# Re-visioning intercultural relational empathy

## TL;DR

The paper argues that empathy should be viewed as a dynamic, context-dependent process rather than a fixed trait, especially in intercultural healthcare settings.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is proposing a model of 'nomadic' empathies generated through democratic, intercultural engagement rather than static, ego-based empathy.

## Key findings

- Empathy is better understood as a fluid, process-based phenomenon in intercultural contexts.
- A modernist, ego-driven model of empathy is inadequate for diverse, global healthcare environments.
- 'Nomadic' empathies emerge through collaborative and competitive negotiation in multicultural settings.

## Abstract

We have previously argued that empathy is a multidimensional, context-modulated attribute, and that the Western unidimensional ‘one size fits all’ approach to empathy is inadequate particularly in intercultural settings. We called for relational empathy characterized by qualities such as curiosity; cultural and epistemic humility; bidirectional engagement; relational consciousness/ubuntu. In a paradigm shift from dominant models of ego-based empathy as projected content, here we describe a model of empathies or multiple ‘local stories’ that are process-based, fluid and context-dependent. Such empathies are not ‘given’ but ‘generated’ as an emergent property of social engagement based on a dialectic of democracy. Establishing such Intercultural Relational Empathies demands a shift from singular ‘content’ empathy to multiple ‘process’ empathies produced through sensitive, democratic encounter. We thus distinguish between ‘settled’ empathy as an individual trait and ‘nomadic’ empathies as negotiation in social settings. While the former describes empathy as ego-based content, the latter describes empathy as process and eco-centric – specifically, an emergent property of a nonlinear, open, dynamic, complex system that is an active social collective. We focus on the collective of an intercultural healthcare setting common to contemporary global healthcare - multicultural healthcare teams treating a range of patients. We describe ‘nomadic’ empathies as produced through dialectic and negotiation, both collaborative and competitive. We suggest that the globally dominant modernist model of content-based, ego-driven empathy is grounded in the values systems of individualism common to high-income countries. This affords a ‘grand narrative’ or dominant value, but one size does not fit all.