INFOCON Newsletter # 6

Contents:

  1. Welcome to the about-once-a-month INFOCON newsletter
  2. The 2nd INFOCON consortium meeting
  3. INFOCON researchers on the field
  4. The 1st INFOCON conference
  5. Other news

Welcome to the about-once-a-month INFOCON newsletter

Dear Colleague,

Welcome to the first INFOCON newsletter in 2009! In the first issue of the year you will find the latest news on the research fieldwork, the 1st INFOCON conference and much more.

The INFOCON Management Team wishes to all our readers a very happy New Year!

The 2nd INFOCON consortium meeting

On the 15th & 16th December 2008, INFOCON members met in Duisburg for the project’s 2nd consortium meeting. It was a crucial meeting as the project’s fieldwork was about to start.

Several important documents, such as the transversal interview grids, to be filled out during the fieldwork, were discussed among all partners and very valuable input were suggested by the Civil Society representatives, based on their broad knowledge of the conflicts and communities focused within the project. Moreover, other very important discussions were held on management issues, publication strategies, the project’s conceptual design and so forth.

Also, some discordance regarding the different approaches of different partners was made public, highlighting one of the very objectives of INFOCON, which is to approximate the research agenda to the rich background of Civil Society Organizations representing transnational communities. Distinct points of view on several subjects were stressed and the INFOCON members are now challenged to deep the exchange of their mutual experiences in order to reach results that will promote a broader knowledge on the links between the Civil Society, the transnational communities and the different research institutes involved.

The management team wishes to thank to all partners for the sincere dialogue and hard work. We also thank very much the colleagues from Universität Duisburg-Essen, for the great work done as the meeting’s host.

INFOCON researchers on the field

Since the very beginning of January 2009, INFOCON researchers are working on the field and applying the transversal interview grids both in the countries of origin and cities of settlement of the transnational communities focused in the project’s case studies.

The Université Catholique de Louvain team went to Turkey, where the project’s research director, Prof. Elise Féron, stayed for one week and so helped launching the interviews, which has been carried out by Jana Schildt and Morgane Gauquelin.

Few days ago, Jan Hanrath, from the Universität Duisburg-Essen, started to conduct the interviews with the Berlin’s transnational communities focused within INFOCON.

In London, Anna Orrnert, Caroline Blunt and Dogus Simsek, from Kent University, started to apply the transversal interview grids and are planning their fieldwork in Kosovo for March 2009.

Marieke van Houte, from the Radboud Universiteit, left Nijmegen towards the African Great Lakes region and started to carry out the interviews in Rwanda.

Finally, Nathalie Perrin, from the Université de Liège, is interviewing actors from the transnational community in Brussels since the 12nd of January 2009.

The management team wishes a successful outcome to all INFOCON researchers!

The 1st INFOCON conference

The 1st INFOCON conference will be held in Lille, France, the 6th & 7th May 2009, at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Lille, France.

Under the title Transnational communities and conflict: a civil society approach – Conflict resolution from below? the conference is jointly organized by the Internationalist Foundation, Sciences-Po Lille and the Université Laval – Institut Québecois des Hautes Études Internationales (Canada) and will debate the conflict resolution mechanisms used by different actors and how they can collaborate in order to achieve their major goals.

The two-day conference will bring together the INFOCON researchers, policy experts at the local, national and European level, and representatives of the Civil Society. The event will be punctuated by several keynote addresses delivered by leading academics and policy-makers in the field of transnational communities and conflicts.

More information can be found at the INFOCON website.

Other news

In the next few weeks, the Internationalist Foundation will launch a beta version of the INFOCON interactive platform, directed to Civil Society Organizations, research institutes, governmental organizations and representatives of transnational communities, among other possible users.

Named here and there, the platform offers to Civil Society Organizations the possibility of creating a web space where they can make their knowledge available and exchange it with different partners in a self-customized environment. More than a simple directory, here and there is an interactive portal that allows real dialogue and knowledge building. By editing the content of their exclusive, private or public and protected web spaces, the communities’ representatives can provide free and immediate information on their subjects of interest.

In its first months, here and there will be tested by the organizations within the INFOCON consortium and also by the partners from the FP7 funded project DIASPEACE. After this test phase, the platform will be available to external users.

More information on here and there will be made available in the next newsletter editions.

On behalf of the INFOCON Management Team,

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Felippe Angeli