Izzie Tieck, Macy Leiby, and Ari Hall
Therese Woozley – COMM 351
Intercultural Living Library
Introduction
Learning Goals:
To apply our knowledge of Intercultural Communication theories from the textbook, collaborate with our classmates, other Boise State University students, and community members to develop a more in-depth understanding of nonverbal communication and other cultural perspectives.
Reflection
The Living Library was a surprising and wonderful event that expanded our knowledge and helped us to develop empathy for cultures other than our own. We were fortunate enough to be able to listen to six “Books” throughout the course of the event to base our research and findings on, Life Lessons from Ancient India, Searching and Finding Unconditional Love, Surviving Boarding School as a 6-Year-Old, Cold and Hungry in the Soviet Union, My Mother, the Designated Son, and The Girls of My Country. Every one of these books was nothing short of inspiring. They each had an important story that helped us to broaden our knowledge of other cultures, while teaching us how their cultural background has shaped their time in America.
Our topic that we chose to research was how nonverbal communication plays a role in their unique cultures. All of the books that we spoke to were open to our different questions and were dedicated to telling their truth. Listening to the inspiring stories of each of them has helped us to understand nonverbal communication outside the context of our textbook.
Not only did each Book provide insightful knowledge around their experiences with nonverbal communication, but we were additionally able to observe their active nonverbal cues while answering our curiosities. This added an additional dimension to our research, allowing us to not only hear about haptics in other countries, but see them come through in every one of the authors gestures and expressions.
Overall, the experience was eye-opening to the diverse nature of nonverbal communication and how differently it is perceived and understood in alternate cultures around the world.
Community Partner: Intercultural Living Library
Mission Statement:
Imagine a Library, where Books are people who share their life experiences and expand their hearts of their readers.
Project Purpose/Community Identified Need:
The intention of the Intercultural Living Library is to learn how to “unjudge” someone. Through active listening, intentional questioning, and the willingness to find comfortability in the uncomfortable, readers have the opportunity to alter their intercultural perceptions across all fronts. Foregoing judgements at the Living Library allows for empathy and connection.
Course Concepts
We applied the following three course concepts to our experience and research:
Non-Verbal Expectancy Violation Theory
Non-Verbal Expectancy Violation Theory is when people hold expectations about the nonverbal behavior of others. When these expectations are violated, people evaluate the violation positively or negatively, depending on the source of the violation. Our research and experience suggests that this theory is indeed accurate in that each person we spoke to gave multiple examples for how people were socialized into following cultural non-verbal norms.
Oculesics
Oculesics is the study of eye contact. We applied this theory in both our questions and our evaluation of the “books” at the Living Library. We found that most of the speakers had different norms surrounding eye contact and thus had to make an adjustment when moving to the United States. While they were all adjusted now, it took them all a period of time and experimentation to reach that point, including some brushes with the Non-Verbal Expectancy Violation Theory.
Regulators
Regulators are non-verbal acts that manage or govern conversations. These can include things like head-nodding, eye contact, shaking hands, or many other actions, gestures, and expressions that affect the flow of an interaction. Each person at the living library gave examples of non-verbal regulators from their culture but perhaps the most interesting was the Kenyan idea of bartering using many different hand signs that we learned from My Mother: the Designated Son. These hand signals regulated the flow of a conversation involving trade.
Methods
Qualitative Research: conducted through several interviews with the Living Library Books
Intentional questions formed around our key research topic of nonverbal communication across cultures
Comparative Analysis: cross analyzing variable responses of each Book interviewed at the Living Library Event.
Taking note of the impact their unique cultural background and lived experience had on their responses and overall nonverbal engagement
Results
The Living Library helped to foster cultural competence and develop empathy within our local community.
60.3% of participants concluded that their preconceived perceptions were challenged during the Living Library.
After attending this event, we have developed a greater understanding of the role that nonverbal communication plays across diverse different cultures and we were successful in examining multiple course concepts in a “real world” environment.
