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Power and dominance in intercultural communication 409

neglect the fact that the only authentic indigenous societies are those still un-
known. The only way to preserve the “authenticity” of a known indigenous so-
ciety is to limit contact and to make sure they cannot communicate their own in-
terests in a world that to them will never be the same nevertheless.

4. Conclusion

Power and dominance within intercultural communication are due to asymmetri-
cal constellations within three different instances of reality: societal structure,
actants’ knowledge and language. I have discussed three particular asymmetries
with regard to these instances: the agent-client asymmetry of institutions; tacit
ethnocentrism of knowledge within intercultural science transfer; and linguistic
expansion of an indigenous language under postcolonial duress.
Interaction within institutions is paradigmatic for intercultural communi-
cation in a narrow sense: Even when agents and clients speak the same language,
their cultural apparatus differ. School, which is concerned with the expansion of
its clients’ cultural apparatus, is an extreme example of an institution whose in-
trinsic contradictions make it perpetuate its permanent intercultural communi-
cation failure. Institutional asymmetries compound the difficulties for intercultu-
ral communication in a broader sense: As agents can get away with behaving
ethnocentrically, their clients may not find advice, but encounter a rebuff.
Intercultural science transfer is a complex process in institutional terms, as
multipliers are former clients turned agents. If the knowledge they are meant to
spread is based on ethnocentric presuppositions, they will act ethnocentrically
in spreading it – which will have ramifications for the society intended to profit
from this knowledge.
Indigenous languages are usually not equipped to render the cultural appar-
atus of the postcolonial administrative languages they are in competition with.
This puts them in a fragile position.
The problems of power and dominance in intercultural communication
thus analysed cannot be resolved by “removing” power and dominance. As far
as institutions can at all reconcile their intrinsic contradictions, ethnocentric
behaviour of agents can be overcome by intercultural training and guidelines.
Intercultural science transfer should, on principle, be perceived as intercultural
communication in a broader sense, i.e. the knowledge transferred should be con-
ceived of as a problem solution specific to the society that solved the problem for
itself. On principle, indigenous languages can be expanded to mediate and rec-
oncile the cultural apparatus of both the indigenous and the postcolonial society,
so that the indigenous society has a genuine opportunity to determine its own fu-
ture. As the case of the Shuar has shown, this necessitates circumstances and pre-
requisites that enable the indigenous society to design its own language policy.