Preface

It was in that liminal period between spring and winter, 2013, in Pret A Manger on Baker Street, London, that the idea for this book originated. We had met at a presentation Adam gave at Zhu Hua’s institution, Birkbeck College, University of London, the previous year. Although we approached our intercultural research from distinct academic perspectives (ZhuHua from applied linguistics and Adam from intercultural communication and acculturation psychology), we seemed to share common values-including an interest in each other’s approachesto intercultural studies, and our experience of living and working as transnational academics. It was this common ground, as well as our differences, which made collaboration promising and potentially exciting.