Difference and awareness in cultural travel: negotiating blocks and threads

Three university students studying abroad employ a combination of two modes of thinking and talking about cultural difference within a non-essentialist paradigm. At some times they focus on the cultural threads that they bring with them that enable the sharing of cultural experience, the crossing of cultural boundaries and the potential for engaging creatively and critically with new cultural domains. At other times, within a softer non-essentialism, they focus on cultural blocks that, while acknowledging diversity, reinforce the notion of uncrossable cultural boundaries. Both are modes of making sense of and constructing culture; and their mixing demonstrates how we can all employ conflicting discourses of culture at the same time. However, for both cultural travellers and researchers, focusing on cultural threads will be more effective in combating the cultural prejudice and global politics that underpin essentialism. Revealing cultural threads requires a specific methodology in talking to people about culture and recognising the potentials for sharing. This could be a basis for intercultural learning.