Groups in contact: Meta‐representations,interobjectivity, and cultural incompatibilities

This analysis departs from social identity being part and parcel of the system of social representations a group holds. Additionally, social identity is seen as being affectively laden with religious or other deeply ingrained ideological beliefs. These systems delimit the space of norms and behaviours where people socially construct the objects defining the local world as an objectively given. The local objectifications differ between groups and cultures and pose a problem for interaction and communication between members of different groups. Inter‐group discrepancies must be bridged by establishing a shared representational space and interobjective understanding. This understanding can be reached if both interactants mutually develop meta‐representations that allow them to grossly anticipate what to expect from the other and to orient their actions accordingly. But there is a catch in establishing interobjectivity: even if the interactants manage to overcome semantic and cognitive barriers, their interaction and open‐minded communication will be blocked if the two objectivities are ethically or affectively incommensurable. I illustrate this process by suggesting that native Europeans will feel blocked to establish interobjective acceptance for example with proponents of a slave holder culture whose values are incommensurable with European ideas of human equality. Accepting a slave holder's worldview would threaten the European's identity. A similar process seems to govern devout conservative Muslims living in 'gated communities' and enclaves in European cities who try to maintain their identity by avoiding regular contact with the non‐Muslim majority. Such contact would threaten their identity if their worldview and sharia rules were measured by the standards of human rights. Native Europeans on the other hand, will feel their own cultural objectivity to be incompatible with traditional Islam that does not equally observe human rights. The implications of such processes are discussed in terms of migrants' integration, multiculturalism, and socio‐political psychology.