Academic hyper-mobility and cosmopolitan dispositions

Abstract

Academic hyper-mobility provides a chance for exploring intensified intercultural communication encounters and the ever growing spirit of cosmopolitanism. This article hypothesises that in the modern conditions of academic hyper-mobility, cultural patterns play a significant part in framing the processes of communication. The purpose of this research is to examine the role of two differing cultural patterns - collectivism and individualism - in everyday situations of intercultural communication. Qualitative data are drawn from fifteen in-depth interviews conducted among mobile academics from Eastern Europe at the European University Institute in Italy. Several aspects of intercultural dialogue were found to be culturally significant for collectivists and individualists, including: in-group membership, expression of the self, cultural values, and cosmopolitan dispositions. It is a central argument of this article that cosmopolitan dispositions, which include openness to cultural diversity and mutual willingness to engage with new cultural patterns, are critical prerequisites to effective intercultural knowledge transfer and creation of knowledge.