Category: Applied ICD

EIUC Training for Int’l Electoral Observers

EIUC Training Seminar for International Electoral Observers

Early birds enrollment until 15 September

The EIUC training seminar for International Short-Term Observers is now ready to accept candidatures.

With the patronage of Italian, Spanish and Czech MFA, 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 (17-19 November 2014) 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 (20-22 November 2014) 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.

Interested candidates should register by compiling the online application form.

More information can be found at: http://www.eiuc.org/ieo/
For further enquiries please contact us at: training.ieo@eiuc.org

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Venice Academy of Human Rights 2014

Venice Academy of Human Rights 2014 – “Judicial Legitimacy and the Rule of Law”
 7-16 July 2014

Online applications are accepted until 4 May 2014. The Academy offers an “early bird” registration with a reduced participation fee until 15 March 2014.

Key Facts
Participants: Academics, practitioners, PhD/JSD and master students
Type of courses: Lectures, seminars, workshops and discussion sessions
Number of hours: up to 35 hours of courses
Location: Monastery of San Nicolò, Venice – Lido, Italy
Fees: 500 EUR (early bird until 15 March), 600 EUR (16 March – 4 May 2014)

Venice Academy of Human Rights
The Venice Academy of Human Rights is an international programme of excellence for human rights education, research and debate. It forms part of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC). The Academy offers interdisciplinary thematic programmes open to academics, practitioners, doctoral and master students with an advanced knowledge of human rights. Participants attend morning lectures, participate in discussion sessions and workshops and can exchange views, ideas and arguments with leading international scholars and experts. This includes the opportunity for a number of participants to present and discuss their own “work in progress” such as drafts of articles, chapters of books or doctoral theses and receive comments from faculty members (including P. Alston, A. Føllesdal, G. Ulfstein and J. Waldron) and peers. At the end of the programme, participants receive a Certificate of Attendance issued by the Venice Academy of Human Rights.

Building bridges from theory to practice

I’m currently teaching a course on communication theory.  It’s an undergraduate class, one of those that’s designed to recruit majors.  Recently, one of my students, Joel, raised his hand in class.  You know the type:  he’s talkative, friendly and bright, a bit overbearing, and trying to figure out ‘what does it all mean’.  And that is precisely what he asked in the middle of a lecture/discussion on the importance of communication theory:  “But Miriam, what’s the point?  How does this stuff work in the real world?  Why should I care?”

It’s an age-old question, and one that students and teachers alike often struggle with, particularly in the social sciences and the humanities:  what is the connection between abstract, above-the-clouds theory and the pragmatic, day-to-day life we lead in the world?  But the question is, really, neither mundane nor naïve.  Indeed, I would argue that, in intercultural communication, this question is particularly important and yet woefully under-addressed.  We come up with all of these amazing theories to describe alienation, assimilation, identity processes, cultural difference—but we publish them in reputable journals and exorbitantly-priced textbooks and provide ‘in real life’ examples primarily at the undergraduate level.  Meanwhile, interculturalists who work in the world (outside of academic research), in such areas as refugee counseling, immigration, study abroad, international business, etc., are often working with little-to-no theoretical training, or with outdated approaches to difference such as the U-Curve or Iceberg models.

Where is the dialogue between theorists and practitioners?  What’s the point of doing such great and important work, on theories such as cosmopolitanism, hybridity, critical race theory, and others, if they are only accessible to other academics?  Those of us who identify as critical intercultural scholars are constantly talking about teaching others that difference should be embraced rather than feared, and yet here we are, talking in a language that is only accessible (literally, in terms of access to academic articles; and figuratively, in terms of being able to translate the academese we learn in graduate school) to a small portion of the population: those most like us.

In a discussion of intercultural dialogue, we would do well to listen to questions like Joel’s—the “how does this work” and “why should I care” questions.  If we are the idealists that the field really demands, then shouldn’t we be taking our work outside of the academy and applying it to those who need it, such as those who work with migrant populations, underserved urban youth, patients without health insurance, and on and on?  How can we build bridges between the important work that is done by university researchers and the communities we intend to serve?

I don’t propose that we stop building intercultural theory.  I think the work we do in intercultural research, particularly with today’s critical and postcolonial turns, is imperative to thriving in a world in which difference is coming closer to our doors rather than farther away.  However, with this divide between town and gown, between theory and practice, particularly in intercultural communication research, too much is lost in the translation.  I’d like to call for creative ways of applying academic theory to real world contexts, in ways that get our students jazzed about life beyond college, to see futures for their intercultural understandings of the world they learn in the classroom.  Programs such as Dr. Amy Stornaiuolo’s work with adolescent literacy, called Space2cre8, are heeding such calls, but there is room for so much more.  Students like Joel, those who understand that there could be more to theory than just memorization and regurgitation on an exam, can start to build these bridges, but only once we realize that our work needs to go further.  Let’s get this conversation moving outward, starting by answering Joel’s question:  “You should care because this work is essential to living in a multicultural world.”  This is the opening of our dialogue.

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Miriam S. Sobre-Denton
Assistant Professor | Intercultural Communication
Southern Illinois University Carbondale

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Cyclists for Cultural Exchange – grants

Cyclists for Cultural Exchange provides grants for projects that support their mission statement (“furthering peace and international understanding through exchanges between people with a common interest in cycling”). CCE is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in Santa Cruz County, California. The organization runs one major fund-raising event each year, the Strawberry Fields Forever Bike Ride, that provides the funds distributed in support of its Mission.

 

Grant amounts of any size up to $2,500 will be considered. While most grants will be given for a single year, CCE will consider the possibility of up to three years of support for worthy projects.

Grant applications are considered in March and September; details and a link to applications available on their grant application page.

Activities may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Exchange Programs – Bringing bicyclists to America and taking American bicyclists to other countries to experience the people, cultures, and history of our neighbors in this world. Our intention in the time we have together is to discover our differences, find our common ground, become familiar with the language, customs, and traditions of the host country and share our visions, hopes and dreams for cooperation and world peace.

Projects – Supporting projects and programs, locally and abroad, which promote community development and economic improvement through the use of bicycles as primary or alternative transportation, and for recreation.

Activities – Supporting cycling-related groups in other countries to foster friendship.

Education – Educating others about the power and possibility of interpersonal exchanges between people of different countries and cultures, locally and abroad. Encouraging others to find their own avenues to appreciate and understand the diversity of our world.

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Feeling felt: The heart of the dialogic moment?

Guest PostsFeeling felt: The heart of the dialogic moment? by Robyn Penman

In Maria Flora Mangano’s post on A space of relationship for dialogue among cultures she describes how a student was able to talk about his personal experience during the genocide in Burundi because of the space of the relationship that was created for class members to speak without any fear of offence. The experience within this space of relationship was so profound that by time the student finished talking, the class was so “touched they couldn’t speak”.

As I read Maria Flora’s post I was struck by the way the experience was described metaphorically in terms of physical contact: the students were “touched”, the speaker “felt” understood. I know this is a common way of talking about poignant moments in dialogue and other “close” encounters. However, my recent foray into the interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) research literature has made me more alert to such metaphors and given me reason to draw attention to it here.

Extensive research evidence across the neuroscience field indicates that relationships are crucial to brain development and neural functioning throughout the life cycle. We are, to use Mona Fishbane’s phase, “wired to connect”. The fact that our relationships, and presumably the quality of them, can impact on brain development is, in itself, something to take note of. However, IPNB has taken this broad notion further and fleshed out a number of ideas about how these connections work and what their impact may be. One of these ideas concerns the sense of “feeling felt”.

Daniel Siegel, who coined the term interpersonal neurobiology, uses the concept of “feeling felt” to describe the ability of one person to empathically and authentically encounter another person; especially in the early parent-infant relationship.  According to Siegel, “feeling felt” is characteristic of secure infant-parent relationships: the more infants “feel felt”, the better their attachment and the sounder their development pathway.

While there is still some controversy about the specific role played by neural mechanisms in the ability to be empathic, the concept of feeling felt and its role in childhood development has a great deal of merit. The concept of feeling felt also seems to have merit when we come to adult relationships, and to dialogue specifically.

When I was reading descriptions of the “feeling felt” phenomenon I was struck by the extent to which it resonated with Martin Buber’s sense of “being”. In his discussions of dialogue, Buber made a distinction between “being” and “seeming” in an encounter with another. For Buber, the being person is acting authentically into the encounter and, in acting thus, makes dialogue possible. The moment when two people fully experience each other as “being” in the relationship signifies a dialogic moment. In exactly the same vein we could say that dialogue has occurred when each person feels felt by the other.

The interpersonal neurobiology literature would suggest that this striving to feel felt is part of our neurological make-up. We strive for connection, and we yearn to feel felt from infancy onwards. But, equally important, the existence of this neurophysiological dimension would also suggest that “feeling felt” is a cross-cultural phenomenon. It may be that the way this “feeling felt” is described in different languages differs but the yearning for it may not. It leaves us with an interesting possibility. As scholars, we may not be able to agree on a definition of dialogue but, as participants, we know one when we have one: we feel felt.

References:
Buber, Martin. (1965). Between man and man. New York: Macmillan.
Siegel, Daniel J., & Hartzell, Mary. (2003). Parenting from the inside out. New York: Penguin.

Download the entire post as a PDF.

Public Dialogue and Deliberation

A message from Rebecca Townsend, on behalf of a group of scholars named below:

“We welcome members of the National Communication Association (NCA) to consider supporting the creation of a Public Dialogue and Deliberation Division. Should you support , please attach your name to this petition. A full rationale for this proposed division is available, but a brief version follows.

The discipline of communication is poised to become more than a de facto leader in scholarship on dialogue and deliberation. Creating the NCA Public Dialogue and Deliberation division would significantly advance that effort and not only bring together communication scholars but also attract others toward our discipline. We identify three principal reasons for forming the division.

(1) Many dialogue and deliberation scholars who belong to NCA produce innovative work that spans the different sub-fields within our discipline but doesn’t fit well in any single division. A new division would welcome all such scholarship and better feature the best scholarship on dialogue and deliberation in the conference program, jointly sponsoring panels with other divisions as appropriate.

(2) The lack of a division substantially reduces the opportunity for cross-pollination and collaboration among the diverse scholars who study dialogue and deliberation. Within this new division, those with a more pedagogical focus and those engaged in community interventions, in particular, may find more opportunities to meet and interact with those doing humanistic and social scientific research.

(3) Many of those who study dialogue and deliberation seek a qualitatively different style of conference session. The conventional presentation of papers, with a respondent and brief Q&A, rarely permits dialogic exchange or deliberative analysis, but the new division would offer the freedom to explore alternative ways of meeting together.

Thank you for your consideration and possible support!”

Rebecca M. Townsend, Manchester Community College, on behalf of proposal drafting committee, including:

Laura Black, Ohio University
Martín Carcasson, Colorado State University
John Gastil, Penn State University
William Keith, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Windy Lawrence, University of Houston
Leah Sprain, University of Colorado Boulder
Tim Steffensmeier, Kansas State University

Cross-Cultural Communication in Fragile States

USIP logoCross-Cultural Communication in Fragile States

Event Location
U.S. Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave NW
Washington, DC
Start Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 – 9:00am
End Date: Thursday, November 21, 2013 – 5:00pm

How often have we heard the refrain, “We failed to understand the culture”? Most professionals are not prepared to operate in an environment of sudden stress, to remember key cultural lessons while under pressure. Participants will practice “reframing solutions” as they respond to differences in high and low context communication styles, individual versus collective organization, power distance, and temporal orientation.

Instructor: Peter Weinberger

Time and time again, we have heard the refrain about work in fragile states, “We failed to understand the culture.”  Most pre-deployment briefings do not prepare professionals to operate in an environment of sudden stress, to remember key cultural lessons while under pressure.

This course shows how to reframe solutions, to deal with local peoples respectfully while addressing functional problems on the ground. Learn and practice differences in high‐ and low‐context communication styles, individual versus collective organization, power distance, and temporal orientation.

Give peace a dance

Maz Jobrani (an Iranian comedian) and Elon Gold (an Israeli comedian) have started an innovative humorous appeal for peace in the mideast, called Give peace a dance.

What would you do for peace?

Post your own dance for peace on YouTube tagged with #GivePeaceaDance.

Culture in EU external relations

Preparatory Action on Culture in the EU External Relations

The Preparatory Action “Culture in EU External Relations” is an initiative funded by the European Union. It is implemented by the European Commission, Directorate General for Education and Culture, with the support of a Consortium of eight cultural institutes and organisations, which won an open call for tenders to this effect.

This Preparatory Action was initiated by the European Parliament following its Resolution on the cultural dimensions of the EU external action, which called for the development of a visible common EU strategy on culture in the EU external relations.

The preparatory action will run until mid-2014 and consists of the following stages:

Stage #1
a comprehensive mapping of existing resources, approaches and strategies regarding culture in external relations in Member States and in a number of EU partner countries;

Stage #2
a consultations process involving a wide variety of stakeholders from both the EU and third countries, which should contribute to identifying strategies and visions on the contribution of culture to the development of external relations as well as the positioning of different actors vis-à-vis this topic;

Stage #3
a final conference to be held mid-2014 to draw conclusions and recommendations for a strategic approach to mobilising the potential of culture in EU external relations.

In addition to the EU Member States, this preparatory action covers the following partner countries of the EU:

  • the Neighbouring countries of the EU:  Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine
  • the 10 strategic partners of the EU:  Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and the United States of America

The purpose of the action is to facilitate and support an on-going process of research, exchange of knowledge and public debate about the role of culture in the EU’s external relations.

Furthermore, the ambition is to engage the broader civil society in the discussion by inviting online debate on this blog and on our social media platforms. Everybody is invited to join the discussion!

The members of the consortium in charge of implementing this action are convinced that culture can play a decisive role in the development of external relations and are committed to bringing new knowledge and research to the attention of policy-makers on a national, European and international level.

List of members of the consortium:
The Goethe Institut, Brussels
BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels
The British Council, Brussels
The Danish Cultural Institute, Brussels
ECF European Cultural Foundation
IFA Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen
The Institut français, Paris
KEA European Affairs

Independent experts:
Prof. Yudhishthir Raj Isar (Team Leader/Scientific Manager)
Rod Fisher
Damien Helly

Associated partner:
EUNIC Global

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Peacebuilding through Dialogue N Ireland

For the second year , Gonzaga University‘s Master’s Program in Communication and Leadership Studies is offering a graduate course in Derry, Northern Ireland to MA and PhD students. January 2, 2014-Januray 12, 2014 Peacebuilding through Dialogue in Northern Ireland.

Program Overview:
This hybrid on-line and study abroad program, sponsored by the Master’s Program in Communication and Leadership Studies provides a unique opportunity for students to develop understanding and the skills necessary for fostering peacebuilding and storytelling.  With pre and post online components as well as eight days of residency in Derry, Northern Ireland, and a day excursion to Belfast, Northern, Ireland.  Additionally there is a free travel day to the Northcoast of Ireland.  The aim of this course is to introduce concepts from the field of communication that enable an understanding of how local peacebuilding can build bridges across conflicting groups in deeply divided societies. Communication and dialogue are closely intertwined and together act at the heart of establishing shared space and creating a common future. It is in this shared space that the process of peace has begun to take shape.  However as Bakhtin (1981) insists, “each word tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life” (p.293).

The course will reflect on the causes and history of The Troubles (1969-1998) as well as the tortuous peace process following the Belfast Agreement in 1998. Based on that agreement, Northern Ireland’s devolved government finally became reality in 2008. Local peacebuilding through dialogue is central to understanding how peace has been maintained.

Dialogue requires responsiveness which is made possible by qualities of thought and talk allowing transformation to take place: transformation in how people understand the self, the other, and the societies they inhabit. These qualities of thought and talk include a willingness to risk change in one’s own perspective and a commitment to embracing and struggling with others whose worldviews may be different from and threatening to one’s own.

In addition, working with former combatant’s of these troubles, students will complete a profile writing component of using storytelling and photography to tell the story of a local community member for our Faces and Voices of Derry Project.

Course Objectives:
Given full participation in the course, the student will be able to:

  • Explain the role of dialogue in communication.
  • Analyze the causes and history of The Troubles and the post-1998 peace process.
  • Recognize the development of shared community.
  • Interview and tell a story in a photojournalistic style of a one of the citizens of Derry using the class blog/website.
  • Explain the role dialogue can play in effective leadership in contemporary America.

Program Highlights:

  • Meet with peace practitioners, former combatants and local leaders from both the Nationalist and Unioninst communities in Northern Ireland
  • Walk the famous 17th century wall of Derry with an experience local guide
  • Visit the Shankhill and Falls Road areas of Belfast, their murals, and “peace walls” with former combatants from the Nationalist and Unionist communities as guides
  • Hear first hand how local peace leaders have created projects to work toward understanding and healing
  • Learn interviewing and facilitation skills for building dialogic practices
  • Create daily photo and storytelling blog.

Additional Information: See an archive of the student work and reflections in the program.

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