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Ref: Exploratory Workshop No.135

 "Tolerance or Violence: Signs of minority differences in Europe."

 

Dates and location of the Workshop:

11-14.09.2006

Hotel Flagman (http://www.beachbulgaria.com/sozopol/flagman.shtml)

Sozopol, Bulgaria

 

Name and full coordinates of applicant:

Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies

Office 111

New Bulgarian University

21, Montevideo Str.

Sofia 1618

Bulgaria

www.nbu.bg

 

Prof. Maria Popova, D.Sc.

Director of Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies

Tel.: +359 2 8 110 111

Cell: +359 888 605 497

Fax: +359 2 8 110 130

E-mail: mpopova@nbu.bg

www.nbu.bg

 

Krasimir Angelkov

Secretary of Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies

Tel.: +359 2 8 110 171

Cell: +359 888 688 633

Fax: +359 2 8 110 130

E-mail: kangelkov@nbu.bg

www.nbu.bg

 

Keywords related to the research topic

Cross-cultural contributions, ethnic minorities, violence, policy of tolerance, minority integration.

 

Abstract

          The main idea of the workshop is to bring together researchers and representatives from different European universities and institutions who are supposed to discuss cultural, political, sociological and psychological influences and effects resulting from interactions between different minorities in the light of recent events and terrorist attacks across Europe, to explore the relationships between ethnic and social groups and offer adequate research strategy for determining and getting over differences between minorities and within them. The semiotic approach suggests appropriate methods and tools for explanation of the problem in its cultural, political and social perspectives. 

 

 

 

The case for an Exploratory Workshop

After World War II, Europe was famous as a continent without conflicts. But this image was disrupted because of the collapse of former communist countries, which was the beginning of unprecedented conflicts. The second reason is European support for USA against terrorism. During terrorist attacks people were killed in Europe, which is unacceptable not only for Europeans, but for also for people all around the world. So the most important thing is to find the most successful scientific solutions to this problem and to apply them in real life. Moreover, it is necessary that these solutions stop the violation of human rights and encourage the integration of minorities as a bilateral process.

The workshop "Tolerance or Violence: Signs of minority differences in Europe" is to be held on September 2006 as a scientific event organized by Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies at New Bulgarian University.

During the last ten years the center gained significance and international reputation as organizer of high-level summer schools, conferences, seminars and workshops with participation of leading scientists from Europe and America in the field of semiotics, anthropology, sociology, humanities, etc.

We are interested in collaboration with ESF and financial support because in this way we could enrich and sophisticate our ongoing researches and we think this is a very good way to improve and channel our scientific research and have the possibility of inviting outstanding researchers from several European countries.

The participation of such representatives of high-ranking universities and institutions guarantees that we can achieve clearer and fuller theoretical pattern of the relationships between minorities in different European regions, as well as inside minorities, which will be the main subject of the presented workshop.

We shall be particularly interested to have as many as possible materials, investigating the individual strategies in different areas of people.

The project presents an interdisciplinary research of cultural, political, sociological and psychological aspects of problems between all sorts of minorities (i.e. Muslims vs. Christians, East vs. West, Roma vs. Bulgarians etc.), as well as the problems resulting from these relationships.  

The main subject of the workshop is influenced by recent events in Europe (i.e. the terrorist attacks on trains in Spain, the theater in Moscow etc.), threats to France and Italy, as well as the ethnic conflicts on the West Balkans. 

The main discussion will be on the theoretical aspects of these differences in Europe, whose reciprocal actions may lead to violence or tolerance, depending on political, psychological and social characteristics of the area of interaction. In the workshop leading European political scientists, semioticians, sociologists, psychologists, humanitarians and anthropologists working in the field of minority research will take part.   The headstone here will be their participation as far as they come from conflict areas in Europe where there are real dangers of increasing collisions. The research will find out the reasons leading to conflicts, resulting from interactions and co-existence of minorities, and also finding the right means for solving the problems. 

The violation of human rights, the proper outlining and definition of the scope of conflicts, as well as the analysis of the way in which different minorities act in different situations, using semiotic approaches, will allow us define the profiles of dominant groups and dominated groups. It will help us find clear issues concerning violence and tolerance in the groups. 

We will try to find out if there are any symbols, signs or taboos, whose abuse or rejection will lead to ethnic or even international confrontations, or if the violence we see every day on TV and around us is the result only of political and social interests. The role of political scientists will be to define the political parameters of conflicts and the causes for their appearance. The role of semioticians will be to define and interpret the related symbols and signs (if any) and answer the question:”Are there common “laws” valid for all bloodsheds, or is every single conflict marked by its own distinctive features and reasons without being rooted in the traditions of the respective community?” If non-compliance with and disrespect of the traditions belonging to every minority leads to distortion of ideological parameters and – to forcible determination of neighbor’s problems? Or exactly the compliance with these traditions and the rejection of the neighbor community to recognize those leads to armed conflicts.     

One of the aims of the workshop is to define the motives leading to leadership within the groups, as well as the aspirations for leadership among minorities. 

The reason for proposing this topic is our willingness to avoid ethnic conflicts in Bulgaria where a number of minorities live. In this perspective is also the role of the anthropologists engaged in field work among different communities. They can explain the models of behavior of minority members and suggest ways of integrating them into society. The purpose of all scientists involved in the project would be to find logical and clear perspectives for tolerance among minority cultures as to avoid confrontations.

We feel that such a project will help finding the correct patterns of tolerance between minorities and communities in the society and will develop as a bigger shared project involving many different universities and scientists who aimed at stabilizing the situation not only in Europe, but also on an international scale, as far as possible.

We also think that such a project, once completed, will help for the improved social integration of surveyed groups in the countries with such problems.

We also believe that this will be the beginning of a series of such initiatives among other European universities in order to achieve the optimum results which are useful for solving the problems. The organizers will invite all participants to present this workshop to their universities and institutions in order to extend the field of related research.

    

 

Preliminary Workshop Program:

 

11.09.2006

Arrival

 

14:00-17:00 Opening of the workshop and first discussion with all participants.

 

12.09.2006

Morning session

09:00-09:30 Maria Popova (NBU)

09:30-10:00 Nonna Meyer (France)

10:00-10:30 Antonii Todorov (NBU)

10:30-11:00 BREAK

11:00-11:30 Pierre-André Taguieff (France)

11:30-12:00 Michel Wiewiorka (France)

12:00-12:30 Veronika Azarova (NBU)

 

13:00 – Lunch

 

Noon session

14:00-17:00 Discussions with all participants on political and social aspects and approaches to proposed subject.

 

13.09.2006

Morning session

09:00-09:30 Plamen Bochkov (NBU)

09:30-10:00 Chris Hann (Germany)

10:00-10:30 Pascal Perrineau (France)

10:30-11:00 BREAK

11:00–11:30 Joseph R. Llobera (United Kingdom)

11:30-12:00 Kristian Bankov (NBU)

12:00-12:30 Paul Cobley (United Kingdom)

12:30-13:00 Gordana Jovanovich (Serbia)

 

13:00 – Lunch

 

Noon session

14:00-17:00 Discussions with all participants on anthropological and semiotics aspects and approaches to the proposed subject.

 

17:00-18:00 Presentation of the conclusions from this scientific event and decisions for the future work in this field.

 

14.09.2006

Departure

 

 

List of Proposed Participants:

 - Prof. Pascal Perrineau, extreme right in Europe; Paris, CEVIPOF – SciencesPo, France. http://www.cevipof.mshparis.fr/chercheurs/perrineau.html

 - Prof. Nonna Meyer, antisemitism, racism; Paris, CEVIPOF – SciencesPo, France.

http://www.cevipof.msh-paris.fr/chercheurs/mayer.html

 - Prof. Pierre-André Taguieff, racism; IEP, Paris, France.

http://www.denistouret.net/textes/Taguieff.html

 - Prof. Jozeph R. Llobera, sociology and social anthropology;  United Kingdom.  

 - Prof. Chris Hann, Political and economic anthropology, property relations, religion and civil societies, ethnicity; Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany.

http://www.eth.mpg.de/dynamic-index.html?http://www.eth.mpg.de/people/hann 

 - Assoc. prof. Plamen Bochkov, Gender and Social roles, migration and cultural identity; New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria.

www.nbu.bg

 - Prof. Maria Popova, Dc.S., Semiotics; New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria.

http://www2.nbu.bg/semiotic/star/M_Popova2.htm

- Assoc. prof. Antonii Todorov, Political Culture; New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria.

www.nbu.bg

- Paul Cobley, Social semiotics, Communication theory, Genre theory; London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom.

http://www.authorbiography.net/61586_paulcobleypaulcopley.html

- Gordana  Jovanovic, Social Psychology; University of Belgrade, Serbia.

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University
of Belgrade, Cika Ljubina 18-20, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.

- Dr. Kristian Bankov, Memory and Identity; New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria.

http://bankov.net

- Veronika Azarova, Semiotics of Gender Studies; New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria.

www.nbu.bg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Estimated Budget (in EUR):

 

Status

Travel costs

Meal

Accommodation

Foreign guests

 

 

 

Pascal Perrineau

500

90 (3x30)

120 (3x40)

Nonna Meyer

500

90

120

Pierre-André Taguieff

500

90

120

Jozef R. Llobera

600

90

120

Chris Hann

400

90

120

Gordana Jovanovich

300

90

120

Paul Cobley

600

90

120

Total

3400

630

840

 

 

 

 

Bulgarian Participants

 

 

 

Maria Popova

 

90

120

Antonii Todorov

 

90

120

Plamen Bochkov

 

90

120

Kristian Bankov

 

90

120

Veronika Azarova

 

90

120

Total

0

450

600

 

 

 

 

STAFF

 

 

 

Elena Alexieva – translator

 

90

120

Krasimir Angelkov - administrator

 

90

120

Total

0

180

240

TOTAL

3400

1260

1680

 

 

 

6340

 

==========================

Fuel – 500

Bus from Sofia to Sozopol and back – 1000

Conference hall – 300

Photocopying – 200

Secretarial assistance - 500

Technical support (Multimedia, Internet, Telephone, Fax, etc.) - 300

Total: 2800

 

TOTAL: 9140

 

Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies at New Bulgarian University has its own financial resources, which could cover some other expenses.