Transformations 2006

Welcome to website for the Transformations 2006, to be held at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia's capital, from 27-29 November 2006. The focus of this conference will be on global and local trends in cultural diversity and sustainable development. Main speakers will include leading thinkers in the field, and these will be supported by paper, workshop and colloquium presentations by researchers and practitioners.

Participants are also welcome to submit a presentation proposal either for a 30 minute paper, 60 minute workshop, a jointly presented 90 minute colloquium session. or a virtual session. Parallel sessions are loosely grouped into streams reflecting different perspectives or disciplines. Each stream also has its own talking circle, a forum for focused discussion of issues.

Presenters may choose to submit written papers before or after the conference for possible publication in The International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, a fully refereed academic journal. Virtual participants also have the option to submit papers for consideration by the journal. All registered conference participants receive a complimentary online subscription to the journal for one year after the conference end date.

If you would like to know more about the conference, bookmark this site and return for further information - the site is regularly updated. You might also wish to subscribe to the conference and journal newsletter.

For all inquiries, please contact the conference secretariat.


Who Should Attend

Transformations2006 will be of interest to:

TRANSFORMATIONS – A short history

The first Transformations conference was held at the Australian National University in February 2005. The goal of that event was to shift the understanding and practice of multiculturalism within the Australian context, to explore how cultural diversity should be seen as both an asset and as an issue that should be integrated into all policy, planning and programs whether this happens at the precinct, or the global levels.

So original and so successful was Transformations, and so keen were delegates to see the momentum of the event continue and the actions maintained, that the convening organisations have agreed to run the conference on a biennial basis. The second Transformations will therefore be held in November 2006, again at the Australian National University.

ABOUT TRANSFORMATIONS 2006

Transformations 2006 is shaping up to be a stimulating think tank that will raise and explore important issues relating to Australia’s cultural, linguistic and faith diversity.

As well as plenary sessions delivered by some of the most influential and knowledgeable speakers on cultural diversity, Transformations 2006 will also encompass an unique series of collaborative intimate discussions that engages communities, government, bureaucrats, academics, the media and human service planners, spanning the local to national level.

Transformations 2006 is also an international event, supported by a number of intergovernmental and international NGOs.

Part of the agenda of the convening agencies of Transformations2006 is to recognise, in a post-industrial, globalised world environment, that human development must be understood as a process that occurs both locally, but within a total environment. Furthermore, planning for development is not just a function of economics, social or political change, health advancement, human and cultural rights, the absence of physical violence, or sustainable physical environments. Rather, it is achieved within, and through, interplay of all these functions.

These processes, inter-related, iterative, and necessarily achieved through collaborative and simultaneous endeavour, have been recognised for many years. They were first comprehensively yet succinctly described in the document that distilled much of the earlier thinking: the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, November 2001 (UDCD). The UDCD came into being in a "post-September 11" world – its significance was at the same time displaced (in the environment of global shock that then existed) as well as reinforced, by demonstrating the compelling need for an articulate and rational vision for global collective action and shared values, rather than reactive violence and oppositional politics. In summary, the UDCD argues for a new understanding of the value of human difference. It is designed to protect and enhance the international intellectual, economic, spiritual and moral value of cultural diversity. The Declaration affirms this diversity as the vital resource to protect cultural rights, bio-diversity, individual self-value, social harmony, cross-cultural communication and to "humanise globalisation."

As an international policy framework, the UDCD can be adapted to national purposes to help transform civil society. It has the potential to improve our community harmony, our relationship with the environment and the way we develop economies through a new understanding of the physical and human world. The second Transformations conference will continue to explore the themes and priority issues that have emerged from international policy work associated with cultural diversity since November 2001. This endeavour will further develop the Pacific Asia Observatory for Cultural Diversity in Human Development.

We will further examine critical issues first raised in February 2005 and help plan for more comprehensive responses.

We will focus on those areas that were insufficiently examined in the first Transformations (notably the nexus between cultures, physical environments and sustainable development).

We will analyse pressing tensions within local and international communities arising from the so called "clash of cultures" and government responses to evolving perceptions of religious, cultural, political and economic difference.

As with the first Transformations conference, we will continue to model a new kind of partnership that includes those working across all levels in policy and planning, the community sector, business, service delivery, and in tertiary institutions as students and academics.

Conference Organisers



Conference Coordinators