Paola
… deconstructing discourses on otherness through collective and participatory practices that recognize, problematize, and subvert dominant narratives about the other. It means considering interculture in the broadest sense of the term, as a space where different 'cultures' intersect and meet, where otherness is read in light of the intersectionality of factors such as class, gender, ethnicity, age, ability, physical characteristics, and sexual orientation, in order to grasp not only differences but also inequalities.
Giorgia
… the significant possibility of understanding our history by re-reading it through the stories of others. From a deep awareness of our own and others' culturally situated being, and from the inclusion of differences also in terms of status and power, emerges the opportunity to trace new and original paths, oriented towards equity and social justice. Interculture is the transformative force that emerges from the encounter between culturally aware human beings and the willingness to accept the other's point of view, allowing us to transcend and build together new horizons of meaning.
Isabella
… the ability to be provoked by the encounter with the other as an opportunity for self-learning, lived with a curious gaze and a spirit of adventure, maturing the awareness of one's own positionalities and the power dynamics in which such an encounter is inserted. It means promoting a committed pedagogy that activates processes of taking the floor by all, recognizing epistemological dignity to other perspectives to interpret and act in reality, in order to form oneself in open and plural dialogue and cultivate democracy.
Rebecca
… is a complex construction, more similar to a building site than a finished architecture. In the intercultural building sites, each new element forces the pre-existing ones to modify themselves, generating a new order together. For the intercultural building site to exist, it needs a condition: that all 'building subjects' have the same means and possibilities. When asymmetrical relationships between oppressor and oppressed prevail, the intercultural building sites crumble. The oppressor will continue to decorate their architecture with the colors of interculture, but what we will have before our eyes is nothing but a cultural monolith.
Federica
... before being a concept, it's everyday life. Yet, today I would no longer use the term interculturality, but transculturality, because intercultural relationships no longer occur mainly between people with rooted, precise, and mutually shared cultural references in the communities of their countries of origin and arrival. This is because there are increasingly 'mixed' families arriving from - and living in - contexts that are themselves 'mixed', where the sense of belonging depends strictly on the new communities and collectivities that are created.