Category: Resources in ICD

Vilnius Centre for Intercultural Dialogue

On 20 May [2011] in Vilnius, Lithuanian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Egidijus Meilunas and representative from Poland’s Borderland Foundation (Fundacja Pogranicze) Malgorzata Czyzewska discussed the events that are being organized on the occasion of the one hundredth birth anniversary of poet Czeslaw Milosz and activities of the Centre for Intercultural Dialogue that will soon be opened, reported BC the press service of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Egidijus Meilunas and Malgorzata Czyzewska, 20.05.2011. Photo: urm.lt
Egidijus Meilunas and Malgorzata Czyzewska, 20.05.2011. Photo: urm.lt

Czyzewska acquainted the Deputy Minister with plans of the Borderland Foundation on 30 June, on the eve of taking over the Presidency of the European Union by Poland and on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of poet Czeslaw Milosz, to open the Centre for Intercultural Dialogue in the town of Krasnogruda on the Lithuanian-Polish border. The Centre will be dedicated to the strengthening of cross-cultural dialogue in the borderlands of various countries in the world and to the research of such dialogues. According to Czyzewska, the experience that was accumulated over twenty years of the Foundation’s activities will allow to build bridges between the closest neighbours: Belarusians, Poles, Lithuanians and Russians from the Kaliningrad region. The Centre will contribute with education, research, publishing and cultural activities. In her opinion, exchanges of people in culture, historians, teachers and youth from neighbouring countries and cooperation will take place at the Centre.

Deputy Minister Meilunas welcomed the Foundation’s initiative and emphasized the benefits.

“These activities are very necessary. It is important to have and strengthen the dialogue between Lithuanian and Polish people in culture. It is particularly symbolic that the Centre will operate in the borderlands of a few countries, in a manor that was the property of the family of Milosz, the ‘last national of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’ in the interwar period,” Deputy Minister Meilunas said.

For further information, see the original article published in The Baltic Course, 27 May 2011.

Intercultural Dialogue issue of JIIC

The special issue on Intercultural Dialogue in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 4(2), co-authored by Shiv Ganesh and Prue Holmes, consolidates emerging interest in intercultural dialogue. The special issue emerged from the NCA Summer Conference on Intercultural Dialogue held in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2009. The four selected articles build upon, expand, and critique current understandings of intercultural dialogue, in particular, the important definition established by the White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008). This definition locates intercultural dialogue beyond mere tolerance of the other and situates deep shared understandings, as well as new forms of creative and expressive communication, as dialogic outcomes.

The four articles elaborate the terrain on intercultural dialogue in five important ways: 1) by drawing on key theorists of dialogue and intercultural communication; 2) by understanding dialogic encounters as intercultural, embedded in national, political, economic, religious, and historical interests, in order to view social problems in new and creative ways; 3) by engaging reflexively in the dialogic processes occurring in intercultural settings and encounters; 4) by situating the study of intercultural dialogue as an applied and pragmatic endeavour, using theories as resources for good practice; and 6) by explicating ethics as central to dialogic processes, for example, in contexts of social justice and colonization.

Witteborn’s paper “Discursive Grouping in a Virtual Forum: Dialogue, Difference, and the Intercultural” investigates how participants, in this case, Uyghur diaspora, construct difference in a virtual forum where difference is an opportunity for dialogic transformation. Witteborn’s analysis reveals that interlocutors mostly confirmed group locations through identity terms, truth talk, and distrust, which prevented dialogue. In reflecting on the meaning of intercultural, she thus cautions not to overemphasize the cultural at the expense of other meanings of group location important to interlocutors.

LaFever’s article “Empowering Native Americans: Communication, Planning, and Dialogue for Eco-Tourism in Gallup, New Mexico” emphasizes the importance of finding ways to meet the participartory needs of a marginalised (Navajo) community to engage and support them in public dialogue. Her study highlights the need for continued development of dialogic practices, and for closer ties among communication and planning scholars.

Carbaugh, Nuciforo, Saito and Shin, in “’Dialogue’ in Cross-Cultural perspective: Japanese, Korean, and Russian Discourses,” explore terms and practices relating to dialogue in the three discourses identified in the title. Their analysis of the term “dialogue” reveals distinctive goals for communication, implicit moral rules for conduct, and the proper tone, mode, and interactional structure within each discourse. They conclude that cross-cultural knowledge of this kind can clarify and address vexing problems such as the cultural balancing of information and truth with relational concerns.

MacLennan’s essay “’To Build a Beautiful Dialogue’: Capoeira as Contradiction” examines the dynamic dance-fight-game of African-Brazilian origins as a metaphor for dialogue. Through text, literature and personal experience, MacLennan reveals how dialogue is constituted through contradiction and paradox. Drawing on co-cultural theory, she reveals the importance of five key contradictions occurring in capoeira that have relevance to intercultural dialogue among cocultural groups.

Together, the articles in this collection expand current understandings of dialogue as they seek to explore the potentially dialogic role of conflict as well as consensus and collaboration. As such they inaugurate a productive exchange between scholarship on dialogue and intercultural communication studies, thereby setting an agenda for studies of intercultural dialogue.

Panorama: Resources for Intercultural Dialogue

Panorama is a resource collection for intercultural dialogue established by the Platform for Intercultural Europe in 2009, including definitions, case studies, organizations, events, and bibliographies.

“The Platform for Intercultural Europe, which was initiated in 2006 (as the Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue) by Culture Action Europe and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), with the support of the Network of European Foundations (NEF) and on the occasion of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Hundreds of civil society organisations and their individuals engaged in intercultural action across Europe – at local, national and international level, have participated in the Platform during its informal phase; after establishing as an association, the Platform is open to subscribing members.

The core principle of the Platform is cross-sectoral engagement – connecting and bringing people together from all sectors of the Interculturalism debate, from arts and culture, to education, to social and youth policies, to human rights policies etc.

The resource collection is about Intercultural Dialogue in Europe and concentrates on the European understanding and practice. There are only few key international resources included in the listings. We present English language resources here, with the hope that the next phase will be multi-language based. We collect resources related mainly to “pan-European” level. National strategies on Intercultural Dialogue, specific national and regional examples are not within the scope of this Inventory as of the limitation of numerous local languages.”

For further information, see Panorama‘s site.

Multiculturalism as a solution, not a problem

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently made headlines when she pronounced multiculturalism in Germany a failure. Shortly before, a Globe and Mail editorial argued that Canadians should eradicate “multiculturalism” from their vocabulary and refocus on “citizenship.” Multiculturalism isn’t just out of style, these statements suggest – it’s dangerous for building unity in increasingly diverse societies.

Unfortunately, both analyses are dead wrong.

Social scientists can measure multiculturalism in a given society by examining the number and content of public policies and government pronouncements around cultural recognition and accommodation. Such indices show that Germany is not, and has never been, a multicultural society.

Multiculturalism can’t have failed in Germany because it was never tried. Turkish guest workers and other immigrants were never welcomed as future citizens – only as temporary labour. If Germans are now concerned about the consequences, the blame certainly doesn’t lie with multiculturalism.

These indices also group countries such as France and Norway with Germany as least multicultural, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States as moderately multicultural, and Australia and Canada as most multicultural.

Have Canada’s past practices and policies hurt attempts to forge common citizenship out of diversity?

Absolutely not.”

For further details, see the original article by Irene Bloemraad in the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail.