Category: Resources in ICD

Steven Vertovec: In the Era of Superdiversity

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In the era of superdiversity: Modern migration is more complex than ever by Steven Vertovec, published by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 28 May 2024.

The Center has previously posted about the concept of superdiversity (specifically, as one of the Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, in English, French, and German). This discussion by the Vertovec may be relevant to others. He begins:

“In today’s interconnected world, migration is more complex than ever. Superdiversity reflects the profound diversification of processes, social and legal categories, and resultant societal configurations comprising contemporary global migration. Current human mobility patterns are complicated by an array of factors including political instability, insecurity, violence, economic opportunities, family reunification, educational aspirations, and increasingly, climate change. Understanding these multiple stimuli and their linkage is crucial as we navigate this new era of human movement.”

Robyn Penman: What If…? New Ideas for Better Social Worlds

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What if…? new ideas for better social worlds by Robyn Penman, on Substack.

Robyn Penman, longtime contributor to the Center for Intercultural Dialogue, has just started publishing a series of essays on Substack. Her focus will be on how to improve our social world.

Offering new ways for making sense of and acting into our social world so that we can collectively make a more just and more democratic society—one that we actually want to live in.

Her focus is not intercultural dialogue explicitly, but her discussion has implications for it. For example: “Our storehouse of stories is our storehouse for meaning-making. This cultural and personal storehouse of meaning provides the rationale for how we act across the economic, political, legal, and personal spheres of our social world.”

Read, and enjoy.

International & Comparative Bi/Multilingual Education Research Group (ICBERG)

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International & Comparative Bi/Multilingual Education Research Group (ICBERG).

A message from Cristian R. Aquino-Sterling, Founder and Co-Director, ICBERG:

“As bi-/multilingual education continues to gain momentum as a dynamic field of research, practice, and advocacy globally, there is a growing need for a unified, strategic vision to guide its systematic internationalization. As scholars dedicated to advancing bi-/multilingual education within and beyond our national contexts, we are excited and honored to introduce you to the work of the International and Comparative Bi-/Multilingual Education Research Group (ICBERG).

At ICBERG, we envision a global movement and a vibrant community of interculturally aware, open-minded, and engaged scholar-practitioners. Together, we are committed to forging innovative, transnational pathways for research, practice, professional development, and advocacy in bi-/multilingual education. Drawing from diverse conceptual, theoretical, and research traditions across the world, ICBERG aims to be a steadfast force for fostering international partnerships, nurturing collaborations, and driving globally-informed innovations that make a meaningful impact within, across, and beyond national borders.

We warmly invite members of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue with an interest in bi-/multilingual education research to participate in our EduTalk Series. Join our international community to engage in thought-provoking discussions on cutting-edge research aimed at advancing bi-/multilingual education.

For more information about the program and to register (all ICBERG activities are free of charge!), please visit our website.

We look forward to your participation!”

ICBERG – Program of Activities – January – May 2025

SALTO-Youth: Value the Difference Resource Pack

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Value the Difference Resource Pack, SALTO-Youth, ERASMUS+ Youth.

Value the Difference Resource Pack has been prepared by SALTO-Youth (Support, Advanced Learning and Training Opportunities for Youth), with funding from ERASMUS+ Youth. Value the Difference is intended for youth workers, containing information and tools to engage young people across many topics relating to cultural diversity. This resource pack explores the topic of cultural diversity and many of the related and complex issues people in Europe face today, so together we can embrace and celebrate each one of those differences.

It is designed as a starting point for exploration of cultural diversity by youth workers (or anyone who works with young people).

The resource pack contains nine chapters, each offering background information, case studies and practical examples of how to engage young people with the topics:

  • Media
  • Migration and Cultural Diversity
  • Asylum Seekers and Refugees
  • Mediation
  • Cross Community
  • Identity
  • Youth Subcultures
  • Citizenship
  • Intercultural Competence

Crossing Borders: The Power of Discovering the ‘Other’ film

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Crossing Borders: The Power of Discovering the ‘Other’, Crossing Borders Education, UK.

Crossing Borders, a 70 minute documentary by Crossing Borders Films, follows four Moroccan and four American university students as they travel together through Morocco and, in the process of discovering The Other, discover themselves. With group travels and frank discussions, the students confront the complex implications of the supposed clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. At a time when public figures spout xenophobic prose that rejects religious and national groups in their entirety, this hopeful film demonstrates the power of curiosity and empathy to triumph over fear and judgment when people are willing to open their hearts and minds to new ways of seeing each Other and the world. The relationships formed through shared experiences contrast sharply with the media-shaped views Americans and Muslims have of each other. Humor, honesty and a willingness to be challenged all bring individuals closer to each other and the relationships that develop disarm hidden stereotypes.

Crossing Borders Education creates resources that are designed to serve society by strengthening vital skills and character through engaging media and peer-led intergroup dialogues. Crossing Borders Education is an international non-profit organization and charity registered in the UK.

Cultural Dialogue at Home – Austrian Hosts and Syrian Refugees

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Cultural dialogue at home – Austrian hosts and Syrian refugees: An autoethnographic narrative by by Corina Ahlers (printed version, 2019; Taos Institute Publications WorldShare Books version, 2024). The ebook version is free to download.

This book is filled with tender, funny and frustrating scenes, as Viennese and Syrian cultures meet and mingle, and sometimes clash. Much can be learned about multicultural relations by reading this book.

In 2015 a great influx of Syrian refugees flooded Europe. Vienna was one of the cities that had a large group of people with no place to be. Many citizens who were sympathetic to these people became involved in charitable projects, including providing food, money, and other forms of care. Few went so far as to open up their homes so that refugees could live with them. This book describes the experience of Corina Ahlers, a family therapist and teacher, who opened up the apartment on the ground floor of her home, in a lovely suburb of Vienna to several refugees. Inter-cultural experiences of a great variety are described, as Corina, her husband, Reinhard, and their dog, invite their new residents to share in the Austrian lifestyle, as they open themselves to share in theirs. In the first month they hosted two men (Tarek, age 45 and Can, age 33). One month later, the second wife of Tarek, a widow with a little girl (Samira, age 25 and Leyla, age 6), arrived. Tarek’s first wife arrived in Vienna with 5 children (aged 18, 17, 14, 10, and 9) six months later. Previously his first family had lived in a big Jordanian refugee camp. From the moment his first family arrived, he switched between Corina’s house, where his second wife and her daughter lived, and the new home of his first family in another district of Vienna. Can had no relatives in Austria, and he stayed until May 2016. Tarek, Samira and Leyla moved out at the end of 2017. They found a one-room apartment on the other side of the city, very near to Tarek’s first family’s flat.

Related publication: Key Concept #1: Intercultural dialogue by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz.

DiLCo Video Reader: A YouTube-based Collection of Lectures on Digital Language & Communication Research

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DiLCo Video Reader: A YouTube-based Collection of Lectures on Digital Language and Communication Research, DiLCo Network (“Digital Language Variation in Context”, University of Hamburg), Germany.

The DiLCo Video Reader is a dedicated YouTube channel with 36 video-recorded presentations that were commissioned and produced by the DiLCo Network (“Digital Language Variation in Context”, University of Hamburg) from 2021-2024.

Authored and delivered by expert researchers from all over the world, these videos represent state of-the art scholarship covering qualitative (interactional, ethnographic), quantitative (variationist, computational), and mixed-methods approaches to digital language and communication research in linguistics.

The DiLCo Video Reader is arranged in 12 Playlists grouped by topic or methodology:

[01] Digital language variation and change
[02] Digitally mediated interaction
[03] Digital discourse and narrative
[04] Semiotic features and communicative practices
[05] Enregisterment on social media
[06] Perceptions and ideologies of digital language
[07] Researching TikTok
[08] Multilingual practices across methods
[09] Approaches to multimodal and transmodal analysis
[10] Digital methods: Research ethics
[11] Digital methods: Natural Language Processing
[12] Digital methods: Multi-sited fieldwork and on/offline nexus analysis

All video content is also available in a chronological listing. And full details are available in a citeable Information file (DOI: https://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.14786). Organizers hope the DiLCo Video Reader will be useful to scholars worldwide as a resource for research and teaching. (If interested in further discussion, connect directly with the DiLCo Team at the University of Hamburg.)

Links:
YouTube channel
Information file
Network website

Feeding the Civic Imagination

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Feeding the Civic Imagination, Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, 13(1), 2024.

Special Issue editors: Do Own (Donna) Kim (University of Illinois Chicago), Sangita Shresthova (University of Southern California) and Paulina Lanz (University of Southern California).

Food is a powerful entry point into the civic imagination…

Food is a powerful entry point into the civic imagination—i.e., the capacity to imagine alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions, the social process of which fosters a shared vision for collective action. As an essential material component of human life, food exists as an extremely mundane and dynamic aspect of our everyday personal and social experiences; our relationship with food is intertwined with issues of privilege, access, representation, language, ethnicity, and the materiality of culture. This forum explores diverse intersections between food and civic imagination, with topics ranging from shared memories, local (re-)imaginations, history and civic action, and private-public translations. The forum discusses how food sustains, nourishes, and connects individuals and their communities by delving into both their presence—e.g., acquiring and preparing ingredients, cooking meals, sharing or selling foods—and absence—e.g., hunger and human waste in food ecology. Articles in this collection demonstrate that the civic imagination is not only fed in dining rooms and kitchens but also in less conventionally thought-of contexts, such as digital spaces, toilets, and forums such as ours. They urge us to engage with food in new imaginative ways, fostering and bridging conversations: one cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like, and one must explore together to navigate and actualize the imaginative possibilities.

Articles in the special issue:

U Pacific: What’s Up With Culture? Online Cultural Training Resource

Study Abroad

What’s Up With Culture? Online Cultural Training Resource, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA.

This open access online course offers an opportunity to explore various aspects of intercultural communication and adjustment models to learn what is required to be effective and comfortable while going abroad and living internationally. It is designed to be part of a student’s training rather than to stand alone, but it provides a good start.

This material was developed to support and enhance a student’s ability to make successful cultural adjustments both before going overseas and upon returning home from studying abroad. It was produced primarily for traditional-aged, undergraduate US-American university students. Those preparing to participate in a study abroad program will find the first seven sections useful while those who are about to, or have, returned home from an international program can refer to the final four sections. The focus is generally on the concept of culture and how it impacts one’s ability to understand and function in a new and unfamiliar environment. It concentrates on the skills, attitudes, and behaviors which all study abroad students, regardless of their specific destination, will find useful.

Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters

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Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters, Directorate General of Democracy and Human Dignity, Council of Europe.

The Autobiography is a resource designed to encourage people to think about and learn from intercultural encounters they have had either face to face or through visual media such as television, magazines, films, the Internet, etc.

There are therefore two separate but parallel tools:

And both come in two versions:

    • A Standard Version – for use by older learners and adults
    • A Version for Younger Learners – for use by children who need help from an adult in reading and writing and in thinking back over their encounter.

The focus is on intercultural encounters that have made a strong impression or had a long-lasting effect on the people who use the AIE or AIEVM. In discovering what underlies these encounters, users become more aware of their experience and reflect on their reactions, thereby developing their intercultural competences.

A self-study online course is also available for educators and youth workers who would like guidance in working with the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters.