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The “Culture” in Cultural Competence

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Chapter 2
The “Culture” in Cultural Competence

Michael Davis

Introduction

Cultural competence is a journey and a pathway towards becoming competent in

working with, and between, diverse cultural situations and contexts. There is no single
definition of cultural competence, since it is a continually evolving process, but there
are some useful working definitions such as Cross et al. (1989). These authors use the
term “culture” to denote “the integrated pattern of human behaviour that includes
thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of a
racial, ethnic, religious or social group” (Cross et al., 1989, p. 3). But this is just one
among a vast array of definitions in the long history of the concept of culture in the
social sciences and humanities fields (see, e.g., Billington et al., 1991).
Like cultural competence, the term “culture” resists definition (White, 1959). It is,
as one sociologist suggests, “a slippery, even a chaotic” concept (Smith, 2000, p. 4).
Despite this resistance to definition, there has been, in recent decades, a “cultural
turn” which has seen a resurgence of the idea of culture across several disciplines
and subdisciplines in the humanities and social sciences area. This return of the idea
of culture has also been instrumental in the fashioning of the discipline of “cultural
studies” (see Hegeman, 2012).
The aim of this chapter is not to present a comprehensive discussion and analysis of
the culture concept. Rather, the aim is quite specific: to explore the idea of “culture”
as a dynamic, creative and transformative concept, and of how this view of the
concept of culture can provide the basis for considering the way it is used in cultural
competence.

M. Davis (B)
National Centre for Indigenous Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2020 15

J. Frawley et al. (eds.), Cultural Competence and the Higher Education Sector,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5362-2_2
16 M. Davis

What is Culture? From Essentialism to Dynamism

and Process

In early formulations, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the culture
concept was closely associated with and employed in, the classification and formation
of hierarchies, of peoples in a matrix of colonialist/ethnological discourses. In this
historical sense, the notion of culture had racialised connotations and was employed
as a marker to establish or reaffirm superiority or dominance of one culture over
another, based on presumed racial or biological characteristics (Billington et al.,
1991, pp. 82–84). It is in this context that the culture concept has been one of the
cogs in the machinery of oppressive colonial regimes. In recent decades, however,
and with the “cultural turn,” there have been transformations in the use of the culture
concept, as it is harnessed by groups and peoples to establish, reaffirm and celebrate
their cultural identity and difference. This aspect as it relates to Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples is discussed below.
Despite a turn towards more pluralised usages, there has persisted an essentialised
discourse on culture that reifies a people as having a fixed “culture”. These essen-
tialist discourses often find expression in references to a group of people, a nation
or an ethnic or language group in formulations such as “The Nuer,” “The Inuit”
or “The Aborigines,” implying that those peoples are a homogeneous entity, and
obscuring, or denying, diversity within a cultural group. These also appear occasion-
ally, in Australian public discourses, use of the possessive noun in paternalistic ways,
in phrases such as “Our Aborigines,” “Our Indigenous Australians,” and the like.
However, despite the persistence of these essentialising tropes, the historical trajec-
tory of the concept of culture has seen major shifts from evolutionary, classificatory,
hierarchical and totalising views, to views that allow for difference and diversity. As
McGrane remarks, “our contemporary experience of ‘culture’ as the universal ground
and horizon of difference marks a rupture with the nineteenth-century concept of
culture” (McGrane, 1989, p. 113). He explains that “the emergence of the concept of
“culture” has made possible the democratization of difference (perhaps, in one sense,
“culture” is the radical democratization of difference)” (McGrane, 1989, p. 114). In
his reference here to the nineteenth-century concept of culture, McGrane is pointing
particularly to the work of E. B. Tylor, considered one of anthropology’s founding
“fathers”. Tylor conceived of culture in his 1871 work Primitive Culture as a “com-
plex whole” that includes “knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Eagleton, 2000,
p. 34, citing Tylor, 1871). Tylor’s now outmoded concept of culture has been the
subject of extensive debate and discussion for a long time. One critique by Stocking
draws attention to the flaws in Tylor’s notion of culture in the context of present-day
usages:
Tylor’s actual usage of the term “culture” lacked a number of the features commonly asso-
ciated with the modern anthropological concept: historicity, integration, behavioural deter-
minism, relativity, and—most symptomatically—plurality. (Stocking, 1987, pp. 302–303)
2 The “Culture” in Cultural Competence 17

The transformations in the idea of culture, from the totalising Tylorean formu-
lations to the more dynamic and open-ended ones, are not without their tensions.
A shift towards a more fluid and processual notion of culture has rattled age-old
canons of thought that are founded on certainty, homogeneity and fixity. This is
sometimes observed in current contexts of destabilising discourses on contested
issues—such as identity, difference, migration, nationhood and citizenship—where
culture has assumed a greater focus for anxiety (Grillo, 2003; Stolcke, 1995). In these
scenarios, culture has become, or perhaps has re-emerged, as a fulcrum for often
tense and sometimes divisive public debates and discussions around such notions as
“multiculturalism”, “ethnicity” and “belonging”.
But this is not new; humans have always invoked the idea of culture, whether
it is to assert national sentiments, proclaim and strengthen ethnic and Indigenous
identities, appeal to ancient and enduring traditions, or establish markers of status or
difference. Culture has continually been invented, reinvented, created or refashioned,
in countercurrent to its persistence as a reified or essentialised entity. A question now
is the idea of culture as “a system of belief grounded in a conception of human beings
as cultural (and under certain conditions territorial and national) subjects, i.e. bearers
of a culture, located within a boundaried world, which defines and differentiates them
from others” (Grillo, 2003, p. 158, original emphasis). In today’s increasingly fluid
and mobile world, these fixities are becoming less relevant or appropriate. In this
regard, Grillo identifies a problem with the notion that “a specific culture defines a
people” (2003, p. 159, original emphasis). Against this essentialist view, he suggests,
is one that sees “cultures and communities” as “constructed, dialectically from above
and below, and in constant flux” (Grillo, 2003, p. 160). In a growing multicultural
world, Grillo asserts, “the emphasis is on multiple identities or identifications whose
form and content are continuously being negotiated” (2003, p. 160).
Another aspect of the changing discourses on the culture concept is related to
the way it is constructed in historical, particularistic and situational settings. One
writer cautions against what he refers to as a “culturalist” approach, a “reduction of
social and historical questions to abstract questions of culture.” As “culture” in this
view becomes devoid of all historical and situational contexts, it can contribute to
“legitimizing hegemonic relations of exploitation and oppression within societies”
(Dirlik, 1987, p. 17). This notion of the role of the culture concept in oppressive
colonial regimes is supported by looking to some of the word’s etymological roots,
which point to its associations with colonialism. As Eagleton points out, “its meaning
as inhabit has evolved from the Latin colonus to the contemporary colonialism”
(Eagleton, 2000, p. 2). Yet, again showing the slipperiness of the term, “culture” is
also derived from Latin words associated with the idea of “cultivation”, “caring”,
and “tending to”—notions that are more relevant to the kinds of “cultures of care”
that are one of the central planks of cultural competence. In these latter contexts,
in its more positive and benign usages, rather than culture being “used to justify
Western hegemony over the non-West”, if, in Dirlik’s argument, culture is regarded
as a “way of seeing”, and as a “way of making the world”, then this “offers the
possibility of a truly liberating practice” (Dirlik, 1987, p. 49). The potential for
18 M. Davis

culture as a transformative, “liberating practice” is a critical element for the path to

cultural competence, in working cross-culturally with Indigenous peoples.
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote that culture:
denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of
inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men [sic] commu-
nicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life. (1973,
p. 89)

Geertz argues that if “man is an animal suspended in webs of meaning he himself

has spun,” then “I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore
not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of
meaning” (Geertz, 1973, p. 5). In this framework, to understand culture requires
examining behaviour; as Geertz states, “behaviour must be attended to, and with
some exactness, because it is through the flow of behaviour—or, more precisely,
social action—that cultural forms find articulation” (1973, p. 17). In this view, then,
culture is expressive and can be understood by looking at these expressions as they
are played out in contexts of human interaction. This expressive quality of culture
also suggests movement and flow; qualities that indicate that, as Dening asserts, “the
essence of culture is process.” As a process, culture is also, in this sense, a creative
force, and “one moment is no more hybrid than the last, one response no less creative
than that which was made before” (Dening, 1980, p. 39).
These processual and creative aspects of culture can be illustrated by considering,
for example, the ways that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have, over
hundreds of thousands of years, drawn on the creative and innovative qualities of
their cultures to adapt to vast climatic and environmental changes, and to establish
and maintain successful livelihoods in very diverse environments (see Cane, 2013).
Culture, in this dynamic, creative sense is, as various writers see it, a system of signs
and symbols: a “signifying system” (Geertz, 1973; Jones, 2004, p. 130; Mitchell,
1995, p. 102; Williams, 1981). As one writer puts it, “culture is socially constructed,
actively maintained by social actors and supple in its engagement with other ‘spheres’
of human activity” (Mitchell, 1995, p. 102). As a dynamic entity, culture is “sym-
bolic, active, constantly subject to change and riven through with relations of power”
(Mitchell, 1995, p. 103). These features of culture allow it to be constructed as a
creative concept, which is particularly apt for Indigenous people.

Culture and Indigenous People

Since white settlement, Australia’s Indigenous people have suffered discriminatory

and harmful policies and laws that sought to assimilate them into the dominant
European culture. They were denied the right to their own distinct cultures, traditions,
languages and heritage. The denial of the essential characteristics that defined them
as a distinct people has left its legacy of trauma and lack of wellbeing. The recognition
2 The “Culture” in Cultural Competence 19

of Indigenous people both as distinct, and as a diversity of cultures, is at the heart of

their identity and survival.
A creative, innovative sense of the idea of culture is central to Indigenous peoples.
Ideas of difference and plurality in defining culture are important in seeking to better
understand and respect the cultures of Indigenous peoples by the wider commu-
nity. However, recognition and respect for difference and diversity, both within and
between cultures, needs to be balanced by an appreciation of the universal charac-
teristics of all Indigenous cultures. But in searching for a vocabulary to describe
and define these universal Indigenous cultural characteristics, there is also a risk
of totalising Indigenous cultures, of reducing them to a homogeneous entity. These
kinds of tensions can be illustrated by considering what are often thought to be
some key aspects of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and
worldviews that are markers of their distinct status as First Peoples. These include
the Dreaming, that is often used to denote their unique cosmological system; their
distinct and deep relationships with their lands, often understood as “Country” or
“caring for Country” (e.g. Rose, 2004); their complex social and political systems,
often characterised as being based predominantly on various collective forms of
group organisation; and their unique capacity for sustainable and innovative ecolog-
ical practices that have enabled them to nurture and manage diverse landforms and
ecosystems over many generations (e.g. Gammage, 2011; Pascoe, 2014). These are
often ascribed as comprising elements common to all Australian Indigenous people
and are crucial to understanding their worldviews. Yet at the same time, as well as
recognising and respecting the things that define all Indigenous peoples as distinct,
it is also essential to recognise the great diversity in the ways that Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people express their cultures and live their societies. In thinking
about shared cultural aspects of Indigenous peoples, we might also consider what
they share in terms of political aspects. In this regard, shared histories of colonialism
and dispossession often serve to create a sense of political unity among Indigenous
peoples.
Culture is closely related to worldviews, as Ranzjin et al. (2009) explain that
“like worldviews, culture is not just a mental representation. Cultural values, beliefs
and norms are commonly expressed as outward behaviours of both the individuals
belonging to the group as a whole” (Ranzjin et al., 2009, p. 20). There is also a
close association between culture and knowledge in Indigenous worldviews, and it
is important to acknowledge and understand the complex relationships between these.
Such is the closeness between these—culture and knowledge—that one Indigenous
academic uses the term knowledge to denote culture, because, as she explains, culture
is “increasingly seen as an anthropological construct” (Müller, 2014, p. 14). But this
narrative can change, as this chapter seeks to argue, if the concept of culture is
deployed to denote the capacity for creativity, for innovation, and for cross-cultural
sharing and communication. Culture, in this sense, is not only an abstract or an
analytical construct, but a living force, as implied by Eagleton:
20 M. Davis

Culture is not only what we live by. It is also, in great measure, what we live for. Affection,
relationship, memory, kinship, place, community, emotional fulfilment, intellectual enjoy-
ment, a sense of ultimate meanings: these are closer to us than charters of human rights or
trade treaties. (Eagleton, 2000, p. 131)

While this action-based and interactive use of the culture concept is critical in
cultural competence, there is also much utility in harnessing a different kind of
usage of the concept. Although it can be subject to criticisms of essentialism, the
idea of peoples “having,” or being defined as “a culture” can have important symbolic
and political power. An example is in the notion of Australian Aboriginal people as
having, or being, “the oldest living continuous culture,” which is one of a number
of formulations that have an important role in their identity formation. It is also
a critical element in a transformative paradigm that can facilitate shifting from a
deficit discourse—that is, a discourse that perpetuates negative imagery of Indigenous
people—to a positive and affirmative narrative. This kind of shift calls for a nuanced
and respectful view of Indigenous people that also appreciates the great diversity of
their cultures and societies.
To appreciate what it is that makes Indigenous cultures unique necessitates an
appreciation of their distinct cosmologies, worldviews and philosophies (see, e.g.,
Battiste & Henderson, 2000; Kovach, 2009; Nakata, 2007; Sherwood, 2010). But
in this context, it is also important to avoid using top-down, imposed Eurocentric
concepts to delineate Indigenous cultures and worldviews. Muecke (2004) draws
attention to this potential problem, cautioning that “cosmology” is a non-Aboriginal
term that “encapsulates a European enlightenment thrust to systematically explain
cultures as totalities from a reflective distance, positioning the speaker as outside of,
and thus able to see the (conceptual) whole” (Muecke, 2004, pp. 17–18). He argues
that “cultures are not totalities; they are better perceived as partially acquired skills
and attributes” (Muecke, 2004, p. 18). If, in this formulation, culture is something
that develops through life in an accumulative way, then this is consistent with the
view of culture as process, and as dynamic and creative, as articulated by Geertz
(1973) and Dening (2004), among others.

Rights to Culture

Claiming a distinct identity, a cultural identity, to Indigenous peoples, is also seen

as a right. As one writer puts it, “culture is not only important for wellbeing, it is
the very essence of a person’s being, permeating every aspect of their existence”
(Ranzjin et al., 2009, p. 26). Indigenous people have struggled over a long time to
have their rights to culture and cultural identity recognised internationally, and these
are now enshrined by the United Nations (UN) in both universal and Indigenous-
specific standards. Certainly, these conventions stand as significant achievements in
global standards and present landmark references for thinking about culture. They
are not without their deficiencies, however, and there is scope for more nuanced
2 The “Culture” in Cultural Competence 21

thinking and action, in both international and domestic law, to address gaps in how
the conventions address race and culture in specific frames and contexts.
The United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR,
1966) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966,
and entered into force on 3 January 1976. This forms one of the planks of the
international bill of rights and enshrines the rights to culture into international law, for
all nations and peoples. Another crucial instrument is the International Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD, 1965). This was
adopted on 21 December 1965, and entered into force on 4 January 1969. This latter
instrument is also of crucial importance in the constellation of rights and protections,
and the issue of culture, relevant to cultural competence.
An international instrument that provides specifically for the cultural rights of
Indigenous peoples is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007), which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13
September 2007. Key provisions in the UNDRIP are Articles 11.1 and 31.1. Article
11–1 provides the right for Indigenous people:
to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to
maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures,
such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and
visual and performing arts and literature.

Article 31–1 provides Indigenous people with the right:

to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and
traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies
and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the
properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games
and visual and performing arts.

The wording of these provisions in the UNDRIP shows that Indigenous cultures,
in all the variety of their manifestations and expressions, are many and diverse.
The text also highlights the intricate relationships between all the various elements
of their cultures. Diversity of ways of life is an important aspect of Indigenous
peoples’ cultures and is especially important in the light of tendencies for dominant
discourses to homogenise and essentialise these, thus denying the plurality of voices
and viewpoints of Indigenous peoples. Article 15 of the UNDRIP recognises this
plurality by stating that “Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity
of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately
reflected in education and public information” (UNDRIP, Art 15). These protections
in international standards are crucial in informing the journey to cultural competence.

Culture in Cultural Competence

What does the “cultural” mean, in cultural competence? If we examine the rela-
tionship between “cultural” and “competence” it becomes evident that the concept
22 M. Davis

of culture here must be understood as dynamic and expressive: as process. The

dictionary defines “competent” as: “adequately qualified (to do, for a task); legally
qualified; effective, adequate; (of action, etc.) appropriate, legitimate” (The Concise
Oxford Dictionary, 1976, p. 206, italics in original). Therefore, taking the entire
formulation of “cultural competence,” we might define it as being qualified for the
task of culture, as in having effective, appropriate and legitimate skills, experience,
abilities and, perhaps, qualities in the matter of culture. Extending this further, we
might infer that to be culturally competent means that one has legitimacy in doing,
being in, expressing, understanding and/or interpreting culture—both one’s own
culture and that of others. This idea of “having competence” or “being competent”
in one’s own culture and different cultures also requires a view of culture as adap-
tive, creative, performative and expressive, as the above has shown. These qualities
of culture are implied in the approach by Cross et al. (1989) in their model for a
cultural competence of care, which emphasises “the cultural strengths inherent in all
cultures and examines how the system of care can more effectively deal with cultural
differences and related treatment issues” (Cross et al., 1989, p. iii). In this context,
culture cannot be viewed as being frozen and fixed in time and place, but as dynamic,
evolving and subject to continual transformation and innovation.
The idea of innovation in the concept of culture, and its symbolic and ideational
dimensions, need to be balanced by attending to other material aspects, such as
livelihoods and the nature of human beings. Critic Terry Eagleton takes up these
points within a Marxian frame of interpretation. He states that “culture in the artistic
and intellectual sense of the word may well involve innovation, whereas culture as a
way of life is generally a question of habit” (Eagleton, 2018, p. 2). He points to the
material conditions of our humanity which, in Eagleton’s view, are critical for our
understanding of culture. He explains that there is “something deeper seated than
culture, namely the material conditions which make it both possible and necessary.”
Expanding on this, he claims that “it is because human beings are material animals
of a peculiar kind that they give birth to cultures in the first place” (Eagleton, 2018,
pp. 42–43).
The concept of culture in cultural competence is perhaps best understood by an
appreciation of it as a balance between its materiality; that is, its basis in everyday
living and being, and its ideational aspects.
A perspective on culture as process-oriented also forms an important basis for its
use in cultural competence, both in discussions and reflections on the subject, and in
its applications as a methodology and practice. It is applicable not only to individuals
and groups but also to organisations and institutions, which can be said to have a
particular “culture”. One of the critical challenges for achieving cultural competence
is to effect changes in organisational and institutional cultures and to bring about
a shift away from entrenched racialised behaviours, attitudes and values based on
preconceived prejudices or discriminatory ideas. This requires being attentive to
the particularities of language, discourse, and technical lexicon in every academic
discipline, and also to the structural aspects of organisations and institutions. To bring
about transformative changes in negative, discriminatory and derogative behaviours
2 The “Culture” in Cultural Competence 23

and attitudes in institutional, structural and discursive settings necessitates mobilising

a creative and dynamic sense of the culture concept.
Engaging with the idea of culture as dynamic, creative and innovative, and in
terms of the ways in which it is expressed in contexts and situations of human inter-
action, provides a focus for exploring its roles in cultural competence. Understanding
this idea of culture in cultural competence might be facilitated by considering what
anthropologist Michael Carrithers has termed a “mutualist” view (Carrithers, 1992,
p. 11). In a mutualism framework, the starting premise is that humans are social
beings. As Carrithers puts it, “learning, living together, and changing the social
world are done between people,” and therefore “to understand how we do any one of
these things opens an understanding of the others” (Carrithers, 1992, pp. 10–11). This
“mutualist” view, Carrithers argues, considers people as “inextricably involved with
each other in face-to-face relationships,” and in this way, “the works of humans” are
“always achieved jointly” (1992, p. 11). This proposes an alternative to the notion,
sometimes argued from within the discipline of psychology, that humans are essen-
tially individual, asocial beings; and instead advances a thesis of human sociality and
interactivity as the driving forces for behaviour and society (Fiske, 1992; Carrithers,
1992). This idea of sociality, in turn, allows more potential for considering culture as
a space for creative and innovative forms of intercultural engagement—aspects that,
as pointed to earlier, are crucial in the journey to cultural competence. That is, cultural
competence requires consideration of relationships between self and others; between
one’s own culture and the diversity of cultures of, and between, others. Viewing
culture in this way, in terms of dynamic and innovative processes of interaction
between and among people, can also facilitate the development of cultural compe-
tence as a transformative paradigm. By inculcating culturally competent values and
philosophies through interpersonal relations, this paradigm can have the capacity to
effect changes to unequal power relations founded upon racialised, unjust, prejudi-
cial attitudes and behaviours, to bring about social, cultural and political changes at
individual, societal and organisational/institutional levels.
In Cross et al.’s (1989) schema for cultural competence, which is one among many
useful working models, a processual approach is proposed, which comprises several
elements, one of which is to develop an awareness and understanding of, and work
with, the “dynamics of cultural interaction.” They propose as one of the guiding
principles for cultural competence that “inherent in cross-cultural interactions are
dynamics that must be acknowledged, adjusted to, and accepted” (Cross et al., 1989,
p. 52). Here the expression “cross-cultural” implies interactivity and sociality, and
the aim is to ensure that people, institutions and agencies work effectively in cross-
cultural situations. It is about conversation and negotiation, as implied in Eagleton’s
comment that “on another view, culture is the implicit knowledge of the world by
which people negotiate appropriate ways of acting in specific contexts” (Eagleton,
2000, pp. 34–35). In this sense, the setting in which effective cultural competency is
to be developed is the space in which there is an engagement or dialogue between
cultures.
Engaging with the idea of culture in its creative and dynamic, processual dimen-
sions wrenches the concept from its roots in totalising and essentialising discourses.
24 M. Davis

By thus liberating the idea of culture as a fixed, immutable concept, it becomes

amenable to articulation as a creative, malleable entity, and as a space for dialogue.
This idea of movement in the concept of culture finds support in the work of Bhabha
(1996), who examines culture in terms of ruptures, dislocations and movements. He
argues that “critical practices that sought to detotalise social reality by demonstrating
the micrologies of power, the diverse enunciative sites of discourse, the slippage and
sliding of signifiers, are suddenly disarmed” (Bhabha, 1996, p. 53). It is in this sense,
Bhabha suggests, that an understanding of “culture-as-difference” will enable us to
grasp the articulation of culture’s “borderline, unhomely space and time” (Bhabha,
1996, p. 55); allowing, in this way, for culture to become not a fixed entity with
unfortunate historical associations with racialised hierarchies and classifications, but
instead, a concept that is malleable and flexible, as readily applicable to the margins,
borders and displacements of human activity as it is to more stable formations.

Cultural Diversity and Cultural Competence

Central to achieving cultural competence is recognition and respect for cultural diver-
sity. While this is generally accepted as the norm, in one different interpretation,
cultural diversity is considered as a challenge to cultural competence. This interpre-
tation, which is based on a study of mental health systems, examines ways in which
cultural competence can be employed “to address the challenge of cultural diversity
in mental health services” (Kirmayer, 2012, p. 149). Here, cultural diversity, rather
than being seen as enriching the mental health sector, is the challenge that cultural
competence seeks to address, as Kirmayer explains:
Cultural diversity poses challenges to mental health services for many reasons. Culture
influences the experience, expression, course and outcome of mental health problems, help-
seeking and the response to health promotion, prevention or treatment interventions. The
clinical encounter is shaped by differences between patient and clinician in social position and
power, which are associated with differences in cultural knowledge and identity, language,
religion and other aspects of cultural identity. Specific ethnocultural or racialized groups
may suffer health disparities and social disadvantage as a result of the meanings and material
consequences of their socially constructed identities. In some instances, cultural processes
may create or constitute unique social and psychological problems or predicaments that
deserve clinical attention. In culturally diverse societies, the dominant culture, which is
expressed through social institutions, including the health care system, regulates what sorts
of problems are recognized and what kinds of social or cultural differences are viewed as
worthy of attention. (Kirmayer, 2012, p. 149)

Culture, in this view, is manifested in terms of difference, or cultural difference,

and poses challenges to disciplines, professions, practices, institutions and organi-
sations. Cultural difference here, in culturally diverse societies, is thought to create
unequal power relations, wherein the dominant culture regulates and determines the
issues and problems to be solved, and this results in disparities in access to services
and care (Kirmayer, 2012).
2 The “Culture” in Cultural Competence 25

In an alternative perspective, cultural diversity is the expression of adaptation

and creativity in culture—and it is this diversity that enables societies, or peoples,
to adapt, innovate, and to survive major, often catastrophic, events and processes.
Recognition and respect by others of cultural difference and diversity are key aspects
of a peoples’ collective identity, and it is also important in relating positively to other
cultural groups. This ability to relate to ones’ own, and to others’ cultures is vital for
well-being, as observed by Ranzjin et al. (2009), who write that “increasingly, it is
becoming recognised that the best outcomes, in both a psychological and behavioural
sense, are the result of having fully developed identities relating to both cultures”
(Ranzjin et al., 2009, p. 26, italics in original).

Culture and Communication

As well as recognising cultural diversity, another essential component in the path to

cultural competence is effective transcultural communication. The specific ways in
which individuals communicate with each other are determined by a complex combi-
nation of cultural, social, politico-economic, behavioural and psychological factors.
They can be determined by socio-economic class, geographical location, peer group
influence, or family upbringing, as much as by the individual’s language and culture,
among many factors. Communicative behaviour is also determined by the particu-
larities of situation and context; an individual who is voluble and highly articulate
in the family home or among friends in her or his own country, might be reserved,
restrained, formal and introverted when in foreign places or in job interviews, for
example. In this sense, differences in communication styles and strategies are likely
as much within a particular culture, as between different cultures. Notwithstanding
this complexity and diversity of communication behaviours, some researchers argue
that there can be discerned some general relationships between a specific culture and
particular communication style. Ranzjin et al. claim, for example, that cultural groups
such as Indigenous people, who are what these authors describe as “collectivist”
cultures, have a different way of communicating to people in western cultures. They
state, “behavioural differences between individualism and collectivism are associ-
ated with important differences in communication styles.” Elaborating on this, they
claim:
Western people tend to be very direct in their communication style, getting straight to the
point and expressing the main thing on their mind. In contrast, many people from collectivist
cultures, such as Indigenous Australians, tend to get to the topic indirectly, preferring to
establish a relationship with the other person before discussing the topic that the Western
person regards as the main point of the conversation. …. For Indigenous people, trust needs
to be established in the relationship first. (Ranzjin et al., 2009, p. 24)

I would argue that this binary classification of cultures as “collectivist”/Indigenous

or “individualist”/western, and the positing of a linear relationship between cultural
type and communicative behaviour, is overdetermined and obscures the expressive,
26 M. Davis

processual and creative dimensions of culture. That is, thinking about culture neces-
sitates a nuanced approach, and it is useful to consider the idea of “complicating”
it. Rather than presenting an understanding of culture in terms of its relationships
to behavioural types, it is more productive to think of it as multidimensional: as
something akin to “constellations of practices” (see, e.g., Adamson & Davis, 2017).
Nonetheless, in the view of some writers (Ranzjin et al., 2009), Indigenous people
are considered as being generally “collectivist in their orientation, especially in the
area of kin relationships and in the social roles and responsibilities that follow
from those relationships” (Ranzjin et al., 2009, p. 22). Ranzjin et al. suggest that
“understanding the collectivist aspects of Indigenous cultures is crucial for effective
transcultural interaction” (Ranzjin et al., 2009, p. 22). Whether collectivist or indi-
vidualist in orientation, communicative transactions between and among different
cultures can be enriched by the formation of a safe and positive space in which there
can be exchange, reciprocity and mutual respect.

Cross-Cultural Engagement in a Shared “Third Space”

The co-creation of culture and knowledge is part of the journey to cultural compe-
tence, with people working effectively across and between cultures. This co-creation
of culture and knowledge can only occur by forming a safe space in which the
different cultures and knowledge can be shared, and co-developed. This is facilitated
by considering cultures as process, rather than as “end-states”, as Casrnir (1999,
p. 91) explains:
The consideration of cultures as end states, rather than dynamic, changing, developing
processes (even while admitting that change is possible), has in the past frequently led
to both theoretical and research models, which are not adequate to the task of dealing with
human interactions as process.

There are many ways in which to theorise a safe, mutually beneficial space for
the co-creation of cultures and knowledge. One writer proposes the notion of a
“third-culture,” described as “the construction of a mutually beneficial interactive
environment in which individuals from two different cultures can function in a way
beneficial to all involved, represents my attempt to evolve a communication-centered
paradigm” (Casrnir, 1999, p. 92). Here, communication is “that which happens,
symbolically, between human beings as they do things together—in concert if you
will” (Casrnir, 1999, p. 94). An engaged, interactive communication process, in
which humans “build identities, societies, cultures or institutions for their continued
existence and growth in a common socio/cultural environment” is that which helps
fashion the process that Casrnir refers to as “third-culture building,” which is a “con-
certed process between human beings with different backgrounds, experiences and
interpretative or value systems” (Casrnir, 1999, p. 94). This idea is also consistent
with the “mutualism” of Carrithers and others, and with a Geertzian view of culture
2 The “Culture” in Cultural Competence 27

as a symbol, and meaning-making, which allows for a focus on an event, inter-

action, and behaviours-in-context, in understanding intercultural and transcultural
communication.
It is in these interactive, culture-in-context dimensions of culture that the concept
finds most usefulness in cultural competence. The performativity of culture is critical
here, as highlighted by education theorist Cary (2004), for example, who writes that
she was “drawn into issues of cultural performance within and against hegemonic
structures” (Cary, 2004, p. 75). She engages with a number of theorists such as
Bhabha (1994) and Pratt (1992) to consider “the socially interactive performative
nature of culture as a place from which to disrupt the colonising mentality of Western
knowledge” (Cary, 2004, p. 76). As Cary (2004, p. 75) states:
A number of theorists have discussed the ways in which culture is socio-historically
constructed and performed through social interactions often involving experiences of domi-
nation and subordination within the enlightenment project of colonization and imperialist
territorialisation.

Cary (2004) also usefully refers to the notion of “contact zones” as formulated in
Mary Louise Pratt’s discussion on the interactivity of culture. In her work on colonial
engagement, Pratt employs “contact zone” to “invoke the spatial and historical co-
presence of subjects previously separated by geographic and historical disjunctures,
and whose trajectories now intersect” (Pratt, 1992, p. 7). She uses “contact” in a
dynamic sense, to “foreground the interactive, improvisational dimensions of colo-
nial encounters so easily ignored or suppressed by diffusionist accounts of conquest
and domination” (Pratt, 1992, p. 7). Pratt’s model of colonial encounter between
coloniser and colonised seeks to emphasise “co-presence, interaction, interlocking
understandings and practices, often within radically asymmetrical relations of power”
(Pratt, 1992, p. 7). These interactive, creative and mutually engaged forms of engage-
ment may be crucial in achieving cultural competence. Pratt’s model of inter-cultural
meeting points as ‘contact zones’ certainly has some useful analytical resonance
in discussions around cultural competence, and for blurring coloniser/colonised
dualisms. But it cannot entirely serve as a theoretical basis for further developing my
argument about the processual view of culture, without considering, for example,
the important role of ethics in shared spaces.

Conclusion

Re-theorising the notion of culture as dynamic and creative is essential for consid-
ering its role in cultural competence. In the journey to cultural competence, meetings,
encounters and interactions between and among peoples and cultures from different
backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures are seen as akin to conversations, in which there
is a constant shifting and fluidity, creating a space for new knowledge and culture
formations built around trust, reciprocity, recognition and respect.
28 M. Davis

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Michael Davis is an independent scholar, historian, and policy specialist with extensive experi-
ence in writing and publishing in Indigenous history, Indigenous Knowledges, and related topics.
He has published widely; his most recent book, co-edited with Joni Adamson, is Humanities
for the Environment: Integrating Knowledge, Forging New Constellations of Practice (Routledge,
2017).

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