ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates two representations based on the texts in English, which are complemented and enriched by drawing on interview data. It shows that in the use of visual representation, the basis for understanding otherness rested on a process of comparing and contrasting, and in this process the participants resorted to what was known to them. The chapter shows that the confrontation with the values and ideas present in the perspectives of members of other cultural groups favoured a process of decentralisation or critical distancing from the participants' own perspective. The starting point of cultural understanding in the visual representation was themes in participants' own cultural realities. Relying on comparison and contrast, they began with what was familiar to them in order to explore difference. Tess's visual representation constitutes an example of the power of imagery in cultural understanding. The visual presentation is congruent with the importance attributed in the scholarly literature to image and emotion schemata in cultural understanding.
