A Stranger in Our Midst: Illuminating the Possible Structures of India-US Nuclear Interactions in the Light of Intercultural Communication Research

This paper’s premise is that strategies developed in the field of intercultural communication research have valuable insights to offer in understanding the communication constraints inherent in an enhanced India-US nuclear dialogue. The concept of culture, how it is mediated and emerges, is first discussed. Recent efforts by the US and Indian governments to enhance civil nuclear cooperation signify efforts to lessen the Indian nuclear community’s isolation. Using Georg Simmel’s concept of the stranger as “an individual who is a member of a system but is not strongly attached to that system”, we conceptualize Indian nuclear community members as playing the roles of strangers within existing international nuclear-related networks. In systems of human networks, a stranger is often viewed with suspicion – less attached to existing linkages, the stranger may be viewed as unpredictable. Members of the US nuclear community may likely view their Indian counterparts in this fashion. Indian nuclear community members will likely be proud of their struggle against restraints placed on their growth by international consortia and be proud of their accomplishments. These differing perspectives create communication constraints on Indian and US nuclear community interactions. We present strategies from the field of intercultural communication for increasing the empathy of US and Indian nuclear community members for each other, and for making their interactions more productive. The ideas we present are designed to improve communication between these two communities on varied subjects, such as nonproliferation and nuclear safety that are matters of ongoing dialogue. We end by suggesting some areas for future study.