We have become accustomed to the fact that certain intercultural terms such as differences, diversity, intercultural competence or inclusion have become cornerstones. In this essay, the author attempts to examine these concepts by turning them inside out, pointing out the origin (and purpose) of many of them and, at the same time, highlighting some shortcomings: for example, illness is not a welcomed element in intercultural discourses, which the author explains through what she calls ‘autogenous differences’ and by recovering an analysis of what, by convention and convenience, we have called ‘normality’, in whose furrow discourses, categorisations, feelings and expectations circulate.
Beyond all this, the book focuses on the most disruptive aspects (and therefore real obstacles) in intercultural communication. These are many and of a very diverse nature, but the author is content to dissect identitarianisms, tribal meanings, and differences that are both proud of themselves and exclusionary. She takes the opportunity to vindicate the role of the East in a fundamentally Western-centric sphere. All the critique, however, cannot end without a call for hope: perhaps we have to become, by necessity if not by conviction, culturally resilient human beings. And thus readjust the mirrors that return to us our own image and that of others.
