Interculturality and the Limits of Globalization. Some Paradigmatic Insights on the Unavoidable Intervention of Contingency Within Human Institutions

Abstract

In this paper I wish to discuss at a structural level where the difference between the paradigm of multiculturalism and the paradigm of interculturality lies: whereas the first expresses itself in a differentiation among cultural orders, which however contemplates the presence of a global or meta-order capable of functioning as a universal ground of commonness, the second exactly negates such a possibility, by allowing as the only viable practice the contingent and situated work of “translation” from one cultural order to the other. This paper assesses exactly why the intercultural paradigm may be a better candidate in order to highlight and, at the same time, criticize the titanic structure of globalization.

Keywords

• Cultural/Political Orders
• Globalization
• Alienness
• Translation
• Contingency