In the eyes of the beholder

In the Introduction, the editor good-humouredly explains that the collection's focus is with interculturality, with a reality of new destinations that intersect with each other, that Portugal is a country in a constant transit through a labyrinth that is haunted by a host of untamed spectres that give rise to traumas, collective depressions, fleeting fantasies and recurrent disappointments. To achieve some order in the complexity of said labyrinth and Portugal's cultural multiplicity, intercultural studies in or about Portugal and other lusophone territories are urgently called for. It is the interaction of 'diversity' within the narrative of Portugal—i.e., the 'here'—that may open up horizons and create distance from the self and the spectres that haunt it (xvi).

Departing from the 'here', we find an Italian looking at Lisbon in 1938, picturesque tourist representations of the country, and two chapters on Portuguese expansion and the rise of global consciousness. It was indeed the Portuguese explorations that spanned the globe and that gave rise to seeing it from space, as it were. Three further chapters are situated within the far-flung Portuguese empire, while the captivating last chapter offers psychoanalysis-oriented musings about the perversity of masochistic Portuguese imperialism versus the psychotic arrogance of the British variety.

These eight chapters—out of a total of twenty-two—offer some insight in the 'here' and its encumbrances, and compete for space with the chapters on travel and tourism. According to the editor, tourism permits immediate examination of mobility with intercultural dialogue, and spurs on individuals who seek knowledge through personally experiencing the other (xvi). For my own part, I am not impressed with tourism as a quest for knowledge and the experience of things exotic and authentic. In my view, tourists are not so much driven by curiosity as by the desire to temporally escape from the tedium of everyday life at home. Be that as it may, they have looked at 'the other', have been seeing things and creating an opinion that is firmly rooted in the eyes of the beholder.

The editor does not disagree, which she shows in her chapter about a British lady looking at 'the Orient'. In the third chapter on 'travel as solution--travel as problem', Malinovski's naivety is exposed, as no one can abandon completely his or her own world (54). As an old-hand field researcher, I know that 'the native's point of view' is elusive, and so, in my latest contribution on the mentality of the people among whom I dwell, I added the pinch of salt of a reflection on twenty-plus years in the field.[i]

Nonetheless, under "Intercultural Representations" (Part I), four chapters are about tourism, at the same time that it is credited with a positive 'impact on the dialogue between cultures' in Part II on "Cultural Globalization". This is not to say that observations and interpretations of each other are out of place! It is the very substance of this collection on interculturality and globalisation. We learn from each other, copy each other, opine about each other, are exposed to each other, and through the media we 'participate' in a borderless global spectacle. In other words, we cannot escape from the intercultural, can we?

Whereas the relentless bombardment with information and images goes on and on, and whereas 'the other', the stranger, the outlandish seem inescapable, many long for a space of their own, yearn for their privacy, while aching for its comfort and identity feelings. The world outside, with its restless movement, fleeting impressions, and innate insecurity—in brief, globalisation and unabated interculturality—is not home, but an estranging, uncanny place. As a result, many look for the certainty of roots, for the natural and the familial, for the trust they often find in religion. In other words, the world's openness evokes a powerful counterpoint, and even teases out the question of whether the Portuguese can ever escape from their history and the spectres that haunt their imagination into the present.

In a book that is attentive to, or rather, illustrates "reciprocal interactions in cultural transits" and that "explores cultures that communicate with each other" (xxxi), it would have been to the point to consider the relevance of their counterpoint. However open and obtrusive the show in which we are said to 'participate', our small everyday worlds of family, friend, religion, and even colleagues and workplace remain pertinent to our being human and sociable in a world gone global that threatens to reduce people to nomadic monads. Reflection on this counterpoint holds some urgency, as the collection is about 'looking at each other', in which we try to define ourselves vis-à-vis the other and create images that tell more about the spectator that about the object.

The fun of the highly diverse chapters and their equally diverse disciplinary approaches is that they invite the mental exercise of imagining the points of departure and the discourse of the various authors, as we are also confronted with the problematic of teaching Chinese in the US, with self-righteous American myth-making, with immigrant women's cinema, teacher education, global media entertainment, and cultural topologies. I enjoyed the exercise!

Niels Mulder has retired to the southern slope of the mystically potent Mt. Banáhaw, Philippines, where he stays in touch through <niels_mulder201935@yahoo.com.ph>

[i] Niels Mulder, Situating Filipino Civilisation in Southeast Asia; Reflections and observations. Saarbruecken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing (print-to-order ed., ISBN 978-3-659-13083-0) 2012, pp. 190-208.