Integrating cultural safety into public relations

Public relations, both as a profession and as an academic field, has increasingly sought to make its activities more culturally sensitive. Although significant advancements have been made, public relations theory and practice lack a focus on cultural safety: an approach to interacting with individuals of different cultural backgrounds that starts with the individuals and their cultures, and results in a feeling of safety for those individuals, as defined by those individuals, throughout each interaction. This paper argues that the successful integration of cultural safety into public relations involves a focus on listening, by practitioners to individuals and groups, as it is the crucial ingredient in understanding the perceptions of safety of diverse publics. Prioritising cultural safety necessitates a significant shift in culturally oriented public relations practice and theory, as it involves placing diverse individuals and listening at the heart of public relations efforts, especially ones that involve interpersonal interactions. Integrating cultural safety into public relations thus involves a shift in power dynamics within public relations activities and, specifically, a shift into culturally safe power-with relations. Drawing on interdisciplinary cultural safety theories, this paper presents a novel framework for developing culturally safe public relations.