Plenary & Featured Sessions

Ask What We Can Do For The World

Thursday, October 23, 2008, 18:00
Auditorium

Dr. Nancy Adler
Bronfman Chair in Management, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

This is a moment in time, at the beginning of a century defined by globalization, that the world increasingly needs the most profound cross-cultural understanding and highest level of intercultural skills. In her keynote address - “Ask what we can do for the world?” – Professor Adler will challenge each of us to recognize the ways in which we can individually and collectively contribute, through our cross-cultural skills, to addressing the world’s most pressing challenges. As a part of the talk, she will describe how her personal background has defined who she has become and the types of contributions she, and
each of us, can make to the world.

Nancy J. Adler is the S. Bronfman Chair in Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.  She received her B.A. in economics, M.B.A. and Ph.D. in management from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
Dr. Adler conducts research and consults on global leadership and cross-cultural management. She has authored over 100 articles, produced the film, A Portable Life, and published the books, From Boston to Beijing: Managing with a Worldview, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior (5th edition, 2008), Women in Management Worldwide, and Competitive Frontiers: Women Managers in a Global Economy. 
Dr. Adler consults to private corporations and government organizations on projects in Asia, Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East. She has taught Chinese executives in the People's Republic of China, held the Citicorp Visiting Doctoral Professorship at the University of Hong Kong, and taught executive seminars at INSEAD in France, Oxford University in England, and Bocconi University in Italy. She received McGill University's first Distinguished Teaching Award in Management and was one of only a few professors to receive it a second time. Honoring her as one of Canada’s top university professors, she was selected as a 3M Teaching Fellow.

Muslim Women as Professional Interculturalists:  The influence of Islam on our personal and professional lives

Saturday, October 25, 2008, 11:00 am — 12:50 pm
Machuca

Muna Alyusuf, Pari Namazie

Two Muslim women, who are working across cultures and borders and are personally and professionally engaged in various intercultural dialogues, will examine how Islam had influenced their personal and professional lives.  Pari lives and works in her home country Iran, an Islamic country while Muna, from Saudi Arabia, lives and works in the UK, a Western secular country-dominantly Christian.
The session will explore Islamic diversity and how growing up with Islam had shaped the identity of the two Muslim women panellists, and how the two Muslim women reflect Islam through the expression of identity.
Pari and Muna will share how each understands and expresses Islamic values in every day life.
Pari and Muna will discuss myths and realities of the others’ perceptions of professional Muslim women compared to their own real life experiences and how such perceptions impact them.  We will conclude by looking at how our identities and values as Muslim women affect our work as professional interculturalists in our local and international/global contexts.

Muna Alyusuf is Cartus Global Performance Solutions, Intercultural Training Manager working with International Businesses and assignees to develop cross cultural competencies and skills to live and work effectively across cultures and borders. Originally from Saudi Arabia, Ms. Alyusuf lived, studied and worked in Saudi Arabia, the UK and the USA.

Pari Namazie, PhD is managing director of Atieh Roshan Consulting, an Iranian based private sector HR and training company.  One of her main areas of consulting and training expertise is in intercultural awareness, communication and HR skills. She has consulted and worked with different clients in intercultural awareness, communication and HR.

Rituals of Early Globalization: Reading History and Intercultural Relationships in Photography

Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 19:00  
Auditorium

Miguel Gandert
Professor, Dept. of Communication and Journalism, University of New Mexico

The rituals profiled in this talk, both religious and secular, are a confluence of Meso-American indigenous peoples and the Spanish Colonial era. The celebrations are a living symbol of the historically complex 400-year relationship between European Christianity and the pre-colonial indigenous populations of the Americas. By examining the symbols of community celebrations as layers of text, a different history can be read. The themes of racism, exploitation, civil rights, social revolution, and the environment are among the major issues mediated during these celebrations. Rituals of New Mexico, Mexico, Bolivia and Spain explore not only the confluence of two distinct worlds, but also as symbols of a complex inner struggle dwelling in the hearts of indigenous and mixed people who try to preserve a fidelity to two contradictory cultures.

Miguel Gandert, a native of Española, New Mexico, is a fine art and documentary photographer and Professor of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico. His recent work explores the contrast between the Hispanic life in Spain and Old and New Mexico.
Miguel’s photographs have been shown in galleries and museums throughout the world and are in numerous public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, and the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Beinke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at Yale, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe. His series, Nuevo México Profundo, Rituals of an Indo-Hispano Homeland, was the subject of a book and one-person exhibition for the National Hispanic Culture Center of New Mexico, in 2000, and his work was selected for the 1993 Whitney Museum Biennial.

Intercultural relations in Human Crisis, and Development: African perspectives

Saturday, October 25, 2008, 11:00 am — 12:50 pm
Picasso

Christine Musaidizi Mutengwayir
Head, Children’s Voice

The complex issues of human crisis on the one hand and rapid development on the other has led to reexamining pre- conceived ideas of intercultural relations on the African continent.
Christine Musaidizi has worked constantly in the very heart of Africa (Democratic republic of Congo) for many years to bring about understanding and justice for the most vulnerable and fragile members of society: children, through her NGO; Children’s Voice. Dealing with issues of child abuse and mistreatment, street children, child soldiers and more globally defending child rights, is sadly everyday work for the men and women of Children’s Voice. This is done in a complex environment with many actors of tribal, ethnic, religious, international origins, and partnerships with many organizations and institutions.
Christine will provide us with a unique insight to intercultural relations from an African perspective.
This will be followed by a short address by Pascale Stzum (who is based in Ethiopia) from development and business perspectives of intercultural relations in Africa.

Christine Musaidizi Mutengwayire is Head of Children’s Voice in DR Congo,  Militant and defender for the promotion of the Child rights. President of the Provincial Commission of Child Protection in North Kivu, Actor of cultural diversity in African Great Lakes, and member of the Civilian Society in North Kivu.