ABSTRACT
Heightened social anxieties about terrorism and other forms of political violence have coincided with the emergence of interculturalism as a contact-based approach to diversity management that promises to strengthen social integration and cultural rapprochement within culturally and religiously plural societies. This chapter will focus on interculturalism in its own right, with an attempt to map its global manifestations, core conceptual underpinnings, and the requisite empirical conditions for its practice. The chapter will draw on multidisciplinary literature to establish the key features of an intercultural framework that is built around foundational notions of contact, dialogue, exchange, and transformation, all of which emphasize integrative orientations and mainstreaming tendencies. In doing so, the chapter will highlight the critical importance of accounting for the specificities of the local sociopolitical context for understanding the extent to which intercultural approaches can be successfully pursued within super-diverse sociopolitical settings. In meeting the challenges of super-diversity, globalization, and hyper-connectivity, interculturalism exhibits a methodological concern with the micro level, particularly at the level of cross-cultural exchange, interpersonal contact, and transformative change. These foundational features offer a conceptual as well as a policy platform for mainstreaming the diversity agenda beyond minoritized groups, thus ensuring its viability as a social good.
