Intercultural Relations and Acculturation in the Pacific Region

JOURNAL OF PACIFIC RIM PSYCHOLOGY Volume 4, Issue 2 pp. 95–102 Address for correspondence: John W. Berry, Queen’s University, 154 Albert St, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6. E-mail: [email protected] The Pacific region encompasses perhaps the most diverse set of cultures in the world. From indigenous peoples in East Asia and the Pacific islands, through to those in the Western hemisphere, and from largely European-derived settler societies in Australia and New Zealand to those in North and South America, cultural variation represents virtually all forms of cultural adaptations and achievements. Hunting, gathering fishing, agricultural, industrial and postindustrial societies live and thrive in juxtaposition. This variation lays the foundation for historical and contemporary human development, intercultural contact, intercultural relations and mutual acculturation in complex ways. Although I am writing from a Canadian perspective, my own involvement with this vast region has extended from the mid-1960s, while working on many diverse issues in Australia and New Guinea (on issues of cognitive differentiation and acculturation; Berry, 1976), to projects in Indonesia (on community-based rehabilitation; Dalal, Pande & Berry, 2000) and to South East Asia and China (on mutual intercultural relations; Leong & Berry, 2010). Much of this work has been concerned with basic psychological issues related to culture (e.g., cross-cultural psychology; Berry, Poortinga, Breugelmans, Chasiotis, & Sam, 2010; and indigenous psychology; Allwood & Berry, 2006; Kim & Berry, 1993), and to applications of psychology to societal development and wellbeing (e.g., Berry, Mishra, & Tripathi, 2002) and acculturation (e.g., Sam & Berry, 2006). While working with indigenous peoples, I became concerned with the largely negative impact on them of intercultural contact and the resultant acculturation. The themes of psychological differentiation, intercultural relations and acculturation have since become entwined in my research work and in applications to policy and program development in many kinds of cultural communities. In this article, the following core ideas are reviewed: features of culture are considered to be adaptive to the ecosystem in which they evolve; individuals develop and display behaviours that are adaptive to these ecocultural contexts; and contact between groups and individuals that carry these cultures and behaviours into the intercultural settings result in the processes of change that can be understood in terms of intercultural and acculturation strategies and outcomes. Intercultural Relations and Acculturation in the Pacific Region