Intercultural mindfulness: artistic meaning-making about students’ intercultural experience at a UK university

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I use arts methods to explore the concept ‘intercultural mindfulness' as performed in students’ meaning-making about their intercultural experience at a UK university. The findings identify some less discussed qualities for mindfulness such as affective openness, embodied openness, and ethical-oriented openness, generosity, energy/effort, and liberated freedom. The study addresses a critical, theoretical ground for understanding and applying mindfulness in intercultural studies. Moving beyond the common focuses on cognitive skills or competence, it enriches the existing understanding of intercultural mindfulness by being attentive to the humanistic, affective, ethical, and ideological dimensions of mindfulness.