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Conference Announcement "Transformations: Culture and the Environment in Human Development" 2nd International Conference Common Ground Australian National University Canberra (Australia) 27-29 November 2006 __________________________________________________ The focus of this conference will be on global and local trends in cultural diversity and sustainable development. Main speakers will include leading thinkers in the field, and these will be supported by paper, workshop and colloquium presentations by researchers and practitioners. Part of the agenda of the convening agencies of Transformations 2006 is to recognise, in a post-industrial, globalised world environment, that human development must be understood as a process that occurs both locally, but within a total environment. Furthermore, planning for development is not just a function of economics, social or political change, health advancement, human and cultural rights, the absence of physical violence, or sustainable physical environments. Rather, it is achieved within, and through, interplay of all these functions. These processes, inter-related, iterative, and necessarily achieved through collaborative and simultaneous endeavour, have been recognised for many years. They were first comprehensively yet succinctly described in the document that distilled much of the earlier thinking: the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, November 2001 (UDCD). The UDCD came into being in a "post-September 11" world its significance was at the same time displaced (in the environment of global shock that then existed) as well as reinforced, by demonstrating the compelling need for an articulate and rational vision for global collective action and shared values, rather than reactive violence and oppositional politics. In summary, the UDCD argues for a new understanding of the value of human difference. It is designed to protect and enhance the international intellectual, economic, spiritual and moral value of cultural diversity. The Declaration affirms this diversity as the vital resource to protect cultural rights, bio-diversity, individual self-value, social harmony, cross-cultural communication and to "humanise globalisation." As an international policy framework, the UDCD can be adapted to national purposes to help transform civil society. It has the potential to improve our community harmony, our relationship with the environment and the way we develop economies through a new understanding of the physical and human world. The second Transformations conference will continue to explore the themes and priority issues that have emerged from international policy work associated with cultural diversity since November 2001. This endeavour will further develop the Pacific Asia Observatory for Cultural Diversity in Human Development. We will analyse pressing tensions within local and international communities arising from the so called "clash of cultures" and government responses to evolving perceptions of religious, cultural, political and economic difference. As with the first Transformations conference, we will continue to model a new kind of partnership that includes those working across all levels in policy and planning, the community sector, business, service delivery, and in tertiary institutions as students and academics. Contact: Common Ground PO Box K481, Haymarket Sydney, NSW 2000 Australia Tel: +61 (0)2 9519 0303 Fax: +61 (0)2 9519 2203 Email: [email protected] Web: http://dt6.cgpublisher.com/ __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
