Rumi Forum was founded in 1999 with the mission to foster interfaith and intercultural dialogue, stimulate thinking and exchange of opinions on supporting and fostering democracy and peace all over the world and to provide a common platform for education and information exchange. The Rumi Forum and major academic centers in Washington area will hold an international symposium on the Hizmet Movement and Peacebuilding, in Washington, DC, on October 24-26, 2013.
DESCRIPTION The symposium will address the peacebuilding efforts/impact of the Hizmet (Gülen) Movement institutions worldwide. Peacebuilding, broadly defined, include activities like education, inter-faith and intra-faith dialogue, advocacy, conflict resolution, and peace education which can create trust and cooperation over ethnic, religious and other divisions. The Hizmet Movement established hundreds of educational and communal organizations and institutions in over 140 countries, most of which suffer from internal conflicts and communal divisions, such as Sudan, Philippines, Kosovo, Northern Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Tajikistan, South Africa, and Nigeria. These organizations and institutions engage in various peacebuilding initiatives that foster inclusiveness, build capacity, and create shared spaces. The symposium will assess the societal impact of these initiatives under thematic and regional categories.
CALL FOR PAPER The symposium seeks to engage the societal impact of the Hizmet Movement and invites contributions from across the social sciences, humanities, and fields of professional and community practice that critically explore the intersection of the movement and peacebuilding. The organizers invite paper proposals in these two broad topic areas:
(1) Regional focus: Peacebuilding initiatives of Hizmet organizations and institutions in different parts of the world such as Turkey, the Balkans, Central Asia, Middle East, Africa, North America, Australiasia, and comparison of such initiatives across regions
(2) Thematic focus: The Hizmet movement’s approach to peacebuilding as it compares and contrasts with other secular and faith-based, ethnic and non-ethnic, global and regional, and governmental and non-governmental initiatives around the world.
PROPOSAL GUIDELINES Proposals should include the title of the paper, biographies of the authors, and an abstract not to exceed 300 words in length, which describes the substance of the paper and relation to symposium theme. All proposals should be sent to the program committee (info@peacebuilding2013.org) by March 1, 2013. Accepted authors should submit complete papers by September 1, 2013. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings.
For more information contact the program committee at info{AT}peaceduilding2013.org or visit the website.