Finding a “home” beyond culture: The emergence of intercultural personhood in the globalizing world

This theoretical essay presents intercultural identity development and the emerging intercultural personhood as an adaptive response to the increasing interface of differing cultural traditions. Based on the integrative theory of cross-cultural adaptation (Kim, 1988, Kim, 2001 and Kim, 2005), extensive and prolonged intercultural communication experiences are explained to render a gradual psychological evolution from a largely mono-cultural to an increasingly “intercultural” way of relating to oneself and others. Underpinning this internal transformation are two interrelated processes of individuation and universalization in identity orientation, by which conventional, ascription-based cultural identity plays a diminishing role in a person's daily existence. Samples of direct and indirect research evidence supporting the present theoretical claim are provided from studies of immigrants and sojourners, along with three individuals’ personal narratives offering a concrete insight into the reality explained by the theory. The essay ends with an examination of intercultural personhood as a constructive way of engaging oneself in the globalizing world and as ultimately a matter of choice for those intercultural communicators who are open to the possibility of being changed by the experiences of new cultural learning.