Towards an im-possible intercultural dialogue: Derrida and the politics of friendship

This paper aims to contribute to current discussions on intercultural dialogue by bringing Derrida’s non-canonical conceptualisation of friendship to the centre of policy-making and scholarly attention. It begins from the argument that although current discussions do much to disrupt the violent “we” versus “they” hierarchical dichotomy, more often than not these discussions perpetuate a belief in the symmetrical affinity and equality between friends that jeopardises the individual singularity of the other. To explore how this singularity can be preserved, the paper directs attention to a network of related aporetic concepts – that is, concepts that expose the undecidability within the decision we are required to make when responding to two equal and imperative duties – to construct intercultural dialogue as another aporetic concept whose condition of possibility is at the same time the condition of its impossibility. The paper culminates with a discussion of the implications that can be drawn from Derrida’s conceptualisation of friendship, arguing that if intercultural dialogue is to reinvent itself, it must transgress the programmes with which it is supposed to comply.