Category: Resources in ICD

Educating for Intercultural Dialogue, Peacebuilding, Constructive Remembrance & Reconciliation

Resources in ICD“ width=

Clarke-Habibi, S. (2020). Educating for intercultural dialogue, peacebuilding, constructive remembrance, and reconciliation: A toolkit for teachers in the Western Balkans. UNICEF Albania and Regional Youth Cooperation Office.

Although prepared specifically for teachers in the Western Balkans, this toolkit should be useful to anyone in a teaching context working with any of the major concepts. As explained in the introduction:

This Toolkit focuses on education for intercultural dialogue, peacebuilding, constructive remembrance and reconciliation. It is designed for teachers and trainers who work with adolescents (14-18 years) in formal and non-formal education settings. It may be adapted, however, for other contexts and age groups, such as for activities with older youth, for pre-service teacher training, and for teacher professional development programmes. (p. 7)

The objectives of this Toolkit are:

  1. To support teachers’ professional competences to engage adolescents and youth in intercultural dialogue.
  2. To support teachers in their use of teaching strategies and techniques, which help adolescents and youth to learn and practice open and respectful dialogue.
  3. To develop teachers’ professional competences and confidence to engage adolescents and youth in discussing controversial issues, particularly related to past and current causes of conflict in the region, and to manage all this safely and effectively.
  4. To support teachers to create ‘safe spaces’ in the classroom where adolescents and youth can explore issues that concern them freely and without fear.
  5. To support teachers’ professional competences to nurture young people’s understanding of the foundations of sustainable peace and to strengthen their agency as peacebuilding actors (p. 8).

Cruz & Miranda: Storytelling as Media Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue

Resources in ICD“ width=Cruz, M. T., & Miranda, M. (2022). Storytelling as media literacy and intercultural dialogue in post-colonial societies. Media and Communication, 10(4), 294-304.

Based on the experience of a citizenship project about the post-colonial condition and Afro-European interculturality, this essay reflects on digital storytelling, and co-creative practices as relevant literacy and education strategies for furthering interculturality in contemporary societies. The authors propose storytelling as a tool for intercultural dialogue, in the framework of media literacy.

…we need educational strategies and literacies that continue to provide the training of imagination required for intercultural dialogue in the information society (p. 302)

Li & Lee: Transpositioning: Translanguaging and the Liquidity of Identity

Resources in ICD“ width=Li, W., & Lee, T. K. (2023). Transpositioning: Translanguaging and the liquidity of identity.
Applied Linguistics, 20, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad065

Transpositioning is an adaptation of the concept of positioning as used in social psychology, and is defined as “the process in which individuals articulate their personhood by taking up changeable identities in interaction” (p. 2). It should be relevant to those studying intercultural dialogue, though it has not yet been used in that context. See KC99: Translanguaging for a brief explanation of that concept.

“This essay seeks to address the seemingly random, ever-expanding, and shifting communicative demands of liquid modernity by focussing on two key issues: the need to reconceptualize language and communication as a consequence of the diversification of media and resources users draw upon to meet these demands; and the need for a new analytical framework to capture how people perform multiplex roles spontaneously and simultaneously through dynamic and adaptive communicative practices. We do the former with the concept of translanguaging and the latter with transpositioning.” (p. 1)

“Translanguaging facilitates transpositioning. The juxtaposition of the two terms underscores the simultaneous activation of multiple identities by way of mobilizing resources across the boundaries of named languages, new media, and entrenched ideologies. In this process, borders are renegotiated, circumvented, even outright rejected. What ensues are emergent and evolving semiotic spaces in which play—in the sense of a certain lightness of being, marked by a creative and critical ludicity—is a method of social engagement. One might thus say that communication in the liquid modern age comprises a non-committal play of identities where language users, in the manner of free-and-easy tourists creating itineraries on the whim, spontaneously (re)invent themselves by orchestrating all available and accessible resources in their semiotic repertoire in response to communicative stimuli from others.” (p. 14)

For a brief introduction to the topic, see KC99: Translanguaging.

UNESCO: We Need to Talk: ICD and Peace

Resources in ICD“ width=UNESCO and Institute for Economics and Peace. (2022). We Need to Talk: Measuring intercultural dialogue for peace and inclusion. Paris, France: UNESCO.

For those interested in the relationship between intercultural dialogue and peace, this new publication by UNESCO may be of particular interest.

“For the first time, We Need to Talk presents evidence of the link between intercultural dialogue and peace, conflict prevention and non-fragility, and human rights. Building upon the groundbreaking data from the new
UNESCO Framework for Enabling Intercultural Dialogue, this report highlights key policy and intervention opportunities for intercultural dialogue as an instrument for inclusion and peace.

Using data covering over 160 countries in all regions, the report presents a framework of the structures, processes and values needed to support intercultural dialogue, examining the dynamics and interlinkages between them to reveal substantial policy opportunities with broad spanning benefits.”

See also KC64: Peacebuilding and/or KC91: Peace Communication for brief explanations of those two concepts.

Global Citizenship Education

Resources in ICD“ width=Hayden, Matthew J. (2022). Moral agonism: Acknowledging the moral in global citizenship education. Prospects, 46(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-022-09603-y

For those interested in cosmopolitanism, or global citizenship education, this article on moral agonism may be useful.

I will propose a theoretical pedagogical approach that would move students beyond a simple understanding of interconnectedness and intercultural awareness to immerse them in ongoing, real-world participation in the analysis and reconstruction of values and knowledge in real time with real consequences.

See also KC2: Cosmopolitanism for a brief explanation of that concept, if it is new to you.

UNESCO Initiative “Arab Latinos!” to Promote ICD in Brazil

Resources in ICD“ width=UNESCO. (2022, August 31). “Arab Latinos!” initiative promotes intercultural dialogue for social cohesion.

Building on the centuries-old ties between the Arab region and Latin America and the Caribbean, UNESCO organized the first expert meeting on “Arab Latinos!” in São Paulo, Brazil, on 22 August 2022. The main purpose of this initiative of UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Sector is to encourage intercultural dialogue and tolerance for social cohesion.

The event, hosted by the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, took place on 23 – 24 August 2022 in São Paulo, kicked off by an official ceremony followed by an expert meeting. The discussions between fifteen experts from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico resulted in a five-year Plan of Action for a potential new route of intercultural dialogue at UNESCO. The proposed Plan of action would be articulated over four pillars: 1) Research and Knowledge production; 2) Awareness-raising; 3) Capacity-building; and 4) International Coalition.

Since the end of the 19th century, significant migratory flows from the Arab countries arrived in Latin America and the Caribbean. Today the population of Arab descent in the region is currently estimated to be between 17 and 20 million.

Stranger at the Gate

Resources in ICD“ width=Seften, Joshua, & Lo, Jasper K. (14 September 2022). A veteran’s Islamophobia transformed, in “Stranger at the gate.” The New Yorker.

After 25 years of service, U.S. Marine Mac McKinney returns home to Indiana filled with an all-consuming rage toward the people he had been fighting against. Still fueled by his desire to fight for his country, he plans to bomb the local mosque.

But when he comes face to face with the community of Afghan refugees and others of Muslim faith that he seeks to kill, his plan takes an unexpected turn.

He thought they were the enemy.
They thought he was a friend.

“They were able to build an impossible bridge to one another,” Seftel says of McKinney and members of the Muncie Islamic center. “If that could happen, anything is possible. They gave us a blueprint for how we could all do this.” (Blake, 2022)

This is an astonishing documentary, and a great resource.

For further information, see: 

Stranger at the Gate.

Blake, John. (8 October 2022). A Marine who hated Muslims went to a mosque to plant a bomb. His intended victims ended up saving his life. CNN.

See also KC55: Stereotypes, KC39: Otherness and the Other, and KC89: Xenophobia.

Open Anthropology

Resources in ICD“ width=Open Anthropology, the first digital-only, public journal of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), is a pilot experiment envisioned as a way of “opening up” anthropology in several ways.

First, the new online publication helps bring anthropology into the public conversation about critical social issues and policy debates. Each edition of Open Anthropology will focus on a timely theme, offering a selection of articles relevant to contemporary concerns. By means of Open Anthropology, we hope anthropological knowledge, information and insights will figure more prominently in public discussions.

Second, the journal introduces nearly the full archive of AAA journals, past and current-the online “stacks,” so to speak-to potential readers who may not even know these exist. Content in Open Anthropology will be culled from the full archive of participating AAA publications, and curated into editions.

Third, each edition of Open Anthropology is made available free on the public Internet for a minimum of six months permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of the articles in each edition. Content published 35 years ago and longer will remain free on the public Internet in perpetuity; book reviews in Open Anthropology will also remain available on the Internet without cost to readers.

Finally, by means of “The Editor’s Note,” anthropology is opened up to the non-specialist reader by drawing attention to key issues or themes raised in the selected articles (some of which are written in highly technical language), and by identifying each article source-across time and subspecialties of the field-the author, the specialty journal, and the journal’s sponsoring section.

Issues to date have included Skin, Walls, Fences, and Barriers: Anthropology on the Border, and Cultural Heritage, among others.

Advancing Intercultural Competence for Global Learners

Resources in ICD“ width=López-Rocha, S., & Arévalo-Guerrero, E. (2022). Modules in Advancing Intercultural Competence for Global Learners.

This is an open access resource is divided into three interconnected modules to nurture your intercultural competence more holistically.

Module 1: Creating Intercultural Awareness and Understanding Attitudes
Where you learn about what influences people’s judgements and identify strategies to suspend judgement while appreciating other perspectives.

Module 2: Expanding Your Intercultural Knowledge
Where you explore and develop a greater understanding of values, the role of non-verbal communication in interactions, and the importance of expanding your knowledge of global issues.

Module 3: Developing Your Intercultural Skills
Where you identify ways to develop and enhance your intercultural skills, including reflection, communication, critical thinking, and ways to approach interactions.

The estimated time-to-completion is four hours per module, totalling 12 hours for the entire program.

There is also a French version available.

A World Without Borders?

Resources in ICD“ width=Crawford, James. (2022). The edge of the plain: How borders make and break our world. Edinburgh, UK: Canongate.

Crawford blends history, travel and reportage to take readers on a wide-ranging journey through the history of borders and an examination of their role in shaping our world today. This seems a useful discussion for courses considering intercultural dialogue as a topic, given that such dialogue assumes the existence of various sorts of borders.

There’ve been all of these issues around borders, and I wanted to understand where they came from…Every border, in a sense, is a story, and it’s a story that we tell our selves

James Crawford (from CNN interview)

The Edge of the Plain explores how borders have grown and evolved to take control of our landscapes, our memories, our identities and our destinies. As nationalism, climate change, globalisation, technology and mass migration all collide with ever-hardening borders, something has to give. And Crawford asks, is it time to let go of the lines that divide us?

There is an interview of the author by Christiane Amanpour on CNN which also might be useful as a course resource.