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Journal of International and InterculturalCommunication

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Attending to the “face of the other” in interculturalcommunication: Thinking and talking aboutdifference, identity, and ethics

Ozum Ucok-Sayrak

To cite this article: Ozum Ucok-Sayrak (2016): Attending to the “face of the other” inintercultural communication: Thinking and talking about difference, identity, and ethics,Journal of International and Intercultural Communication

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2016.1142600

Published online: 07 Mar 2016.

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Attending to the “face of the other” in interculturalcommunication: Thinking and talking about difference,identity, and ethicsOzum Ucok-Sayrak

Communication & Rhetorical Studies, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

ABSTRACTThis essay contributes to the discussions in interculturalcommunication scholarship on key intercultural urgencies, issues,and challenges in today’s world through the ethical framework ofEmmanuel Levinas and his discussion of “absolute otherness” thatinforms and expands the dialogue on interculturality, culturalhumility, and ethics. Levinas’s discussion of “absolute otherness”aims to preserve difference—the otherness of the other—byasserting the ethical relation prior to the ontological relation andcarries significant communicative implications in terms of therelation of the self and the other as well as making sense ofdifference and identity, and offers a new way of talking aboutthese issues in the field of communication studies, specifically inintercultural communication. An illustration of attending to theother beyond reduction to the same is offered through apedagogical application of the Levinasian framework in theintercultural communication class.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 10 December 2014Accepted 1 November 2015

KEYWORDSDifference; identity; ethics;Levinas; (inter)culturalhumility

The February 2014 issue of the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication(JIIC) featured several interactive essays based on an online discussion between 11 inter-cultural scholars from a variety of countries and perspectives towards envisioning,framing, stimulating intercultural scholarship through a dialogic, creative format. Thefirst interactive essay, “Defining and Communicating What ‘Intercultural’ and ‘Intercul-tural Communication’ Means to Us,” focused on the notion of “interculturality” thatstimulated discussion on such concepts as cultural humility, intercultural spaces, modern-ization and globalization, intertexts, performativity, domination and inequality, amongothers. The discussion on cultural humility in relation to (inter)cultural competencestands out for the purposes of this current essay, which aims to introduce the ethical phil-osophy of Levinas to intercultural communication scholarship. Levinas’ ethical relationadds to the discussion on cultural humility by subordinating the self to the Other, andthrough the notion of “absolute otherness.” As Levinas (1961/1969) discusses, the “faceof the Other” only reveals itself when the self is disrupted and opened to receive theOther on her own terms. The ethical framework of Levinas (1961/1969, 1998) is discussedin further detail in relation to cultural humility and intercultural communication in theupcoming sections.

© 2016 National Communication Association

CONTACT Ozum Ucok-Sayrak ozumucok@sayrak.com

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The second interactive essay from the same issue of JIIC, titled “Identifying Key Cul-tural Urgencies, Issues, and Challenges in Today’s World: Connecting Our Scholarshipto Dynamic Contexts and Historical Moments,” included discussions on issues such asidentity and representation, “culture learning” in the age of global communication, diver-sity and perception of difference, health disparities and intercultural communication,moral self, and ethics and responsibility, among others. The importance of forming “anew ethics embracing both rights and responsibilities” that Yin highlights in the afore-mentioned essay as part of the urgencies underlying intercultural communication scholar-ship stands out for this study in addition to the cultural humility discussion highlightedabove. In her contribution to the discussion in this essay, Yin points to the limitedstudies in intercultural communication scholarship that integrate communication ethicsscholarship and calls for scholarship on duty consciousness as a “new form of ethics”that complement the rights-conscious ethics that is dominant in Western societies.Levinas’ ethical philosophy with its emphasis on responsibility for the Other—to thepoint of being held “hostage” by the “face of the Other”—and the subordination of theself to the other enriches and contributes to discussions in intercultural scholarshiptowards forming a new ethics attentive to both rights and responsibilities.

The discussion on cultural humility is directly connected to a duty-conscious ethic suchthat being responsible for the Other requires a sense of receptivity, humbleness, and learn-ing from the Other, as well as bringing “into check the power imbalances that exist” anddeveloping and maintaining “mutually respectful and dynamic partnerships with commu-nities” (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998, p. 118).

This essay contributes to the discussions in intercultural communication scholarshipon key intercultural urgencies, issues, and challenges in today’s world through introducingthe ethical framework of Emmanuel Levinas and his discussion of “absolute otherness”that informs and expands the dialogue on interculturality, cultural humility, and ethicsand intercultural communication. First, this essay offers an overview of recent scholarlydiscussions on interculturality and intercultural communication in relation to culturalhumility, ethics, and difference. Second, Emmanuel Levinas’s (1961/1969, 1996) ethicalphilosophy is introduced along with his critique of the Western philosophical traditiondue its lack of concern for otherness. Third, this essay turns to an examination of socialjustice in relation to the responsibility of one-for-the-other by connecting Levinas’sethical framework to Butler’s (2004/2006) discussion of vulnerability—being implicatedby others beyond one’s will—as an opening into the ethical relation. In the finalsection, this study offers a pedagogical application of the Levinasian framework of theethical relation and social justice along with Butler’s discussion of vulnerability, ethicalresponsiveness, and responsibility in an Exploring Intercultural Communication course.

Expanding the conversation on interculturality, cultural humility, andethics

In the 2014 interactive essay, “Defining and Communicating What ‘Intercultural’ and‘Intercultural Communication’ Means to Us,” Tsuda defines “interculturality” as“having contacts with, exposure to, and experience with different cultures” (Alexanderet al., 2014a, p. 16). Tsuda highlights the importance of grounding the discussions on“interculturality” in the historical context of modernization and globalization.

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“‘Interculturality’ does not emerge by itself” (Alexander et al., 2014a, p. 16). Yin adds tothis discussion by underlining the “power differentials among cultures and peoples”and the “global structure we inherited from the legacy of colonialism” (Alexander et al.,2014b, p. 40). Yin offers a definition of interculturality as “ongoing struggles of colonizedand marginalized people for truly equal relations among cultures and individuals” (Alex-ander et al., 2014b, p. 40). Furthermore, Yin highlights the importance of “struggle”towards eliminating material and discursive inequalities and advocates “a process ofstruggle over meanings . . . that problematizes and challenges the very structure of knowl-edge (discourse) production itself” (as cited in Alexander et al., 2014b, p. 41).

As discussed in further detail in the next section, Levinas’ ethical philosophy critiquesWestern (philosophical) tradition in its attempts to know the other based on the same (thefamiliar foundation of the self) rather than encountering the other as other. For Levinas,the ethical relation is based on the irreducible difference of the Other—“absolute Other-ness”—that can not be identified or known by the self as the same: “The Other overflowsabsolutely every idea I have of him” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 87). By overflowing the ideaand/or the image that the self constructs in his/her mind, the other resists being turnedinto the self/same and maintains difference, which has significant implications in the Levi-nasian framework in disrupting the self and making room for ethical subjectivity. Levinas’framework of the ethical relation highlights a concern for preserving otherness—asreflected in his concept of “absolute otherness”—which is connected to Yin’s discussionof the struggle over meaning and knowledge production as stated in the above paragraph.“Absolute otherness” supports the struggle in resisting dominant meaning structures andinvites honoring the Other as Other. In the context of globalization, “absolute otherness”encourages genuine “culture learning” (Alexander et al., 2014b, p. 42; Asad, 1986), whichis going beyond learning about a culture and actually learning it. “True culture learningoccurs when people see cultures as resources for enhancing the understanding ofpeople’s as ‘centered.’” (Alexander et al., 2014b, p. 42). “Centeredness” refers to learningabout the other on her terms based on her cultural resources and frameworks rather thantaking the “teacher’s perspective.” Thus, true culture learning requires cultural humility.

In the ethical philosophy of Levinas—as discussed in the next section—the “face of theOther” only reveals itself when the self is subordinated and opened to receive the Other onher own terms. The vulnerable Other commands the self to respond, and the self is respon-sible before it is free. Oetzel defines cultural humility as “the desire to approach an (inter)cultural encounter with respect toward the other and their worldview, and the chance tolearn about her/him and yourself” (Alexander et al., 2014a, p. 15). Thus, cultural humilityinvolves receptivity and reflexivity, rather than imposition and self-centeredness, whichallows for an opening to make sense of the Other on her own terms. Levinas’ ethicalrelation adds to the discussion on cultural humility by subordinating the self to theOther. The self is held “hostage” by the “face of the Other” and is called to respond.

Austerlic (2009) states that “cultural humility comes from stepping away from thecomfort zone/role of expert and acknowledging when we might not know what else todo.” Austerlic’s essay focuses on the patient/family and healthcare provider relationshipsat the end of life in the Latino community, and following Tervalon and Murray-Garcia’s(1998) essay on cultural humility in physician training and multicultural education, high-lights “becoming a student of the patient” to be “a full partner in the therapeutic alliance,even in the face of imminent death” (p. 121). Learning about the patients’ beliefs, values,

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expectations, their meanings of “quality of life” are part of becoming the student of thepatient. The notion of becoming a student of the patient suggests a shift in the conven-tional power dynamics between the doctor and the patient. In line with the discussionin the above paragraph, it involves a subordination of the self to the other—in this caseto the patient—to receive and learn from the other. Later in this essay—under the subsec-tion “The question of social justice”—the discussion on Macdonald’s (2010) experience asa Caucasian psychologist performing a psychological assessment of her 17-year-oldAfrican American client (who is pregnant) specifically illustrates the notion of culturalhumility (in relation to Levinas’ discussion of justice.)

The notions of cultural humility and “culture learning” are especially urgent in this ageof globalization and as part of discussions of cosmopolitanism or what it means to be/become “world-citizens.” As Roberts (2014) discusses in “The Limits of Cosmopolis:Ethics and Provinciality in the Dialogue of Cultures,” we need to beware of discussionsof cosmopolitanism as just an “identity-claim”—and a uniquely Western one—andeven as a “willingness to engage the Other” (Hannerz, 1992) since engagement does notnecessarily mean ethical obligation. Roberts (2014) brings up the urgent question ofwhat would it mean to be interconnected morally and not just economically in the globa-lizing world? Roberts (2014) explains that commitment to moral action, and humility, a“letting the Other happen to me” (Stewart & Zediker, 2000), are essential in interculturaldialogue which is “a form of struggle” (Lerner & West, 1996, p. 266).

Finally, as part of the discussions on interculturality, cultural humility and culturelearning, and a new form of ethics that embraces rights and responsibilities, Warren’s(2008) exploration of a framework of difference in “Performing Difference: Repetitionin Context” serves as a useful resource in offering a new perspective in making sense ofand talking about difference. Warren (2008) explores a framework of difference thatdoes not turn the other to the same/self. He draws from Deluze’s discussion of differenceas an ontological state, “the idea of being (ontology) as always constituted anew, always arepetition of differences,” (Warren, 2008, p. 298) yet “never ‘simply’ repeating.” (p. 297)For Deluze, as Warren summarizes it, “ontology is, essentially, a repetition of difference—that is, ontology is a transformative and fluid state, characterized by repetitive actsthat are always unique, even if they are historically informed repetitions. Being is fluid,adaptive, and always anew . . .” (Warren, 2008, pp. 296–297). In theorizing difference,Warren (2008) seeks a way of thinking about difference that resists turning differenceto the familiar, similar, and the known, and understanding identity beyond totality—areduction and limitation of the other to already known concepts, categories leaving noroom for its otherness (Levinas, 1961/1969).

Warren further applies Deluze’s notion of “ontology of difference” to the study ofracism as a site where difference is enacted. He writes about learning to see race andracism as always an act anew—an original act though historically informed andrepeated—that disappears as soon as it occurs, leaving only a memory, and image inthe mind. In studying difference and how it is produced communicatively, Warren callsfor careful attention to particularity, the distinct properties and functions of a specificutterance for instance, rather than reducing it to similar categories, erasing its distinctproperties, and turning it to the same. He offers a common example that repeats in hisintercultural communication class when a student says “I have friends of all colors; Idon’t even see race. I am color blind.” (Warren, 2008, p. 292) Even if such an utterance

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reminds us of familiar speech acts that erase difference, Warren highlights that each time itis uttered it is “a newly voiced saying of it” (Warren, 2008, p. 297) where the speaker,occasion, intonation, and the effects of the speech act will be different. Attending to thedifferences in the production and effects of speech—racist speech, in this case—is asimportant as recognizing its conventional construction. As Warren explains, this allowsus to understand difference and its communicative construction in more concrete waysrather than reducing it to the already existing categories in one’s mind.

Warren offers one way of talking about difference differently through the Deluzianframework of understanding “ontology as difference” that is constituted by repetitionof difference in distinct ways. Opening up to the unique and complex ways in whichrepetition of difference that constitute ontology allows for understanding self and otherbeyond reductionism and reification. Building on the ground that Warren (2008,p. 304) prepared, and attending to his call for future studies in the field of communicationwhere he highlighted a “need to change the way we talk about difference”—movingbeyond simplistic and categorical approaches—this study presents a framework that pre-serves the difference of the other through exploring a subjectivity beyond conventionbased on Emmanuel Levinas’s work. Whereas the Deluzian framework of “ontology asdifference” highlights the fluid, ever-changing nature of being that shields it against essen-tialist, static understandings of who we are, Levinas’s discussion of “absolute otherness”aims to preserve difference—the otherness of the other—by asserting the ethical relationprior to the ontological relation. This study presents the Levinasian concept of “absoluteotherness” as a way of thinking and talking about difference in the field of communicationstudies, and specifically in intercultural communication. Furthermore, as Warren (2008)articulated in his work on theorizing difference in connection to subjectivity, this essayconnects the discussion on difference to an understanding of subjectivity beyond conven-tion based on Levinas’s work.

To summarize, this study contributes to the ongoing conversations on “interculturality”by expanding the discussion on cultural humility (Alexander et al., 2014a; Austerlic, 2009;Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998), culture learning, and an ethic that is duty-conscious inaddition to being rights-conscious, through an exploration of Levinas’s ethical philosophythat informs the ways in which we think and talk about difference. Although there hasbeen an increased attention to the philosophy of Levinas in communication studies inthe past years (Arnett, 2003, 2004, 2012; Gehrke, 2010; Hyde, 2001; Lipari, 2012;Murray, 2000, 2002), Levinas’s work remains to be a substantial yet “under-utilizedresource for communication scholars” (Murray, 2002, p. 39). This paper aims to introduceand incorporate Levinas’ ethical philosophy to intercultural communication scholarship,putting communication ethics and intercultural communication in conversation. The nextsection offers a detailed discussion of Levinasian ethics beyond will.

Levinas1 and the ethical relation

A repeating theme in Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy of ethics has been the “reduction ofthe other to the same” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 46). Levinas critiquesWestern philosophicaltradition due its lack of concern for otherness, in its attempts to know the other based onthe same (the familiar foundation of the self) rather than encountering the other as other.Levinas offers the ethical relation prior to the ontological relation that prioritizes

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knowledge of being, and highlights “absolute otherness” that refers to the irreducibledifference of the Other who can never be fully defined, described, or known. As he repeat-edly states in Totality and Infinity, “The Other overflows absolutely every idea I have ofhim” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 87). The Other, “the stranger, the widow, and the orphan,to whom I am obligated” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 215) is always more than my comprehen-sion and identification. Through his discussion of “absolute otherness” and the ethicalrelation, Levinas highlights the preservation of the otherness of the other that puts anend to the “the imperialism of the same.” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 39)

Furthermore, in overflowing comprehension and identification, the Other puts intoquestion the freedom of the self that maintains itself by grasping, comprehending, posses-sing, and “reverting the alterity of the world to self-identification.” (Levinas, 1961/1969,pp. 37–38) Levinas (1961/1969, p. 43) states

We name this calling into question of my spontaneity by the presence of the Other ethics.The strangeness of the Other, his irreducibility to the I, to my thoughts and my possessions,is precisely accomplished as a calling into question of my spontaneity, as ethics.

Through its resistance in being reduced to the same, the Other questions and challengesthe freedom of the self, which leads to the ethical relation. The spontaneity of the self isdisrupted (by the Other) for the Other to reveal itself “according to itself.” (Levinas,1961/1969, p. 77) As Lipari (2012, p. 229) put it “Ethics, according to Levinas, beginswith the renunciation of the self’s right to be in favor, always, of the other” (Lipari,2012, p. 229).

In Transcendence and Height, Levinas (1961/1996, p. 16) writes about the resistance ofthe Other to being an object of conscious thought and intentionality, and its absolvingitself from the relation beyond “the grasp of consciousness.” He states

The absolutely Other is not reflected in a consciousness; it resists the indiscretion of inten-tionality. It resists it to the point where its very resistance does not become converted intoa content of consciousness. . . . The resistance of the Other to the indiscretion of intention-ality consists in overturning the very egoism of the Same; that which is aimed at unseats theintentionality which aims it.

Through the resistance of the absolutely Other to being reduced to content and to giveitself away, the self is put into question; it is disrupted, and its egoism is turned over.The Other resists becoming an object of consciousness where it is “converted into acontent of consciousness,” and reduced to self/same. What is important to note here isthat this whole process of the self being put into question takes place beyond the will ofthe self, as will be further discussed in the following pages; it is beyond consciousthought and intentionality. It is only when the self is put into question, its egoismturned over, that the Other is welcomed, and the ethical relation emerges.

The putting into question of the self is precisely a welcome to the absolute other. The otherdoes not show it to the I as a theme. The epiphany of the Absolutely Other is a face by whichthe Other challenges and commands me through his nakedness, through his destitution. Hechallenges me from his humility and from his height. And the putting into question of theSame by the Other is a summons to respond. (Levinas, 1996, p. 12)

With the disruption of the self, the absolute Other is welcomed to manifest itself as a facerather than a theme/content. The face is the presentation of the Other beyond conception,

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content, and knowability. The face is revealed when the I is disrupted open to receive theOther on her own terms. Furthermore, the face presents itself in its defenselessness andimpoverishment, commanding the self to respond. The self is subordinated to the faceof the Other where s/he is challenged from the “height” of the Other (asymmetry.) TheOther is above me, is vulnerable, and commands me to respond. And I am obliged torespond. I am responsible before I am free, which lies at the core of the ethical relationfor Levinas.

In The Responsive “I”: Levinas’s Derivative Argument, Arnett (2003, p. 39) highlightsthat the self that emerges in and through the ethical relation with the Other is “a bypro-duct, a responsive derivative construction” based on attentiveness to the Other, rather thanindividual agency and willfulness (Arnett, 2003, p. 39). Arnett explains that the responsivederivative “I” is called forth by the Other, and finds identity and a “fuller sense of human-ness” in attending to the Other (2003, p. 41).

In Witness to the Face of a River: Thinking with Levinas and Thoreou, Mooney andMower (2012, p. 281) offer a striking tale that illustrates the ethical call of the face thatdisrupts the self and obliges it to respond, which is worth sharing as a lengthy quote:

She had been barely freed when by happenstance or a dark pull of the place, this woman, aRussian, returned to the site of her Nazi imprisonment . . . She revisits the cells of her cap-tivity and torment. Russian soldiers, her liberators, are at hand as she recognizes one of herGerman captors, now himself captive, humiliated and afraid. He is in dirty rags, bent underthe indignity of hauling out excrement and putrefying corpses. He is weak. She stoops todraw up a brick and brings it up under he jacket. He does not deserve to live! Justice willbe mine! She has strength, seething anger, and a taste for vengeance. A quick blow to thetemple will do it. What stands between her and her righteous killing? Nothing! Whowould blame her? Yet as if against her will, she finds her hand not on the brick but on amorsel of bread, a scrap she had saved for herself. In a whisper, “Here, take this.” She liftsthe scrap gently to his lips. Later she is ashamed, almost as if she had been again defiled.Through sleepless nights, she rehearses her humiliation. She was a fool not to kill him.(Worse, she was tender!)

The Russian woman’s inner struggle after her encounter with her German captor whereshe was the “free” one and he was captive reflects the struggle between the “I” as awillful agent—the “originative I” (Arnett, 2003, p. 40)—and the “derivative ‘I’” that iscalled to attend to the Other. In a way, she became “hostage” to the other once again asshe responded beyond or even against her will. In Levinasian terms, she was ordainedby the face of the other that commands “thou shall not kill.” As Gehrke (2010, p. 9) puts

The Other before me demands response—demands my responsiveness and responsibility.This response is prior to any thought or action… This is not to say that I respondwithout thought, but that thought can never grasp nor be the ground for my responsibility.

In Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Levinas (1998) takes his prior discussion of thedisruption of the self in Totality and Infinity further. Levinas (1998, p. 14) refers to the“breakup of identity” where the subject “for itself” (identity of the ego) is transformed/sub-stituted into a subject as one-for-another. This substitution of the self for another involvesvulnerability, being exposed to the other, and a sensibility that involves “disinterestednessof subjectivity” (Levinas, 1998, p. 15). Disinterested in the maintenance and justification ofthe I “a passivity more passive than all passivity” (Levinas, 1998, p. 14), Levinas refers tothis subjectivity of the subject, otherwise than being, or being’s other. The breakup of

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identity, that is, the “changing of being… into substitution” (Levinas, 1998, p. 14) involves“sensibility as the subjectivity of the subject” and assumes responsibility for the other“offering itself even in suffering” (Levinas, 1998, p. 15).

Revisiting the tale of the Russian woman and her German captor presented earlier, theRussian woman “became undone” in the face of the Other. In Butler’s (2004/2006, p. 24)terms, she was “transported beyond oneself,” finding herself responsive to the otherbeyond her will, and was engaged in an ethical relation beyond her choice. In Levinasianterms she was substituted into one-for-another where she could not escape taking respon-sibility for the other, which reflects the “disinterestedness of subjectivity” and its sensibil-ity. In either terms, the identity of the self that is for itself, that consumes and reverts theworld into itself comes to a halt, where the self finds itself inescapably responsible for theother and offers itself in saying “Here I am” (Levinas, 1998, pp. 145–146). As Lipari (2012,p. 228) puts it: “Levinas’s self is not a self-same-subject but a relational intersubjectivesubject. To Levinas, subjectivity is not for itself but for the other… .”

The Levinasian subject that finds itself responsible beyond her will, and subordinated tothe Other in learning and receiving from the Other, illustrates the notion of cultural humi-lity that was discussed in the prior section. This kind of learning from and honoring theOther is crucial in the context of globalization in attending to material and discursiveinequalities and challenging the dominant structures of knowledge production such asEurocentrism (Alexander et al., 2014b). The next section expands and textures theabove discussion by including Butler’s discussion of vulnerability in connection to respon-siveness and subjectivity. Butler highlights physical and social vulnerability, our humancondition of being exposed to others, as a common base for human beings that serves toremind us of our deep relational constitution, opening us up to receive the call of the Other.

Vulnerability, responsiveness, and responsibility

In Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Judith Butler (2004/2006, p. 44)writes about “the body as a site of a common human vulnerability,” where we are not onlyphysically, but also socially vulnerable bodies attached and exposed to others, and at riskdue to such attachment and exposure. She offers a discussion of the transformative effectsof loss and grief, highlighting our deep relational constitution, and challenging the notionof the autonomous self. Loss and vulnerability remind us that we are not always in control,as we find ourselves as part of something that is larger than “one’s own project, one’s ownknowing and one’s own choosing.” (Butler, 2004/2006, p. 21)

It is not as if an “I” exists independently over here and then simply loses a “you” over there,especially if the attachment to “you” is part of what composes who “I” am. If I lose you, underthese conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself. Who“am” I, without you? When we lose some of these ties by which we are constituted, we donot know what we are or what to do. On one level, I think I have lost “you” only to discoverthat “I” have gone missing as well. At another level, perhaps I have lost “in” you, that forwhich I have no ready vocabulary… (Butler, 2004/2006, p. 22)

This experience of our vulnerability in relation to our bodily life with others, of beingaffected by loss and not knowing who one is or who one is to become, leads to Butler’sfurther exploration of our fundamental condition of being implicated by others. Butlerarticulates the “possibility of apprehending a mode of dispossession” that reflects “the

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ways in which we are, from the start and by virtue of being a bodily being, already givenover, beyond ourselves, implicated in lives that are not our own” (Butler, 2004/2006, p. 28).Butler explores whether this insight into our “primary sociality” might be a resource forbetter understanding and approaching the global distribution of corporeal vulnerabilityand the vulnerability of the other. “To foreclose that vulnerability, to banish it, to makeourselves secure at the expense of every other human consideration is to eradicate oneof the most important resources from which we must take our bearings and find ourway” (Butler, 2004/2006, p. 30). Butler repeatedly emphasizes that turning towards thisprimary condition of common human vulnerability is a significant resource thatreminds us about our “collective responsibility for the physical lives of one another”that would allow us to “critically evaluate and oppose the conditions under whichcertain human lives are more vulnerable than others, and thus, certain human lives aremore grievable than others” (2004/2006, p. 30).

In her lecture at the European Graduate School titled Ethics on a Global Scale, Butler(2011) connects the exposedness and vulnerability of the socially constituted body, thatis, the “precariousness of the body,” to Levinasian ethics: “Vulnerable to destruction bythe other and yet responsible for the other.” She goes on:

This corporeal and precarious being is responsible for the life of the other, which means thathowever much one fears for one’s own life preserving the life of the other is paramount. “Butler highlights the connection of vulnerability and responsibility in her lecture and repeat-edly states that one’s response to the call of the others emerges in relation to her own vulner-ability. That is, my injurability makes me receptive to the other’s call “in ways that I cannotpredict or control…my answerability and injurability are bound up with one another.

Butler (2011) explains further, connecting ethical responsibility to ethical responsiveness:

… You call upon me and I answer, and I answer only because I was already answerable, thatis this susceptibility and vulnerability constitutes me at the most fundamental level . . . Onehas to be already capable of receiving the call before actually answering it and it is in thissense that ethical responsibility presupposes ethical responsiveness . . .

Butler frames this fundamental condition of being vulnerable to, exposed to, and impli-cated by others as an opening into the ethical relation. She highlights the readiness toreceive the call, that is, the responsiveness that makes ethical responsibility possible. Fur-thermore, according to Butler, our corporeal vulnerability allows for the receptivity/responsiveness required for ethical responsibility. As discussed earlier, Butler connectsthe transformative implications of loss/grief and vulnerability to being undone as anautonomous “I.” Vulnerability/injurability, disruption of the autonomous self (being dis-possessed/implicated by others), receptivity/responsiveness, and ethical responsibility areall related. “There is a specific mode of being dispossessed that makes ethical relationalitypossibility. If I possess myself too firmly or too rigidly I cannot be in an ethical relation toyou… .” Thus, the ethical relation becomes possible by the loosening of the “I” or the“undoing” of the autonomous I that is based on will, control and knowing. An openingis needed, which, according to Butler emerges through our vulnerability and injurability.

The loosening of the autonomous “I” based on the acknowledgement of our commonhuman vulnerability has direct implications for the discussion on cultural humility and aduty-conscious ethics. One is humbled and receptive to the call of the Other knowing thats/he is not always in control but exposed to the Other, to loss, to life’s uncertainties. We are

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relationally constituted and part of something larger than our narrow concepts of who weare. Recognizing such precariousness and relationality invites responsibility and humble-ness, which are much needed in our globalizing and struggling contemporary world.

The next section connects the discussion until now on attending to difference, ethics,vulnerability, and subjectivity to Levinas’s discussion of social justice. The example high-lighting the dilemma of a Caucasian psychologist performing a psychological assessmentof a 17-year-old African American girl who is pregnant illustrates the Levinasian discus-sion of justice located in the proximity of one-for-the-other as well as the prior discussionsin this essay that center around attending to difference without reducing the other to thesame, and vulnerability as a common human ground for ethical responsiveness.

The question of social justice

In Emmanuel Levinas: Ethics, Justice, and the Human Beyond Being, Thomas (2004, p. 2)brings up the question of justice for Levinas in terms of “a questioning of my right to be.”Thomas (2004, p. 113) states that for Levinas, “Justice is precisely a giving up of one’s ownbeing for the sake of the other; the leaving of being for ethics.” She adds that the two terms,however, are not to be reduced to the other. The relation to the Other takes place amongthe Others: “Everything that takes place here ‘between us’ concerns everyone” (Levinas,1961/1969, p. 212) and “The third party looks at me in the eyes of the Other” (Levinas,1961/1969, p. 213). Thus, for Levinas, the third party is ever present even in its physicalabsence, through the eyes of the Other. In Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence,Levinas (1998, p. 157) further acknowledges that the presence of the third party troublesthe ethical relation in terms of the needs that arise in relation to comparison, thematiza-tion, order and coexistence. He states that the third party is another neighbor, who is also aneighbor of the other, “not simply his fellow” (Levinas, 1998, p. 157). Levinas locates theethical relation, the responsibility of the one-for-the-other, as the foundation of justice:“The others concern me from the first” (1998, p. 159). Similarly, “the other is from thefirst the brother of all the other men” (Levinas, 1998, p. 158). Levinas also warns thatthis extension of responsibility for the other from “the initial duo” to the trio and tothe multiple in no way means a degeneration or limitation of responsibility: “Justiceremains justice only, in a society where there is no distinction between those close andthose far off, but in which there also remains the impossibility of passing by theclosest” (1998, p. 159).

The responsibility of the one for the other lies at the center of justice for Levinas whichhe clearly distinguishes from the “legality regulating human masses” (1998, p. 159).“Justice is impossible without the one that renders it finding himself in proximity”(Levinas, 1998, p. 159). The other forms of justice such as the State and its institutions,politics and techniques function “out of proximity . . . having their center of gravitationin themselves, and weighing on their own account” (p. 159) thus reverting the other to thesame in the name of justice. Justice is served when “the law is in the midst of proximity”(p. 159) and the judge finds himself responsible for the other beyond processing casesunder a general rule. “This means that nothing is outside of the control of the responsi-bility of the one for the other” (Levinas, 1998, p. 159).

Heather Macdonald’s essay titled Levinas in the Hood: Portable Social Justice illustratesthe above discussion of justice located in the proximity of one-for-the-other in the relation

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between a psychologist performing a psychological assessment and her client in a multi-cultural setting. As a Caucasian psychologist with a task of evaluating a 17-year-oldAfrican American girl who is pregnant, Macdonald shares the dilemma she findsherself in based on Levinas’s critique of the ontological relation that was discussed atthe beginning of this paper. Macdonald (2010, p. 305) writes, “How do I conduct thismission of knowing without totalizing the other? How do I conduct myself in the spiritof ethics and social justice?” She describes her initial perception of impossibility of thistask given the structure of the assessment procedure that starts with an informational dis-closure where the psychologist “may readily categorize the client’s experience according tothe previously set standards of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(American Psychiatric Association, 2000)” (Macdonald, 2010, pp. 305–306). The assess-ment’s importance was explained to Macdonald by a county worker on the phone interms of the kind of mental health support her client would need as a new mother.Dedra, Macdonald’s client had displayed symptoms of “extreme irritability, depressionand impulsive behaviors” and the county worker “had concerns about the presence of apossible mood disorder, such as bipolar disorder” (Macdonald, 2010, pp. 305–306).One of the main questions that informs Macdonald’s essay is “Can Levinas (1961/1969)help transform this mission of knowing in such a way that I am able to recognize thatthe Other ‘is more primordial than everything that takes place in me?’” (2010, p. 67). Mac-donald provides a detailed and rich description of her arrival at the client’s home in thesection titled Ethics Ruptures Being where an unexpected incident—blood on Macdonald’sface—interrupted the structure of the interaction, “totality broke into pieces,” and the faceof the Other appeared (Macdonald, 2010, p. 308). Following this “rupture,” Macdonaldallowed herself to follow the unknown and the unfamiliar, without trying to step backinto the known. She opened herself to meet the Other on her terms. As Levinas (1961/1969, p. 72) put it “Justice consists in recognizing in the Other my master.” Macdonald(2010, p. 308) writes “I tried to let the face of the other introduce into me what was notin me . . . I made no effort to be outside of what unfolded in our time together.” Macdo-nald stepped down from the role of the assessor and into the relation with the Other where“the law is in the midst of proximity” (Levinas, 1998, p. 159). She writes that social justice

is to stand with Dedra in a state of awe and complete attention, to die psychologically to thesocial structures in the mind and to stave off any hidden wanting: to be present to unjus-tifiable suffering and to be blasted by it. Social justice means that two people endure theinitial shock of otherness, of not understanding one another, and then are willing to betransformed by that very lack of understanding. Social justice is not discovered in anabstract manner, rather, it is made in the relation between two people. (Macdonald,2010, p. 310)

Macdonald’s discussion of her relation with her “client” attentive to the communicativeproduction of difference and cautious of the reduction of the other to already-existing cat-egories illustrates not only the enactment of social justice in the proximity of one-for-the-other but also Warren’s discussion of Deluzian framework of ontology as repetition ofdifference as discussed in the introduction of this essay. Attending to particularity in rep-etition of difference, such as the communicative acts in a particular scenario as in Macdo-nald’s example, allows for a comprehensive understanding of difference and its productionin social interaction. Being informed by Levinas’s discussion of the ethical relation allows

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Macdonald to attend to difference with watchful attention, resisting to turn to the other tothe same, and willing to meet the Other on her terms.

Macdonald’s example is very helpful in showing how theory of difference matters in theengagement of life and, in this case, professional life. It offers a skillful illustration of inter-culturality and cultural humility based on our prior discussion of stepping away from thecomforts and familiarity of the expert role and “becoming a student of the patient” to be“a full partner in the therapeutic alliance, even in the face of imminent death” (Tervalon& Murray-Garcia, 1998, p. 121). As the therapist in the above encounter, Macdonald keptthe power balances in check, stepped down from the role of the assessor, and allowed theOther to happen to her. In this way, she was able to make sense of the Other on her ownterms rather than imposing her agenda, structured tests, and categories on her. In thisprocess, Macdonald herself was also transformed and learned about herself, “I tried to letthe face of the other introduce into me what was not in me . . .” (Macdonald, 2010, p. 308).

Theoretical frameworks of difference such as those discussed in this study includingLevinasian “absolute otherness,” Warren’s discussion of the Deluzian “ontology of differ-ence,” and Butler’s precarity provide a ground for innovative and engaged pedagogicalmethods in the communication classroom. The next and final section offers a pedagogicalapplication of Levinas’s philosophy of otherness and the ethical relation in the intercul-tural communication-service learning class.

Embodying vulnerability, ethics, and social justice in the classroom

Engaging in discussion on “the face of the Other,” vulnerability, and social justice offers arich ground for many courses in liberal arts, and specifically in the field of communicationstudies. The Exploring Intercultural Communication service-learning course can be listedon the top of the list given the interplay of the familiar and the strange as one of its corethemes.

In the past two years, I started to integrate quotes from Levinas on ethics and “the faceof the Other” to our discussions in the classroom. Homeless Children Education Fund(HCEF) is one of the community partners we work with for the service-learning course,and the Stand Up Art Installation event every Fall offers a perfect opportunity to bringour discussions to life. Basically, students stand up as a group for 15 minutes in a busypublic space holding the drawing of the face of a homeless child in front of their ownface. Through this performative engagement, the themes that we intellectually discussin class that I have discussed throughout this essay—the reduction of the other to thesame, questioning one’s spontaneity/freedom/right to be, vulnerability, ethical responsibil-ity, substitution, justice—come to be experienced through the lived experience of the stu-dents. In the following, I provide a brief background on the HCEF followed by a discussionof the Stand Up Art Installation service-learning event and the common themes thatemerge through the experiences of my students.

Homeless Children Education Fund and the Stand Up Performance ArtInstallation

The HCEF was established in 1999 as a not-for-profit organization and its mission is “toadvance the education of children and youth experiencing homelessness in Allegheny

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County” (“Inside HCEF,” 2013). They provide educational programs and services, andcollaborate with other related service providers, educational institutions and foundationsto support children and the youth experiencing homelessness to ensure that they haveequal access to public education. HCEF is one of the community partners for our Explor-ing Intercultural Communication service-learning course. Throughout the semester, stu-dents engage in various service events that would complement their formal in-classeducation. In my course syllabus, service-learning is explained as the following, quotedfrom the undergraduate course catalogue at my university:

Service-learning is a teaching-method that combines academic instruction, meaningfulservice, and critical reflective thinking to enhance student learning and social responsibility.It differs from volunteerism, community service, internships, and field education through itsuse of ongoing, structured reflection and an emphasis on sustained, reciprocal partnershipsbetween faculty and community partners. (Duquesne University, 2014)

Every year in the Fall, HCEF organizes a whole week of events under the Homeless Chil-dren Awareness Week. Among these events are “An Evening of Storytelling,” “Stand Upand Run for Homeless Children,” and “Stand Up for Homeless Children: A PerformanceArt Installation.” In the following, I describe the common themes that emerge in relationto my students’ responses to the Stand Up Performance Art Installation event.

Source: http://www.homelessfund.org/files/admin/images/2012HCAWduqstandup.jpgThis image is from the 2012 Stand Up event at our university campus located in an Eastern

State in the U.S., and it is representative of the Stand Up events that my students haveattended since then. Students stand in silence for 15 minutes holding a drawing of a homelesschild in front of their own face. At the end of the event they repeat “Listen” 10 times. At thevery front row, there are two students holding a banner that states “No one is listening to the1700 children accessing homeless services in any given day in Allegheny County.”

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During our class following the event, we discuss experiences and observations of thestudents in relation to the topics we covered in the course including Emmanuel Levinas’s(1961/1969) concepts of the “face of the Other” and “absolute otherness”—which weusually discuss the week before this event.—A major theme that comes up in the class dis-cussions after the event is about learning to attend to the Other as other, in his/her terms,and noticing the reduction of the Other to the same. Some other common themes thatemerge in the discussions include being unexpectedly (beyond one’s will) touched andtransformed by this event that they initially questioned; taking the perspective of theOther by standing in their shoes; losing one’s voice and identity even briefly as theytook on someone else’s position in life; feeling vulnerable, cold, lonely, hopeless, useless,uncomfortable; being stared at; feeling responsible for the Other; being taken by thepassers-by who are mostly not being responsive and walking away (being frustrated byit, questioning it, finding it familiar, etc.); being restrained by the silence and having toreflect and open up as a result; noticing injustice done through reducing the homelessto some preconceived ideas; opening up to something larger than one’s self; giving voice.

The following discussion focuses on some specific student excerpts that highlight theirexperiences of stepping into the unfamiliar and the vulnerable space of a child experien-cing homelessness by holding a drawing of her face in front of theirs for 15 minutes in apublic space. Through engaging in this performative act, students report a shift in theirtaken for granted position/identity in everyday life from being a student attending to aprivate college who never have doubted the existence of a permanent roof on theirheads and regular meals to a position they have never found themselves in before(except for one student who temporarily was homeless due to a fire incident.) As onestudent put it, they got to experience “Being stared at instead of being the person staring… being on the other end of the judging stares…”. Moving from the position of the gazingsubject to being the object of the gaze, students experienced a shift in their position ofpower and found themselves to be vulnerable and exposed.

One student participant noticed her current suitemate walking by during the stand-upperformance. As she got closer to the stand-up performance, she walked away, and lookedat her phone “as if she had a call.” She reported that this made her feel angry, small, anduncared for. She remembered the homeless person that she did not acknowledge verbally.And even though she had never been homeless, she felt lonely. Being ignored by her sui-temate and not receiving the acknowledgement she is used to based on her everyday iden-tity, this student felt insignificant, unattended, and isolated. As Butler (2004/2006, p. 130)writes in relation to modes of address and moral authority, “ . . . in some way we come toexist, as it were, in the moment of being addressed, and something about our existenceproves precarious when that address fails.” In this case, my student called to the otherthrough the face she held in front of hers, and there was not a response. In Butler’s(2004/2006) terms, the address failed leaving her feeling small, lonely and angry. Basedon her own experience, this student also reflects on her memory of being on the otherside of the relation in her usual role and her own lack of acknowledgement of the homelessperson she met. Through their newly discovered vulnerability in terms of their social pos-ition and identity, students report feeling responsible for the other as the next excerptshows.

Another student wrote about a passer-by who joked about the event mockingly askingif the participants drew the faces they were holding up and how much he felt bothered by

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the “disrespect” this person had to the faces they were holding up. My students wished thatthe passer-by had some idea what it felt like to be holding that face up and feeling vulner-able. Similar to the first student above, this student’s reflection points to his recognition ofbeing in the position of the vulnerable other as well as his familiarity of the other side ofthe relation that does not recognize the vulnerable other. This same student further wroteabout the performative implications of “holding another face in front of yours.”

When someone is looking at me, they aren’t actually looking at me. They may see my face,but they think about the face I am holding up and what it means . . . . allowing us to have theresponsibility of feeling as if we were stepping into someone else’s shoes for the timebeing… . It gave me a further sense of obligation to these children as someone whohas everything I need to be successful… (Nathan K., personal communication, April 18, 2014)

The performative act allowed this student to (re)present someone else beyond himself, andto turn towards the face he was holding, as well as to invite the passers-by to do the same.In a way, he was transported beyond himself by suspending the self momentarily, andopening into the ethical relation—the responsibility for the other. Along these lines,another student connected his experience to a quote from Levinas that was part of thehandout from our class: “To welcome the Other is to put in question my freedom”(Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 84). He explained his understanding of the quote in terms ofputting others before yourself “even if it means neglecting your needs occasionally… .”He explained that as participants, they put the image of the person literally before them-selves as a gesture of support, “despite our discomfort in doing so.” Acknowledging hisfeelings of discomfort in holding up the image of a homeless child in front of his forthis performance, this student highlights the support for the other, and “welcoming theother,” and restraining the self by allowing feelings of discomfort and putting theother’s needs before yours.

In all of the excerpts above, a common experience—whether it is being stared at, beingignored, feeling vulnerable or uncomfortable—is related to what Levinas (1961/1969,p. 43) refers as “a calling into question of my spontaneity,” which was introducedthrough the opening quote of this essay and in the discussion that followed. Steppinginto the social position of a homeless child even briefly through a symbolic, performativeact, students seem to open into the ethical relation by suspending themselves momenta-rily. The self that reduces the other to the same, the subject “for itself,” was temporarilytransformed into a subject as “one-for-another” (Levinas, 1998, p. 14). As one studentarticulated clearly, “Holding the symbols up, we lost our identity briefly to become thechildren. We lost our voice due to the silence and were faced with vulnerability.”(Cindy T., personal communication, April 18, 2014). Thus, in a way, they experienced adisruption of the self (Levinas, 1961/1969, 1996) or, in Butler’s terms, “being undone”(2004/2006, p. 23). As a result, most students report feeling responsible for the otherand their desire to reach out.

Finally, students also make a connection to social justice as they realize the interplay ofthe familiar/strange, same/other during the stand up. One student wrote that trying toknow the other through one’s self does injustice to the other because “it is inaccurate toreduce the other to our standards. With this mindset, one reduces the other to the familiaraspects of their life and never accepts the strange” (Mary J., personal communication,April 18, 2014). Similar to Macdonald’s struggle that was discussed in the prior section

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as a psychologist who resisted the “reduction of the other to the same” (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 46) who allowed herself to step into the unknown and the unfamiliar in herrelation to her client to meet the Other on her terms, the excerpts of my students abovealso show that they notice how the reduction of the other to the standards that they arefamiliar with does injustice to the other. Along with the Levinasian understanding ofsocial justice that is “made in the relation between two people” (Macdonald, 2010,p. 310) rather than in abstraction, students felt responsible to meet the Other in herterms rather than reducing her to the same-self. Another student reported noticing thatthey are

Doing injustice to homeless individuals by reducing them to the misconceptions that arefamiliar to us… they are much different than the pictures we often have in our head andwe are showing ourselves as being narrow minded by doing such labeling. (Milna, personalcommunication, April 18, 2014)

Similar to the excerpt before, this student refers to injustice in terms of misconceptions ofthe other due to an effort to make the other familiar based on one’s own reference points—which she refers to as “being narrow minded”—rather than opening up to what the otheractually might be. There is an acknowledgement of the difference of the other rather than atendency to turn the other to the same, which reflects assuming responsibility for the otherin preserving its otherness. Such responsibility of the one for the other lies at the center ofjustice for Levinas.

Ending thoughts

This essay highlights the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas as an excellent resourcefor the field of communication studies, and specifically to the scholarship in interculturalcommunication through its emphasis on an ethical subjectivity that makes room for pre-serving difference, and as a communication ethic that underlines responsibility for theOther prior to rights and/or freedom. Guiding the reader through various examplessuch as attending to race as a site of difference, to postholocaust narratives, therapeuticinteraction, and finally to a pedagogical engagement of homelessness, this essay showsthat Levinas’s ethical framework and discussion of “absolute otherness” offers significantcontributions to ongoing discussions on interculturality, cultural humility, and new waysof thinking and talking about difference, identity, and ethics in a globalizing world.

Furthermore, this paper responds to Butler’s (2004/2006) reminder/call of the task ofthe humanities in returning us to the human and turning towards “the face.” IntegratingEmmanuel Levinas’s discussion of the ethical relation along with Judith Butler’s (2004/2006) discussion of responsiveness and vulnerability as an essential pedagogical frame-work for the Intercultural Communication course, this essay underlines the performativeact of “turning towards the face” towards embodying the intellectual discussions in theclassroom. Student comments reflect the shifting perspective from the identity of theself that is for itself to the responsibility of one-for-the-other following the stand-up per-formance they participate in. The performative act of representing children experiencinghomelessness, suspending the self momentarily, and feeling vulnerable even briefly,created an opening into the ethical relation—the responsibility for the other—for moststudents.

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Finally, this essay connects the above discussion on ethics, precariousness, and respon-sibility to social justice: “To welcome the Other is to put in question my freedom” (Levinas,1961/1969, p. 85). By standing outside in the cool October weather, being stared at orignored by others, and giving up their privileged position for 15 minutes, the students wel-comed the Other into their lives as they suspended their own freedom. This can be seen asa practice in learning “to encounter the other without allergy, that is, in justice.” (Levinas,1961/1969, p. 303)

Further research in intercultural scholarship connecting intercultural communication,communication ethics, and philosophy of communication would be significant towardsexploring new ways of thinking and talking about difference, interculturality, (inter)cul-tural humility, and ethics. Intercultural scholars might integrate further pedagogical pro-jects to their research and teaching connecting to themes discussed in this paper related toattending to difference, cultural humility, and ethics, among others.

Note

1. Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995). Please refer to the web page of Levinas for his biography:http://www.levinas.sdsu.edu/

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