European Union, L 412/46, 30.12.2006
6. PIE 2010, p. 2.
7. Cliche, D. & Wiesand, A. 2009, Achieving Intercultural Dialogue through the Arts and Culture?
Concepts, Policies, Programmes, Practices. IFACCA D’Art Report No. 39, p.5.
8. See http://www.intercultural-europe.org/template.php?page=about-the-platform
9. PIE, 2008, The Rainbow Paper, Intercultural Dialogue: From Practice to Policy and Back, Platform for Intercultural Europe, Brussels, p. 4
10. See http://www.intercultural-europe.org/template.php?page=pa-malmoe (Malmö, June 2009)
and http://www.intercultural-europe.org/template.php?page=pa-vienna (Vienna, November
2009); the Rome Practice Exchange report is not yet available at the time of writing.
11. See http://www.intercultural-europe.org/template.php?page=about-the-platform
12. Williams, R., 1983, Keywords, London: Fontana, p. 87
13. Arnold, M., 1993, Culture and Anarchy and other writings ed. Collini. S., Cambridge: CUP.
14. Todorov, T. 2008, La Peur des barbares: Au-delà du choc des civilisations, Paris: LGF, p. 33.
15. Manguel, A., 2006, The Library at Night, New Haven: Yale, p. 121.
16. Anderson, J. 2010a, Conceptual Foundations of Interculturalist Dialogue: Preliminary suggestions for possible further elaborations of the core ideas in the “Rainbow Paper” of the Platform for Intercultural Europe, unpublished paper for the Platform for Intercultural Europe, p. 5
17. PIE 2008, p. 5.
18. Kaur-Stubbs, S, 2010, Engaged Europe: The role of Intercultural Dialogue in developing full,
free and equal participation, Platform for Intercultural Europe (forthcoming), p. 10.
19. Anderson, J. 2010b, Intercultural Dialogue & Free, Full, and Equal Participation: Towards a
New Agenda for an Intercultural Europe, Platform for Intercultural Europe (forthcoming),
p.17. Both Anderson and Kaur-Stubbs provide much more detailed analysis of the conditions
of and competencies for intercultural dialogue in their papers and the Platform will need to
explore these over the coming months and consider how they can guide its own practice in
dialogue, especially in the practice exchange
20. The distinction between culture and heritage – both of which are rooted in making meaning –
turns on the point at which it becomes possible for a person to choose between available
meanings: their heritage may be fixed, in the sense that they cannot relive childhood, but
their culture is not. Seneca argued almost two millennia ago that each person could choose
their own ancestry from the culture and ideas available in books: ‘We are accustomed to say
it was not in our power to choose the parents we were allotted, that chance gave us to them;
but we are allowed to be born from whatever parents we wish. The noblest intellects have
their households; choose the one you wish to be enrolled in.’ See Seneca, ‘On the Shortness
of Life’, in Davie, J. 2007, Seneca: Dialogues and Essays, Oxford: OUP
21. Anderson 2010b, p. 26

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Framing Conversations: Intercultural Dialogue as a Democratic Process by F. Matarasso