Question

What are some positive outcomes of intercultural conflict? Think about a recent example in your own life and explain why you think it occurred and how you benefited from the experience?

Answer 1

Intercultural conflicts arise when there are individuals from different nationalities, culture and religion that come together and are distressed about a certain situation. Every country or even a region, has different traditions and way of living. For instance, an intercultural conflict can arise between a couple from two different countries. If a man is from India and the woman from The United States, they both come from different cultures and have had a different upbringing.

In most parts of India, the man does not actively take part in the household chores. Even if he does, it is not culturally acceptable. The family or close ones frown upon the idea of it. It is normal for a woman to get back from work later than her husband does, gets down to cooking dinner for her family while the husband just chills. She cooks, cleans, washes the dishes and does everything by herself before she gets to bed.

However, in The U.S, men or women equally share responsibility of household chores. The woman is not expected to do everything. The man is not frowned upon by family for helping his wife because it is understood that she also works as hard as him at work and needs his help and support to get the chores done.

Intercultural conflicts are ought to happen, however, the positive outcomes of cultural conflicts are:

Learning; had a conflict not arose, they wouldn't have learnt about each others culture and figured out how different they were brought up. It also brings up the opportunity to create Shared Culture, which means they do things that are acceptable by both of them irrespective of whichever culture they come from. It also helps individuals see Different Perspectives, they may think their perspective is only right or correct, however intercultural conflict gives them an opportunity to see things differently and not only from their personal perspective.