During the 8th Iberian Conference on African Studies – ICAS8 we would like to reflect on the deep political, social, economic and cultural transformations that Africa is experiencing nowadays, as well as the reconfiguration of its relations with the rest of the world. They are provoking complex local answers, which imply resistances as well as integration in regional and global dynamics.
In November 2011 the Felsberger Institut’s director, Dr. Hartmut Quehl, visited Nicaragua and Colombia to expand the Felsberger Institut e.V. research activities in Latin America as well as to make arrangements on common research projects and prepare co-operation agreements.
An agreement for co-operation was finalised with the Martin-Luther-King-Institute at the UPOLI in Managua, Nicaragua. In addition, an action-plan was enacted within the common research project concerning both the social- and everyday history of the Nicaraguan war and 'demobilisation and reintegration'. To this end, a working group has been formed, and Mr. Jesus Martin Torres Tableada has been recruited as a new member of the Felsberger Institut-Team. Initial investigations for future field research were carried out in León and at the border with Honduras. A basic contract on the joint research programme is currently in development and will be signed in 2012.
Dr Quehl's itinerary also included a visit to Colombia. Potential joint academic activities and research projects in the field of migration were discussed at the Universidad del Rosario. As in Nicaragua, the completion of a co-operation agreement is scheduled for 2012.
On 25th November 2010, Mr Nazar Jamil, Felsberger Institut e.V.'s Iraq Desk Officer in Erbil, visited the city of Kirkuk in order to hold cooperation talks.
He met with Mrs Tania Muhamad, head of the Kirkuk based NGO called CDO (Community Development Organisation) for an assessment of NGO activities in Kirkuk. As one main outcome of the meeting, both sides agreed upon conducting a conference on "Ethnic Victimisation" in Kirkuk.
A second meeting took place at the University of Kirkuk, where Nazar Jamil met with the rector for the College of Law and lectures of "Human Right Subjects". The university agreed upon participating in the Kirkuk "Ethnic Victimization" conference and presenting presentations. As a second topic, both sides discussed possibilities of staff training in lecturing on human rights subjects as well as developing a teachers' guideline for human rights studies.
Meetings will be continued in 2011.
From November 6 to 9, 2010 the director of Felsberger Institut e.V., Dr Hartmut Quehl, visited together with Mrs Natalie Charkow the "Instituto Martin Luther King" in Nicaragua to hold preliminary talks about cooperation possibilities between the two institutions in the field of academic research. The "Instituto Martin Luther King" is part of the Polytechnical University of Managua (UPOLI) and works in political sciences. It has a long experience in the research of the Nicaraguan war and in the practical fields of peace building and reconciliation between the former Nicaraguan warring parties and the civil society.
During the meetings both sides discussed the plan of realising a common research project on a comparative social history of wars. Together with Ref. José Miguél Torres and Martín Torres, Dr. Quehl and Mrs Charkow paid a visit to the settlement of Nueva Guinea where IMLK has played an active role in the reconciliation process. First meetings with ex-combatants and members of the former warring parties were held.
Felsberger Institut e.V. and IMLK agreed upon a second meeting in Nicaragua in 2011 in order to discuss the realisation of the research project and ist parctical implementation
