The purpose, activity, and goals of the HANACS are all grounded in and inspired by the phenomenon of transcultural learning in action and the inspiring and enlightening outcomes it manifests in our lives. This page is therefore a particularly important one and informs so much of the content of other pages on this website, and especially the Vision & Mission statement of the HANACS.
Transcultural learning takes many forms and exists in many domains of human life at an individual level — such as friendships, partnerships/marriages and related; rights’ of passage; taboos, festivals, customs associated with socialising and food, etc. — and of course at society, and governance and self-governance socio-political levels.
What Does Transcultural Mean?
The Oxford Reference online dictionary defines ‘Transcultural’ as:
‘The movement of ideas, influences, practices, and beliefs between cultures and the fusions that result when the ideas, influences, practices, and beliefs of different cultures come together in a specific place, text, or contact zone. The movement of cultures is not always reciprocal or voluntary—indeed, a large majority of what is deemed transcultural is the product of colonization, diaspora of different types, and exile. …’
Reference: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199532919.001.0001/acref-9780199532919-e-717
‘Transcultural Learning,’ which has been taking place from the earliest times, in the present late 20th and early 21st centuries in particular refers to conscious learning and self-development of an individual, involving knowledge that makes personal development and social, workplace, and other contexts interaction and communication with others one in which one is liberated from prejudice, and tends to a richer more fulfilling life.
It involves the reversal of the phenomena of presenting histories and perceptions of peoples, cultures, and socio-cultural groups that in for example Western colonial and racial and religious and class and caste supremacist times, saw key facts and histories suppressed in order to maintain and further control by the elites of those times, and their modern day successors and apologists defence of same and the latter’s world views and ethics/moralities.
Transcultural Learning impacts and action associated terms:
‘Intercultural and Cross-cultural’ and ‘Multicultural.’
Cross-cultural: The Oxford Learners Online Dictionary defines ‘Cross-Cultural’ as: involving or containing ideas from two or more different countries or cultures
Intercultural: The Oxford Learners Online Dictionary defines ‘Intercultural’ as: existing or happening between different cultures
Multicultural: The Oxford Learners Online Dictionary defines ‘Intercultural’ as: for or including people of several different races, religions, languages, and traditions
Reference: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/multicultural
Applications of the terms Transcultural, Intercultural, Cross-Cultural, and Multicultural:
These in different ways and forms constitute the direct educational/learning resources development and associated networks (and projects and initiatives resulting from the latter) dimension purposes of the HANACS.
In terms they include, but are not limited to, the following areas (many of which interrelate):
- creative/artistic
- spiritual and philosophic self-development
- functional & utilitarian
- interpersonal communication
- workplace and business (including bargaining and negotiating)
- political interaction arts & cultures and international relations
- traditions & customs [including folklore] and their spread and evolution, ending and rebirth
- festivals
- gender related
- minorities related
Migration is perhaps a unique application in its own right, for it includes so many of the above, particularly in the domain of the Arts and Culture: it features in numerous ways and to different degrees across the Arts and Culture information resources of the HANACS, and in aspects of pre-HANACS, UKNFS Arts & Culture projects. It will in some of envisaged HANACS initiatives, projects, and learning and creative activities, going forward, feature too.
The Himalayan and Nepal region of Southern Asia, is a particularly rich one where arts and culture and migration are concerned, and when the related transcultural learning is extended to the NW European/British Isles region, which has its own history of transcultural arts and culture and multiculturalism, the HANACS vision & mission becomes unique.
The potential value of the HANACS remits in regard to transcultural learning, and associated intercultural and cross-cultural learning, furtherance therefore has application beyond the domains of arts and culture, and in this the benefits can be seen in the specific Nepali diaspora case Equality-Diversity-Inclusion (EDI) and integration, for example, in much of the HANACS, UKNFS Chapter role and background. However, there are broader benefits in the EDI sense, as this LinkedIn post illustrates: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-cross-cultural-training-gracie-johnson-lopez/