Kulea Culture Society: Stories from the Silk Roads (Canada)

Applied ICDStories from the Silk Roads, to celebrate Asian Heritage Month, Kulea Culture Society, Victoria, BC, Canada, May 2026.

During Asian Heritage Month, Kulea Culture Society presents Stories from the Silk Roads, a three-day event of stories, music and film to celebrate the rich heritage of Canadians with roots in the Asian continent. The Silk Roads were a system of caravan routes crossing the Eurasian continent from the Mediterranean Sea to China. It influenced the emergence and development of trade and cultural ties between people and statehoods located along the way and beyond. The routes carried goods, ideas, people across the continent and the sea from China, India, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Syria, Turkey among others to the Mediterranean and the West. Just like on the Asian continent, we see different Asian communities living across Canada today. These cultures have developed their distinct identities, arts and histories through interaction and communication with each other in Canada. Stories from the Silk Roads highlight diversity and harmony through arts and culture.

Storytellers include Zhanming “Shawn” Xiao, Sheila Alonzo, and Mayank Meena; musicians include Habbous and Jordi, and Ali Haydar; films include Made in Bangladesh, Children of the Mist, Caught by the Tides, Bye Bye Tiberias, Burcu’s Angels, and Obscura.

NOTE: Events in this series will be held in person at various venues around Victoria, BC. But, for those located elsewhere, they provide a model for other organizations wishing to organize something comparable.

CIDOB: Programa Talent Global 2026 (Spain)

Fellowships

Programa Talent Global Junior Visiting Fellowships, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), Barcelona, Spain. Deadline: 15 June 2026.

The Banco Sabadell Foundation and CIDOB (Barcelona Center for International Affairs) launch the sixth edition of the Programa Talent Global with the aim of promoting quality research by young researchers, through two paid research stays. The Junior Visiting Fellowship is aimed at two young researchers up to the age of 30 who have demonstrated their research skills and would join CIDOB’s research team for a period of six months through a paid research stay.

Themes
– Technological revolutions and their impact on international relations
– Challenges of sustainable development, climate change and global inequality
– New dynamics of global geopolitics
– Geoeconomics and trade relations
– Gender and international relations
– The European Union as a global actor
– Rise of hybrid threats.

European Commission: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (Global)

Postdocs
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships, European Commission. Deadlines: 9 September 2026.

The 2026 call for the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships is open as of 9 April 2026. With a budget of €399.05 million, the grants target researchers holding a PhD and aim to help them acquire new skills, develop their careers, and gain international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral experience by working in another country. These prestigious fellowships are also a stepping stone in researchers’ careers. They allow them to strengthen research cooperation with leading scientific teams and figures worldwide. The call will close on 9 September 2026 and is expected to fund nearly 1600 projects.

The call is open to applications in any scientific field, including Euratom research.

Fellowships include:

  • European Postdoctoral Fellowships, open to researchers of any nationality to carry out a personalised project in the European Union (EU) or countries associated to Horizon Europe for up to 24 months

  • Global Postdoctoral Fellowships, open to EU and Horizon Europe associated countries nationals or long-term residents wishing to work with organisations in third countries for a period of 12 to 24 months, before returning to Europe for 12 months

The scheme encourages researchers to gain experience beyond academia by giving them the opportunity to request an additional six months at the end of their fellowship to undertake a placement in a non-academic organisation in Europe.

FMSH: Post-war Contexts: Rebuilding Societies 2026 (France)

FellowshipsPost-war contexts: Rebuilding societies, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH), Paris, France. Deadline: 14 September 2026.

Launched in 2026, the “Post-war contexts: rebuilding societies” call for proposals explores the transitions between war and peace, when power structures, legitimacy, and political, economic and social relations are reshaped. It analyses these reconfigurations from local to global scales, from specific events to the longue durée, examining structural transformations and the processes through which societies stabilise and build sustainable peace.

Within this framework, the call for proposals seeks to support research focusing on post-war contexts in the 21st century. Particular attention will be paid to projects that stand out for the originality of their approach, their interdisciplinary dimension, and their collaborations with stakeholders from the economic, social, political and media spheres, as well as their capacity to produce and disseminate knowledge to a broad audience.

For this first edition, the call places special emphasis on the construction of “peace from below”, prioritising projects that highlight the role of grassroots movements, as well as cultural, social, media, scientific and economic actors, and diasporas, in post-war contexts and in the reconstruction of the social fabric.

In post-war societies, these actors emerge as key drivers of reconfiguration: they contribute to the expression of social expectations, the definition of public priorities, the circulation of information and the facilitation of public debate, while influencing collective decision-making processes at various levels.

The following areas of inquiry are indicative and non-exhaustive:

  • Forms of civic engagement, dynamics of co-construction with institutions, and the conditions for their effectiveness;
  • The role and transformation of different actors, including international organisations, within these processes;
  • Institutional and democratic reconstruction, particularly in its social, psychological and symbolic dimensions, including initiatives related to the protection or reappropriation of heritage;
  • Information dynamics, collective narratives and processes of narrative construction.

The aim of this call is to identify the concrete mechanisms through which grassroots peace actors can become structuring agents of stabilisation, legitimisation, and social and political transformation in post-war contexts.

CID Poster 13: The Blind Men and the Elephant Translated into Spanish

CID Posters

This poster, designed by Linda J. de Wit, has now been translated into Spanish. It demonstrates visually the common expression ““the blind men and the elephant” used to describe what can happen when only parts of something are examined, rather than the whole.

Here we present the Spanish translation, CID Poster 13: Los ciegos y el elefante, provided by Neus Crous-Costa, with additional graphic design work by Yan Qiu.

CID Poster 13 The blind men and the elephant translated into Spanish

The image was originally prepared to illustrate In Dialogue: CID Occasional Papers 1: Intercultural Dialogue as the Elephant in the Room: Moving from Assumptions to Research Investigations, by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. The quote integrated into the poster comes from that paper, and says:

The different approaches to intercultural dialogue might be described as a set of blind men studying individual aspects of the elephant, never realizing there is an entire beast. Those who have stepped back to see the entire animal deserve special attention.

Just in case anyone wants to cite this poster, the following would be the recommended format:

Center for Intercultural Dialogue. (2026). Los ciegos y el elefante [N. Crous-Costa, trans.]. CID Posters, 13. Available from: https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/cid-poster-13-the-blind-men-and-the-elephant-spanish.png

As with other series, CID Posters are available for free on the site; just click on the thumbnail to download a printable version. They may be downloaded, printed, and shared as is, without changes, without cost, so long as there is acknowledgment of the source.

As with other CID Publications, if you wish to prepare an original contribution, please send an email before starting any work to receive approval, to minimize inadvertent duplication, and to learn about technical requirements. As is the case any series, posters should be created initially in English. If you want to volunteer to translate a poster into a language in which you are fluent, send in a note before starting, to receive approval and to confirm no one else is working on the same one.

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
intercult.dialogue AT gmail.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

CIDOB: Institutional Relations Officer and Support to the Director (Spain)

“JobInstitutional Relations Officer and Support to the Director, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), Barcelona, Spain. Deadline: 25 May 2026.

CIDOB opens a call to hire a person who will develop and help to deepen institutional relations, as well as provide support to the Director in their day-to-day institutional activity. The selected candidate will be responsible for keeping relevant institutional contacts up to date, including CIDOB’s main interlocutors, databases and relations with members of CIDOB, and will contribute to the identification of new opportunities to strengthen institutional relations. The selected person will work closely with the Director, providing strategic and organisational support. Likewise, they will support the Director in their daily activities, including agenda management and support for institutional activities.

CIDOB is a think tank for international affairs that seeks to analyse global issues that affect political, social and governance dynamics, from the international to the local level. 

U Tennessee: Senior Study Abroad Advisor (USA)

“JobSenior Study Abroad Advisor, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, TN, USA. Deadline: 16 May 2026.

The Senior Study Abroad Advisor (SSAA) plays a vital role in advancing UTC’s global engagement efforts by advising students on a wide range of study abroad opportunities and supporting institutional goals to increase participation in international education. This position provides comprehensive advising across all study abroad portfolios, supports incoming and outgoing exchange students, and delivers engaging programming for recruitment, pre-departure preparation, and re-entry support. The SSAA also collaborates with faculty on program development, contributes to international travel risk management, and promotes intercultural learning and global competency development across campus.

CoE: HEY Course on Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue (Online)

EventsTraining Course on Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue, Human Rights Education for Youth (HEY), North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, online, 10 June-7 July 2026. Deadline: 31 May 2026.

The North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, in collaboration with the AKDN-Aga Khan Development Network, KAICIID – International Dialogue Centre, United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and Universidad Católica de Valencia – European Institute of Education for Democratic Culture (ECUDEM-UCV), and with the contribution of the Dicastery for the Interreligious Dialogue of the Holy See, invites young people to apply for the HEY online training course on Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue, implemented in the framework of the iLEGEND III.

The training course aims at providing young people – education practitioners in the formal and non-formal sector, media professionals and members of Civil Society Organisations and Faith-Based Organisations – with new skills and competences on Global Education, Intercultural/Interfaith Dialogue and Human Rights.

From 10 June to 7 July 2026, 80 participants will take part in the four-week interactive online training course. This course is implemented in English. The training is open to young people aged between 18 and 30 years old from Council of Europe member states (with priority given to North-South Centre member states) as well as from Africa and the Middle East, with the potential to act as multipliers.

CFP: Communicating for a Better World (USA)

ConferencesCall for proposals: Communicating for a Better World, 21-23 October 2026, New York City, NY, USA. Deadline: 31 May 2026.

Organizers invite scholars and practitioners at the intersection of communication and international relations to submit their  research, communication proposal, or poster/video for the first conference exclusively dedicated to communication around UN system organizations and the issues they seek to address. The conference seeks to explore how UN organizations—and their stakeholders—can communicate to strengthen the institutions and advance solutions to global issues. They welcome submissions related to all communication aspects related to the United Nations, organizations and campaigns of the UN system, and the global issues UN system organizations address. They encourage submissions that are relevant for UN system organizations, including those with practical policy recommendations.

Potential types of submissions include:

Paper: Original research that could be published as a paper. The paper will be presented on a panel and circulated among conference participants before the conference.

Communication Proposal: Submit creative ideas about how UN organizations and their stakeholders could communicate.

Poster / Video: If your insights and ideas can be displayed in a visually engaging fashion, consider submitting a poster or multimedia/video proposal. Selected submissions will be displayed during networking events.

CFP: Ethnographic Studies

“Publication

Call for Submissions: for journal Ethnographic Studies. Deadline: rolling.

Ethnographic Studies focuses on work in ethnography and ethnomethodology but it also provides a forum for sympathetic research in other human sciences, such as psychology, history, science and technology studies, and sociology. Its aim is to promote qualitative inquiry. The policy of the journal is to publish empirical studies but also theoretical and philosophical work which relates to current issues and debates in human sciences

Ethnographic Studies is a refereed journal. Papers will be usually refereed by two members of the Advisory Board. The journal welcomes proposals for special issues which should be discussed in advance with the editors.

Ethnographic Studies is an open access journal, hosted by ZHB Luzern/University Library Lucerne. The journal’s contents are copyright protected by a Creative Commons license.