Skip to 0 minutes and 7 secondsThe course is about intercultural contact. And we can consider intercultural contact by thinking of examples in history, from people travelling along the Silk Road to the spread of empire. But in this course we'll look at more everyday examples of how people experience intercultural contact and how they conceptualise this term as well. My name is Haynes Collins, and I am the director of Intercultural Studies at the University of Leeds in the School of Language, Cultures, and Societies.
Skip to 0 minutes and 39 secondsOne of the aims of this course is to problematise the notion of moving from one solid bounded culture to another. However, as people make transitions and as people move through different spaces, they do encounter differences that they consider significant. I think if we maintain a very open but critical attitude of the things that we encounter, then that can be a factor in helping us to understand more fully the kind of social interaction that we engage with on a daily basis.
Skip to 1 minute and 14 secondsIn order to avoid preconceptions, we have to be really careful with the assumptions that we make about people. And I think on an everyday basis, there's a danger that people make assumptions based on things like the clothes that somebody wears, it might be the age of someone. So if we can avoid making these assumptions and be more open to seeing the multifaceted identity that everyone has, and this is a much more helpful approach.
Skip to 1 minute and 41 secondsI hope that everybody will find this course useful. There are some obvious groups that, I think, come to mind when thinking about the course-- students that are getting ready to go abroad, or students that are coming to a new country to study. It could be businesspeople as well, but I would also hope that the course is useful for people who are trying to understand the complexity of a very rapidly changing world. Sign up now for Intercultural Studies, Intercultural Contact.