Category: Applied ICD

EIUC Venice School of Human Rights

Venice School of Human Rights
Dates: 24 June – 2 July 2016
Type of courses: Lectures in the plenum and smaller seminars
Registration deadline: 13 May 2016
Email: veniceschool@eiuc.org
Scientific Director: Prof. Florence Benoit-Rohmer, Strasbourg University
Project Manager: Ms Alberta Rocca, EIUC Senior Project Manager

Introduction
EIUC Venice School of Human Rights was born in 2010 with the goal of studying today’s challenges in the field of human rights.

It allows its participants coming from all over the world to list these challenges and examine their reasons and possible solutions they can deploy. The EIUC Venice School at the same time, combines theory and practice and its faculty involves both academics and practitioners. The Venice School intends to highlight that the respect for human rights is the responsibility of all, that « Human Rights are our responsibility ».

Courses are scheduled to take place in Venice at the premises of the European Inter-University Centre in Human Rights and Democratisation over a period of 9 days. The courses will be taught in English by internationally recognised experts in the fields of human rights belonging to EIUC’s partner universities and other organisations that support EIUC projects and endeavors.

Participants will benefit from an extremely rich cultural environment including visits to museums, galleries, churches and the Venice Biennale. Finally, they will be able to relax and enjoy walking along the Lido beaches or cycling around the island once the courses finish in the afternoon.

CFP Creative Europe Refugee Integration

Call for proposals EACEA 12/2016 – “Support for refugee integration”
Deadline: 28 April 2016

One of the main objectives of the Creative Europe programme is to foster, safeguard and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity. At a time when Europe is receiving an extraordinary number of refugees, supporting European Union Member States in tackling this situation is a key priority of the EU. In November 2015, the Education, Youth, Culture and Sports Council of Ministers have reaffirmed that intercultural dialogue through culture and the arts plays an important role to integrate refugees. Culture and cinema can bridge gaps and improve mutual understanding between the population of the host country and the refugees. In this context, the European Commission has revised its work programme for 2016 to include specific measures supporting the integration of refugees and encouraging mutual understanding between refugees and host populations in Europe. For the purposes of this call for proposals, the key protagonists will be creative and cultural operators.

The general objective of this call for proposals is to support cultural, audio-visual and cross-sectorial projects aiming at facilitating the integration of refugees in the European environment, enhancing mutual cultural understanding and fostering intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, tolerance and respect for other cultures. The specific objectives of this call are to establish transnational cultural and audiovisual projects that can:
• help refugees socialise and express themselves without necessarily speaking immediately the host country language.
• be learning platforms in a wider sense, fostering respect and understanding for diversity, intercultural and civic competencies, democratic values and citizenship.
• give EU citizens the opportunity to discover, learn from and understand the values and cultures of refugees and – in the process rediscover and enrich their own.
• support the showcasing and co-creation of cultural and/or audiovisual works across Europe.
• offer the possibility of collaboration with organisations in other sectors in order to stimulate a more comprehensive, rapid, effective and long-term response to this global challenge

The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects is estimated at EUR 1,6 million. Each grant will amount to between EUR 100.000 and EUR 200.000 representing maximum 80% of the eligible budget. The remaining amount of at least 20% of eligible costs must be secured by the applicants (partnership). The Agency expects to fund around 8 to 12 projects. The Agency reserves the right not to distribute all the funds available.

Refugees, Germany, Willkommenskultur and Intercultural Communication

Guest PostsResponse to Dominic Busch’s guest post by Peter Praxmarer

I find myself in almost full agreement with what Dominic Busch writes.

In particular, I find his reflections on language in what he calls “internal social discourse,” pertinent and well taken. Also, the fact that “the cultural argument” has been hijacked by the far right and the national populists, in our times, is not surprising. This would, by the way, merit a little more research: attention to the culture of others has more often than not been a child of animosity, enmity, hostility, rejection if not outright war, as the history of exclusion, but also of conquest, colonialism, imperialism, and domination in general, amply testifies. As we (should) know, the very idea of “intercultural communication” as a more or less independent field of study, research and practical application was born during WWII, as part of the “war effort” of the US (viz. Leeds-Hurwitz). From this, also, stems the particular and sometimes incongruent vocabulary of the field, which is utterly US-social-science-lingo dominated, with some inroads from languages which still claim their droit de cité in the global social science supermarket (or, more benignly stated, the Global Republic of Letters), e.g. French and German. The field of study called intercultural communication became less war-related only later (but not everywhere), when  nation- and culture-crossing processes and constellations other than war started to play a more important role in the modern world-system (to follow Immanuel Wallerstein’s still pertinent terminology, preferring it to the shallow term “globalization”) – but it has kept its very peculiar vocabulary, at least in the mainstream.

Aside from that, while reflecting upon the present discourse on refugees in Germany and the “cultural” problems of the more or less autochthon residents (the “Old Germans”, as Busch cites a fellow professor in his piece) with them, it is worthwhile also to reflect on the position of the very term Kultur in Germany. In Germany, and not only during Nazi times, there has long existed an attitude which was described as Am deutschen Wesen mag/soll die Welt genesen, meaning that German culture is the remedy for all other (cultural) ills, all over the world. The Allied Propaganda posters, both in WWI as in WWII, took up this cultural theme. Thus, e.g., US War Propaganda during WWI showed a Mad German Brute holding a club with written Kultur on it, or an US Sleeping Beauty by the name of Civilization, calling every man, woman and child to war  – these and similar illustrations were meant to convey that deutsche Kultur is not so peaceful as other civilizations. In historical perspective, one has to agree. Looking into what was done in the name of German Kultur and how Kultur was used during WWII and before, would just confirm the very xenophobic and worse essence of it, inhumanely and most horrendously. (Caveat: Allied war propaganda is not presented here as an authoritative source, but only to provide a stark illustration of the use of the cultural argument; and many other than German “cultures” and “civilizations” certainly also have their share in war, conquest and violence-in-the-name-of-culture, epitomized, e.g., by “The White Man’s Burden” or the “mission civilisatrice”.)

Therefore, and also in view of the fact that the populist right wing and nationalistic parties have been able to hijack the term “culture” for their purposes, it is so good to see how civil society in Germany has constructed a new culture which is not national or völkisch, nor aggressive or expansionist, but welcoming: Willkommenskultur. In addition, even the counterpart to civil society, the German state, not least through its Chancellor, is, to varying degrees and for various reasons, in favor of taking in refugees, as is, again for still other reasons and purposes, the economy and a great part of the media. A beautiful page in the otherwise not always so beautiful book of contemporary Europe. And also a great example of (co-)constructed (inter-)culture, as well as of the fact that  “culture” never stands alone and cannot be meaningfully explained without taking into account history, society, economy, the polity, as well as, in our day and age, the many influences and experiences of mediated virtual reality in all its forms.

Yet, I also want to mention a point of potential disagreement with what Busch writes, regarding the role of Intercultural Communication Studies and Research. It is certainly true that the term “culture” has been critically evaluated, and the field is rapidly moving away from an essentialist and relatively static position to a more constructivist interactional and dynamic view of culture, in very simple terms privileging “communication” and “inter” over “culture”. However, by and large the main concern of intercultural communication research has been predominantly either relatively elite or middle-class or strictly utilitarian, covering, e.g. management or other professional groups, hospitals, schools, the military, police, development cooperation, etc. Relatively rarely concerned with, e.g., social integration per se (if not in special trainings for social workers, etc.), or with social integration from below (viz. the reference to Conflict Discourse Ethnocentrism in Busch’s text). In other words, the field has been center- and middle-class- or elite-focused, and not periphery- and non-elite, and where non-elite, then mostly only in terms of social management of deviations from norms or dangers from (culturally defined) others. This has also impacted our methodology: we have not always tried to understand, but we have been “overstanding”, as Raimon Panikkar so masterly phrased it already a quarter of a century ago. This is exacerbated when interculturalists (have to) jump on data-driven “fast science” jets instead of cultivating philosophy-fertilized “slow science” gardens, since this leaves no time to reflect either on the cui bono question or on participative methods or more sophisticated research questions than the ones required and funded by the global social science marketplaces – and it most certainly does not give a voice to those directly researched upon and with. Also for these reasons (conceptual, exemplified by “culture”, as well as methodologically), I would argue, we have so little to say when it comes to refugee crises, or to horrorism/terrorism, or to many other social “problems”. One reason why “the cultural argument” has been so successfully hijacked by the right and the nationalists, could therefore probably be that the interculturalists have far too long worked – even if engaging in what Busch calls a “sophisticated” debate – with a de-historisized, de-socialized, de-materialized, de-economized, de-politicized and overly value-oriented and psychologized concept of culture (and communication, for that matter). In other words, if one wants to understand (parts of) social reality in terms of culture and communication (and “inter” dynamics and processes), one has to look at it as what Busch calls, following Michel Foucault a “Dispositiv” (“dispositif” or “apparatus” in Foucault’s terminology). Likewise, it is necessary to overcome the “Unbearable Lightness of Communication Research”, as The International Communication Gazette tellingly titles its forthcoming 2016 Special Issue.

This critical look at the field is of course not meant to belittle the many initiatives of academic interculturalists in Germany, of which “Helfern helfen” of the intercultural campus of the Interkultureller Hochschulverband is but one. Or the numerous other initiatives undertaken by people who have studied intercultural communication and want to put their knowledge to good use; not to forget all those who practice sustainable – and sustained — intercultural communication in their daily dealings with the Stranger, the Migrant, the Refugee, the Other. It is simply a call for more “social” intercultural communication studies – more social in more than one sense.

Download the entire post as a PDF.

Grants for Conflict Mitigation and Reconciliation (USAID)

FY 2016 Conflict Mitigation and Reconciliation Programs and Activities (Global Reconciliation Fund)
Agency for International Development
Deadline: April 25, 2016
Amount: Upper $1,500,000USD, Lower $100,000USD

The United States Government, as represented by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA), Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM), invites applications for funding from qualified entities to carry out activities that mitigate conflict and promote reconciliation by bringing together individuals of different ethnic, religious, or political backgrounds from areas of civil conflict and war in the following countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi, Colombia, Liberia, Macedonia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal (including cross-border programming with Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and The Gambia), Sri Lanka, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

see also:
US Aid People-to-People Peacebuilding

Some Observations on Internal Social Discourses on the Recent Increase of Refugee Immigration into Germany

Guest PostsSome Observations on Internal Social Discourses on the Recent Increase of Refugee Immigration into Germany

Guest post by Dominic Busch
Professor of Intercultural Communication and Conflict Research
Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany

[A couple of weeks ago, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz asked me to write down some remarks on the current situation of Germany receiving a growing number of refugees. It is an honor for me to be allowed to say something on that topic. And at the same time – being a member of the society under discussion – the topic seemed to be so overly complex to me that I felt I was not able to write something off the cuff. After some consideration, I have tried my very best, and still, I fear that I might have forgotten or overseen one or another aspect.]

In international news coverage, Germany recently has been referred to as having been approached by an increasing number of refugees and immigrants from Africa, the near East as well as from South Eastern Europe (see either this excellent quantitative visualization, or this textual introduction with many links to the news).

Here, I would like to provide some remarks on this discourse as well as on how the discourse relates to ideas of intercultural dialogue. I cannot but write these remarks from a perspective that must be acknowledged as a highly personal one. Writing as a white German male professor at a university in Germany, and having been born in Germany, I am in a privileged position. I cannot contribute from the perspective of migrant experiences. I am part of that wealthy world where some (not too many) refugees have arrived, and civil society grows in strength and self-confidence by successfully accommodating them, donating, teaching refugee children German language in newly installed “welcoming classes”, etc. Critics of my contribution may well refer to the fact that I have not been personally involved in any challenging situations in the context of refugee movements.

Still, I would like to give it a try from the perspective of intercultural communication, my field of research. Even more, I would like to warmly invite readers of this contribution to add their perspectives and thoughts in this blog’s comment section below!

The Basic Assumptions of European Political Discourse on Refugees

Inside Germany, refugee immigration has been by far the predominant news topic for the last ten months. Migration had not been a topic of much consideration in the German national news discourse as it is now. Recent surveys have repeatedly confirmed that, even today, for a large part of the Germans the refugee phenomenon is an issue that they do not experience except via news media. Nevertheless, almost everybody seems to have an opinion on the topic. The arrival of refugees centrally can be dealt with as an issue of socially constructed news discourse. Keeping that constructionist aspect in mind may better help in understanding the central characteristics of the debate: it is primarily lead by attempts to finding a position and attitude for a whole society facing a situation some of the people feel as being insufficiently prepared for. In other words, German society is faced with a new situation and they cannot clearly see where it will lead.

The Construction of Unpreparedness

To start with, the primary reaction of the EU as well as many of its member states concerning the increasing immigration of refugees is that they were not prepared for this. Overall, political discourse builds upon the assumption that the increasing immigration is an event that could not have been foreseen. From this initial perspective, discourse draws the legitimation for needing to look for new solutions – and (in case of need) to break with former principles. So, for example, some EU member states have decided to act autonomously in terms of the refugee movement, although they had previously agreed upon following common decisions of the EU on these matters. Specifically, some of the EU member states have autonomously decided to close their borders to refugees, while others have decided to limit the number of refugees they are willing to accept.

Germany

In the case of Germany, one central ignition to the debate may be seen in Chancellor Merkel’s now famous statement “wir schaffen das” [we can do this]), first pronounced during a press conference on August 31, 2015 and encouraging society that they (and the state) have the means to welcome and accommodate the growing number of refugees. Furthermore, taking the perspective of international human rights, Merkel avowed that moral behavior will not allow for limiting numbers of refugees arriving as long as they are fleeing prosecution or other significant dangers. Stating that, Merkel took a position that is more open towards immigrants than the one taken by her own political party’s center-conservative attitude.

From that point onwards, simply put, it can be said that German society has been split into two groups – one group supporting Merkel’s openness across any political camps, and another group campaigning for an enforced stop of further immigration as well as for expelling those immigrants that already have entered the country. Beyond this overall dichotomy, the debate has some further nuances, all speaking either for one political camp or the other one. Generally this divide may accurately be described by distinguishing between the “old” Germans and the “new” Germans, terminology introduced earlier by Professor Naika Foroutan, who is based in Germany. Foroutan sees a large part of Germany’s population as representing the new Germans, and being open for aspects of globalization, migration and internationalization. Separate from them, however, Foroutan sees a part of the population that determines national identities on the basis of origin. Foroutan terms these the old Germans.

Over the past one or two years, discourse on refugees into Germany has grown into political upheaval. Newly founded political parties have entered several regional parliaments after a strong gain of votes during recent elections within some of Germany’s regions – propagating right-wing totalitarian and anti-Muslim attitudes.

The Inescapability of Being Part of Conflict Discourse

So these are the basic facts. The question now: what does this have to do with intercultural dialogue? First of all: A look at contemporary German discourse strongly teaches that there are no “facts”. The stronger and the more pervasive a political debate and conflict grows, the more it becomes evident that (as authors like Holliday and Dervin have stated for the field of intercultural communication, recently) any statement on the topic is automatically political. Even although academic research, above all, claims to analyze social phenomena from a distance that allows far-sighted reflection and multiple perspectives, any academic statement turns out to support either one or the other opinion. This is the case for writing, but even more, it is an issue for social discourse, which no longer accepts any neutral position but immediately categorizes any statement into one of the political camps. To date, researchers have not been pulled into escalated conflict. But since some extreme right-wing groups claim that the German national press media frequently lie, media discourse takes up a clear position within the debate. For the time being, most of the national media voices are pro refugees – to some degree perhaps just to counter the extreme right’s accusations. Remembering Spivak’s famous phrase, it regrettably goes without saying that here again, refugees – despite standing at the center of the debate – have no voice at all.

In sum, although I have long been convinced of constructionist and critical discourse analytic approaches to social communication anyway, the situation in German discourse just described makes it clear in a very painful way that once you are in a conflict situation, you will be constrained by your position as a party to that conflict, and you will not be able to pull yourself out of that situation by your own bootstraps. Even if you want to, society will not let you. Thus, from a discourse perspective, German society has maneuvered into an intractable internal conflict more quickly than might have been expected.

Conflict Discourse Ethnocentrism

Another aspect that comes to mind from the perspective of intercultural research is the observation that the debate on refugees is, to a breathtaking degree, ethnocentric. German news discourse and social discourse construct the phenomenon of increased refugee immigration into Germany as a singular and particular case that cannot be compared to any similar cases, whether in the past or in any other country in the present. From this perspective, the vast field of existing international research on migration is not considered relevant. Even more, the debate largely ignores the fact that international migration, and flight-based migration in particular, have been a worldwide phenomenon for centuries, and that, in fact, they are seen as a central characteristic of contemporary processes of globalization. Instead, a discourse of self-victimization of citizens of Northern Europe is being promoted. This ethnocentric perspective hinders political and social discourse from considering the phenomenon of increased immigration from a distance and in a wider context. Instead of well-considered orientations, society constrains itself to the search for ad hoc solutions. Even more, a general feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and despair on the issue of immigration pushes social discourse into a situation of feeling under pressure. This pressure results in a situation of perceived conflict where participants narrow their perspectives rather than widening them to find creative solutions. Social discourse gradually adopts a tone of conflict discourse. As a consequence, even those political camps that actually endorse the reception of refugees tend to construct the increased immigration as a problem, a threat, and even a crisis. The notion of a refugee crisis today is commonly mentioned in German national news media, although even this notion has to be understood to be a construction – with many potential alternatives. Again and again, some authors thus warn that the language and rhetoric of contemporary discourse on immigrants is taking a more and more dehumanizing style – at the expense of the refugees.

Strategic Culturalization vs. Anti-Culturalism and Culture as a Taboo

Although research on intercultural communication and on intercultural dialogue has developed a vast range of highly sophisticated and differentiating notions of culture, these notions have not played any considerable role in contemporary social discourse. Instead, supporters of right-wing parties opposing the reception of refugees strategically have made use of rather crude and essentialist notions of culture. Until this happened, scholars might have believed that their research had overcome such outdated concepts. Instead, assumed cultural differences between refugees and Germans are being used to foment fear of future social and/or cultural conflict inside the country. Cultural particularities are made responsible for a putatively higher crime rate and even terrorism. In other words, talking about culture in the debate on refugees has so thoroughly been monopolized by extreme right-wing voices that the rest of the political camps see only one chance to oppose them: Instead of arguing for more differentiating (e.g. interactionist or constructionist) concepts of culture, residing political parties as well as news media act as if their only option is to completely ignore and deny the existence of culture as a phenomenon. For supporters of non-right-wing political camps, talking about culture has become taboo. Speaking the language of intercultural research, an anti-culturalism here (again) turns out to be the only morally acceptable attitude. To some degree, intercultural research is significantly threatened by this taboo. Social and political discourse here passes up the chance of gaining insights into how cultural identities are co-constructed in both face-to-face and media interaction, and how their construction can be activated in cooperative as well as in discriminating ways. In short, a careful look at the role of culture and its force as a discursive construction might help in finding ways to transcend the conflict discourse, yet these ways seem to be blocked by that very discourse at the moment.

Insights into the genuinely constructionist nature of social and political discourse may turn out to be the only chance for evading and escaping the conflict circle that has been described here. Even though this line of argument may perhaps give the impression of being abstract, and even complex, interculturalists, opinion makers, and the news media should be highly encouraged to contribute to establishing this perspective.

Download the entire post as a PDF. See the response prompted by this post, by Peter Praxmarer.

Global Governance Summer School (Belgium)

For students and practitioners everywhere, the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies (University of Leuven) and the Dean Rusk International Law Center (University of Georgia School of Law) are delighted to announce a new opportunity to study international law and global governance. Applications are welcome for a brand-new Global Governance Summer School, spanning 3 weeks at the centuries-old University of Leuven, located in a beautiful city a short train ride from Brussels and easily accessible to many European capitals. Students in law and related disciplines, from the United States, Europe, and across the globe, are welcome to enroll. All students will receive a certificate, and U.S. law students also may earn 4 American Bar Association-approved credits.

Deadline: April 4, 2016

Through lectures, discussions, and group research projects, students will explore global governance – how state, regional, and international legal regimes, plus individuals, corporations, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, networks, and other nonstate actors, interact. A range of global challenges will be discussed, such as trade and sustainable development, peace and security, trafficking and other crimes, intellectual property, the environment, human rights and the rule of law, and migration.

Four cutting-edge, English-language courses will be given. In addition, the summer course offers field trips to European and international institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg and an expert conference on global governance in Brussels. The summer school aims to bring together students from all over the world and different disciplines fostering interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue.

This summer school is intended for:
• Advanced students in international law, international relations, international political economy, international and European studies
• Practitioners and policy experts from the international policy community who want to update their knowledge on current developments in global governance and international law

U.S.-based law students are eligible to earn 4 American Bar Association-accredited hours in the three weeks of courses.

EIUC Training for International Electoral Observers (Italy)

The Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC) is running a two modules Training Seminar for International Electoral Observers from 18-23 April 2016.

Target: The two modules are devoted to those applicants with no experience in election observation or to those observers who have participated to a maximum of two missions as short term observers. EIUC will accept candidatures for each separate module or both combined.

Eligibility: Lectures are conceived for an audience of graduates mainly in Law, Political Sciences, Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology or similar who want to address international election observation from a multi-disciplinary approach that will be useful in further engagements on the field.

Faculty: it is composed by well-known international trainers and professionals with a long standing practical experience in election observation missions within international organisations such as the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Methodology: the course will combine frontal lecturers in plenary, working groups as well as role plays, discussions and simulation exercises.
Training language: all courses will be held in English. It is, therefore, essential that all participants understand and speak English fluently.

Module I
Dates: 18-20 April 2016
Starting with a thorough introduction on the international observation theory and legal standards the first module will analyse the practical life of a short term observer from the selection procedure to the end of mission including the observation of the polls, the filling of the forms, the reporting system and the code of the conduct.

Module II
Dates: 21-23 April 2016
The second module will introduce the participants to the long-term election observation by analysing in depth some of the aspects related to an international observation mission such as working relations, interviewing techniques, media and security.
Deadline for enrolment: 1 April 2016 – Early bird 4 March 2016

For any general query about IEO training seminar you can drop an email or use the contact form
Location: Monastery of San Nicolò, Venice Lido (Italy)
Training Responsible: Demetrio Lazagna
Project Manager: Alberta Rocca

Dialogue about Border Crossers

Guest Posts

Guest post by Trudy Milburn: Dialogue about Border Crossers.

On November 20th, 2015, on behalf of the Center for International Dialogue, I attended a unique event at the Scandinavia House in Manhattan. The event was entitled “What border have you crossed?” and provided an introduction to a new exhibition opening at the Queens Museum the following day. The speakers were two of the main organizers of the exhibition and of the organization, Bordrs: Chrissie Faniadis and Marcus Haraldsson, both from Sweden.

Bordr Pre-event Audience

Chrissie opened the session by recounting the way their five-person group (including a third member from Sweden, another from Seattle, US and one from Delhi, India) formed a new nonprofit organization year ago at a small, red house with white borders in the south-east of Sweden. They were interested in productive ways to contribute to the growing international dialogue about migrants and borders. In many news accounts, the problem is often one of numbers, such as the millions fleeing from Syria, or hundreds of thousands of refugees entering or trying to enter various countries. Chrissie said that their group’s goal was to “put a face back on the faceless.

After about 15 minutes, Marcus came up and began to involve the approximately 100-member audience, by asking, “Has anyone every crossed a border?” and then followed up with, “has anyone not crossed a border.” Perhaps because this was New York City on a Friday night, the responses were a bit intellectual (suggesting borders were metaphors) and some, a little cheeky (one woman saw no borders in life). Marcus then explained that throughout his journalism career and recent research, that he’s come to view borders as “the atomic particle of all human stories.” Subsequently, their group defines borders quite broadly, comprised of three legs: geographic (space), mental (emotion) and time-bound.

Bordr Projection

The Queens Museum exhibition is based on five different projects throughout the world. Some people were initially lent video cameras in order to tell their own stories, unmediated by a journalist interpretation. With additional digital recordings captured on smart phones and extensive interviews with each participant, they were able to create individual maps illustrating the important border events for each person.

Marcus drew to a close by emphasizing that their goal is to help people realize the connections and commonalities, rather than differences, among all of us who cross very different borders throughout our lives. [One audience member likened this interpretation of borders as to our ability to transcend “inhibitions;” others might call these life-transitions]. The group from Bordrs’ believes that feelings and thoughts are very important to this project and both can lead to much more empathy and understanding than seems to be present today.

Despite criticisms from a couple of audience members during the Q&A, that this is a very serious issue that should not be taken lightly, my interpretation is that the organizers of Bordr are interested in moving beyond the common discourse of blame that includes oppressor and victim dichotomies that are difficult to transcend. Perhaps by focusing on personal border stories, we may feel more compassionate than helpless; we may recognize that even if today we are not crossing a border, we all cross borders at some point in time.

Even if you cannot make it to Queens, NY during their exhibition, then you can still participate by using their new app, which will enable each of us to interact with others by considering smaller, everyday borders in each person’s life. We’re all border crossers, and you can see evidence of this by going to Queens Museum or Bordrs.

Download the entire post as a PDF.

Mediating Violent Conflict Workshop (Washington, DC)

Mediating violent conflict
A Course for Practitioners and Policymakers
United States Institute of Peace

Participants will:
• Build competence and confidence for practicing mediation
• Understand the role of international mediation in the larger peacebuilding context
• Learn skills to facilitate the practice and promotion of third-party engagement in peacemaking in interstate and intrastate conflict

Dates: December 7 – 11, 2015
Price: $550
Instructor: Pamela Aall

EIUC Training for International Electoral Observers (Italy)

Training for International Electoral Observers
23-28 November 2015, Venice
With the Patronage of: Italian, Czech and Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Early bird enrolment until 30 September 2015
More Info

We are happy to announce that EIUC training seminar for International Electoral Observers is now ready to accept candidatures.

EIUC has developed two three-day modules aiming at providing training to civilian staff in election observation missions at the first steps of their career (i.e. short term observers). 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.

The first module (23-25 November 2015) will highlight the quantitative observation of the STOs. Starting with a thorough introduction on the international observation theory and legal standards the first module will analyse the practical life of a short term observer from the selection procedure to the end of mission including the observation of the polls, the filling of the forms, the reporting system and the code of the conduct.

The second module (26-28 November 2015) will introduce the participants to the long-term election observation by analysing in depth some of the aspects related to an international observation mission such as working relations, team-building, interviewing techniques and coordination of the STOs.

EIUC will accept candidatures for each separate module or both combined. Applicants will therefore have a possibility to choose the module which is more closely related to their interests and experience or combine the two of them for a more complete understanding of the topic.

The faculty is composed by well-known international trainers and professionals with a long standing practical experience in election observation missions within international organisations such as the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Lectures are conceived for an audience of graduates mainly in Law, Political Sciences, Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology or similar, and will be held in English. It is, therefore, essential that all participants understand and speak English fluently.

The seminar will take place at the Monastery of San Nicolò, at the Lido of Venice.

The deadline for sending applications is 30 October 2015 through the online application form.

For further enquiries please contact EIUC.