This project intends to investigate how the intercultural encounter plays its role in shaping the global world today, and how to re-define, if possible, the meaning of being human for the present and the future. Looking through the lenses of different cultures, we have developed an empathy for other spiritual practices, and, hence, become more aware of who we are and where we are situated in the nexus of cultural differences and human similarities. The encounter with peoples and artifacts from different cultures will be studied as an experience which both presupposes and produces knowledge that informs a way of being in our complex world. The knowledge we carry as individual members of a given society is traditionally defined as a culture. In other words, our way of being as human is our culture. Intercultural encounters, either in meetings of individuals from different ethnic and spiritual backgrounds, or through interactions with objects from diverse environments, are able to provide opportunities for reflections on our nature and for exchanges between different cultures.

In today’s global world, the physical and ideological boundaries between cultures have become permeable; intercultural encounters have turned into everyday (un)celebrated events. In fact, intensive intercultural encounters and exchanges are both a cause and effect of the globalized world, where distance is eluded and differences are played down. We encounter people and objects from different backgrounds everywhere, home and abroad, and at the same time cultural differences are more present but less prominent. In order to cope with the contemporary changes and challenges in our cultures, to appreciate the experience of a networking world and to prevent the implosion of violence, our global world calls for a humanity whose culture is rather interactive and permanently re-learnt in the process of intercultural encounters.