Year: 2012

Presenter:   Professor Helena Meyer-Knapp (Evergreen State College, US.)

Date:       Sunday, December 2, 2012  (2:00pm~4:00pm)

Place:      Nishinomiya Daigaku Koryu Center (ACTA East Tower 6F,

            Seminar Rm2), 2 minutes walk from Hankyu Nishinomiya Kitaguchi Station.

            http://www.nishi.or.jp/~daigaku/info/index.html, Tel. (0798) 69-3155

Fee:        Free

Language:   English

 

Description of the presentation:

China, Japan and Korea have deep and ancient historical relationships. Bonds have been close in some periods and very distant at other times. For much of the time, connections and conflicts in NE Asia were beyond the perspective of most other nations. Europeans were in such sparse contact in medieval times that the view from far away was largely shaped by the opinions of isolated travelers, often from the Netherlands.

The situation today is very different. Japanese trade with China, China’s new economic globalization, relations between North Korea and the other NE Asian nations, conflicts over island territories from South East Asia to Russia, the hosting of the Olympic games, the great earthquake and tsunami of 2011, even Korean television dramas each attract the attention of ordinary citizens and political leaders from all over the world.

 

This presentation will explore a number of the key issues mentioned above, describing how recent public events, new trade systems and commercial products and popular culture have had an impact elsewhere in the world. The presentation will also explore in a limited way, a few key components of more recent history in relations among the three countries, to illuminate limitations in the knowledge base from which this global perspective views NE Asia.

 

Profile of the Presenter

Helena Meyer-Knapp has been a professor at The Evergreen State College, in the USA for many years, teaching about peace, politics and ethics, international relations and Asian and women’s studies. In 2001 and 2006 she was a research scholar and exchange professor at Hyogo Kenritsu daigaku

Her research centers on peacemaking and strategic studies. After a yearlong fellowship at Harvard’s Bunting Institute she authored the book Dangerous Peace-making (2003), which examines peace making in seven of the world’s war zones, and offers tools for resolving complex conflicts from local to international communities. She has been  a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2009, spending a semester teaching at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. 

 

 

 

 

 

Presenter:  Dr. Kyoko Okumoto(Osaka Jogakuin University)

Date: Saturday, November 3  (2:00pm~4:00pm)

Place:      Takatsuki Shiritsu Sogo Shimin Koryu Center

           (1 minute walk from JR Takatsuki Station),  Tel. 0726-85-3721

           http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp.

Fee:          500yen for members and students, 1.000yen for non-members

Language:     English　（English & Japanese for Q&A）

 

Description of the Presentation:

　Peace and conflict are constantly in the news today, but peace and conflict have also become important fields of academic study where both theory and analysis have been developed. While research and empirical work are important, it is essential to include practical activities in order to foster realistic change. Many NGOs around the world are working on many levels to promote peace and conflict resolution in different communities.

Asia has also been active in this area of work, and this presentation will report on a number of working groups in Northeast Asia. Prof. Okumoto is a key organiser of NARPI, the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute, an organization that works on the development of peace, and it offers two-week trainings in the summer for Northeast Asians and citizens of the world. The second summer training is scheduled for August 2012 in Hiroshima where people from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Mongolia, Russia and other countries of South and Southeast Asia will participate. The courses offered during this training include: Peace Education, Peace Mediation, Restorative Justice, Trauma Healing, and Historical and Cultural Stories of Peace. 

              Okumoto’s expertise is in the area of utilizing an arts-based approach for peacework. She will present “ho’o pono pono,” a Hawai’ian method of reconciliation that was developed for peacework in collaboration with Johan Galtung, one of the modern day founders of peace studies and the founder of Transcend Theory. Okumoto will also introduce “lukasa,” a community-based peacework activity inspired by a Congolese village. She will demonstrate how the process of dialogic communication can be used while focusing specifically on “art that reveals and highlights conflict.” The work of peacebuilding is an art in itself.

 

Profile of the presenter:

is Professor of Peace Studies, Conflict Transformation, and English Literature at Osaka Jogakuin University. Her research fields are Conflict Transformation/Nonviolent Intervention, the Arts including Literature and Drama, and the relation between the two areas. She facilitates numerous peace training workshops at all levels–from high school, to university to elderly communities. She works with NGOs such as Transcend-Japan, Transcend-International, Nonviolent Peaceforce-Japan, ACTION-Asia and Global, and Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI). She holds a PhD in the Arts from Kobe College, Graduate School of Letters in Japan and an MA in Peace Studies from Lancaster University in the UK.

 

The Power of Research in Intercultural Consulting

A workshop with Dr. Clifford Clarke

July 7, 2012, 14:00 ~ 16:00

For SIETAR KANSAI Participants

 

Program Overview

 

The Objectives of this program are to create strategies for using participatory action research to increase the power of intercultural consulting with global business leaders. (Participatory action research involves the process of professional consultants actively participating in an organizational change initiative, such as evolving an integrated corporate culture, while conducting research for the organization. Action research can be undertaken by any organization or institution with the aim of solving problems and improving their organization.)

 

The Presentation will critically review a case study of a large joint-venture corporation in Japan. The goals of this consulting project will be identified. The participatory action research approach utilized by the consultant will be presented. The research instrument and summary data will also be shared. This consulting project led to a strategy that resulted in the client’s achievement of the desired results through the corporate culture change initiative.

 

The Workshop will engage participants in discussing the case’s context, goals, participatory action research approach, and the actual client instrument and data. Participants will work together in teams to strategically develop an action plan for a consulting initiative in full collaboration with a client president appointed by each team who will question the consulting team’s assumptions, direction, and expectations. Then, after the presentation of each team’s action plan summary to the whole group and discussion, Clarke will comment on the team’s results. Then, if time permits, the same three teams will work together to constructively identify improvements in their team’s plan that might lead to their client’s achievement of excellent results and outcomes. Clarke will then share with the group the initiatives that actually occurred in the client organization and the results.

 

As Take-Aways, participants will have an understanding of the action research approach, a team-designed consulting initiative for similar clients that they believe will be effective, and the research instrument for analyses of a business client’s decision-making system.

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This presentation and workshop will be useful to any level experience in the intercultural research and management consulting field. Hopefully, each team will be composed of participants who consider themselves at the entry, intermediate, and advanced levels of experience so that mutual cooperation will enable all to feel engaged and have a meaningful time together.

 

Profile of the Presenter:

Prof. Clifford Clarke has been teaching three courses in Intercultural Communication Theory, Training, and Consulting at the University of Hawaii’s School of Communication for the past four years as an Affiliate Graduate Faculty member. He also founded and serves as the President of Global Integration Strategies where he executes research projects for businesses and educational exchange programs via his website at www.gis-tools.com and www.gis-tools.com/edu.html.

He was raised in Kyoto through high school and after over 30 relocations as a “global nomad” now resides in Honolulu, Hawaii, as a genuine “TCK” (Third Culture Kid) with his wife who is from Toyama, Japan. Together they are developing another new venture in service to local schools as External Program Evaluators.

 

GIS PROFILE

The Global Integration Strategies Corporation, founded by Clifford H. Clarke, is grounded in the discipline of Intercultural Management and has provided global companies the research, consulting and training products that have been developed and utilized with thousands of clients (individual members of over 300 client organizations) for more than two decades. Clarke pioneered a research-based approach to understanding and overcoming all types of organizational difficulties experienced by global companies,

 

GIS focuses on assisting clients with practical research reports on their internal issues created by cultural diversity in the global marketplace. In particular, these tools and training programs assist global businesses in initiatives such as transnational Technology Transfers, Overseas Assignment Services, Joint Venture Start-Ups, Mergers & Acquisitions, Headquarters & Subsidiary Alignments, Global Teamwork, Leadership Development and Subsidiary Development Projects.

 

GIS research reports offer interpretations and suggest recommendations of best practices from Clarke’s work with many world-class corporations. The impact of diverse cultures on organizational productivity, global leadership, management, team and individual performance can be turned into creative and innovative assets that create the competitive edge needed for success of the global organization.