A record of meetings from 2005.
November 2005
Presenter:
Craig Storti has been making a successful living at writing and
consulting in the field of intercultural communications since 1980. He
is the author of a number of popular books in the field, including:
- The Art of Coming Home
- The Art of Crossing Cultures
- Cross Cultural Dialogues: 74 Brief Encounters with Cultural Difference:
- Figuring Foreigners Out: A Practical Guide
- Americans at Work: A Guide to the Can-Do People
- Old World/New World: Bridging Cultural Differences-Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.
Craig
runs a consulting practice that includes clients in government (State,
Peace Corps), NGOs and the private sector. He has learned a number of
tricks along the way which he will share, along with his insights and
advice on making it the field as an independent consultant.
October 2005
I
hope you all had a great summer and that you're ready to come on back
to SIETAR-DC! I'm excited about the schedule of events for the coming
year and look forward to sharing the schedule with you on October 19th
when we kick off the 2005 - 2006 year of SIETAR-DC.
We'll
start with a business meeting and will then head across the street for
some cheer and networking. With the start of a new year we will be
collecting dues - $25 for the year. Checks can be made out to
'SIETAR-DC'.
June 2005
Meeting Topic: Cross-Cultural Conference Room
Presenter: Dr. Jaime Wurzel
Dr.
Jaime Wurzel will present his Cross-Cultural Conference Room. “This
program provides timely insight into the global business world. The
program demonstrates how teams of experienced managers from the United
States, South America, and Japan, all working for the same
multi-national company, attempt to solve a product failure dilemma.
The
non-scripted deliberations bring out striking ethical and cultural
differences in decision-making, teamwork, and management styles. The
divergent approaches of the three management teams reveal subtle
cultural assumptions that real-world decision-makers rarely recognize
and seldom understand.” (Taken from Intercultural Resource Corporation
website)
Dr.
Jaime Wurzel is the founder and president of the Intercultural Resource
Corporation. Dr. Wurzel was born in Bolivia and has lived, studied and
lectured in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. He is the author
of numerous articles, and his book, Toward Multiculturalism , is widely
used in schools and universities. His forthcoming book, In the Universe
of Sudden Changes: Reflections on Cultural Identity, received the
Boston University Humanities Foundation Award. Dr. Wurzel is the former
Director of Intercultural Studies at Boston University and is currently
an Associate Professor of Education at Salem State College. In addition
to producing all of IRC's products, Dr. Wurzel served as the executive
producer of The Multicultural Workplace, a video produced by PBS
(WGHB). He is a permanent faculty member at the Intercultural
Communication Institute in Portland Oregon and serves on the Board of
Directors of the United States Chapter of SIETAR (Society for
Intercultural Education Training and Research). He has consulted and
conducted seminars nationally and internationally on cultural
variation, diversity, organizational development, and team-building.
May 2005
Meeting Topic:
From Michelle LeBaron’s book, Bridging Cultural Conflicts, Ursula will
be holding a discussion on practical applications of chapter 3,
“Cultural Fluency in Conflict: Currencies and Starting Points”
(pp.53-82)
Presenter: I am pleased to announce that Ursula Leitzmann will be presenting for our May meeting.
April 2005
Meeting Topic: The social and productive role of political discourse in Malagasy democratic process
Presented by: Jennifer Jackson
The
history of Madagascar is at once a history of language policy change
and revolution at the heart of which identity and language have been
explicitly and implicitly tied. Implicated in this kind of longer
linguistic history and Madagascar's recent political history are new
kinds of political discourse from political oratory to political
cartooning. Ongoing interplay and change between political oratory and
political cartooning are now invigorating new forms of communicative
interaction between ordinary people and political elites in the public
sphere. This interaction and recent changes in these new forms of
public discourse in Madagascar reflect and shape shifting dynamics of
political engagement and emerging modes of public participation
in the country's national democratic process, which extends beyond the
boundaries of the island all the way to the U.S.
This
discussion will focus on how these two kinds of political discourse,
political speeches and cartooning, serve as new forms of political
representations to express ideas, to enable political
participation,
and to index emerging social formations shaping political process. By
tracing the interrelations between language, politics, and social
identity through everyday life examples, this discussion should serve
those with an eye to language and society or those concerned with
strengthening democratic civil society in the Indian Ocean region.
Jennifer
is a PhD candidate in linguistic anthropology in the Department of
Anthropology at Yale University. Her connection to Madagascar began in
1994, but this particular research work on Malagasy political discourse
has been since 2001 just before the presidential election crisis there.
March 2005
Topic: Creating Intercultural Dialogues
Presenter: We are very pleased to host Mr. Michael Hope-Simpson, Senior Learning
Specialist with the Centre for Intercultural Learning of the Canadian Foreign Service Institute (CFSI).
Please
join SIETAR-DC for a special meeting and reception in conjunction with
the Spring Conference of the Intercultural Management Institute
www.imi.american.edu
Mr.
Hope-Simpson will lead an interactive session on his recent work with
Creating Intercultural Dialogues. This evening will delve more deeply
into the question "What tools help facilitate intercultural
collaborations" by highlighting the development and uses of the CFSI's
Intercultural Dialogue process. We will also have the opportunity to do
some hands-on work with the model and consider how it might be used in
our own work.
Mr.
Hope-Simpson is an intercultural and development learning specialist
with 25 years of experience in the management, design, delivery and
evaluation of adult and intercultural learning programs. Since 1996 Mr.
Hope-Simpson has been with the Centre for Intercultural
Learning,
Canadian Foreign Service Institute first as a Program Manager, then a
Performance Consultant and now as a Senior Learning Specialist. Mr.
Hope-Simpson has worked on a wide variety of field assignments in South
Asia, East and West Africa as well as the Middle East supporting
international development projects and programs; managing intercultural
education and training; and facilitating dialogue, assessment, and
collaboration amongst the actors in international collaborations.
Mr.
Hope-Simpson has specialized management, consulting and facilitation
skills he applies with bi-cultural and multi-cultural groups in
participatory analysis, learning and action processes, design and
delivery of customized learning programs, results based management and
performance improvement, learning strategies, training of trainers,
team building and process facilitation. Mr. Hope-Simpson has a BA Cum
laude in Comparative World Religions (Acadia University, Nova Scotia)
and a certificate in Adult Education (St. Francis Xavier University,
Nova Scotia).
February 2005
Topic: Book presentation by Author Ned Crouch.
Book Title: "MEXICANS & AMERICANS: Cracking the Cultural Code".
Using humor and lively examples, Ned Crouch offers a serious cultural analysis of how Americans and Mexicans differ and why.
Whereas
this book is about Mexico and Mexicans, the methodology is useful for
interpreting the cultural behavior of any people. It is the basis for
understanding how Mexicans and people from all parts of the world
behave in the United States, what they see and how they react to
our
American culture. The ample anecdotes in the book cover Asia, Europe
and other cultures as comparison. Crouch's application of cultural
anthropology to real-life situations, along with his ability to
illuminate the context of people moving to this country, produces
unique and instructive insights.
Ned
Crouch is a cultural analyst and a seasoned businessperson. Raised in a
U.S. diplomatic family in Colombia, France and Spain, he speaks five
languages and has spent a lifetime examining the patterns and dynamics
of cultural differences. A graduate of the University of the Americas
in Mexico with a BA in International Relations, he has done graduate
work in Mexican history at Michigan State University and studied at
Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
January 2005
Cancelled due to inclement weather
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