Submission Guidelines

We invite you to submit your proposals for the

2024 SIETAR Europa Congress in Lille, France

Systems: the ecosystem of interculturalism

Intercultural Communication was never and will never exist in isolation from other fields. In fact, it was born out of a variety of different disciplines: anthropology, linguistics, psychology, ethnography, to name only a few. Intercultural Communication as a field came of age in a time and place that influenced its becoming: A slowly decolonising (and not quite decolonialising) world still rife with power-differences, dependencies, and in search of new ways of extracting value beyond overt domination. In recent years new perspectives have come into view that have deeply influenced the intercultural scene. From neuroscience to anti-racist justice, from migration studies to critical history, new voices, paradigms and perspectives begin to have significant influence on how we make sense of what it means to work on, in and for intercultural communication. 

This congress wants to explore these systemic dependencies and place interculturalism into a paradigm that looks ahead by acknowledging its past and that shapes its future with intention. We want to begin inventing solutions for problems that are emerging on the horizon, give space for difficult conversations that address the roots of divisions, animosities, and violence, and learn from each other the practical ways in which we can advance communication, co-creation and constructive dialogue, together.

The WHAT?

We live in tumultuous times. New questions are on everyone’s mind that rhyme with history, yet at the same time they seem unprecedented and overwhelming. Reflecting on these questions together might shed some light into the ecosystem of ways to understand the world where interculturalism can help. Here are some starting points that might help you think about how you can best contribute to the congress. These are not prescriptive, but we hope they might inspire you: 

Interculturalism and the political reality of now: 

• How do you work towards mutual acceptance and understanding when war is raging both in the middle of Europe and in so many other locations in the world, year after year?
• How can we engage with human rights and social justice in places near and far? And how could we include new voices – often hidden and silenced – to conversations concerning human rights and social justice in a way that avoids promoting a singular cultural narrative? 
• How do we bridge political divisions in our communities when populism, conspiracy myths and hatred dominate so much of the political discourse? 
• What could be our roles and responsibilities in relation to the treatment, reception, representation and integration of asylum seekers and refugees in the current political context of increasing hostility and rejection?

Interculturalism and the future of knowledge: 

• How could interculturalism contribute to education systems fit for the future?
• How and why to decolonise knowledge on and about intercultural communication?
• In what ways could intercultural trainings be transformative spaces of change?
• In what ways can big-data and large language models improve research practices to understand the phenomenon of culture more deeply than previously possible? 
• To what degree is artificial intelligence capable of being interculturally competent? Are intercultural trainers, coaches, consultants and researchers automatable?
• How can interculturalists make meaningful contributions to address bias in artificial intelligence technologies?

Interculturalism and the livability of this planet: 

• How to address the paradox of the desire to travel, to build a career around global mobility, or the internationalisation of business if these very actions contribute so significantly to the decline of the health of this planet?
• Global migration patterns will be amplified by extreme weather threats, particularly for the most vulnerable. What are the challenges awaiting the intercultural field that come with that?   
• What are ways for interculturalists to contribute to the healing of this planet? 

The HOW: 

At our Congress, each session will be a 1.5 hour block. You can submit proposals for the following formats. 

Research Presentations:

If you have done research these past years that culminated in interesting insights connected to the theme of the congress, we invite you to share it with the community. Your presentation should be around 20 minutes long. We will group your presentation with others that pull on a similar string and also appoint a Panel Chair, to moderate the discussions that follow. If you have suggestions on who to be paired with or who should chair the panel, please let us know. 

Project Reflections: 

These sessions can include several presenters. You can go deep into presenting more complex research projects, learning initiatives, or developments of tools, frameworks or other collaborations.  

Workshops: 

Workshops should be highly interactive: learning through doing, making, feeling, sharing. These sessions are a practical way to build up each other’s skills, be generous with our methods and, hopefully, have fun together at the same time. 

Deep Dives:

These sessions focus on one topic. They are about thinking together and going deeper than is possible alone. This might include a presentation or a talk to kick things off, but then focus on discussion and collective ideation. 

One way to do a deep dive might be, for example, an ‘In Conversation’ format, where you and a second person coming from a different field or perspective engage in dialogue on the subject before opening the conversation up to the participants in the session. But be creative – this is a new format for a SIETAR Europa Congress. 

Insight fireworks:

If you have a talk that you think everyone should hear together, then we invite you to submit a proposal for the insight fireworks session: short talks in front of everyone; 6-8 minutes, not longer.   

Policy on Hybrid: 

We want to make sure as many people as possible can participate in the SEU Congress. We also want to make sure that those who participate online have an excellent experience. In order to achieve this, we have the following policy on hybrid sessions: 

• Only Research Presentations and Project Reflections can be hybrid. 
• If you offer your session in a hybrid format, at least one of your contributors must be online and at least one present on site. 
• Workshops or Deep Dives must be either fully online or fully in person.
• Insight Fireworks as well as all other plenary sessions will be streamed online. 

Congress Registration:

The registration for participation in the Congress will open in February 2024. Please be aware that only those sessions where the person(s) proposing the session has registered for the Congress can stay in the programme. In principle, however, we hope that you are aware that presenting at the SEU Congress tends to involve costs such as registration fees, travel to and accommodation in Lille. We are aware that this can be a burden to many and we are trying to find ways to make this Congress as accessible as possible. If you need support, please reach out to us.