Cross-Cultural Encounters: a holonic model of stability

When we move beyond the linear gaze of worldview, and explore our communications within cross-cultural contexts, we encounter both reality and actuality of interactions. In these inter-cultural encounters, it is not just how we see others but also how others see us. These encounters go beyond the logic of sameness, and encompass both the interdependence and in-between-ness of the self and the other, encapsulating the reality within the reality-actuality whole. When we envision these interactions as a dialogical process, we begin to visualise the relational impact of the multiplicity of social and cultural norms, rules and values which underlay these encounters, and how these interactions draw upon the vast pool of collective knowledge accumulated by societies and cultures in their long process of evolution. In this paper, we explore how the concept of the ‘holon’ enables understanding of cultural architectures of these interactions, and how Buber's concepts of 'I-It' and 'I-Thou’ help to move beyond the gaze of sameness towards an interconnected vision of cross-cultural stability.