Category Archives: Notice

Call for AlterNative perspetives

AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples is calling for papers to be submitted now for 2010 publication.

AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples is a multidisciplinary peer-review journal. It aims to present Indigenous worldviews from native Indigenous perspectives. It is dedicated to the analysis and dissemination of native Indigenous knowledge that uniquely belongs to cultural, traditional, tribal and aboriginal peoples as well as first nations, from around the world.

Dedicated to the advancement of critical dialogue by, with and for native Indigenous peoples across the globe
Submissions responding to this general call for papers should relate to one or more of themes of the journal—origins, place, peoples, community, culture, traditional and oral history, heritage, colonialism, power, intervention, development and self-determination.

Author guidelines, including format and referencing styles, for submitting articles, commentaries and book reviews can be found on the AlterNative website. http://www.alternative.ac.nz

Education, News, Notice, Pacific

Education for Sustainable Development – from South Pacific

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An important new initiative from the University of the South Pacific:

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The Pacific Regional Centre of Excellence for ESD, the University of the South Pacific through its School of Education has produced a 3-volume book series devoted to Education for Sustainable Development. The books are an outcome of a School of Education initiative under the USP Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO [ACCU] ESD Project. Contributors represent a number of Pacific island countries including Fiji, Kiribati, Rabi, Rotuma, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The book series is of particular interest to those seeking to find out more about how indigenous knowledge can and should influence development in the Pacific islands today and the role of the University in promoting and supporting these movements. Significantly, they offer insight into the role that education (formal, non-formal and informal) should play in preparing Peoples for life long learning and for survival in the changing turbulence of our contemporary times.

About the books

Volume 1 “Continuity and Survival in the Pacific” presents a selection of articles by Pacific scholars exploring the ways by which Pacific societies live the principles of Education for Sustainable Development. The articles also provide some insight into current thinking about ways by which Pacific peoples may take control in determining the future of the region.

Volume 2 “Pacific Stories of Sustainable Living” includes stories of Sustainable Living presented through the arts including visual arts, poetry, chants, stories, dance and life stories.

Volume 3 “An Annotated Bibliography” provides a collection of abstracts and bibliographical information on ESD in the Pacific – useful text for those interested in further study on ESD.

About The Editors – Vols 1 & 2

Cresantia F. Koya (Fiji) is the product of multiple diasporic journeys. Of Arab, Indian, Samoan, Irish and Solomon descent, she teaches courses in Curriculum, Educational Theory and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific. An artist and writer, she is actively involved in the development of the arts in Fiji. Her research interests include Education for Social Change and Justice, Pacific Studies and the Arts, Teacher Education for the future and Education for Sustainable Development. She is currently the Acting-Director of the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at the University. She is also a member of the core-group tasked with developing the Regional Cultural Strategy for the Pacific and the Culture and Education Strategy. Combining her work in curriculum development and the arts, she is keen to see indigenous knowledge, culture and the arts provided a platform in mainstream and non-formal education.

Unaisi Nabobo-Baba (Fiji) is an indigenous Fijian. She has taught at a number of secondary schools in Fiji and at the Fiji College of Advanced Education before joining the University of the South Pacific in 1996. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Education. Her areas of research and publications include: Teaching and Learning in specific contexts, Teacher Education in Pacific Islands contexts-pre service and in-service, Indigenous education and development related discourse, Pacific Islands and Small Island States education, Education and Global Change Agendas, School and Community Relations and Education, Women and development, women teachers and their stories, Remoteness and islandness, Indigenous Knowledge and Epistemology and, International Aid and Education.

Teweiariki Teaero (Kiribati) taught art and Kiribati Studies at secondary school before joining the University. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Education and Head of the School of Education at USP. His interests are in the areas of educational leadership, indigenous epistemologies, indigenous and contemporary Pacific art and culture and Kiribati orature. He has presented many scholarly papers in regional and international conferences and published numerous articles in peer-refereed journals. He is an accomplished artist and poet, with several publications and exhibitions to his credit.

Vol 3 – Compiled by Paserio Furivai

Paserio Furivai has taught for over 20 years in various parts of Fiji at both primary and secondary levels. He also worked as a Teacher Educator at Corpus Christie College and at the University of the South Pacific. In 2008, he founded the IPA Learning Centre, an education related company with the vision of ‘Sustainable learning through the use of innovative resources”. He is also the Director of the Kip McGath Education Centre in Nasinu.

Conference, Law, Notice

The South of International Law

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Intensive Workshop
Thursday 8 & Friday 9 July 2010, Melbourne Law School
Call for Participation
Due 22 April

How might a concept of the ‘South’ be understood in terms of a pattern of (international) legal relations?

‘The South’ is commonly understood as a political rather than a purely geographical designation, broadly to indicate the ‘have-nots’ in a world riven with material inequalities. The term is meant to overcome the hierarchical implications of other designations, and attempts not to accept the epistemological privileges granted by concepts such as ‘developing’ and ‘developed’.

Critics of contemporary international legal orders have pointed out that the grid of international law has locked in a particular vision and distribution of political and economic relations that perpetuates the history of the colonisation of the South. It is from here that many of the North-South and South-South debates gain their legal focus. In these accounts the South emerges as a domain in constant need of recuperation of and by the laws, politics, economies, and cultures of the North. At the same time South-South relations have emerged in resistance and relation to the dynamics of North-South relations.

However, if this rendering of accounts of imperial and post-colonial law is let rest a while, there are other patterns of law that can be understood to shape the South. These laws, articulated for example, in terms of indigenous jurisprudences or the commons, pattern the South according to different cosmologies, laws of relationship, responsibilities, and protocols of engagement. Respond to these laws – as many contemporary debates that link the places, peoples, and histories of the South do - and a different patterning of legal relations emerge.

The workshop invites consideration of the many ways in which the South is patterned by indigenous, national, international and other laws – some providing parallel accounts of law(s) of the South, others that intersect and conflict. The aim of this workshop is to develop the repertoires of thinking through the laws that position the South in the domains of international laws.

Themes might include:

The South as a ‘lawful’ rather than lawless place, engaging questions of plural legalities and intersections of laws
The South as a political-legal entity
The South as an object of International law and administration
Alternative traditions of ‘international’ legality

Specific debates addressed might include:

Trade, development
Security
Environment
North-South Justice
Transnational (and private) engagements of laws
Indigenous jurisprudence and formulations of the international

The Workshop

The symposium is designed to take advantage of the visit to Melbourne of three
outstanding scholars:

Dr Fleur Johns (University of Sydney), Dr Catriona Drewe (SOAS, London); and Professor Ruth Buchanan (Osgoode Hall, Toronto)
Ruth, Catriona and Fleur research, teach and write in areas including international law, development, legal theory, human rights, globalisation and self determination. Each works from a perspective interested in questions of global justice and critical thinking. The workshop is being organised by four Melbourne scholars with complementary interests; Luis Eslava, Shaun McVeigh, Sundhya Pahuja and Gerry Simpson.

Applications to participate:

Everyone is welcome to apply to participate, though we particularly encourage papers from advanced graduate students, young scholars and junior members of faculty. There are three ways to participate:

1. Paper Presentation (6)
Three sessions will be held as intensive engagements with each other’s work. In each session, there will be a presentation by one of our guests and 2 papers selected from applicants’ papers. The chair and our guest scholars will read the papers in advance. The authors will each present the paper orally for around 20 minutes. The Chair will offer a short commentary on each before opening the floor to discussion. If you are selected to present, you will need to provide a written draft of your paper
two weeks before the workshop.

2. Reading Group Discussant (3)
We will also include a reading group at the workshop for which the text will be distributed shortly. One of the organisers will lead the discussion. All workshop participants are strongly encouraged to do the reading beforehand, but we also seek three discussants to engage closely with the text and to be key participants in the discussion.

3. Non-Presenting Participant (15-20)
The whole workshop will be held in plenary. Places will be limited to 35 participants.

Because we wish to build an ongoing discussion, we envisage that everyone will attend the whole conference and will come prepared to participate in the reading group.

Fees / Conference Support

There is no charge for those selected to participate in the workshop, but you must be registered to attend. Dinners are not included. We have no travel funding, but if you wish to attend but need accommodation, please get in touch with us and we will try to assist you however we can (such as finding you a place to stay).

How to Apply

Everyone: send an email with the subject line: South Of International Law to leslava@unimelb.edu.au by 22 April with your:

Name
Institutional Affiliation

And if relevant:

Position
Course and stage of study
Citation of one or two representative publications

Reading Group Discussants

The above, plus… an indication that you would like to be a Reading Group discussant in your email.

Paper Presentation

The above, plus…

a short abstract (max 500 words) of your paper; and
some information about whether it is part of a larger project.

If you would like to be considered to be a reading group discussant in the alternative, please say so.

Deadline for applications: 22 April 2010

Notifications by 3 May whether you have been selected. Papers will be selected by the Melbourne organisers.

Conference, Latin America, Notice

Argentinean conference on ‘multi-versalism’ – call for papers

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Conference Mendoza, 3-6 November 2010

Working title:

“Cultural elements in social sciences and in academic labor – Epistemological and educational challenges constructing a scientific multi-versalism”

Workshop rationale

The era of globalization confronts social thought with a twofold paradox: Firstly, in the era of globalization knowledge about foreign societies and policies has gained importance, especially since the anticipated arrival of a “multi-polar” world makes knowledge about different regions indispensable. Due to the effects of globalization on the historically nationally constructed societies also local phenomena increasingly incorporate international dimensions requiring the internationalization of the social sciences knowledge production. However, due to their emergence in the context of nation states namely in Europe, the categories social science uses for interpreting social phenomena, have strong conceptual ties with particular nation states and their societal cultures. While countries and their societies beyond Europe to which the concept of nation state had been exported rarely gained the powerful tradition as nationally constructed societies as they did from where the concept originates, the concepts and categories of the social sciences that emerged in the context of the European national based societies have been spread over the world constituting the international standards of a scientific universalism.

Secondly, while the process of globalisation adjusts the economies of the societies on the globe to the standards of market economies, the very same adjustment of the economic standards raises the attention of those very societies to their particular identities interpreting globalisation through the perspective of the role they play in the globe, constructed via the roots of their individual histories and their distinctive cultural and political traditions. The reconfiguration of space and power through globalization necessitates the understanding of the peculiar social and cultural prerequisites of social thought allowing for divers interpretations of globalization and of the emerging new world order.

However, the need for diverse interpretations of the “Global” is confronted with the need to question the scientific foundations of a former worldwide acknowledged scientific universalism, constitutive of what has been considered as modern scientific knowledge, which, however, as Said has shown for the Asian societies, is often only the interpretation of the world through the eyes and the categories of a European social science perspective.

As a result, the need for multiple interpretations of the global does not only have to encompass the parochial categories of nation-based societies as their analytical framework allowing for internationalized scientific interpretations of the world, but also have to overcome the universalization of the Western parochial interpretation of the global, inevitably questioning the global validity of Western social science concepts, thus also eroding the established universal foundations of social science thinking.

If the SSH are to be global they must become open to a plurality of cultural realities and schemes of interpretation, without falling into cultural relativism. In this process it is very likely that they become reformulated and even transformed through multiple dialogues and interactions among the individuals, groups and institutions that generate and ultimately create a new social science world order. This creation of a new global social science world order will inevitably have to go through a phase of a scientific multi-versalism, encountering all the conflicts incorporated in the epistemological contradiction of a pluralism of universalisms.

The main objective of the workshop is to reflect on how to escape from local parochialism as a theoretical framework for interpreting the global, how to overcome the universalization of Western parochialism, its concepts and categories of social thinking hegemonizing the interpretation of the global, and how to begin to create and establish a bottom up scientific multi-versalism based on the different cultural standards of sciences and of academic labor.

Call for abstracts

Please send your abstracts by the 30. April 1010.

The abstracts should not exceed 750 words.

Topics for papers

Generally:

The papers should reflect on cultural elements in social sciences and in social scientists’ academic labour

If possible, they should reflect on the issues in an international comparative perspective,

discuss individual local phenomena from and towards a global perspective

and allow for critical reflections of the concepts and theories dominating the field.

Topics to be addressed are

Epistemology

Review and critical discussion of existing theories and research about issues related to the internationalisation of social sciences and humanities (scientific universalism, academic dependence, indigenous and scientific knowledge, knowledge and culture, etc)

Fundamental reflections about the relation of culture and social sciences

Concepts of culture and their applicability to social sciences

Methodological implications of the diversity of concepts of social knowledge and academic labour

Phenomenology

Examples of cultural dimensions of social knowledge and academic labour

Examples from intercultural scientific collaborations

Unknown social science knowledge “behind the northern science and language walls”

Education

Theories, concepts and approaches to Higher Education in the light of global social sciences

Encountering cultural elements in international collaborations: Implication for HE

Scientific competencies for international scientific collaborations

Contact: Michael Kuhn

Web: www.knowwhy.net, blog

Africa, Biology, Indian Ocean, Notice

Remapping Environmental Histories

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Date: Thursday 25th March, 2010
Venue: Royal Society of Victoria
9 Victoria Street Corner of Victoria St. and Exhibition St. Melbourne 3000

Monash University Faculty of Arts and School of Geography and Environmental Science invite you to public lectures by two leading scholars of Africa’s social and environmental history

Professor Edwin Wilmsen Centre for African Studies University of Edinburgh

Globalization before the globe was known: Asian-African interactions in the 1st century CE
Professor Wilmsen will discuss the extension of biological and cultural exchanges between south-central Africa and the Indian Ocean region from ca. BCE 100 – CE 1000.

Professor Judith Carney Department of Geography University of California, Los Angeles

Seeds of Memory: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World
Professor Carney will examine the inter-continental plant exchanges that took place as a consequence of the transatlantic slave trade and the presence of enslaved Africans in the Americas

RSVP is required by Monday 21st March at: rsvpges@arts.monash.edu.au, or Sharon Harvey on (03) 9902 0398

Africa, Notice

Australia’s Re-engagement with Africa

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The University of Sydney International Forum

Australia’s Re-engagement with Africa

Friday, 19 March 2010, 9.30am – 12.30pm McLaurin Hall, Quadrangle

The University of Sydney is Australia’s first University, founded in 1850.The International Forum series brings together leaders and thinkers from around the world to present their views on strategic international issues and the way in which these issues may impact on Australia and the globe.

The next International Forum to be held on Friday, 19 March will focus on “Australia’s Re-engagement with Africa”.

The Hon Mr Stephen Smith will be one of keynote speakers at the International Forum. This Forum will give the Foreign Minister and opportunity to discuss the Australian Government’s re-engagement initiatives in Africa. A senior African diplomat will follow Mr Smith as the second keynote speaker.

An expert panel discussion including: The Hon Dr. Geoff Gallop, H.E. Mrs. Marie Rousetty (Dean of the Africa High Commissioners Group), an Australia Africa Business Council Representative and an African Government official will follow the two keynote speakers. The audience will include prominent persons from government, business and academia.

We invite you to attend the International Forum on Friday March 19, 2010 at 9.30am in MacLaurin Hall, Main Quadrangle University of Sydney. Registration will be open from 9.00am. On conclusion of the Forum at 12:30pm lunch will be served in the Hall. Information on the location of the venue is included on the registration form.

To register for the International Forum please complete the attached form and return it via email: international@sydney.edu.au by Friday 5th March 2010 or via fax 02 9036 6047 As there are limited places for this important event and seats are reserved upon receipt of registration, please notify us as soon as possible if you are able to attend.

Australia, IPS series, Notice, Sociology

Raewyn Connell ‘Thinking South: Re-Locating Australian Intellectual Culture’ 18 March 2010

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The first seminar in the Southern Perspectives series at the Institute of Postcolonial Studies features Raewyn Connell, author of Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Her book has proven to be a significant and highly controversial intervention into sociology and related disciplines.She has spoken about Southern Theory in academic forums around the world. This is a rare opportunity to address the questions raised by this book at a public forum in Melbourne.

This is the outline of her talk:

Modern Australia was formed by colonial invasion, dispossession of indigenous people, dependent development, and social struggles – framed in turn by the British Empire, the American hegemony, and neo-liberal globalization. Australian intellectual culture, formed to a large extent around universities whose institutional ideology emphasises a placeless modernism, has had difficulty in locating itself securely. A tension has long existed, for intellectuals of the settler population, between intellectual extraversion (in Hountondji’s sense) at the price of dependence, and a resistant nationalism that acknowledges place at the price of marginality. One path beyond this is engagement with the legacy of colonialism and the situation of Australia’s indigenous people now; another is engagement with the structures of world inequality, exploring connections around the global South. In this session I will sketch our place in a global political economy of knowledge; discuss the intellectual wealth of the periphery; and assess responses by Australian intellectuals to the difficulties and possibilities of our location in the world.

Raewyn Connell is University Professor at University of Sydney. See interview.

Event details

Raewyn Connell ‘Thinking South: Re-Locating Australian Intellectual Culture’
Thursday 18 March 2010, 7-8:30pm
Institute of Postcolonial Studies
78-80 Curzon Street
North Melbourne (map)
Tel: 03 9329 6381
Admission – $5 for waged, $3 for unwaged, and free for members

Notice

One Just world – guilt trip or global duty?

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Forum – What responsibilities do Australians owe the global poor?

Tuesday, 16 February 2010 6:00 PM
The Carrillo Gantner Theatre, Sidney Myer Asia Centre
Cnr Swanston Street and Monash Road, The University of Melbourne
Website

Panellists including Peter Singer and Tim Costello consider the status of ‘white man’s burden’ in a changed world. Questions include:

How do ‘Southern’ countries perceive the issue of responsibilities and obligations? Do they see it as just Western paternalism mixed with liberal guilt and some hypocrisy? Do they see such obligations as necessary to identify and then insist on?

Culture, Notice, Pacific

Michael Mel – ‘The arts as tools for social and cultural transformation in Papua New Guinea’

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Dr Michael Mel (University of Goroka, Papua New Guinea)
‘The arts as tools for social and cultural transformation in Papua New Guinea’

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Thursday, 17 December, 4.30 pm to 6.30 pm, UTS Building 10, Level 5, Room 580

Abstract: This talk will explore the historical and contemporary role of artistic practices as a vehicle for dialogue and exchange between individuals and communities in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinean communities have a long history of the arts being elemental in community life and exchange. However colonial experiences have disrupted these community structures, leaving Papua New Guineans situated between traditional and contemporary Western life. There is great need now to reassert and renew the arts as a vehicle for community engagement and dialogue. What artistic opportunities can be created to offer Papua New Guineans a real chance to build processes that have a foundation in their own cultural context while at the same time engaging, challenging and confronting those from the outside?

The Komuniti Tok Piksa Project, between the Centre for Health Communication (UTS) and the University of Goroka, focuses on using the arts as a process for dialogue and exchange in order to challenge Papua New Guineans on matters relating to HIV/AIDS.

Performance artist, thinker, lecturer, curator and teacher, Dr Michael Mel is Associate Professor in cultural education and indigenous processes of art and Pro Vice Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Goroka. Renowned for his expertise in the traditional arts and oral traditions of his people, he uses performance to explore issues of cultural identity and dispossession. Through works that engage the senses using music, dance, body painting and decoration, he encourages Papuan New Guineans to take pride in their indigenous cultures and to challenge assumptions of colonialism. For his work in promoting and celebrating indigenous culture and development in Papua New Guinea, Dr Mel received the Prince Claus Award in 2006. He was both the first Pacific Islander and the first artist to be recognized in this way.

Please RSVP to Transforming.Cultures@uts.edu.au

Europe, Notice

Positions available with ‘The circulation of knowledge between Europe and the global South’

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The research project “Universality and potentials of acceptance of social scientific knowledge. The circulation of knowledge between Europe and the global South” at Freiburg University, Germany, invites applications for the following positions

1 x 75% post-doctoral position
1 x 50% doctoral position
1 x 50% position for administrative support to the project management

The project shall be funded through the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) initiative “Freedom for Research in the Humanities”, under the topic “Europe seen from the outside”. The project aims at building a junior research group and will be located at the Global Studies Program of the Sociology Institute at Freiburg University

Research Positions (Post Doctoral and Doctoral)

Both research positions (75% post-doctoral and 50% doctoral) shall each deal with one sub-project of the overall project. Researchers are expected to acquire academic qualifications (PhD or qualifications relevant to pursue an academic career in the post-doc-phase).

Applications should include a short research proposal. In order to prepare proposals, more detailed information on the overall project and on the sub-projects in which positions are opened are available with the project coordinator (contact see below). Very good oral and written competency in English are a requirement, competency in further languages is an advantage. Experience in the international scholarly community as well as in team work are an advantage.

Administrative Position

This position has been opened for the administrative support of the project leader. This comprises administrative tasks, support of the project leader with respect to the organisation of project activities such as conferences or publication projects, organisation of the stays of international fellows to the project in Freiburg.

Application details

All positions are limited to the duration of the project for four years. The project starts on 01.07.2010 subject to the provision of funds. Application deadline is 20.01.2010. The university aims at increasing the participation of women and explicitly encourages qualified women to apply.

For contact details, the official advertisement (in German) is to be found on the website of Freiburg University: research positions and the administrative position.