From Ethnocentrism to Intercultural Communication: The Hundred-Foot Journey

Abstract

This study intends to use the lens of ethnocentrism to analyze how people from different ethnic cultures—in this case, the French culture and Indian culture—fail to communicate with each other and experience a collision of culture related to ethnocentrism. The hundred-foot journey is not just the distance between two restaurants. It is the distance of two ethnic groups and two cultures. To be more culturally relative, there is a need for intercultural communication competence to help people transform themselves from being ethnocentric to culturally relativistic, a journey to remove one’s own cultural superiority and to understand the cultural practices of other ethnic groups in terms of their own ethnic cultural contexts.

Keywords: ethnocentrism; cultural-relativism; intercultural communication; intercultural sensitivity

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/56-05

Publication date:May 31^st 2019