A young refugee in the family. Intercultural relations during a hosting experience in Milan

Intercultural relations are usually studied in specific contexts such as education, health and business. Typical fields of intercultural studies are school classrooms, youth centers and other institutions in which cultural differences are widespread. However, according to Roy, also in this field of research can we distinguish two different intercultural ways: “institutional” and “non-institutional”, with different relational dynamics (Roy 1992, 55). By non-institutional ways we mean contexts without specific written rules for interpersonal relationships, where cultural differences may also emerge in a most spontaneous way. This essay aims to explore when intercultural relations take place in a domestic environment and people from different cultures share daily life, outside a regulatory framework. The main difference is between a context of rules and norms also concerning intercultural relations, on the one hand, and a more spontaneous and informal context on the other. The fundamental theoretical reference is Michel de Certeau’s (1990) thinking about everyday life.