| Quarterly Newsletter N° 8 | October - December 2006 |
PEKEA NEWSLETTER
IN THIS ISSUE (click on a heading to jump to that section) :
1- From the General Assembly of PEKEA (Dakar, 3rd Dec. 2006)
2- An extended local PEKEA team in Rennes
3- LGC-Workshop on Local Indicators for Societal Progress (Nov 2006)
4 - Conferences, Calls for papers & Publications
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1- From the General Assembly of PEKEA (Dakar, 3rd Dec. 2006)
PEKEA organised an interesting conference with IFAN at UCAD, University Cheik Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal. All information on this conference is available on the website.
The General Assembly (GA) took place there on the 3rd of December.
It stated that PEKEA constitutes today a network of 1 027 people from 73 different countries, with a core of more than 800 academics from the human and social sciences, and citizens. These citizens are mainly involved as activists in the civil society or in social and solidarity economy where they are organising economic activities in a different manner than that advocated by mainstream thinking and by the tenants of neoliberalism.
The GA acknowledged the fact that PEKEA has achieved its goal to set up an international organisation characterized by a specific identity:
PEKEA has got an international status (to the ECOSOC of the UN since July 2006)
PEKEA is a multidisciplinary international academic think tank
PEKEA is organising an open space for deliberation, free from the mainstream thinking but not organising an alternative dogmatic school of thinking for one single truth
PEKEA is working in relation to the civil society through organisations of activists and local governments
After the launching conference in Santiago in 2002, it had been decided to organise a conference on each of four building blocks and this Dakar conference was the last planned. Thus the GA had to think about the future of PEKEA and the following decisions were adopted.
1)Elections will be organised electronically for the end of 2007, and candidates must prepare themselves especially for the Presidency. The mandate of present elected people have been prolonged until the next general assembly to be conveyed after the elections.
2)PEKEA will continue to be based in Rennes thanks to a local reinforcement of involved people
3)PEKEA will continue to work in alliances with other groups and to build an open space for deliberation according to its political and ethical approach
4)PEKEA must achieve the following tasks, thanks to the commitment of several people from various countries and disciplines:
(i) to take stock of what has been done and to write a book from it.
(ii) to disseminate largely our different way of thinking to deal with any question
(iii) to build future perspectives for research after an international scientific multidisciplinary workshop (2008) to be prepared
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2- An extended local PEKEA team in Rennes
For the future of PEKEA and for the extension of its action it will be necessary to get more staff and to have more voluntary work and first at the local office in Rennes.
Up to now we have only one administrative officer - Ms Fanny Enault who is behind ongpekea@yahoo.fr with a nice smile and always very busy. Let us take this opportunity to thank her very much on your behalf.
As the mandate of elected people have been prolonged, Marc Humbert and Danièle Bénézech are still performing a task but due to the will to extend the scope of PEKEA and in order to prepare the future, a larger group is needed to reinforce the basic team.
After discussion with Pekeists from this place some of them have agreed to team to perform the necessary support activities :
- Jean Louis Perrault is preparing a book to be drawn from our previous conferences with the help of a few colleagues from various countries and disciplines.
- Robert Frouville has taken in charge the quarterly Newsletter. Please contact him directly for your announcements: antoine.frouville@univ-rennes1.fr. He expect to host in the next one a guest editor, who will come from a different part of the world, and to include a small piece of analysis theoretical or/and empirical in line with our approach.
- Michel Renault with the expected support in Rennes from Pascale Mériot and, in other parts of France, from Jacques Perrin ( St Etienne) and Jean Gadrey (Lille), agrees to take in charge our work with the Local Government Club (LGC) in interaction with Alain Yvergniaux. Please contact Michel Renault for any suggestion and participation of any local government to our LGC : michel.renault@univ-rennes1.fr.
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3- LGC-Workshop on Local Indicators for Societal Progress (Nov 2006)
PEKEA organised on the 17h of Novembre 2006, for the new Local Government Club led by Brittany Region, Ille & Vilaine Department and Rennes Metropolis, a workshop on Local Indicators for Societal Progress.
The idea is to try to extend at the local government level the debate about the limits of national indicators as the GDP. Lars Osberg, from Canada who pioneered a work with the McDonald commission in the early 80s, and Jean Gadrey, who has led French attempts in this line, introduced the debate about the challenge to measure and to enhance the well being of the population.
Views from many attempts have been presented and discussed, from the USA with Ben Warner from Jacksonville, with Luigi Martignetti from the European Network REVES and the project SRT/TSR ( Socially Responsible Territory), Samuel Thirion from the Council of Europe and its guide for social cohesion. We discussed also an on going attempt in Luxemburg with Eric La Villunière.
Apart from plenary sessions, many small workshops have been organised, giving opportunities to executives and representatives of local governments to interact between themselves from different places and with academics from PEKEA who are involved in the research for relevant processes to improve through the design, construction and use of indexes and indicators the progress towards a better quality of life.
We enjoyed discussions with people presenting various cases from Brittany, but also from Dunkirk, Marseille, Lille…and everyone left Rennes with the hope that we will go ahead in this direction and we will organise further workshops or studies for a better understanding on how to manage our advance towards a better quality of life for everyone. A talk by Patrick Viveret closed the session by discussing what are the paths leading to a desirable human development.
All indications about this workshop are available in French on the website : Click here
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4 - Conferences, Calls for papers & Publications
Colloques
_ The II International Conference for the Community, Work & Family- Making the Connections in a Global Context, will take place in Lisbon, Portugal on the 12th - 14th April 2007. The conference is being organised by the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-ISCTE), together with the international editorial team of the journal Community, Work & Family. For all the relevant information regarding the Call for Papers, conference themes, registration, submission of abstracts, conference and social programmes, contacts and useful links, please visit the official website at Click here
If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact the Conference Secretariat at: cwf2007.cies@iscte.pt
_ The 7th. international meetings of the Inter-universitary network for Social and Solidarity Economicswill take place on the 24 - 25 may 2007 at the Faculté des Sciences Economiques of Rennes 1 University, France, and will be organised by the team of Rennes. These meetings will discuss about "Social and solidarity Economics facing its own responsibilities". The call for contributions is officially closed. Nevertheless, for any supplementary information, please contact Madame Odile Castel: odile.castel@univ-rennes1.fr
_ The Congress for Planetary Initiatives will take place at Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, on the 24 - 26 August 2007. It is intended to serve as an Open ended Global Concourse of New Ideas, Visions, and Initiatives, in All areas of social life. The Purpose of this Inter-Continental gathering, in the first instance, is to foster serious and immediate Dialog, in the hope of maintaining it on a continuing basis thereafter, between all the extant Paradigms/ World-Views/ Interests / Ideologies that have divided the Human World into disparate, and often feuding, Sectarian Groupings. The program and further information may be obtained on the net: www.congress2007.net
Calls for propositions.
_ ¿Interrogations ? A pluridisciplinary review for Human and Social sciences has launched its fourth call for propositions, entitled « Forms and Figures of precarity ». It proposes to question the relations between the salaried classes and precarity, taking into account the whole social and historical meaning of the two terms and without considering that this phenomenon concerns only the wage earners. It seems necessary for us to study the various forms taken by precarity in the "post-modern" societies, and, between the lines to question the status of present-day individualism. Any proposition for articles must be addressed to the coordinator of the review, Click herebefore the 15th.of February 2007. For further information concerning our theme and conditions for participating, thank you to consult our website : Click here
¿Interrogations ? is also most willing to accept without any delay articles which would discuss other topics, so as to include them in its other columns : "Concerning Works and Days", "Technical cards" and "Notes & Readings". Look for detailed explanations on our site: Click here
_ The Robin Cosgrove Reward is a new reward which will be granted to innovative ideas promoting Ethics in Financial activities. It has been created to generate growing conscientiousness concerning the importance of the ethical dimension in finance, among young adults from banking or other similar fields of activity in the whole world. A most eminent international jury will assess original and creative works related to projects or propositions aiming at promoting Ethics in financial activities in an innovating approach. A sum of 20 000 dollars will be shared among the winners. This Reward pays tribute to The convictions of Robin, a brilliant Business Banker who died at the age ot 31. He deeply believed that the disregard for ethics and morality in thr midst of the banking and financial fields constitute a major barrier for economic development. For more information, see: Click here
PUBLICATIONS.
_ Laville J.-L. and A. D. Cattani (coord.) and co are glad to announce the publication of the Dictionnaire de l’autre économie (Dictionary for another Economics), Gallimard, Folio actuel n° 123, 2006, 736 p. "(…) This work tries to build concrete propositions so as to promote more solidarity and democracy (...) Aiming to develop reflections on another economic approach, this dictionary offers the first reliable and accessible synthesis of the available knowledge (...) It combines a theoretical, interdisciplinary and international approach with field studies concerning social practices which have been, up to now, ignored.". So as to read the 4th. cover page, thank you to connect yourself to : Click here . For further information, please contact F. Romain frederique.romain@gallimard.fr
_ Muzart-Fonseca dos Santos I. and D. Rolland (coord.) and co. have organized the publication of La terre au brésil. De l’abolition de l’esclavage à la mondialisation, (The Earth problem in Brazil. From the abolishment of slavery to Globalization), Ed. L’Harmattan, collection Recherches Amériques Latines, 238 p. This book is organized into three periods and deals with the political, economic, social and cultural aspects related to the Earth problem in Brazil : "Historical outlooks", "Roots and contemporary problematics" and "Representations and the Imaginaries" … From History to Anthropology and Literature, without forgetting geography, economics and the analysis of social problems. Supplementary information may be obtained on the website : Click here
_On the 28th of December, at 18h30 at l'ARCHIPEL (Rennes, France), Antoine Pillet will present his book : Social and Solidarity Marketing (a debate will follow).
In a society dominated by capitalist enterprises, how do the social, alternative and solidarity enterprises manage to prosper in the economic field, to develop socially, to produce in a functional manner, to trade what is produced, to communicate with all the actors implied in the process, and so, without abandoning any of their values? Antoine Pillet proposes to share with us some successful experiments and to understand better the innovative processes in 20 of those enterprises for Social and Solidarity economics. By studying their practical decisions, he shows us how to invent and to put in practice original and efficient marketing politics.
_Forthcoming : Tetsuo ABO - Japanese Hybrid Factories, Macmillan Publishers ltd, Basingstoke, England. Comments will follow in the next Newsletter.
Site Internet
_The Attentive Management is an organization striving for "Social responsibility and societal dialogue in human-sized organisations". You may consult freely La Missive, its monthly electronic letter for information about sustainable development and Social Responsibilities of Enterprises (RSE) on its website Click here
Information
_ Our friend and colleague Doctor Maria E. Correa, Researcher at UNAM, Mexico wants to share with us her joy for having been granted the Economic-Administrative Research Award, which is the highest distinction attributed to Academic researchers.
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| PEKEA President: Yves BERTHELOT yves.berthelot@unog.ch Executive Secretary: Marc HUMBERT Marc.Humbert@univ-rennes1.fr Scientific VPdt : Theotonio DOS SANTOS theotoni@terra.com.br Treasurer: Danièle BENEZECH daniele.benezech@univ-rennes1.fr |
PEKEA Newsletter Chief editor : Robert Frouville |