Cities of Migration showcases good ideas in immigrant integration and promotes innovative practices that create inclusion and urban prosperity. They focus on ideas that are practical, innovative, successful, and transferable. They summarize good ideas in immigration, building inclusive cities, prepare a monthly summary of Conversations in Integration, and host a monthly webinar called Learning Exchange – the next one is titled In the Classroom and Beyond: Supporting Refugee Students. They’ve also just prepared a diagnostic tool called Test my City, to make generalizations come alive by showing how they apply to any specific city.
Category: Applied ICD
EIUC Electoral Observers Training 2018 (Italy)
International electoral observers training course, Global Campus of Human Rights, November 26-30, 2018, Venice, Italy. Registration deadline: October 15, 2018.
Open and legitimate elections are the indispensable foundation for sustainable development and an effective democracy. Actions supporting the right to participate in genuine elections can play a major role in sustaining peace, security and conflict prevention. Support takes the form of electoral assistance projects and election observation missions. This requires skilled and trained observers. EIUC (European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation) has developed a course aiming at providing training to civilian staff in election observation missions at the first steps of their career. Selected applicants will be allowed to become aware of the role, the tasks and the status of international observers, and will be given a theoretical and practical training on election observation and election observation missions functioning.
SlowFood at the Migranti Film Festival
SlowFood recently posted an interesting article titled Glimpses and Smells: Recipes and Short Films, based on an interview of Diana Maria Tohătan (a Romanian immigrant to Italy, who prepared food for the Migranti Film Festival, held at the University of Gastronomic Sciences campus in Pollenzo and in Bra in June 2018. Among the quotes is this: “Food is a primary need, it’s the easiest way to start an intercultural dialogue” which shows the relevance of this article for followers of this site.
Additional resources on food as a form of intercultural interaction include:
Lum, C. M. K., & de Ferrière le Vayer, M. (Eds.). (2016). Urban foodways and communication: Ethnographic studies in intangible cultural food heritages around the world. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (1993). Semiotics and communication: Signs, codes, cultures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (see chapter 4: Food as sign and code).
Dollar Street: Learn About the World Without Leaving Home
Dollar Street is “where country stereotypes fall apart.” 264 homes in 50 countries have been documented with 30,000+ photos, in order to show the reality of people’s lives, leaving assumptions behind. Sounds like a good way to start intercultural dialogues, no?
As explained on their site: “Dollar Street was invented by Anna Rosling Rönnlund at Gapminder. For 15 years she spent her workdays making global public data easier to understand and use. Over time her frustration grew: carefully selecting data to present it in colorful and moving charts made overall global trends and patterns easier to understand. But it did not make everyday life on different income levels understandable. Especially not in places far from home. “People in other cultures are often portrayed as scary or exotic.” Anna explains: “This has to change. We want to show how people really live. It seemed natural to use photos as data so people can see for themselves what life looks like on different income levels. Dollar Street lets you visit many, many homes all over the world. Without travelling.”
Dollar Street is designed to let everyone see “what life really looks like behind the income statistics” by “using photos as data.” There’s a TED Talk about it, if you want to learn more.
Take “the Other” to Lunch
Elizabeth Lesser suggests we take “the Other” to lunch in a TED talk posted in 2010, but getting a lot of views this year (and now translated into 31 languages). She shares a simple way to begin real dialogue – by going to lunch with someone who doesn’t agree with you, and asking them three questions to find out what they think and why.
For further information about the concept of “Otherness and the Other,” there’s a Key Concept, written by Peter Praxmarer, and a CID Poster available as well.
The Urgency of Intersectionality
Gust Yep described the concept of intersectionality in Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, 49, published on this site in 2015. For those who want more information about the concept, Kimberlé Crenshaw, the lawyer who invented the term, gave a TED Talk in 2016, The Urgency of Intersectionality. (She also coined the term “Critical race theory.”) Among other comments, she says: “When there’s no name for a problem, you can’t see a problem. When you can’t see a problem, you can’t solve it.”
A later and longer discussion of intersectionality is this:
Yep, G. A. (2016). Toward thick (er) intersectionalities: Theorizing, researching, and activating the complexities of communication and identities. In K. Sorrells & S. Sekimoto (Eds.), Globalizing intercultural communication: A reader (pp. 86-94). Sage Publications.
Cinema Human Rights and Advocacy (Italy)
Summer School in Cinema Human Rights and Advocacy, 27 August – 5 September 2018, Venice, Italy. Deadline: 20 June 2018.
The Summer School in Cinema Human Rights and Advocacy is a training initiative jointly developed by the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC) and Cinema Rights and Human Advocacy (CHRA).
The 10-day intense training is aimed at young professionals wishing to broaden their understanding on the connections between human rights, films, digital media and video advocacy, to share ideas and foster participatory and critical thinking on urgent human rights issues, debate with experts and filmmakers from all over the world during the 75thVenice international Film Festival and learn how to use films as a tool for social and cultural change.
UNESCO Survey on ICD
A new report, entitled the UNESCO Survey on Intercultural Dialogue 2017, presents the findings of groundbreaking survey developed by the UNESCO Sector for Social and Human Sciences and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. This was the first UNESCO survey on intercultural dialogue conducted among its Member States. It was designed to take stock of the current conceptual understanding, policies, and legislation, as well as available data, resources and main stakeholders in this field.
The results provide unique perspective on country-specific policies on intercultural dialogue. They also offer a point of analysis for monitoring and policymaking purposes. The survey was sent to all 199 National Commissions for UNESCO in six official languages.
Key findings include:
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Defining intercultural dialogue: Context is crucial to defining and applying intercultural dialogue.
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Policy framework: The majority of respondents (71%) state that an intercultural dialogue policy is in place in their country, while only 38% of respondents confirmed the existence of a definition of intercultural dialogue at national level.
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Challenges: Past and present conflicts and violence represent significant and complex challenges to bringing different people together in dialogue.
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Enabling factors: An environment based on respect, tolerance and acceptance is essential to enable intercultural dialogue to thrive.
Paper Airplanes: English Tutors Wanted (Summer/Fall 2018)
Paper Airplanes is looking for English tutors for summer and fall terms. Summer term will run from June 17-August 31, 2018. Fall term will run from September 9-December 16, 2018. The application is available here.
Paper Airplanes provides free, one-on-one virtual language and skills instruction to people affected by conflict. Our goal is to help our students learn critical languages and marketable skills for their pursuit of higher education and employment. No prior tutoring experience or Arabic language skills required, although both are appreciated. Please contact Paper Airplanes Director of Programming, Dr. Anna Farrell, with any questions.
Using Technology to Aid Migration: MigApp
With 250 million international migrants, and 750 million internal migrants, 1 in 7 people in the world now is a migrant (MigApp Data Sheet, 2017). The International Organization for Migration (IOM, the UN migration agency) has developed MigApp to provide a platform for migrants to use in sharing their experiences, as well as to access verified and accurate information. Migrants also gain a translation tool to use with healthcare professionals and a low-cost way to transfer money (necessary because international migrants from developing countries send home over USD$600 billion annually.). Governments gain a platform to use in directly informing migrants of policies, such as visa regulations. IOM gains a tool to get information about their programs directly to migrants, learn what information is most useful, and what else is needed by the population they serve.
IOM Definition of “Migrant”: “IOM defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes for the movement are; or (4) what the length of the stay is. IOM concerns itself with migrants and migration‐related issues and, in agreement with relevant States, with migrants who are in need of international migration services.”
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 