Cultural Diversity and Science Revisited:
An Emerging Scholarship of Cross-Cultural Engagement
Craig A. Hassel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Extension Nutritionist
Department of Food Science & Nutrition
University of Minnesota
1334 Eckles Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108
Abstract
An emerging scholarship pivoting the relationship between culture and science asks professional
scientists to develop skills in “cross-cultural engagement” (CCE) as a prerequisite to research
with culturally diverse communities. In CCE, professional scientists temporarily put aside the
impulse to force all of nature into the orthodoxy of Eurocentric sciences, or to automatically
impose academic paradigms upon a situation as though they are the only means to gain any
legitimate understanding of the world. As every human society has developed its own ways of
knowing nature in order to survive, scientists must learn to step into epistemologies grounded in
very different presuppositions of how the world works. This kind of engagement navigates foreign
cosmologies that lie beyond the access of professional training now provided by most scientific
disciplines. Although this practice may seem de- stabilizing, it allows for three significant
outcomes not afforded by scientific inquiry now prevalent in food and nutrition sciences research.
First, the cultural context (presuppositions and paradigms) of scientific disciplines becomes more
visible, enabling a more critical appraisal of their limiting and constraining features. Extending
critical inquiry to the metaphysical dimensions of scientific paradigms can enhance professional
capacity for self-correction. Second, diverse epistemologies otherwise incomprehensible to
professional scientists become more empathetically understood within their own cultural context,
minimizing the distortions created when forcing conformity with academic paradigms. This can
minimize errors of erroneous interpretations by professional scientists. Third, new forms of more
appropriate trans-cultural inquiry can begin to emerge over time as problems are reframed from
different metaphysical perspectives. Conducted properly, CCE scholarship offers a means to
engage respectfully with community partners in advancing both academic and non-academic
forms of knowledge and understanding.
Key words: culture, cross-cultural engagement, nutrition science, food science, scholarship.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge the Elders of Lac Courte Oreilles and Leslie Ramczyk and
Anna Merritt for their leadership and artistry in developing the LCO nutrition education symbol
presented here, to Paul Schultz and Joe LaGarde at White Earth Indian Reservation, and to the
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Elders at the Cultural Wellness Center in South Minneapolis for their continued guidance,
patience and mentorship. This work was supported through funding from USDA Agricultural
Experiment Station Project MIN-54-059.
Introduction: What Counts as Knowledge?
In 1535, the French explorer Jacques Cartier, searching for the Northwest Passage near
the site of present-day Montreal, became ice-bound for the winter, stuck in the frozen St.
Lawrence River. Isolated by heavy snow and lacking familiarity with the harsh environment, his
110 men were relegated to subsistence on the food provisions stored in their icy ship-holds.
Soon, illness was so rampant that by mid-March 25 men had died, and most others were so sick
that hope for their recovery was all but abandoned. The expedition might well not have survived
if it were not for an encounter with a Huron Indian Domagaia, who knew that the illness could be
cured by a decoction of the bark and needles of the white cedar tree. Cartier immediately asked
for that drink to be prepared for his men:
“…but at first only one or two would venture to use it, who were followed by the rest, and
in a short time they were all completely cured. After this medicine was found to be
effectual, there was so much eagerness to get it that the people were ready to kill each
other as to who should be first served. Such quantities were used, that a tree as large as
a well grown oak was completely lopped bare in five or six days, and the medicine
wrought so well that if all the physicians of Montpelier or Louvain had been to attend us,
with all the drugs of Alexandria, they could not have done so much for us in a whole year
as that tree did in six days”.
Translation from Cartier Expedition Journal, Exploration.net
http://explorion.net/r.kerr-general-history-collection-voyages-travels-6/page-40.html
The Huron people knew of an effective internal remedy for scurvy, which Europeans of
the time thought to be caused by bad air (Vogel, 1970). Although the accounts of this episode
were recorded in the Cartier expedition journal, for all practical purposes, Europeans largely
ignored or forgot the Huron remedy for scurvy. But not everyone. More than 200 years later
having read of Cartier’s experience, Sir James Lind, a Scottish physician in the British Navy,
launched experiments that “proved” the dietary basis of scurvy in a 1753 publication “A Treatise
of the Scurvy” (Carr, 2003). Only Lind however, is generally given credit for providing the first
scientific evidence that certain foods are needed to prevent ill health. Almost without exception,
the know-how possessed by the Huron People goes unacknowledged in contemporary nutrition
texts.
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Today most academic professionals would likely agree that diversity of knowledge and
ideas lie at the heart of what it means to be well-educated. But many also hold so tightly to their
western/scientific models for producing knowledge that consideration for the many ways of
knowing found in culturally diverse communities is forsaken. Is it possible that ideas about “good
science” have ethnocentric qualities that exclude valuable perspectives? To explore this
possibility, we need to bring critical thinking skills to the cultural dimensions that lie deeply
beneath scientific inquiry and disciplinary practice. This prospect itself can be problematic, as
many scientific disciplines are often taught as beginning with reality itself, not mental models or
human ideas about reality, so there is little need for critical inquiry into what is already selfevidently true (Wallace, 2000). When I was a student, the food and nutrition sciences were
presented to me in a positivist stance (Popper, 1959), a process of standing apart from human
subjectivity to study the world as it really exists, denying any metaphysical basis. Food becomes
an object of study, viewed in materialistic and physiochemical terms, a delivery matrix for
essential nutrients and bioactive molecules. But this stance itself is based on a constellation of
presuppositions about how the world works (Collingwood, 1940). The web of well established,
often implicit presuppositions, convictions and assumptions supporting a scientific discipline has
been referred to as a “thought style” by Fleck (1935) and later, a “paradigm” by Kuhn (1962,
1970).
Kuhn uses the term “paradigm” to refer to the shared understanding of rules and
standards of scientific practice, including shared models of how the world works that prepares the
student for membership in a particular scientific community (Kuhn 1970, p11). He describes a
paradigm as important because it exerts a deep, implicit hold on the scientific mind; a powerful
influence to think of and perceive issues in one way rather than another. Because a paradigm is
shared by a scientific community, certain categories and relationships become especially salient
(bioactive molecules), while others are less noticeable or invisible (nurturing relational/spiritual
dimensions of food). The shared perceptions and understandings of the paradigm greatly
facilitate scientific advancement because scientists are freed from justifying basic concepts to
solve the many nuanced puzzles left within the theoretical framework of the paradigm (Kuhn,
1970). Over time and with success, paradigms offer a scientific community a great sense of
strength and identity.
But paradigms can also be a source of paradox. At the very core of their strength and
success lie the seeds of vulnerability. A paradigm is something scientists tend to think with, not
about. Precisely because a paradigm is successful, its ideology and presuppositions over time
become unconsciously taken for granted (Kuhn,1970, p37). If such presuppositions are held
strongly and remain unchallenged, members will conflate these convictions with reality, finding
ideas based on any other premise almost inconceivable. The paradigm conditions its members
to reflexively demarcate “scientific” from “unscientific” approaches, limiting both the scope and
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kinds of inquiry deemed acceptable by the scientific community. As the world changes over time,
unexamined paradigms and presuppositions can become confining and constraining, a
conceptual prison that limits thought. These dynamics are often invisible to the members within
but quite apparent to some observers outside the paradigm:
“Regardless of what Indians have said concerning their origins, their migrations, their
experiences with birds, animals, lands, water, mountains, and other peoples, the
scientists [i.e., Western academics] have maintained a stranglehold on the definitions of
what respectable and reliable human experiences are. The Indian explanation is always
cast aside as a superstition” (Deloria, 1997, p7)
Questions about what counts as knowledge, what makes knowledge “scientific” and the
influence of culture in such determinations point us toward the deeper dimensions of culture. As
we take this opportunity to celebrate cultural diversity, I believe we must push ourselves beyond
its more common expressions (cultural foods or food-ways, for example) to explore less apparent
but more powerful dimensions of culture, ways of knowing and metaphysical worldview. With
regard to contemporary food and nutrition sciences, we will see how these deeper dimensions of
culture are either taken for granted as true (in the case of our own) or go unacknowledged (in
cases of cultural difference). Scholarship that brings our attention back to these otherwise hidden
dimensions could be valuable in at least two ways. If we can learn to embrace our subjectivity
rather than deny or struggle against it, we position ourselves not only to better understand other
cultural perspectives, but also to explore the metaphysical foundation lurking beneath food and
nutrition science as professionally practiced. From here we can also see how cultural difference
can become a rich learning context offering many new and exciting scholarly opportunities. To
get us started, I offer a cursory introduction to the deeper dimensions of culture, including an
illustration of how these concepts play out in the realm of nutrition education. Epistemology and
worldview concepts are used to introduce the scholarship and practice of cross-cultural
engagement (CCE), which attempts to engage and bridge cultural difference at these deeper
levels. Finally, I suggest that faculty who open themselves and their work to deeper levels of
cultural exploration will become better scientists while engaging more respectfully with those who
see and participate differently in the world.
The Iceberg Metaphor of Culture
My experience in cross-cultural work over the past 14 years indicates the importance of
emphasizing how culture manifests and permeates different levels of human awareness and
existence (Hassel et al., 2002, Hassel, 2004). Understanding culture at different levels is
popularized by the “culture as iceberg” model, often used in Peace Corps volunteer training. An
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adaptation of the “iceberg” model is depicted in Figure 1. The iceberg metaphor is imperfect in
many ways but can be a useful starting point for food and nutrition science professionals trained
in the natural sciences. The iceberg exposed above the surface of the water represents those
aspects of culture that are physically tangible, apparent and observable by others. This is the
artifact dimension of culture, or what we empirically observe when we confront another culture.
With reference to food and nutrition sciences, cultural artifacts would include foods or food
components, recipes, ingredients, harvesting, processing, cooking and storage methods, along
with eating patterns and observable food-related behaviors. It also includes one’s physical
appearance, behavior and any impacts of food or nutrients on measurable parameters of
physiology such as pulse, blood pressure and biochemical or metabolic analyses. Because the
artifacts of culture can be observed, measured and verified by others, they are easily objectified
and thus most often the object of study by empirically trained scientists.
Figure 1. Depiction of the Iceberg Metaphor of Culture (adapted from R.Clevinger by K.Lorenz).
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Surface artifacts are quite often manifestations of deeper dimensions of culture that are
less visible but very powerful aspects of human experience (Bennet, 1993). In the iceberg
metaphor, these so-called “unspoken” dimensions – though not always unspoken – lie below the
water surface as less tangible aspects of culture. Included here are concepts of status, decisionmaking and individuality, along with norms regarding values, justice, leadership, and personal
relationships. We also find approaches to defining issues, framing and solving problems,
including epistemic dimensions of perceiving, knowing and intuition, notions of logic, philosophy,
rationality and awareness. As we move deeper below the surface, we encounter the implicit,
often sub-conscious thought-styles and paradigms mentioned earlier that govern the process of
producing knowledge. The metaphor attempts to communicate the richness and vastness of the
unseen dimensions of cultural diversity that lie beneath physically observable features.
The depth and complexity of culture at this deeper level gives rise to and governs the
features above, including the exposed artifacts that others may observe empirically. In this way,
deeper aspects of culture, although hidden, are more powerful than what lies above (Schein,
1992, Hassel, 2006). The power of cultural “rootedness” can be seen clearly when considering
how academic paradigms have such a powerful hold on the scientific mind. Cultural rootedness
helps to explain why it is important to develop the capacity to become sensitive to the deeper
dimensions of culture (Cultural Wellness Center, 2008). When confronting another culture, it is
not uncommon for even well-educated individuals who exhibit extensive knowledge of customs or
language artifacts to presume cultural similarity or universality with regard to less visible
dimensions of culture (Bennet, 1993). The result is imposition of one’s own familiar frame of
reference (or academic paradigm) as the standard or organizing framework for all other
perspectives. This stance maintains what Deloria experiences as “a stranglehold” in that it allows
few opportunities for the expression of cultural diversity at its fuller depth and complexity.
Diversity of epistemology, paradigms or metaphysical worldview liberates the stranglehold,
creating room for diverse organizing frameworks (Bennet, 1993) or knowledge systems (Cultural
Wellness Center, 2008).
The observation above brings us to another important aspect of the iceberg metaphor.
Most of the iceberg mass lies beneath the surface, suggesting that the majority of cultural
difference lies within the less visible, more subjective dimensions of culture. Three related
implications are worth mention. First, the typical realm of empirical study for food and nutrition
science (nutrients, bioactive molecules, food-related behaviors, risk factors) by no means
represents the complete story with regard to human experience and interaction with food. The
model suggests quite literally, that we are studying “the tip of the iceberg”. Second, as every
human society has had to develop its own knowledge of food and health relationships as a matter
of survival, the greatest scope and power of cultural diversity lies within the more subjective,
unseen dimensions. If we insist on imposing our western science methods as universal
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organizing frameworks without giving appropriate consideration for diverse ways of knowing, we
risk continuing to exclude, ignore or diminish not only most of the richness and power of cultural
diversity, but also the people who hold such knowledge (Hassel, 2004). Third, we lose the
opportunity to explore and expand our knowledge and understanding of our own culture and our
scientific approaches, and thus, to enhance scientific inquiry by bringing critical reflection to its
metaphysical dimensions.
Ways of knowing, including paradigms of western science are themselves culturally
rooted in the still deeper realm of metaphysical worldview. The core beliefs of metaphysical
worldview are represented as the deepest region of the iceberg. As with a paradigm, we usually
think with our worldview and because of our worldview, not about our worldview. A worldview
represents a commitment, a fundamental orientation that can be expressed as a web of
presuppositions, a master story or narrative about the basic constitution of reality that forms the
basis for how people perceive and comprehend the world (Sire, 2004). As a foundation for our
mental models, our worldview represents the “givens” or “reality”, implicit ideas that are simply
taken for granted and non-negotiable. Our metaphysical worldview is not consciously learned so
much as implicitly absorbed from our surrounding culture (Studley, 1998). It represents the least
visible, least conscious yet most entrenched aspect of our thinking.
Try on, for example, the primal idea that conscious intelligence is not limited to the
autonomous human brain, but exists throughout the body, environment and cosmos. Or the idea
that rather than holding dominion over the world, humans can be considered as the most pathetic
beings in nature, utterly dependent on non-human life forms for survival. Encounters with cultural
diversity at the metaphysical worldview level can be easily dismissed, but if seriously considered
may evoke an unsettling dissonance. By stepping into and empathetically considering
presuppositions that might seem strange or heretical, one begins the process of thinking within
another worldview. Patience in holding and critically reflecting upon such an idea helps to reveal
the metaphysical nature of one’s own worldview; in this case perhaps a more familiar
presupposition that the human mind is set apart as the exclusive source of consciousness and
intelligence in an otherwise objective, unconscious world.
Vine Deloria Jr. puts it this way:
“The major difference between American Indian views of the physical world and
Western science lies in the premise accepted by Indians and rejected by scientists; the
world in which we live is alive. Many scientists believe this idea to be primitive
superstition and consequently the scientific explanation rejects any nuance of
interpretation which would credit the existence of activities as having partial intelligence
or sentience. American Indians look at events to determine the spiritual activity
supporting or undergirding them. Science insists, albeit at a great price in understanding,
that the observer be as detached as possible from the event he or she is observing.
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Indians know that human beings must participate in events, not isolate themselves from
occurrences in the physical world. Indians thus obtain information from birds, animals,
rivers and mountains which is inaccessible to modern science. ” (Deloria, 1997, p40)
Must these diverse worldviews stand in opposition and conflict? Must we engage in a
dualistic doctrinal struggle to determine which metaphysics is “valid”? Or is it possible for
scholars from diverse traditions to come together to explore worldviews from within, learning and
experiencing what has been constructed through metaphysical diversity?
A Contemporary Example
What are the possibilities that arise with greater sensitivity to and consideration for cultural
difference at deeper levels? Let’s consider an example from nutrition education. Many nutrition
educators and family science professionals working with culturally diverse communities are well aware of
the need to fashion educational approaches that are more appropriate to the cultural context of those
communities. A typical contemporary approach to this practice is presented in Figure 1. In this depiction,
the USDA Food Guide Pyramid has been modified to create a Native American Food Pyramid. The
former food-guide pyramid has been adapted for use with Indigenous communities by including traditional
Indian foods such as wild rice, rabbit, venison and bear in the pyramid construct (California Adolescent
Fitness and Nutrition Program). While this approach represents some improvement over the unmodified
food guide pyramid, its cross-cultural dimension is limited to the artifact level.
Figure 2. Native American Food Guide Pyramid. Indigenous foods such as wild rice, venison
and salmon are placed within a Euro-American pyramid construct.
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This form of cross-cultural nutrition education extracts Indigenous artifacts into a Eurocentric
worldview of hierarchical relationships, human pre-eminence and biomedical ways of knowing. These
epistemic constructs emphasize food as fuel, food as essential nutrients, food as bioactive molecules,
and nutrition in terms of experimentally predictable, observable and repeatable physiological and
physiochemical effects. A danger of modified-pyramid approaches is that community nutrition educators
risk being left with the impression that the prevailing Euro American worldviews and biomedical
epistemologies represent the only conceivable way to gain a legitimate understanding of nutrition (Hassel,
2006). Indigenous knowledge of local foods, seasonal eating patterns, and worldviews that see food as
connection to Mother Earth, as memory, as consciousness and as spiritual nurturance (Cajete, 2000) are
de-valued or disregarded. So while the Native American Food Guide Pyramid could well be considered
as improvement over the un-adapted USDA pyramid, it represents only an initial “artifactual” step toward
the admirable goal of being more culturally appropriate. To take another step, we must tap into cultural
diversity that awaits our attention at deeper levels.
What might nutrition education look like if it began with the cultural worldview of an
Indigenous community? Of course, this will depend upon the unique culture and history of the
community. As part of the Woodlands Wisdom Nutrition program, we asked Elders from Lac
Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe to incorporate their cultural wisdom and knowledge into a
symbolic representation that could be used to teach nutrition education. With the help of a Tribal
College artist, the representation that they developed is shared in Figure 3.
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Figure 3. Artistic Rendition of Culturally Appropriate Nutrition Education Symbol Developed by
Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Elders.
The LCO Elders teach that the turtle at the center of the symbol refers to creation stories
of the Anishinaabe people, and emphasizes the interrelatedness of all of creation. The circle is a
depiction of a medicine wheel, the circle of life which gives reference to the four directions (east,
south, west, north), the four seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter), the four stages of life
(childhood, adolescence, adulthood, elderhood), the four races of humankind (red, yellow, black,
white), the four elements of nature (sun, water, earth, wind), the four aspects of health (mental,
emotional, physical, spiritual). Around the outside of the circle are but a few examples of the
plants, animals, birds, medicines and foods that are associated with each direction and season.
The symbol brings forth teachings for how to live a good and healthy life interdependent with
earth, water, plants and animals, with balance and spiritual interrelatedness. It holds many
generations of collective knowledge and wisdom, and requires decades of study and life
experience to learn and live into this wisdom. The Elders, as keepers of traditional knowledge
and understandings, are the experts.
Is it possible that as professionals, we may be excluding some valuable perspectives and
insights if we insist on imposing our academic paradigms as the exclusive frameworks for
teaching and understanding human nutrition? If we force ideas to conform to our own
paradigms, we may be losing much, or perhaps most, of what diverse cultures have to offer. It is
often forgotten that, prior to western influences, heart disease, diabetes and cancers were
unknown to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas (Vogel, 1970). They developed
sophisticated systems of agriculture that have given us beans, corn, potatoes, pumpkins, squash,
tomatoes and over twenty other foods, and more than 200 medicines that have been recorded in
the Pharmacopeia of the United States of America since 1820 (Vogel, 1970, Keoke and
Porterfield, 2002). Daniel Moerman reports that of the 31,566 kinds of vascular plants found in
North America, American Indians used 2874 of these species as medicines, 1886 as foods, 492
as fibers for weaving, baskets, building materials etc., and 230 as dyes (Moerman, 1998). All
told, they found a useful purpose for 3923 kinds of plants. What is our rationale for dismissing
these worldviews and ways of knowing?
What is Cross-Cultural Engagement?
CCE is a practice of scholarly engagement and interaction with people who bring
knowledge and understandings that do not correspond to western/scientific or biomedical models
(Hassel, 2004, 2005). Although professional scientists may be inclined to dismiss ancestral forms
of knowledge as “unscientific”, the practice of CCE embraces those who hold ancient, ancestral
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or experiential (metis) forms of human knowledge (Hassel, 2002, 2006). CCE offers a way to
keep many of the convictions of scientific knowledge while acknowledging the existence of
cultural diversity at its deeper levels (Hassel, 2005). Philosophically, CCE shifts away from a
positivist stance that presumes direct interaction with objective reality and denies any
metaphysical foundation, toward a constructive realism that recognizes human subjectivity as
inevitably involved in participation with the world (Wallner, 2008). From a CCE stance,
metaphysics is recognized and acknowledged as culturally constructed, to be included, observed
and explored as part of scholarly inquiry and learning. Theoretically, CCE shifts from a monocultural stance, meaning that one’s own culture (including worldview or paradigm) is experienced
as somehow central to reality, to a multicultural posture, meaning that one seeks deeper
subjective dimensions of cultural difference, accepting their importance and adapting one’s
perspective to take them into account (Bennet, 1993). Educationally, CCE shifts from a strictly
informational learning approach (adding to what we know) - to incorporate transformational
learning (adding to how we know) (Mesirow & associates, 2000). CCE scholarship can be seen
as an extension of interdisciplinary scholarship to an even broader and more inclusive form of
intercultural scholarship (Figure 4a).
Levels of Cultural
Diversity
Artifacts
CCE
Visible structures and
processes (sometimes
hard to decipher)
Examples from
Biomedicine
pharmaceuticals,
hospitals,
food pyramid
Examples from
Indigenous Healers
herbs, sweat lodge,
medicine wheel
.
Epistemology
Metaphysical
Worldview
Knowledge systems,
ways of knowing,
paradigms
Unconscious, takenfor-granted
commitments
(ultimate source of
values and action)
“evidence-based”
“objective”
“physically
measurable data”
Apart from humans,
the cosmos is
impersonal and
unconscious
“oral histories,
“holistic observation”
The cosmos itself
is alive
Figure 4a. CCE Scholarship and Levels of Culture. Adapted from previous work (Schein,
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1992; Hassel, 2006; 2007), aspects of culture can be categorized from highly visible and tangible
to progressively deeper, less visible yet more powerful levels. Metaphysical worldview
commitments can be seen as the underlying tenets of a culture that represent the “givens” which
tend to be taken for granted and are non-negotiable because they are invisible and often
unconsciously present. They are projected onto the world as a framework for perceiving
phenomena. A feature of CCE practice is the “tension of epistemology” evoked by challenging
entrenched presuppositions on one hand, and the powerful learning opportunities created by
considering alternative possibilities on the other.
Scientific Inquiry at Levels of Culture
Artifacts
Visible structures and
processes
Examples from
Biomedicine
pharmaceuticals,
medical
procedures
Examples from
Indigenous Healers
Herbs, healing
practices
.
Epistemology
Knowledge systems,
ways of knowing,
paradigms
“evidence-based”
“objective”
“physically
measurable data”
Figure 4b. Positivist scientific inquiry investigates observable artifacts to be
tested by detached observation. Metaphysical worldviews and diverse
epistemologies are absent.
CCE and Positivist Scientific Inquiry Compared
Comparing Figure 4a and 4b highlights the conceptual differences between CCE and
positivist scientific inquiry commonly encountered in the food and nutrition sciences. While the
practice of CCE welcomes and embraces diverse epistemologies and worldviews as resources
for interaction and innovation, these deeper more subjective dimensions of culture are generally
unacknowledged or under-appreciated in positivist scientific inquiry (Popper, 1959). If
acknowledged, diverse ways of knowing are often seen as less complex, less “real” or less “valid”
than professional “research-based” epistemologies. Developmental models from intercultural
studies research suggests that the situation depicted in 4b represents a stage of development
where a familiar cultural worldview is protected by believing that deep down we are all basically
alike physically and physiologically (Bennet, 1993). This stage of ethnocentrism is experienced
as having “arrived” at intercultural sensitivity because the polarization of cultural “us” versus
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“them” has given way to the recognition of the common humanity of all people, regardless of
culture (Hammer and Bennet, 2001). While there is no question that in many ways humans are
alike, over-attachment to physical similarities, or the idea that everyone is essentially like us can
obscure recognition, acceptance and appreciation for the deeper, less visible dimensions of
cultural diversity (Bennet, 1993).
Turning to food and nutrition science research, we quickly see how established research
methods emphasize human similarities. For example, the current “gold standard” of evidence in
biomedicine, the randomized-controlled trial (RCT) methodology, presumes people to be basically
alike and is so designed to seek out and measure common denominator parameters across
groups. But the nuances of human individuality and heterogeneity are becoming elaborated by
genetic polymorphisms and the impending world of “omics” – nutrigenomics, transcriptomics,
proteomics, and metabolomics. We are left with a stronger sense of the epistemological limits of
conventional positivist approaches to knowledge. Single factor clinical trials seem inadequate to
the task of dealing with this emerging complexity. Currently, we devise scientific methods that
bracket out the poorly understood set of relations and processes between the highly complex
food matrix on one hand and the intricate nature of human heterogeneity on the other. As one
example, the indirect effects that we control for in RCT methods are labeled “placebo”, taken as
less “real” than the direct treatment effects for which we test (Kaptchuk, 2001). Complex,
systemic societal problems like diet-related chronic disease are among those proving most
difficult for science, owing to epistemological and methodological limitations of prevailing scientific
inquiry (Lubchenko, 1998, Buchanan, 2004).
Returning to Figure 4b, scientific disciplines arising from positivist empirical roots tend to
deny metaphysical foundations or pre-theoretical presuppositions. In this sense, scientific inquiry,
as I was taught, is seen to somehow stand apart from human subjectivity as tool to depict the
world as it really exists (Popper, 1959). As a result, the food and nutrition sciences now have no
currently accepted means to direct critical inquiry to the constellation of pre-theoretical
convictions and presuppositions that lie beneath our scientific methods. By bringing to the table
citizens who see the world differently, cultural diversity at its deepest levels exposes what
academic professionals often take for granted; implicit ideology that frames - and therefore limits scientific thinking. CCE may help us to see cultural diversity as a pathway out of the self-imposed
confinement of unexamined paradigms and worldviews.
Toward a Practice of Cross-Cultural Engagement
As indicated earlier, CCE welcomes and embraces the deeper dimensions of cultural
diversity as part of the inquiry process. It is important to understand that adopting a CCE stance
does not mean that one questions the progress, success or the value of the positivist scientific
traditions. These traditions are included as part of CCE in Figure 4a. But CCE does challenge
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some ideas about science and some presuppositions taken for granted in typical scientific
practice. Professional scientists wishing to develop a practice of CCE are asked to temporarily
put aside the impulse to force all of nature into the orthodoxy of Eurocentric sciences, or to
automatically impose academic paradigms upon a situation as though they are the only means to
gain any legitimate understanding of the world. This work will feel quite different from the more
common scientific posture of systematic self-distancing and objectification. In fact, letting go of
these deeply held convictions can be experienced as disquieting, so one will need to cultivate a
tolerance for dissonance and ambiguity (Hassel, 2005).
The practice of CCE also asks for a degree of courage and commitment as professional
scholars attempt to open themselves to enter into the perspective they seek to know, and to allow
entry into themselves the perspective they seek to know. Reflect upon the dissonance as you
read the latter quote from Vine Deloria Jr. The dissonance can be quickly relieved by dismissing
such ideas as arising from a world of superstition. CCE is not for everyone. But persistence in
holding and critically reflecting upon the dissonance created by considering a strange perspective
is needed to begin the process of learning to more appropriately consider diverse worldviews,
cosmologies and epistemologies (Hassel, 2005). A facilitated cultural immersion experience can
offer valuable short-term opportunities for “critical incidents” that stimulate subsequent critical
reflection. I have been using cultural immersion field trips in undergraduate and graduate
coursework for 10 years as a means to stimulate greater critical reflection and intercultural
sensitivity among students. Here is what some students say about these field trips (Hassel,
2007):
“Experience is the best teacher. I had already read some books and articles about
Native American’s [sic] life and medicine (and watch TV programs, etc.). However, I
didn’t feel that was real. If you saw people, felt that wind, smelled the aroma of wild rice
parching, experienced what people are doing, you could easily understand what they
feel. Where their thoughts & ideas come from.”
“I didn’t originally expect the field trips to be as rewarding, but they really made learning
possible – above anything else. The field trips provided the missing element of almost all
university learning situations. LEARNING BY DOING – this is what the field trips did for
us. WE EXPERIENCED other modalities. We couldn’t have learned what we did without
this experience(s)”.
CCE involves its participants in the inner work of becoming aware of and confronting
one’s most basic – and often unconsciously held - assumptions and presuppositions that govern
how one perceives and makes sense of the world. My own experience in CCE suggests that
deconstruction of certain implicit ideas about science (i.e. science is “neutral” or “objective”) was
14
needed to break the hold of scientific training that was a barrier to further development of
intercultural sensitivity. This deconstructive work can be experienced as highly ambivalent; on
one hand a sacrilegious abandonment of professional tenet; on the other creating the space
needed to better appreciate how one’s cultural worldview not only frames the way we look at the
world but reaches into our innermost being, configuring our experience of the world (Sire, 2004;
Hassel, 2007). These momentous tensions testify to the power of deep culture. With discipline,
critical reflection and persistence, becoming more open to diverse worldviews allows the scholar
an opportunity to begin the developmental task of creating an appropriate understanding of
different forms of knowledge (Hassel, 2005). This kind of learning is transformational learning
(Kegan, 2000), learning that “leads out”, literally changing or adding to forms of knowing,
changing or adding to how we know. It is greatly facilitated through ongoing personal
relationships with elders and cultural knowledge holders (Hassel, 2005). Scientists progressing
to this point will find that holding tightly to control and authority is no longer necessary. They will
find instances where the ability to let go of control and authority will greatly facilitate their sincere
participation as an equal partner, a fellow human being, where control and authority are shared
and used for broader purpose. Those able to create and maintain such relationships will likely
begin to perceive a shift in their role from a more familiar professional authority figure and
subject-matter expert to one that feels more like a learner attempting to get up to speed (Simpson
& Driben, 2000). This is to be taken as a positive sign, even though it may feel awkward at first.
It is a sign of engaging within another way of understanding the world that may be completely
unfamiliar. Facilitated cultural immersion can be a productive, developmental approach that
starts one upon a developmental path toward cross-cultural engagement scholarship.
Cross Cultural Engagement Scholarship
It is important to recognize that seeking out cultural difference as learning opportunities,
learning to accept the importance of deep cultural dimensions and then learning to adapt one’s
perspective to take these differences into account represents a long-term developmental
trajectory. Persistence over time with long-term intercultural mentoring relationships, building and
maintaining trustworthiness, continued intercultural dialogue, critical reflection and a supportive
work environment are all important in the work of continuing to cultivate these skills.
Unfortunately, this kind of professional development is not now well recognized, appreciated or
supported by academic institutions (Semali, Grim and Maretzki, 2006). This work may even be
seen as heretical by peers who see no reason to compromise ivory tower privileges for what may
be misperceived as political correctness or new-age faddism. Professionals who resist such
derogation and continue in their development, maintaining long-term working relationships with
elder-mentors, will at some point be ready to engage in the scholarly work of bridging multiple
knowledge systems. The elder-mentors are resources in determining whether the academic
15
professional is prepared for CCE scholarship. CCE scholarship can be seen as a form of
intercultural action research (Greenwood and Levin, 1998) that attempts to bridge worldviews,
paradigms, and epistemologies among those who hold culturally diverse knowledge, for the
purpose of creating innovation in producing knowledge. It represents an extension of
interdisciplinary research into the realm of diverse metaphysical worldviews, the deepest
dimensions of cultural difference.
CCE scholarship represents inclusion as justice and respect, not inclusion for
exploitation. It does not advocate unwanted co-option of knowledge, unwanted assimilation of
knowledge, or hegemonic integration of knowledge. Professional scholar as knowledge hero is
not a dimension of CCE scholarship (Hassel, 2005). Individualist strategies represent an
egocentric and ethnocentric reversion toward the positivist practice depicted in Figure 4b that
focus exclusively on advancing the knowledge interests of Eurocentric sciences. While such
outcomes may still be lauded on campus and in scientific societies, they too often contribute to
erosion of the metaphysical and theoretical integrity of diverse cultural knowledge traditions
(Frehauf, 1999, Smith, 1999). These devastating consequences tend to go unacknowledged by
those who have yet to achieve a threshold of intercultural sensitivity and competence (Hassel,
2002). CCE scholarship requires trust and understanding among participants so that the different
forms of knowledge can then be accessed with integrity, not to be exploited for narrow selfinterest, but as resources for a collective journey toward innovation and knowledge creation coproduced by all participants (Figure 5).
Eurocentric
CCE
Science
scholarship
What is known
and advanced
Scientific
knowledge
Interaction of wisdom
& scientific knowledge
Indigenous ways
of living in nature
Wisdom-in-action; ways
of being (inseparable from
knower)
Holder of
Professional Interfacing of Elders & Elders, cultural keepers,
knowledge
scientist
professional scientists spiritual leaders
(one who knows)
Epistemology
Scientific
(how one knows) empiricism
Worldview
Modern
(how one sees
Worldview
and creates the
world)
Considered within
cultural context of
worldview
Reasons within
Primal and Modern
Worldviews
Participatory survivance
(experiential, ancestral,
spiritual); oral traditions
Primal
Worldview
16
Figure 5. CCE Scholarship becomes possible as scholars work with elders to develop their ability
to shift their perspective in and out of diverse worldviews and epistemologies. These advanced
skills allow participants to reorganize experience and reality similarly to another culture. Multiple
knowledge systems can then be accessed by all as resources to solve problems and advance
understandings as a collective.
Summarizing CCE
The practice of CCE scholarship includes scientific approaches, but its commitments differ
from conventional scientific inquiry or academic work in the following ways:

It challenges aspects of scientific and biomedical authority that work to either exclude
diverse ways of knowing, or force unwanted alignment with or assimilation into
Eurocentric frameworks (Fruehauf, 1999; Deloria Jr, 1997).

It welcomes and involves knowledge holders of community-based epistemologies without
relying upon academic credentials or scientific validation per se.

It shifts priorities of academic practice, from validating and authenticating knowledge
(academic progress) toward a paramount focus on improving lives and creating solutions
to societal problems (societal progress).

Its currency includes wisdom and values, in addition to knowledge and evidence.
Conducted respectfully, the craft of CCE represents a means to:

Build long-term, working relationships with communities who have not been respectfully
included in the work of research universities.

Create innovation through diverse understandings that can re-frame pressing societal
problems around food, nutrition and health.

Preserve and advance community-based knowledge without unwanted co-optation or
assimilation into predominant Eurocentric epistemologies.

Enhance inclusiveness, cultural diversity and breadth of perspective at public research
universities.

Enhance scientific inquiry by bringing critical reflection to its metaphysical dimensions.
Implications for Research, Practice and Policy
The practice of CCE scholarship is clearly not something to be expected of all research
scientists. It can create misgivings among scientific professionals because it challenges ideas
that biomedical and scientific knowledge represent the only valid perspective of how the world
works. CCE may well be viewed as a step backward by academic professionals who see
contemporary science as clearly superior over ancient or other non-western forms of knowledge.
From this view, not only is CCE unlikely to offer any significant potential for academic gain, it risks
17
contaminating the purity of the scientific enterprise if the distinguishing characteristics of
Eurocentric sciences are somehow obfuscated through CCE. Accordingly, it would not belong
within the work scope of the modern research university. These perspectives should be given
due respect, as the Eurocentric science traditions have yielded tremendous benefits to society.
My argument here is that because of the remarkable successes owing to scientific
progress, we have become too complacent, too attached and too over-reliant upon Eurocentric
sciences as the exclusive means to solve any societal problem. This state of affairs can create
“blind spots” (Schon, 1995) that have far-reaching repercussions, with two over-arching
implications. First, we have become unable or unwilling to recognize and/or respectfully access
the diversity of human knowledge assets that exist beyond campus walls. I have tried to show
how cultural diversity is not a matter of political correctness, but cuts to the very core of the
academic enterprise in how we see the world, how we make sense of it and how we construct
meaning and knowledge about it. Public research universities, especially Land-grant research
universities, should have a unique niche in being able to access and respectfully participate with
the many knowledge assets in society without feeling the need to own it all. Faculty development
programs in CCE offer a means for building the capacity for respectful and sensitive intercultural
coursework and research. As it becomes more commonplace, institutional policies will evolve to
accommodate the emerging CCE scholarship.
Second, bringing to the table citizens who see the world differently exposes what
academic professionals often take for granted; implicit ideology that frames - and therefore limits scientific thinking. I have attempted to show how attention to the deeper, subjective dimensions
of culture not only develops more respectful interaction for cultural difference, it also means giving
greater attention to the philosophical foundations of our scientific inquiry. Lying beneath our
research hypotheses are largely unexamined foundational presuppositions. We now have no
professionally acknowledged means for directing critical inquiry into these metaphysical ideas.
Perhaps it is time to infuse philosophy back into our Ph.D. programs. Attention to food and
nutrition science philosophy would help us to explicate how metaphysical ideas precede, saturate
and drive the methods, trajectory and societal relevance of food and nutrition science. I suggest
symposia designed to open these ideas to rigorous and critical thought. Tomorrow’s research
may benefit by a willingness among today’s scientists to extend critical thought to the
philosophical dimensions of food and nutrition science. For these reasons alone, I believe that
CCE scholarship has a rightful place within food and nutrition science communities and at our
public research universities.
18
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