Source: ReDICo

After a series of enlightening online talks, the ReDICo 2024 Encounters took an on-site turn with a PhD colloquium at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany, organized in collaboration with the German University Association of Intercultural Studies – Hochschulverband für interkulturelle Studien (IKS).
In line with ReDICo’s aim to connect art and science, Encounter 4 started on the evening of March 4 with the touching multimedia performance “Ausländerbehörde, uma Cachaça, bitte!” by the Ayôsol Theatre Collective @coletivo.ayosol, exploring the various meanings of being a Brazilian immigrant in Berlin through humour and creative versatility.
It continued on March 5 with an insightful data session facilitated by Professor Ben Rampton from King’s College London and a PhD colloquium with attendants from the Université du Québec à Montréal. In the data session, participants actively discussed interactional data from an intercultural game study conducted by ReDICo team member Milene Mendes de Oliveira. The session was followed by an instructive presentation and fruitful discussion of how the sociolinguistic analytical toolkit can be employed to analyze, for instance, emerging identities in digital intercultural interactions.
PhD students from several German universities then introduced their PhD projects and received constructive feedback from their peers and the senior researchers. The diversity of presentations truly reflected the interdisciplinarity of the field of intercultural communication, with topics ranging from intercultural sensitization through the visual arts to knowledge construction in pluralistic urban societies, and a special focus on intersectionality and the experience of people ‘on the move’.
Huge thanks to all the contributors and participants for their involvement, and especially to Ben Rampton for coming from the UK and inspiring us with his ideas and active engagement.