Through the eyes of a stray dog: encounters with the Other

This article explores a spatial model of culture and the intercultural gaze. It is informed by action research carried out with 40 pre-service and practising non-specialist teachers in the Czech Republic. Personal and cultural identities were examined through discursive encounters with various forms of others. The authors use the Japanese term nora inu, which refers to a stray dog constantly on the move, as a multi-layered metaphor for moving beyond narrative pedagogy towards a spatial view of cultural identity. The research was conducted as part of an education programme devised for Shmei Tmatsu's exhibition Skin of the Nation at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague in 2007. Our analysis of the discursive spaces created by the participants reveals cross-cultural challenges and supports the idea that culture is an interactive field in which intertextual space is co-inhabited by intersections and border crossings between and through all others.