European debates on cultural justice and interculturality

The article addresses some of the aspects of the distribution - recognition debate based on the European debates on cultural justice and interculturality. It advocates a model of intercultural mediation that allows to show the dynamics of these socio-political processes in the US, France and Colombia, and advocates a revision of the dialectic between universalism and contextualism that avoids essentialism. It is concluded that the possibility of intercultural mediation implies, as a fundamental condition, an aptitude to understand the other and to elaborate an "open" conception of culture and identity.