Banal interculturalism: Latin Americans in Elephant and Castle, London

Abstract

This paper discusses banal interculturalism as produced in an interview situation with migrants of Latin American background in London. Banal interculturalism emerges within discursive semiotic processes that allow the participants to display their (cultural) knowledge about co-ethnics and their practices, to position themselves in opposition to the ‘others’ within diaspora, and to justify their, typically negative, views towards other migrants. Sources of that knowledge can be experiential, though in most cases consist of hearsay evidence. This notion may assist intercultural communication scholars in understanding how intra-group relations are conceived and the consequences for migrants of the discourses they themselves spread within the wider group.