Dear CRCS & ICRS students, faculty and guests, We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have Prof. Dr. Carolina Lopez C. (Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnologico de Monterrey & Centre for Civilisational Dialogue University of Malaya) as the speaker who will talk about “Moving beyond Violence: Potential Applications of Cognitive Restructuring Theory for Conflict Transformation.” Some information about this forum can be read as follows.
Date: Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Carolina Lopez C.
Abstract:
Personnel from the Center for Dialogue and Human Wellbeing (CDBH) are involved in various types of dialogue-related work. Among other activities, Peace education workshops are offered, as are mediation services, conflict transformation, healing of historical memories, trauma, and violence-related work. When CDBH members are called to work in areas where violence is prevalent, the situation is usually approached as follows. A historico-contextua l analysis of the conflict and the milieu is conducted. A needs assessment is then done using questionnaires, surveys and interviews in order to uncover the interests, concerns and the fears of all sides involved. It is through the various forms of direct interaction with the people that common interests are uncovered, which eventually form the basis for convergence in order to move from conflict to collaboration among segments of the community who have been involved in conflict. Based on the aforementioned analytical process, workshops are designed and tailored to fit the specific situation at hand. Once on-the-ground activities have advanced sufficiently, the groups previously in conflict come together to articulate shared goals and objectives, toward which they will build through collaborative projects and interaction. Finally, from the information gathered, policy recommendations are presented to the authorities; the aim is to encourage structural changes where needed in order to deepen and consolidate peaceful relations among the groups. The analytical tool utilized throughout this process is known as the Ideological- Structural Analysis (I-SA) (Lopez 2010, 2009, 2007, 2005, 2005a, 2005b, 2004a, 2004b, 2001a, 2001b, 1997, 1990), which will be discussed at length below. Among other questions, the I-SA Microtheory explores the “formatting” of memory stores in the brain, and how these are activated, leading to habitual violent patterns of response to particular inputs. In conflict situations where violence has become normativized, I-SA-based workshops offer participants the possibility of consciously choosing peaceful alternative responses to stimuli which have, in the past, provoked violence behavioral outputs on their part. The present discussion will explore the literature on Cognitive Restructuring Theory as well, asking what useful insights it might offer to aid in the process of moving communities from patterns of habitual violence to a normativizing of collaboration among peoples who have formerly been in conflict.
Registration:
The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first serve basis.
About the Speaker:
Prof. Dr. Carolina Lopez C. is a professor at Centro de Dialogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnologico de Monterrey & Centre for Civilisational Dialogue University of Malaya.
Contact Persons:
Elis Z. Anis (ICRS): elis236.andri@yahoo.com,elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina Pary (CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Maria Ingrid (CRCS/ICRS): ingridita@gmail.com.
(JMI)
