| About Enkidu: The International
Academy for Interdisciplinary Diversities Studies
Enkidu is an interdisciplinary
and international resource center and academy for diversity
issues in the broadest sense. Enkidu
through its several activities throughout the year entertains
and enlightens but we never loose sight of the bigger issue:
With the sum of our activities, we try to make the world a tiny
bit better by sharing knowledge and making objective, academic
and serious information accessible to all. We let our readers
all over the world feel “el poder de saber”, the power of
knowing.
During
the last decades, globalisation has been increasingly
characterized by accelerating exchanges of social, cultural,
political and economic capital across geographical and political
borders. Evolving technologies have transformed the modes of
production and the means of communication between individuals,
social groups, and interacting cultures.
As
nation-states become more integrated into the global economy,
emerging challenges have not been limited to the
political-economic realm, as cultural and social exchanges
between countries have allowed for a reflection on the norms and
rules in many societies that were once seldom questioned. Researchers,
policy makers and activists worldwide have become more aware of
the social and political debates questioning deeply rooted
traditions. Today it is being discussed whether women should be
allowed to posses a driver’s license in Saudi Arabia, South
Africa has one of the most progressive human rights legislations
in the world, and, 2 federal entities in Mexico, once regarded
as the very cave of machismo, have partnership laws that also
apply for same sex couples. Both developments are result of the
contemporary globalisation of dialogue.
The
globalisation of discourses and spread of dialogue has indeed
had many positive global results, which is often overlooked in
many societies where discourses on globalisation focus
predominantly on negative aspects of economic globalisation,
often inspiring both xenophobia, and the rise of nationalism.
From its foundation in 2002, Enkidu has been monitoring the
ongoing dialogues between global definitions of human rights and
local understandings and claims to such rights. During these
years we have developed into a global forum for academic
exchange and dialogue, where numerous international scientists
from all over the world have participated. Enkidu Magazine and
its different academic subsections do not only monitor and
review the currently emerging discourses of human rights in the
global arena, but also explore the ways in which these global
debates are being carried out on the local level in different
societies.
Enkidu and
Global Community Building
Enkidu
is based on the conviction that new approaches are necessary
in order to face the challenges that characterize our time.
Instead of constructing new barriers between people and new
walls, we advocate a positive globalisation based on
intercultural dialogue and exchange which can contribute to
building bridges and tearing down walls and barriers between
people and ideas taking advantage of the possibilities offered
by the Internet.
As
the international community becomes increasingly integrated, we
need to discuss how cultural diversity and integrity can be
respected in a multicultural setting and how a "clash of
cultures" can be avoided. How could a global
coexistence emerge based on and guided by human dignity and
tolerance for human diversities, and how can we achieve greater
levels of inclusivity, social well being, and equity? A
globalised world, requires global solutions for its challenges
and in Enkidu, we are convinced that the most efficient tool to
meet the challenges of the future, is stimulating truly
universal and constant dialogues between individuals,
institutions and organisations across cultural and linguistic
frontiers.
Enkidu
serves as a catalyst to link people, institutions and
organizations from all over the world that value diversity and
plurality by bringing them together and providing an independent
forum for open dialogue and debate.
The
objectives of our different activities is to explore are to
consider how the social sciences and humanities can contribute
to a broader understanding of what constitutes the diversities,
how can social movements be brought together in constructive
dialogue, and how can the monologues of the individual social
movements about their own fragility and suffering, be
transformed into a global dialogue on how to construct a more
including society for all, and to develop an extensive body of
scientific literature on cultural responses to the globalisation
of dialogue, and to build an international network of scientists,
professionals, students and activists working with these issues.
What
do we do?
Enkidu Magazine: News Service: Diffusion of
Knowledge
Enkidu
provides a complete news service in Spanish on the internet with
daily updated coverage of a wide variety of themes from a global
perspective; human rights, civil rights, history, international
politics, theatre, culture, literature, health, religion and
society to mention a few. Thanks to a network of correspondents
throughout the world, we can provide daily news from Africa,
Asia and Europe on various topics that other media in Latin
America do not cover at all. Enkidu Magazine has several hundred
regional and thematic sections. A complete overview over the
different sections in the magazine is available here
CHiCS: Academic Think Tanks and ressource
centers: Production of Knowledge
Enkidu
through its initiative The International Society for Cultural
History and Cultural Studies (CHiCS) has organised an
international academic network which offers an exiting and
groundbreaking interdisciplinary setting for presenting and
debating new research in Cultural History and Cultural Studies
through its currently three international Academic Think Tanks:
-
The Aids in Culture Think Tank for the Study of the Cultural
History of Aids
-
The Chimalpahin Think Tank for the study of Colonialism,
Post-Colonialism and Cultural Diversity
-
The Enkidu Think Tank for Gender and Culture, Queer Studies
and Human Rights.
These
three Think Tanks are professional academic associations devoted
to encouraging interdisciplinary studies in the Humanities and
Social Sciences and promoting innovative multidisciplinary and
multicultural exchange and dialogue. The academic events
organised throughout the year by these Think Tanks, provide a
forum for diverse voices from all over the world, to come
together and make connections across linguistic, cultural and
academic barriers.
Currently these think tanks organise
4 independent conference cycles: Aids in Culture every
year in December, which seeks to examine cultural responses to
AIDS in different cultures and societies across a wide range of
perspectives. The conference explores the processes by which
AIDS is constructed as a cultural phenomenon and how different
societies in their encounters with AIDS attempt to create
meaning in health, illness and disease, The Queer Studies
Sympsium, every year in the week following Easter, which
aims at exploring recent developments in theory and method in
Queer studies as well as the broad themes of sexual diversities
through time and space, gender constructions, sex-gender
subjectivities, and sexual identity constructions, Our Summer
Conference, which interrogates storytelling, memories and
identity constructions from a wide range of perspectives,
definitions and in their manifold cultural and social
manifestations. And finally the Chimalpahin Conference which
is devoted to colonial and post colonial remembering and
forgetfulness viewed from a wide range of different
interdisciplinary perspectives with particular attention to
communicative issues and reflections on „self“ and „otherness“,
memories, historical myths and other expressions of historical
and political memory.
The
conferences aim at bringing together academics working in all
relevant disciplines as well as activists, artists and other
professionals, and promoting innovative multidisciplinary and
multicultural exchange and dialogue. We do not just create
bridges and an independent forum for exchange between the social
movements, but also an extended understanding of diversity in
its most extended meaning, through an ongoing permanent dialogue
and exchange which is the only way to deal with diversity in a
globalized world where there are no definitive answers.
Enkidu Cultural Difusion and Outreach Activities: Community
Building and Dialogue
An
important element in our work is to make information, research
and knowledge available to the general public in, which is not
published by mainstream media nor made generally accessible.
Throughout the year, Enkidu Magazine organises a variety of
events aiming at providing meeting points for activists and
academics, institutions, artists, organisations and the civil
society as such and encourage more dialogue and exchange in the
society in general. These events reach from community events,
book presentations, art exhibitions, activist meetings,
presentations of organisations and general fora for the
discussion of various topics of interest of the day.
Enkidu
Cultural Difusion Activities are currently organised in three
sub-divisions: Los
Martes de Enkidu: The Diversity Think Tank, a permanent
Forum for Dialogue and Reflexion in Mexico City, "CEDICARTE",
devoted to the promotion of "Arts and Dialogue"
and
CEDAE,
dedicated to the promotion of theatre and performing arts that
contribute to global dialogue in one way or another. Each
of these three sub-divisions sponsor their own news sections in
Enkidu Magazine.
Enkidu is also part of the international network "Gays
without Borders" and coordinate global activism. In
this project, we are the coordination centre for more than 120
LGBT organisations throughout the region.
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