Grad - Daitch

Abstract

Difference is, of course, a principle focus of Intercultural Communication – as both an academic field and a human experience. Along these lines, this paper examines how young professionals within the international development field construct, imagine, and position the Other - the people and places they seek to impact through their work.  Before going any further, a discussion of Hall’s Critical Social Theory and his perspective of representations of difference is presented.  Next, I go on to review Said’s notion of Orientalism (1978), as it is considered a seminal work for examining how the West positions itself to the rest of the world within the context of an international/colonial hierarchy. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an analytical framework, I examine and reflect upon the personal statements of admitted applicants chosen to participate in one particular international development initiative, the Emerging Markets Development Advisers Program (EMDAP).  Within these essays I point out examples of the ways language is deployed as a means for producing cultural difference and hegemonic dominance. After, I clarify the conventional features that compose the genre of the personal statement in an admissions process, taking into account the often overlooked discursive constraints placed upon the authors.  I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which Intercultural Communication conceptualizations of culture -- as resource and as hybridity – can contribute to international development practice and studies.