Separation vs. integration: Challenges of bridging cultural contrasts
20th Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication Conference
The 20th NIC symposium is organised by the Institute of Germanic, Romance and Slavonic Languages and Literatures, University of Tartu and will be held on 28- 30 November 2013 in Tartu, Estonia. Conference call has been extended to 1 November 2013.
This conference welcomes papers from all areas of intercultural communication but aims to focus on the issues of separation and integration that have always been on the agenda in the Baltic States but have become particularly acute and sensitive for the last twenty years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Two cultures, Russian and Estonian have co-existed for more than two hundred years starting from the early 18th century when the Russian Empire gained control over Estonian lands by winning the war with Sweden. Since then, numerous generations have had the opportunity to deal with the issues of separation and integration. Unfortunately, mainly due to political reasons, the integration process has not been as successful as expected. This is where we found our inspiration for the main theme of the conference. We believe that via cooperation and discussion among intercultural communication researchers and practitioners we may manage to find solutions to problems faced by culturally different communities living side by side on a daily basis in any part of the world. We also believe that power issues and negotiations over power are relevant to the problems involved in intercultural communication in such situations.
Therefore, we welcome contributions from all academic disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, political science, media and communication studies, business studies, organisational studies, educational studies, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. We are particularly interested in case studies or theoretical papers which address issues of separation, assimilation, marginalisation and integration, as well as (discursive) power negotiations.
One of the main focuses of the Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication (NIC) is to enhance cooperation among Nordic and Baltic researchers exploring the field of intercultural communication. The main NIC activity for the last two decades has been the organisation of the annual international conference on intercultural communication, open to participants from all over the world.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
*Krista Vogelberg, Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature
*Irina Koksharova, MA, Member of the Conference Organising Committee
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 