Making Dialogue Effective, Panel Discussion 3 - Effectiveness in Dialogue for Conflict Transformation

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:45 in Discussion Forums

Tags:

Where: Dialogue Society, London
Panelists:

Dr Diana Francis, Conflict Transformation Facilitator, Trainer and Consultant
Dr Marwan Darweish, Senior Lecturer at Coventry, Expert in Peace Processes and Conflict Transformation

Abstract

A panel of experts working in the field or in research will give and discuss their major insights into what makes for effective transformative dialogue in particularly tense contexts. It is hoped that as well as occasioning constructive discussion among experts in this area the discussion will encourage a beneficial exchange of insight between these guests and attendees working in dialogue in non-conflict situations. The "transformation" approach to conflict has been selected for examination as its focus on transforming attitudes, relationships and discourses rather than on simply managing their violent effects has much relevance to non-conflict situations also.

Confirmed Panellists:

Dr Diana Francis, Conflict Transformation Facilitator, Trainer and Consultant
Diana Francis is a freelance facilitator, trainer and consultant. She specialises in working with groups of people involved in or affected by political (especially inter-ethnic) conflict, facilitating training, dialogue and strategy workshops. She was President of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation for eight years, and is currently Chair of the Committee for Conflict Transformation Support. She has worked extensively in the post-communist world (especially the former Yugoslavia and the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union), and also in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. At home in the UK she writes and campaigns about issues of war and peace. Her books include, People, Peace and Power (2002), Rethinking War and Peace (2004) and From Pacification to Peacebuilding: A Call to Global Transformation (2010).
Dr Marwan Darweish, Senior Lecturer at Coventry, Expert in Peace Processes and Conflict Transformation
Dr Marwan Darweish is an expert in peace processes and conflict transformation with extensive experience in Middle East region. He has wide-ranging experience as an academic, researcher and lecturer, as well as in leading/facilitating on training courses associated with conflict transformation and peace processes.
He is experienced in working with civil society partners, governmental and non governmental organizations; with community driven initiatives as well with mulit-donor funded programmes. For seven years he worked as Peace and Conflict advisor at Responding to Conflict (RTC) and took on a range of conflict consultancies including work with various African countries. He supported a new conflict management programme in Sudan (DFID funded) which aims to equip Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) Commanders with practical skills and approaches for managing conflict effectively.

Introduction to Panel Discussion Series

A series of panel discussions examining the question of how to make intercultural dialogue work. Those working with intercultural and interreligious dialogue at the community or professional level face a range of challenges regarding its effectiveness. We are asked, or ask ourselves, such questions as:

Does what we do make or contribute to a tangible difference to society in any way?
Does our work, whether directly or otherwise, reach beyond the sympathetic to those whose attitudes and behaviour are an actual threat to peace and social cohesion?
Are the relationships that our work initiates across cultural or religious boundaries of a meaningful and lasting kind?
Is our work part of something broader that is capable of effecting change on a grand scale?

This series is intended to occasion focused and constructive discussion of such questions among a range of people concerned with relationships between different cultural, religious or social groups, in their professional lives or at the community level.

Findings and conclusions will be published. It is hoped that the series will be replicated at three independent UK branches of the Dialogue Society, allowing us to draw on a wider range of perspectives in collating findings.

Aims and Objectives

To encourage interprofessional dialogue, interaction and cooperation between people working on intercultural/ interreligious dialogue, peace and social cohesion.
To foster dialogue between people engaged with dialogue at the personal or community level, and those concerned with the same questions in a professional capacity.
To explore and clarify the questions of what effectiveness in dialogue is, and whether and how it can be measured.
To find a range of creative and practical answers to the question of how dialogue can be made effective by

identifying and promoting current best practice and
identifying and promoting promising future possibilities.
To share these answers among all participants of the series and more widely.

The Topics:

1. "Effectiveness" in Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue: Can it be defined? How do we measure it?
30/11/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Mehri Niknam, MA, MBE, Executive Director, the Joseph Interfaith Foundation.
Simon Keyes, Director of St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.
Dr Andrew Smith, Scripture Union.

2. Effectiveness at the grassroots: seeking the personal and the genuine
07/12/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, Chairman, Muslim Council for Religious Harmony UK; Executive Member, World Congress of Faiths.
Samuel Klein, Co-Director, the Coexistence Trust
Sarah Perceval, Storyteller

3. Effectiveness in dialogue for conflict transformation
14/12/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Dr Diana Francis, Conflict Transformation Facilitator, Trainer and Consultant.
Dr Marwan Darweish, Senior Lecturer at Coventry, Expert in Peace Processes and Conflict Transformation.

4. Skills in dialogue: cultivating effective listening and empathy.
09/02/2011
Confirmed speakers:

Lisa Cumming, Programme for a Peaceful City, Bradford University Peace Studies Department
Justine Huxley, Interfaith Projects Coordinator, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace
Jill Adam, Executive Director, Level Partnerships; previously Head of the School of Education and Professional Development at Leeds Metropolitan University.

5. Becoming a dialogue movement: what can dialogue learn from other movements?
02/03/2011
Confirmed speakers:

Danny Chivers, Performance Poet Involved in the Environmental Movement
Dr Nicola Montagna, Middlesex University

6. Preaching to the unconverted: how can dialogue reach the disengaged, the prejudiced and the hostile?
Confirmed speakers:

Stephen Shashoua, Director, Three Faiths Forum
Alison Seabrooke, Community Development Foundation
Prof Ian Linden, Director of Faiths Act, Tony Blair Faith Foundation / Professor of Religious Studies, SOAS
Canon David Porter, Canon Director for Reconciliation Ministry at Coventry Cathedral

Guests are warmly invited to attend as many of the sessions as possible to contribute to an ongoing process of focused reflection over the course of the series.