Ready to be Irritated? Sensitizing the Methods of Qualitative Intercultural Communication Research through Post-colonial Theory

Abstract

In academic research on intercultural communication, imperfect translation of culturally shaped articulation is usually conceived of as a problem—be it in scientific settings or in everyday-life. The success of intercultural communication thus becomes the desired goal. Against the background of post-colonial theory, the present contribution rests on the assumption that communicative irritation in the framework of qualitative research can be an expression of the research subjects' resistive potential to negotiate their identities beyond the limits of discursive attributes. The author holds that this potential can be transformed into a fruitful irritation of the scientific discourse itself. Based on these arguments, qualitative research is required to allow for the resistive potential of research subjects throughout the different stages of the research process. With reference to selected qualitative works, some strategies will be sketched to employ post-colonial ideas to qualitative research. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901426