Development across boundaries

Here is an overview about how we can gain trust within a multicultural environment. The importance of information and knowledge about other cultures and language barriers help to improve the effectiveness of multicultural team´s interaction.

thank you. I wonder what the common values are, if we are to trust each other in multicultural environment.

Thank you Anola for this article. It is very interesting and reflects a lot what is happening in companies nowadays, as well as what we went through in this Master. I follow Dora's comments when saying that this topic should be seen from someone else's point of view. It is very clear that it is only the American's point of view on how to build trust as well as how other's see it. It would be interesting to compare it, and realize that maybe we don't define the concept of 'trust' the same way depending on the culture.

"New societal challenges for the European Union New challenges for social sciences and the humanities : thinking across boundaries : modernising European research Our modern world cannot live on fragmented knowledge and policies, and "business as usual" in research in social sciences and the humanities won't help. The European Commission is going a step further in addressing today's and tomorrow's major societal challenges that affect our citizens, the countries we cooperate with, and of course future generations of European citizens. The European Commission is launching large research cooperative projects of several million euros in social sciences and the humanities (at least EUR 6 500 000 for 2010) to address these societal challenges. This booklet explains how major changes will be required in the way researchers manage their projects, steer their interdisciplinary research and valorise their results in society at large. "

from the european union...

"This review surveys and divides the ethnographic corpus on digital media into three broad but overlapping categories: the cultural politics of digital media, the vernacular cultures of digital media, and the prosaics of digital media. Engaging these three categories of scholarship on digital media, I consider how ethnographers are exploring the complex relationships between the local practices and global implications of digital media, their materiality and politics, and their banal, as well as profound, presence in cultural life and modes of communication. I consider the way these media have become central to the articulation of cherished beliefs, ritual practices, and modes of being in the world; the fact that digital media culturally matters is undeniable but showing how, where, and why it matters is necessary to push against peculiarly narrow presumptions about the universality of digital experience."

relevant to Geanina's presentation on digital media

"Gaia Education promotes a holistic approach to education for sustainable development by developing curricula for sustainable community design. While drawing upon best practices within ecovillages worldwide, Gaia Education works in partnership with universities, ecovillages, government and non-government agencies and the United Nations. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis I suggest you J-M to read the critics part, where we can see a "nice" example of tension between religion and science (just to connect to some previous topic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology this is also very interesting to read when it comes to the principles of sustainable development

thank you for the link to deep ecology, "a contemporary ecological philosophy that claims to recognize the inherent worth of other beings aside from their utility. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependent nature of human and non-human life as well as the importance of the ecosystem and natural processes. It provides a foundation for the environmental, ecology and green movements and has fostered a new system of environmental ethics."

"Here we present findings from the "Religion among Academic Scientists" study, a survey (N=1,646) and initial in-depth interviews (N=150) with natural and social scientists at twenty-one elite US research universities. We examine the attitudes academic scientists at these universities have about the perceived conflict between religion and science and their personal cultural construction of the boundaries between science and religion. Using survey data, results show that field-specific differences, being in the natural or social sciences, are not significant predictors of adopting the conflict paradigm, refuting previous research. Attention to in-depth interviews reveals three mechanisms of boundary-crossing, where boundaries between religion and science are transgressed: institutional pull, boundary pioneering, and environmental push. These results contribute key mechanisms of boundary change and boundary crossing between the specific knowledge domains of science and religion to the growing sociology of culture literature on boundaries."

Werner Heisenberg. Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik. (Piper, 2001) This book is written by one of the foundator and leading scientist of quantum mechanics and physics and is a very light-speaking, anecdoting story telling about Heisenberg's life, education, personal life and development. When he mentiones his awakening interest in physicsm he talks a lot about Platon and it is very interesting to read about his attitude towards religion and the principal questions of religion. It is also him we attribute the famous sentence: The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

merci Dora, let us look at religion & science as two sources of knowledge. In my case, I would be most familiar with the Bahai Faith (www.bahai.org) and I do believe that this Faith has a new contribution in the task of transforming society.

a different way of doing academia, by Evelin Gerda Lindner

The World at a Crossroad

Unfortunately, this is not the article about the original incident, but I'll explain what happened, I think it can relate to our topics: one area of downtown Seattle is known for its large numbers of transient Native Americans, many of whom are homeless or appear so. Sadly, they are often drunk in public and associate with a drug-using underbelly of the city. Of course this is a stereotype and not all the Indians in the area are like this, but many are. A few months ago, an older First Nations male from Vancouver Island who was a respected woodcarver in his community and was known among this "drunk/drugged out" crowd in Seattle was shot and killed by a Seattle policeman. Apparently the cop approached him and asked him to put down his carving knife. He did not obey, supposedly because he didn't hear because he was listening to music and was deaf in one ear. The cop opened fire and killed the man. Obviously, this generated a lot of controversy and protest especially among the Native American community of Seattle and North America. The man had some psychological issues according to some friends, but is that a reason to have opened fire on him? Do these tragedies have to happen for us to rethink our intercultural comprehension? This opens up wounds and old racial conflicts that have been going on for 150 years. The cop's previous experience with Indians of the area coupled with stereotypes led him to act, in my opinion incredibly irrationally, which resulted in the death of a respected wood carver. Sadly, the boundary present at this conflict was crossed by the cop in a brutal way, and this has resulted in the creation of more boundaries and perhaps a further divide between law enforcement officers and the people of the area. This will create fear and mistrust among the transient community and perhaps the Indian community as a whole, which in turn could lead to even more violence and further propagation of stereotypes. If handled poorly, no positive de

"Journal of Globalization for the Common Good (JGCG) is envisioned to enhance the well-being (both physical and spiritual) and prosperity of human kind by serving and promoting the common good through communication and cooperation. This will be based on the following principles:"

re: boundary crossing through dialogue

The author present the interaction of children with media tools. Understanding the concept of "Embodiment means how the nature of a living entity's cognition is shaped by the form of its physical manifestation in the world" As we saw the theory is basis in the believe that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. Then, Dividing the cognition then in Spatial, Physical and finally Metaphorical. Moreover the Embodied Child were analysed by the interaction with the computer, categorizing in Input design, interface design and interaction design.

Here you find the abstract, the authors biography and the subjects discussed in a book from Daniels, H., Edwards, A., Engeström, Y.ö, Gallagher, T., Ludvigsen. You have probably seen this book already. But for those who haven't: take a look and read the abstract. I guess it is a very important book when it comes to "activity theory" and "learning across boundaries". You can find it in the Bibliotheque à Walferdange. Have fun :)

This a report on a very interesting conference held in May 2004 at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Conference in Bangkok, Thailand. Some keywords for those who might be interested: gender, technology and development. The report provides an interesting insight into several studies on this field. For instance, one of the papers discussed emphasizes the role of vocational training for migrant women regarding their negotiations with the workmarket. One of the aspects discussed: "how do young [migrant] North American women perceive and understand, hear and listen, to the voices of their sisters [native women] across culture, class, status, skin, and language?" It is definitely an interesting issue, where crossing boundaries is a factor of development.

I think you have to be logged in in portail bnu

Intersting article related to core concepts of the course

I am sorry I put by mistake the same article :))

I have saved this link, I thought I have saved because I want to post it here, apparently I wanted to read it, sorry

Everyone of has experienced boundaries or conflict in our work because of different perception about work´s aim, especially cause by diversity. Here is a study that shows how boundary spanning activities were used in a multinational company to overcome the barriers that diversity cause. In this article are mentioned very interesting initiatives implemented in this company to manage diversity and to stimulate knowledge sharing.

Interesting resources (several links)

"Constructing a Conceptual Framework for Social Action explores a framework within which an individual concerned with the transformation of society acts and reflects on action. "

relevant to the course: transforming universities within and without

"We promote, develop, supply and support educational programs, studies, products and services that could introduce and address a new system of integrated education in collaboration with individuals and organizations who are dedicated to providing a comprehensive education to children worldwide."

"The Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity (ISGP) is a non-profit organization, dedicated to building capacity in individuals, groups and institutions to contribute to prevalent discourses concerned with the betterment of society."

a major sociological perspective worth looking at