Peace, Culture

and Social Justice Symposium

Context

The UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education (DCMÉT) is part of the UNESCO eco-system of some 700 UNESCO Chairs internationally and 30 in Canada. A UNESCO Chair has a distinct research program, linkages with civil society, connects with the Global South, and subscribes to UNESCO values, with the environment, social justice, global citizenship and transformative education being central to DCMÉT’s priorities. DCMÉT has developed a robust and engaged series of collaborations in Canada and internationally, working in English, French and Spanish.

Goal and Objectives of 2023 DCMÉT Symposium

Goal

To cultivate and develop dialogues and engagement aimed at promoting peace, social change and social justice through critical forms of democracy, global citizenship and transformative education.

To bring together roughly 130 presenters from some 30 countries to engage (open access) through critical and deliberative dialogues crossing national, linguistic, disciplinary, cultural and philosophical boundaries;

To innovate with social media to promote dialogue and proposals for change related to peace, culture and social justice;

To produce tangible relations, collaborations, publications and other outcomes aimed at developing meaningful change;

To reach people on critical issues and ways of being to construct knowledge in an inclusive and dynamic way, particularly concerned with traditionally marginalized peoples and the Global South.

Objectives

FIRST SYMPOSIUM 2021

With the objective of enhancing, developing and consolidating the national and international networks that have been cultivated by the Chair since its founding in 2016, an initial international Symposium, entitled Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education: New Perspectives to Understand, Engage and Act Together, was organized. The pandemic transformed everything, and the first International UNESCO Chair DCMÉT Symposium (on the three themes of the Chair) took place in May 2021 entirely online and with open-access. The complete program (4 plenaries plus 36 one-hour sessions) was disseminated live via ZOOM and Facebook Live, with everything being recorded and subsequently uploaded to the Chair’s YouTube channel. Roughly a third of the sessions (there were 12 in English, 12 in French and 12 in Spanish) as well as the Keynotes included simultaneous interpretation. More than a hundred participants from some 30 countries presented multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinary dialogues on a range of themes, including Indigenous knowledge, democracy and social change, social media, global citizenship, the environment, education and emancipation, etc.. To our surprise, cumulatively more than 15,000 people
from some 70 countries attended this Symposium (and the numbers continue to grow via YouTube and Facebook).

Audience

We have several audiences in mind, and have sought to build an increasingly broader and more diverse range of partners, collaborators, organizations and attendees. Undoubtedly, the proposed Symposium, as was the case with the previous ones, seeks to engage scholars, researchers, students and the academic sector nationally and internationally in the three languages (as well as Korean).

Secondly, and we believe this makes the event more innovative and engaging, we strive to include civil society organizations (including the Association Québécoise des organisms de cooperation international) and presenters, especially in relation to social justice, solidarity and social change issues.

Thirdly, we strive to bring together international actors, such as Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding, Association québécoise des organisms de coopération internationale, Canadian Commission for UNESCO, UNESCO Chairs and others, which enhances that potential for change at the local as well as global levels on global issues, such as the environment, migration, social inequalities, conflict and war (and peace), media and communications, etc..

Fourthly, the project aims to connect with educators and students and others interested in the issues central to our Symposium. Lastly, our Symposium seeks to engage the general public and traditional media as a means of more broadly raising and presenting critical dialogues and issues.