key words: academic public outreach research journalism media partner self society politics participation political behaviour trauma wissenschaft oeffentlichkeit forschung publizistik individuum gesellschaft politik partizipation politisches verhalten
Different types of work are involved and so people with various skills and experience are sought.
Research The themes of study are being put forward with the intention of stimulating and enabling new multi-disciplinary working processes. Working groups, with the help of PSAMRA's experience and the advice of our many colleagues and friends across the world, take on the task of building on-going programmes, designing new projects and, again with PSAMRA's help, finding the additional resources to carry these through. From experience we know that much can be achieved using existing resources and with help from academic institutes, universities and others.
Continuity There is much to be done to help ensure that PSAMRA's work in the fields of human ecology and polemology (peace and conflict research) can grow and continue. Here we need people and resources to improve our documentation, administration, conference organisation, networking with related projects and initiatives, acquiring more office space and equipment, project-related and general fund-raising.
Outreach We explicitly aim NOT to be "ivory tower" researchers but to reach out to communities and a broad public. Ideas, for instance about how children may be helped to cope with environmental threats, about individual and social responses to racist violence, or about strategies to enable democratic participation in public decision-making need to be spread, diffused. So PSAMRA seeks further links to writers, social and political commentators, publishers, journalists and other specialists in public relations and mass-media, in order to optimise our communication with the broader public, in parallel to and growing out of our research programmes.
Outline of Research and Networking Plans
For the integral studies programme, initiated by PSAMRA, we are looking for partners from different backgrounds in and outside of academia to build work including empirical and field studies, and public discourse, in the following subject areas:
‹ political behaviour This is broadly interpreted to include non-conventional, extra-parliamentary and conventional political behaviour, especially involvement in struggles against oppression, for worthy causes, for participation in democratic decision-making and in "new social movements". Because they have particular responsibilities for the future of humanity, the western-style (old) democracies are to be especially focussed upon We want to see our network of experts grow worldwide and to set up a task group, with some new research associateships and fellowships based in Germany/Berlin.
‹ trauma, stress and their "cultural dynamics" Here we have begun to examine the effects on people, their offspring and societies of politically caused repression and torture and to discuss and publically debate what must happen if societies (of all sizes) are to "learn" to avoid repetition. We have initiated a working group, which has convened several times, whose members include clinically practising psychotherapists from Armenia, Russia, ex-German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Roumania, Croatia and elsewhere. We want people of different academic and professional backgrounds to join in this debating and working process, e.g. historians, jurists, philosophers, sociologists, communications specialists, educational scientists, journalists, educators.
contact:
Dr. Michael Macpherson, Psycho-Social and Medical Research (PSAMRA)
e-mail: mm@iniref.org
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