SOCIO-CULTURAL ASPECTS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
SOCIO-CULTURAL ASPECTS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

THE PARTICULAR CASE STUDY OF SOME ROMANIAN TROOPS DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to highlight the importance of nonverbal communication in intercultural relations manifested between some of the Romanian combatants and members of the Afghan community. This type of communication occurred throughout the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The topic of nonverbal communication in relation with the Afghan culture has been precariously approached by the specialized literature, therefore attesting the urge for focusing on it and for analyzing the possible cultural shock that emerges on the very first contact with a fundamentally opposite culture. The paper is based on a qualitative research, having a sample of fifteen Romanian soldiers, and its main objective concentrates on the detection and assessment of the potential cultural perception of the shock felt by the Romanian military participants in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, together with the identification of the causes that produced it. This research may contribute to signaling the relevance of considering this actual matter, taking into account the tendency of reconfiguring some of the current armed conflicts and the great number of Romanian soldiers that are or will be exposed to interactions with representatives of other cultures, radically different from their own.

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