Conceptualizing Intercultural Communication

Abstract

We often think of social constructions such as race or ethnicity as being immutable, but the multiple ways that people perform these identities and the variable meanings they assign to their performances suggest that these categories are, in fact, flexible. We understand other kinds of identities based on profession, education, or socioeconomic class as more malleable as a result of personal agency or life experience. Language identities fall somewhere in-between. It is, of course, possible to become a speaker of a new language through transnational movement or dedicated effort. Yet social categories based on language are seemingly more constant; language identities are closely aligned with where we are from geographically, but also in terms of race, ethnicity, and nation.¹ Through lived experiences and everyday interactions, identities are constantly changing and evolving. These abstract social constructions define individuals based on internal and external perceptions of what constitutes salient identity features. Despite the seemingly uncontestable nature of some identities, we constantly push and pull at their boundaries. Individuals define themselves as members (or not) of social groups, and likewise impose definitions on others based on their membership or exclusion. As such, intercultural encounters are one of many sites where individuals negotiate identities through interaction. The study of identity in situations of persistent intercultural contact, as found in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, allows us to examine a place where sustained societal contact regularly blurs and/or confirms social boundaries.