18 Jul Summerschool India 2016
The International Summer School on Pluralism, Development and Social Change, 13th edition
July 7 to July 24 2016
Bangalore, India.
Organisation: The Kosmopolis Platform of the University of Humanistic Studies (the Netherlands), in cooperation with Azim Premji University (India), the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice of the University of the Free State (South Africa), PUSAD Paramadina and the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies of Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia) and HIVOS (Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries),
Introduction
The summer school consists of a 17 day full time program of lectures, excursions, seminars, literature study, discussion, guided individual – and small group work and assignments. In the 2016 summer school are nineteen participants, who come from India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. All of them work in Civil Society Based organizations in the realm of Human Rights and Social Justice and/or are graduate students in Humanities, Social Sciences and Law. The staff of the summer school consists of an international team of academics and CSO-based professionals from India, Indonesia, the Netherlands and South Africa. The 2016 staff group includes: Sitharamam Kakarala, Henk Manschot, JC van der Merwe, Zainal Abidin Bagir, Ihsan Ali-Fauzi and Caroline Suransky.
The summer school aims to:
- bring together a diverse and international group of participants who are interested in social change and wish to enhance their critical understanding of social theory of change, practices of pluralism and the politics of difference at local and global levels;
- intensify links between development practitioners and scholars in order to (1) enrich both their knowledge bases with new perspectives, insights and skills, and (2) stimulate the creation of international networks of civil society initiatives around issues of social change and pluralism;
- facilitate international dialogue on theories and practices of pluralism and professional and personal experiences with cultural- and other forms of diversity and difference, leading to a critical international comparative analysis of pluralism approaches in various social, political, economic and ecological contexts;
- integrate theoretical and practice-based knowledge of all participants and help them to translate it into new insights, strategies, policies and/or practices for pluralism
- create a learning environment in which participants simultaneously learn about as well as simultaneously live with difference in a pluralist, international and intercultural setting. Critical reflexivity, reading and writing, dialogue, experiential learning, active participation and skills training are central to the program.
All participants will write a blog about their personal experiences on a particular day in summer school. We hope that you will find their stories informative and that you enjoy reading them.
Dr. Caroline Suransky works in the Dept. of Globalization and Dialogue Studies Department of the University of Humanistic Studies in the Netherlands and is ‘visiting professor’ at the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State in South Africa. In collaboration with many universities and civil society based organizations in the Global South, Caroline has coordinated annual international summer schools since 2004.
Read the blogs:
How personal some stories already begin
In the afternoon Caroline put down on the ground a collection of photos picturing themes related to the summer school’s subjects, from which we had to choose one and present our answers to two questions: why we picked the photo we picked, and what it meant for us. It was startling to see what surprising things we read into the pictures, how thoroughly involved with social improvement and both physically and emotionally touched many of us are by injustice, and how personal some stories already become. Read more
Four different countries
India presented third and started off with a great definition of pluralism in order to clarify: ‘where various streams of thoughts and practise exist side by side without one of the streams becoming hegemonic or having a monopoly over the system.’ Read more
On a beautiful Saturday in Bangalore
We continued and spoke about the unfairness of life and how we each deal with that. At the same time we enjoyed some quietness near the lake, because the street noises were muted due to its distance from the main road. While walking, I thought about my friends in the Middle East who rarely have open spaces where they can take a stroll. It made me think of how we all deal with our local struggles, yet we also work towards a broader goal and a more just and equal world. Whatever that may mean. Read more
Team building
Pollution was one of the thing that led to a number of discussions while walking the streets of Bangalore. We saw cows on the street and also dump site around town, which have a negative impact on the livelihood of the people residing in these areas. The problems with pollution are increasing I concluded, after seeing small dump sides and animals living in the streets, for instance a large population of street dogs, who feed on the dirt of the street. Read more
On ecological footprints
Personally, despite the fact I think of it as such an important topic, ecology seemed not connected to pluralism or human development. But, Henk Manschot’s lecture on pluralism and ecology. really had me rethink my prejudice. What struck me most was a video clip about astronauts going to the moon. Unexpectedly, they were faced with a new perspective on the Earth and this was overwhelming. They described the Earth as alive, a unified whole, dynamic and beautiful. But it also struck them, from this new perspective, how fragile the Earth actually is. Read more
Reconciliation
JC van der Merwe from The University of Free State, South Africa, helped us to understand how reconciliation works, especially in South Africa. A lesson learned from South Africa is that a reconciliation process does not stop after the judicial process. Further, it needs the willingness and ability of civil society and government to create an enabling environment to fulfill social justice. This is what is problematic in South Africa nowadays. Read more
In search for a better world
I think it is important to understand that sometimes, more than civilization, religion, nation, class, and other things, it is emotion that drives us to identify, to find allies, and express our aspirations. Understanding collective emotions enable us to have a clearer view to see motives and patterns of contemporary social complexities, like horizontal conflicts, terrorism, hate speeches on the internet, or even a recent event like Brexit. Read more