Dialogue with the South at the International University
“Knowledge Production in a World Perspective”
Dr. Johannes Maerk, IU Associate Professor and Chair, The International University Department of Diplomatic and Strategic Studies and Director of the IDEAZ Platform for Intercultural and Comparative Research provides an overview of the successful meeting conducted in October 2007.
Dialogue with the South at The International University
“Knowledge Production in a World Perspective”
organized by
Ideaz. Platform for Intercultural and Comparative Research.
The program “Dialogue with the South” is aiming to provide a bringing-together of academics, intellectuals, and cultural workers from the „South“ and the industrialised countries in the North. The intention is to offer a space that can serve as a truly translocal and transnational place of critical and self-critical ideas, projects and perspectives.
Thus, “Dialogue with the South” supports a discourse of knowledge that is not limited to the established trajectories of scientific knowledge between the “northern” countries (Western Europe, North America and Japan), but explicitly incorporates representatives from often neglected “southern” places (mainly from Asia, the Arab World, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean). We consider that scientific knowledge is produced within a socio-economic context and it is tied to the question “from where” it is produced. We wish to analyse how contexts influence the production of knowledge and the creation of theoretical models in social sciences and humanities.
From October 15th to 17th 2007 Ideaz organized in cooperation with The International University (IU) a meeting on the topic “Knowledge Production in a World-Perspective”. The aim of the meeting was to promote an innovative understanding of global issues, to broaden current themes through new perspectives, and to strengthen the mutual understanding of cultures.
Program
Monday, Oct. 15
10 a.m. - Invited Lecture - Auditorium, The International University “Socio-Political Thought in the English and French-Speaking Caribbean”, Prof. Anthony Maingot, Department of Sociology, Florida International University, Miami, USA
Wednesday, Oct. 17
10 a.m. – Invited Lecture - Auditorium, The International University “One World and Ten Thousand Cultures: The Light from the East, the Genetics of Knowledge and the World Today”, Baker al-Hiyari, Deputy Director, The Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS), Amman, Jordan
5 p.m. - Keynote speech - Auditorium, The International University “Cuba´s Role in the World”, Prof. Anthony Maingot, Florida International University, Miami, USA
About our speakers
Baker al- Hiyari
A Jordanian national born in Amman, Mr. Baker al- Hiyari attended educational institutions in Jordan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. For his university education, he enrolled in programs focusing on international politics, foreign policy and diplomacy.
He joined the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) in Amman – Jordan (www.riifs.org) in 1994, and currently serves as its Deputy Director. RIIFS is an academic institution that provides a venue in the Arab world for the interdisciplinary study and rational discussion of religion and religious issues, with particular reference to Christianity in Arab and Islamic society.
Mr. al-Hiyari is member of several international projects and initiatives. He is a member of the International Youth Committee of the World Conference on Religions for Peace, advisor to the young think tank of the Club of Rome (tt30), Associate Member of the Club of Rome, member of the World Future Society and the Free Thought Forum Jordan.
Anthony Maingot
Anthony Maingot is truly a citizen of the Caribbean. Born in Trinidad, he spent much of his youth living in several of its leading cities and islands. Through his experience, he has gained remarkable insight into the cultures, languages, politics, and economics of the Caribbean and how they intertwine with one another.
He is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Florida International University in Miami and has been the recipient of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundation grants in Caribbean Studies. Prof. Maingot is author of A Short History of the West Indies, now in a fourth edition; Small Country Development and International Labor Flows: Experiences in the Caribbean; The United States and the Caribbean: Transforming Hegemony and Sovereignty, London: Routledge, 2004) (together with Wilfredo Lozano) and The United States and The Caribbean: Challenges of an Asymmetrical Relationship (London, Macmillan and Boulder, Westview, 1994).
He has been a professor at Yale and was a member of the Constitutional Reform Commission of Trinidad and Tobago; a visiting scholar at the Institute of Developing Economies in Tokyo, Japan; a visiting scholar at the Institute d’Etudes Politiques at the Université d’Aix en Provence in France; and a visiting senior social scientist at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica.
