The Constructive Marginal of Moby-Dick: Ishmael and the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

Cultural sensitivity theory is the study of how individuals relate to cultural difference. Using literature to help students prepare for study abroad, instructors could analyze character and trace behavior through a model of cultural sensitivity. Milton J. Bennett has developed such an instrument, The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), which measures behavior from ethnocentric to ethnorelative. Cultural sensitivity research has proven time and again that Bennett’s DMIS is a strong model after over thirty years. In a 2003 article in The International Journal of Intercultural Relations, R. Michael Paige and others analyze a new model, co-created by Bennett, called the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). It is based on Bennett’s old model. The IDI suggests different stages of development but is so similar to the DMIS that the research shows the strength of Bennett’s DMIS, which I will use with Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick to chart Ishmael’s cultural sensitivity. The simplicity of the DMIS may very well help attest for its longevity in the field. The DMIS can be seen as a chart, beginning with ethnocentric behavior. Ethnocentrism moves through three stages, starting with denial, in which the individual appears to even deny the existence of one who is culturally different. Next is the defensive stage. Here, the individual will characteristically denigrate those culturally different than himself. In the final stage of ethnocentrism, minimization, the individual, when gauging one culturally different than himself, will only embrace those characteristics that he also has. The next three stages encompass the ethnorelative phases of cultural sensitivity and are initially marked by the individual’s acceptance of difference, followed by his adaptation of certain cultural aspects not native to himself. The last stage is integration, which can be taken ad infinitum, producing a constructive marginal, one who has such a diverse ethnic makeup that he only fits in withother constructive marginals. In 1993, Janet M. Bennett noted Barack Obama, the first black elected president of the Harvard Law Review,