Few phenomena have incited as much passion as the unravelling of what intercultural competence means. This book presents a novel, bio-cultural approach towards intercultural competence, arguing that a relevant perceptual architecture must be set up via acting competently in various contexts and situations over time. This enactive framework proposes various levels of integration of cultural differences fundamental for acting effectively in multicultural environments. Intercultural competence emerges here from the co-activation of specific sets of expertise, such as creativity, morality and gender, for which the integration of cultural otherness provides the pivotal axis. A specific perceptual architecture results from such novel functional connections, via the integration of cultural otherness into highly interlinked perception, cognition, affect and action systems.
Dr Birgit Breninger studied Communication Studies, English and American Studies, and Cultural Studies in Salzburg and Oxford. Currently she is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Communication Sciences of the Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria. She also is acting President and Academic Director of the InterCultural Centre, a research organization at the American Salzburg College. In 2005, she co-founded the Intercultural College at the University of Salzburg, and led the executive graduate programmes there until 2019. She is also chairwoman of the International Board of ICC Experts and co-editor of the book Creating Cultural Synergies (2012). Her main areas of research and teaching include communication and perception, intercultural leadership, ethical decision-making in multicultural contexts, building cultural expertise, and assessing intercultural competence.
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