This is the theme of the 19th Nordic Symposium on Intercultural Communication, which takes places at the Department of Business Communication, University of Aarhus, between the 22nd and 24th of November.

2012.11.20 | Tine Bagger Christiansen

Date	Thu 22 Nov — Sat 24 Nov
Time	13:30  —  15:00
Location	The conference centre at Aarhus University, Building 1421, Fredrik Nielsensvej 4, Aarhus

Processes of internationalization send us into the world to work, study, settle and live. But at the same time they bring into our communities people from other nations who help internationalise our workplaces, universities, cities and country. What effect does this development has on society? 

Researchers in intercultural communication approach the conference theme – internationalisation at home – in a number of ways:

‑ At the societal level we see how on an everyday basis our global awareness is increased through extended personal networks, work practices, different language usage, or our culture and media consumption. This development is changing our community, explains Hanne Tange, Department of Business Communication. She is one of the conference organisers and Danish representative on the board of the Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication.

Within the higher education sector internationalisation has become an umbrella term, which we can use about research in areas such as linguistics, anthropology, pedagogy and corporate communications. It refers to a change process that happens at home because colleagues are recruited overseas, customers are located in different parts of the world, public institutions find it necessary to author policies on linguistic and cultural diversity, or situations evolve in the local community which remind us that everyday life has become multicultural.

During the conference several plenary speakers will address the challenges of internationalisation within higher education. They include Helen Spencer-Oatey (University of Warwick), Birgit Henriksen (University of Copenhagen) and Bob Wilkinson (University of Maastricht). Richard Jenkins (University of Sheffield) adds to this a sociological perspective, asking what internationalisation may look like in the West Danish region of Jutland.

FACS

The 2012 NIC conference is sponsored by the Danish Council for Independent Research (Humanities) and undertaken as part of an on-going research project on internationalisation at the University of Aarhus. More information is available on www.internationalisering.au.dk.

The Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication (NIC) was founded in 1994 to promote cooperation between researchers within Intercultural Communication. The principal network forum is the annual NIC conference, which the Nordic and Baltic member countries take turns organising. Today the NIC network has members from 54 countries in most of the world, who work with intercultural communication in business corporations, public institutions, NGOs or within the higher education sector.

Contact the organisers

Associate professor Hanne Tange

Department of Business Communication
Aarhus Universitet, School of Business and Social Sciences
E-mail: hta@asb.dk

Web: http://bcom.au.dk/nic

Read more about the conference