Abstract

Objectives: The article aims to depict the analytical framework for a research project on how to limit the intensity of intergenerational conflicts in ethnic minority families and, correspondingly, the extent of social control. Theoretical and moral background is the tension between cultural authenticity and individual autonomy. Methodology: The article’s methodology refers to the phenomenology of the alien. According to Waldenfels, there is a crucial conceptual difference between episodes that are perceived from a perspective of otherness and episodes that are perceived from a perspective of alienness. Otherness turns into alienness when sense-making communication stops functioning. Results: Initial analyses have shown that ethnic minority families after completing the therapy can succeed in a) regaining control of their lives and b) establishing both helpful social relationships and consistent patterns of meaning in their live-worlds. However, it is also true that only the interplay of life-world analysis, existential therapy and a sense-making information practice guarantees an effective and ethically responsible transformation of alienness into otherness. Conclusions: In more general terms: social communication is a generic concept, encompassing both aspects of instrumental reason and communicative sense-making.

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