Making Dialogue Effective

The Dialogue Society in London is holding a series of panel discussions examining the question of how to make intercultural dialogue work.

“Those working with intercultural and interreligious dialogue at the community or professional level face a range of challenges regarding its effectiveness. We are asked, or ask ourselves, such questions as:

Does what we do make or contribute to a tangible difference to society in any way?

Does our work, whether directly or otherwise, reach beyond the sympathetic to those whose attitudes and behaviour are an actual threat to peace and social cohesion?

Are the relationships that our work initiates across cultural or religious boundaries of a meaningful and lasting kind?

Is our work part of something broader that is capable of effecting change on a grand scale?

This series is intended to occasion focused and constructive discussion of such questions among a range of people concerned with relationships between different cultural, religious or social groups, in their professional lives or at the community level.

Findings and conclusions will be published. It is hoped that the series will be replicated at three independent UK branches of the Dialogue Society, allowing us to draw on a wider range of perspectives in collating findings.

Objectives

To encourage interprofessional dialogue, interaction and cooperation between people working on intercultural/ interreligious dialogue, peace and social cohesion.

To foster dialogue between people engaged with dialogue at the personal or community level, and those concerned with the same questions in a professional capacity.

To explore and clarify the questions of what effectiveness in dialogue is, and whether and how it can be measured.

To find a range of creative and practical answers to the question of how dialogue can be made effective by

identifying and promoting current best practice and

identifying and promoting promising future possibilities.

To share these answers among all participants of the series and more widely.”

Originally posted on the Dialogue Society website; see further information there.