Eighth ICAR-OAS Summer Workshop: Building a Community of Practice in Latin America
This past Spring, ICAR held the resoundingly successful eighth ICAR-OAS Summer Course; bringing top level scholar-practitioners, NGO leaders, and government officials from Latin America to ICAR. The workshop focused on the application of reflective practice to social conflict resolution, and sought to assist in strengthening higher-education programs in conflict management. The two-week program was designed and organized by Professors Wallace Warfield and Christopher Mitchell, students, alumni, and friends of ICAR, a small community that has collectively been working to strengthen conflict resolution/transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean for the past ten years.
The project was run on a miniscule budget (less than $3,000), and financial assistance from the OAS’s Professional Development Scholarship Program that provided airline tickets. Participants were housed in the homes of the workshops' planning team, who also donated time, translation services, and personal resources to make this program a very unique experience. The success of this project also stemmed from the quality of the invited speakers. “It helps that ICAR faculty are always ready to support this initiative, and that ICAR alumni are now scattered throughout the key institutions in the Washington D.C. area and are willing to donate their time and share their knowledge and experience,” said planning team leader Janet Murdock.
The project has had a significant impact on the development of conflict resolution/transformation in the Latin American region. The planning team has been able to track the development and maturation of the field in Latin America, and to follow the different trends, perspectives, and approaches that have emerged. This year’s group reached an unprecedented level of reflection on their practice and even advanced some very new and interesting conceptual frameworks that help explain the complexities of working in environments of great power asymmetry and little governance.
The program has also filled an increasing demand for people with highly sophisticated skills for engaging with social conflicts in complex environments, but few credible institutions to prepare people for the challenges they face. The initiative has contributed to the professional development of over one hundred and fifty of Latin America’s top conflict resolution practitioners, helping to build a critical mass of people well positioned to foster the development of quality higher education programs in conflict resolution/transformation throughout the region.
Participants from these workshops networked into a regional community serves as a catalyst for new collaborative initiatives. Not only has the program been an important source of jobs and internships for ICAR students interested in working in Latin America, but it has also contributed to ICAR’s name recognition and reputation as the premier U.S. university in the study and practice of conflict analysis and resolution in Latin America.
A ninth ICAR-OAS course is being planned for May 2011. Due to the growing demand for the course, organizers believe that they will be able to make the course economically viable for more paying participants. The project testifies to the fact that ICAR’s influence and impact extends far beyond what budget figures show.