ABSTRACT

In the past 30 years, revolutionary changes in communication and transportation technologies have coalesced with neo-liberal economic and political policies to dramatically accelerate intercultural interaction around the world. The forces of globalization have catapulted people, practices and beliefs from different cultures into shared and contested physical and virtual spaces in workplaces, communities and schools in unprecedented ways. Our world, at the beginning of the new millennium, is a world in motion. More people are on the move today crossing cultural boundaries and national borders than ever before in the history of humankind. The International Organization for Migration reported in 2009 that 214 million people live outside their country of origin (International Organization for Migration 2009). Over 922 million people crossed international borders for business and leisure in 2008 despite rising oil prices, fluctuating exchange rates, global political uncertainty and threats of terrorism (World Tourism Organization 2008). Driven by the global economy, collaboration in multicultural teams at home and abroad is

increasingly the norm rather than the exception. Multinational managers are required to move more rapidly and frequently across multiple and varied cultural contexts than in the past. The growing diversity of student populations in educational institutions at all levels presents immense intercultural opportunities and challenges. Sojourns of international students are more multidirectional today as the value of ‘international experience’ gains currency globally and universities around the world compete for students in the educational marketplace. Additionally, the rapid de-territorialization and re-territorialization of migrants and refugees creates contested and hybrid cultural spaces as longstanding norms in countries of origin and destination are disrupted. With increased contact across cultural boundaries, greater complexity in cultural constellations and exacerbated potential for misunderstanding and conflict, the need for intercultural training, in the new millennium, is more critical than ever before. This chapter begins with a historical overview of intercultural training. I then turn to the

contemporary context of globalization to describe the complex, contradictory and inequitable conditions in which intercultural communication occurs today. Explicating the implications of the global context for intercultural training, I explore four critical trends in intercultural training

and address the ways theoretical shifts manifest in terms of practice. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future directions for intercultural training in the global context.