It is interesting to compare the definitions of successful intercultural learning with the experiences of the best adjusted sojourners interviewed for this work. In particular, we can see how their sense of personal identity evolves as their membership in different cultural communities changes. Throughout much of this work, cultural communities have been discussed in terms of shared frameworks of meanings, not one's personal sense of identity. It is clear, however, that deep intercultural learning does have an impact on a sojourner's sense of cultural identity. In the case of Paul (above), there is a sense that he doesn't feel completely connected to any particular cultural community. Does this indicate that he has gone 'beyond' culture? Or does he simply feel detached?

Defining Intercultural Success

As we have seen in Chapter 5, Sparrow (2000: 173) has argued that a fully engaged membership in a host community is a primary indicator of successful intercultural learning. She argues for a need to go beyond a focus on 'enhanced cognitive awareness, to a view of identity development which is interactive, highly dependent on context, and ultimately rooted in gender, race, ethnicity and religion'. She argues that it is difficult or impossible to ever go 'beyond' one's cultural frameworks in the way described by Bennett. According to Bennett, at advanced stages of cultural learning, one no longer has a primary affiliation with a single culture, but rather is engaged in a constructive marginality. Sparrow finds this view, which originated with Adler's description of the 'multicultural man' (Adler, 1977), to be overly intellectualized and to reflect a particularly male, Cartesian view of development which emphasizes finding an ultimate objective point of view from which to observe reality.