Whorpshop: Understand but do no harm. Writng in a multicultural age – Marcin Żyła
In the spring of this year Europe faced one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes in recent time. Almost 2,000 migrants trying to reach southern shores of our continent died or went missing in the Mediterranean Sea. Every month thousands of war and economic refugees desperately want to make their way to Europe. It’s almost certain that migration will become a growing and permanent part of our future.
This poses several questions: about European identity and borders, Western responsibility for current situation in the Middle East and North Africa, about roots of poverty, models of multiculturalism and future of tolerance. Increasingly, however, the challenges of migration are also being considered as opportunities.
These issues are among the most discussed by politics and European public opinion. Unfortunetely, there are stereotypes and prejudgements still in use. Migration and multucultural challenges are sometimes described in terms of „struggle”, „threat” or „problem”.
Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. In order to describe and explain the world, journalists, politics and social activists have to be aware of the meaning and proper usage of words. Should the phrase „First, do no harm” – taken from famous Hippocratic Oath and considered as a principle for doctors – be applied also in journalism? How could we avoid the stereotype trap, and, on the other hand, write in plain language about both chances and risks of multuculturalism? Without the words we should scarcely be able to form categories to describe the world at all. With the words however, there is a danger of depict it in a wrong way.
The aim of writing and media workshop will be to give some general advice on writing, to point out some common errors and to set some arbitrary rules of explaining migration and, more broadly, multiculturalism. During four sessions of writing and media workshops the participants will have a closer look at both political and psychological challenges posed by these issues. Working together and in groups, using different writing and presentation techniques, we’ll try to look out for phrases, words and contexts that make understanding the world harder.
At the end, we will develop and present a universal stylebook – set of rules that could apply to writing in a multicultural age, regardless of political, language and cultural differences.
Session schelude
- Session 1 – Focus on method: introduction & project development
- Session 2 – Focus on problem: brain storm, working in groups
- Session 3 – Focus on media: study visit in the newspaper’s office
- Session 4 – Focus on project: developing the final presentation of the stylebook
Marcin Żyła - polish journalist and an op-ed columnist, currently working for Tygodnik Powszechny weekly. A dedicated traveller and hitchhiker, he is the author of numerous articles, interviews and reports from countries of former Yugoslavia and South-East Europe. His main area of interest includes issues of multiculturalism, migration and contemporary history.
Workshops: Political transformation – Marcin Kędzierski
Historia magistra vitae est. Last year we were celebrating the 25. anniversary of democratic transition in Central and Eastern Europe. The Autumn of Nations brought the USSR and Cold War to its end and we were witnessing the dawn of the new Post-Cold War era. Most of the Visegrad Summer School participants have been brought up in the world of peace and cooperation. People born in Visegrad and Baltic countries around 1989 (mostly after this date) represent definitely the success generation – EU and NATO accession, unprecedented economic growth, the rise of information society. They do not remember the costs of political and economic transition.
Nevertheless, the war in Georgia, Russian annexation of Crimea and conflict in Donbas, as well as the global economic and political crisis that started in 2008, closed the Post-Cold War era. It urges us to find ourselves in a brand new world that now emerges, where foundations of our prosperity and security – EU and NATO – are now experiencing one of the biggest crisis in their history (it is worth noting that crisis in Greek means division). Moreover, the same crisis regards the Visegrad Group. As a result, we are standing in front of a new transition which shape is hazy.
On the other hand, such countries as Ukraine or Georgia (but also Belarus) are now facing transition which is less peaceful than our experience of 1989. Thus, there arise new questions: could V4 countries teach them how to transform their countries? Do we really have the same experience of political and economic transition within Central Europe? Do we want to promote the idea of shock therapy (or as it is sometimes called, shock without therapy)? Did we really complete the transition? What kind of transition do we expect, both in V4 and in Eastern Partnership countries, bearing in mind the global shift of power?
In order to answer these questions, the participants of political workshop will be invited to prepare a historical comparative analysis of V4 countries’ transition processes. On its basis they will try to identify best practices/lessons learned which may serve as indicators of successful transformation. Finally they will look at the current global challenges and try to put the Central European debate on transition in a broader geopolitical context.
Marcin Kędzierski- research and teaching assistant at the Department of European Studies of the Cracow University of Economics. He graduated from the Cracow University of Economics in International Relations and European Studies (MA) and in Economy and Public Administration (PhD). He completed internships at the Polish Embassy in Germany, European Parliament in Brussels and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland. He runs one of the oldest NGO in Poland, the Jagiellonian Club, which operates i.a. in the field of Visegrad region cooperation (he is personally responsible for the new internet portal aimed at Visegrad+ politics and economy). He covers Polish internal and foreign policy, the European integration processes, EU institutions and EU sector policies with special focus on economic and foreign policy issues.
Workshop: Urban space – Tomasz Padło
Nearly 10 million tourists visited Krakow last year. Most of them looked at the city just through the prism of its tourist attractiveness. This perspective clearly limits the possibility of closer insight. Meanwhile, when the Market Square is trampled by the British and German tourists, genius loci of the city soars beyond the city center, especially during the summer time.
The aim of the workshop is to look at Krakow as a vibrant and multifaceted town. The participants based on the experience gained from their own cities and acquired knowledge will have the opportunity to learn and creatively present what determines the character of the city: the multiple functions visible in the landscape and relations between them.
Programme:
- 7 July Initial presentation
- Photography of cities. Introduction to the workshop
- One city – many functions. Discussion based on own experiences
- 8 and 14 July Outdoor workshops
- 16 July Choosing photographs, working on the common final presentation
- 17 July Final presentation
Tomasz Padło- freelance photographer and co-founder of Bezgranica Foundation dealing i.a. with exposing and describing the phenomenon of stability of relict boundaries. He treats photography as representation of reality and uses it for knowledge promotion, therefore he focuses mostly on documentary photography, in particular on the little-invasive street photography. For many years he has been involved in studying the problem of perceiving Europe. It has also diverted his photographic interest into this issue, after taking up trials to recognize and understand the Orient. Besides, he is a geographer by profession and he has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Geography of the Pedagogical University of Cracow.
