A guide to interculturality for international and exchange students: an example of<i>Hostipitality</i>?

TLDR

Internationalization and interculturality are key concepts in Finnish higher education, and universities publish survival guides to help international and exchange students adapt to Finnish ways. This article examines a survival guide dedicated to intercultural communication on Finnish campuses and demonstrates that its discourses are culturalist, judgmental, and ethnocentric. The authors employ a critical, constructivist, pragmatic discursive analysis of two versions of the guide to reveal these discourses. They argue the guide embodies a “defeat of hospitality” or hostipitality, reducing interculturality to mere education for adjusting to stereotypical Finnish manners rather than fostering negotiation and co‑construction. Keywords: interculturality, international students, hospitality, internationalization, culturalism.

Abstract

Abstract As in many countries, internationalization and interculturality have become two key concepts in Finnish higher education. As such, several documents (often called ‘survival guides’) have been published by universities in this context to help international and exchange students to adapt to Finland and Finnish ‘ways.’ This article examines such a document dedicated to intercultural communication on Finnish campuses. We demonstrate by analyzing two different versions of the document that the constructed discourses contain rather culturalist, judgmental, and ethnocentric discourses about self and other. We argue that it represents a ‘defeat of hospitality’ or hostipitality. As such, interculturality and hospitality are reduced to ‘educating’ the students to adjust to certain stereotypical Finnish manners rather than teaching them to negotiate and co-construct new ways of being together. Our approach to interculturality is critical, constructivist, and relies on a pragmatic discursive analysis of two versions of the document. Keywords: interculturalityinternational studentshospitalityinternationalizationculturalism