A Critical Auto/Ethnography of Learning Spanish: Intercultural competence on the gringo trail?

The premise that intercultural contact produces intercultural competence underpins much rationalization of backpacker tourism and in-country language education. However, if insufficiently problematized, pre-existing constructions of cultural 'otherness' may hinder intercultural competence development. This is nowhere truer than in contexts in which wide disparities of power, wealth, and privilege exist, and where such positionings may go unproblematized. This study contributes to theoretica...