Friendship and Identification on Multicultural Fields

Abstract

American missionaries assume that friendship is the relational basis of a multicultural field (MCF). Field is preferable to team because the metaphor of team privileges an American conception of the group above how field members from the Global South may conceive of it. Given the inherent diversity of a MCF, it is unlikely the individual identities and interests of U.S.-Americans will overlap extensively with the collective identities and interests of MCF members from the Global South, making identification problematic. Identification is possible through application of the Social Identity Approach (SIA): All field members share a common social identity as believers.