The Intercultural Institute of Montreal (IIM) was a Montreal-based community organization dedicated to intercultural dialogue, cultural pluralism, and social transformation. The IIM built a rich legacy of public activities, training programs, research, and publications. Guided by the conviction that cultural diversity is a living reality to be understood and celebrated. This website preserves its archives as a resource for all those inspired by its vision.
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PHASE 1. 1963-1970: CATHOLIC QUEBEC OPENS UP TO OTHER RELIGIONS AND CULTURES
In 1960s Quebec society was shaped particularly by the following features of the Quiet Revolution: critique of the role of Catholic Church and reform of the church-based education system, a strained relationship between the English and French populations (the “two solitudes” as it was named); the continued subjugation of Indigenous peoples; a new demographic trend in immigration where the number of immigrants from non-European countries (from the South) was on the rise. Together, these immigrants constituted a racially, culturally, and religiously diverse population and it is in this context the philosophy and action of IIM began to evolve. IIM began as an educational project at the Collège Saint Laurent by Jacques Langlais c.s.c of the Holy Cross congregation.
In 1963 a group of Catholic missionaries returned home to Quebec from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Under the leadership of Jacques Langlais c.s.c. a space was created to share their experiences of a foreign culture and to open the people of Quebec to dialogue with other religions.
In 1968, at the time of its official incorporation as a civil organization, the organisation’s mission was four-fold and can be summarized as follows: a) to offer a social space where people of all ages and different cultural and religious background can encounter or meet each other and engage in dialogue; b) to provide the general public with information on various religious traditions through its activities and more importantly by establishing a documentation centre on cultures and religions; c) to respond to the youth searching for new socio-cultural horizons. d. English-French dialogue.
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PHASE 2. 1971 -mid 1980s: FORGING A VISION OF PLURALISM AND INTERCULTURALITY
Under the leadership of Robert Vachon as director and Kalpana Das as co-director, IIM began to widen its scope beginning in the 1970s. This was in response to the socio-cultural and spiritual trends in Quebec of that period that were to a great extent characterized by the increasing awareness of multicultural, multi-religious, multi-racial nature of Quebec’s population. From the late 1970s onward the greater involvement of the State at both federal and provincial levels, its governments and its institutions in the domain of diversity and intercultural relations presented a new challenge for the work being done at the institute. This period was characterized by concerns about issues at several levels: government policy of Multiculturalism (Canada) and Interculturalism (Quebec); policies concerning the Indigenous Nations and the movements for their cultural survival and self-determination; increasing institutionalization and politicization of inter-ethnic and race-relations.
This phase was marked by a broader organisational mission at several levels: a) engaging in deeper reflections on the notions of pluralism, culture, interculturality; b) extending the scope of culture learning programs by going beyond the Asian cultures and religions to the Indigenous and African cultures and spiritualities; c) working on critical issues such as cultures and international development/cooperation, cultural pluralism and human rights; d) bringing into focus the colonial history of Canada-Quebec regarding indigenous nations, and advocating reconciliation with the indigenous nations as a fundamental condition for any intercultural policy development and action; e) introduction of intercultural training programs for social actors both in formal and informal sectors.
In 1979 Centre Monchanin takes on the name of Centre Interculturel Monchanin (Monchanin Cross-cultural Centre).
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PHASE 3. Mid 1980s – late 1990s: SYSTEMATIZATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICES OF PLURALISM AND INTERCULTURALITY
Since the 1980s IIM explicitly took the international and the global context as a backdrop for the elaboration of a comprehensive framework of intercultural philosophy and practice. The confrontation of cultures in international affairs induced by the history of colonialism and its vestiges led to the stratification of cultures of the North and of the South on the scale of modern-traditional or civilized-primitive. This unequal relationship between peoples and their cultures became crucial to frame a critical theorization of interculturality, along with an intercultural critique of the hegemony and imperialistic culture of modernity. Thus, the application of the intercultural approach to activities such as international development and cooperation, human rights action, international aid and so on became essential part of the institute’s activities during this period.
During this decade IIM undertook the task of systematizing its philosophy, a methodology for interculturality, and developed applications in various fields of human activities: spiritual, religious, cultural, social, political, economic, health care, education etc. It was considered urgent to explicitly define this vision and approach to interculturality in the context of emerging debates about policies and the institutionalization of the question of diversity, not only locally, but also nationally and internationally.
Some foundational principles proposed for the conditions of interculturality: the necessity for an intercultural critique of monocultural and colonial World Orders and the coloniality of modernity; the desire to reconstruct the stratified relationships between peoples and cultures of the world on the basis of equality. IIM took the position that this unequal framework of relationships between peoples, cultures, countries (nations), is a hindrance to any effective interculturality in practice. Thus, the following conditions are required: a. decolonization of global and local systems (cultural, social, political, economic); b. transforming integrationist-assimilationist ideologies to the path of interculturalizing societies; c. promotion and acknowledgement of knowledge systems of different cultures and communities in order to respond to the contemporary human conditions and crises based on intercultural cooperation; d. regeneration of local communities and reappropriation of their knowledge and know-hows to counter the impacts of coloniality and hegemony of the culture of modernity.
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PHASE 4. 2000-2012: INTERCULTURALITY, AN UNAVOIDABLE OPTION FOR LIVING IN A PLURALISTIC WORLD
The 1990s were the years when two trends emerged in Quebec-Canada to address the question of diversity namely, diversity management for integration of immigrants and inter-ethnic and race relations. Government policies and programs were being put in place in order to mandate its institutions to implement these policies. This paved the way for the creation of a market for intercultural trainers and consultants, and intercultural expertise became a new commodity in the private sector. In the process, the pioneering work of the non-institutional or community sector became marginalized. In response, IIM felt a need to articulate an alternative grassroots discourse on pluralism and interculturalism and adopted a course of action that was considerably different from actors in the private and public sectors.