[oldboys] Call from women's uni about Palestine-Israel

[Sara <sara@genderchangers.org>]

for cyberfeministic activists and activist cyberfeminists: read and write

greetz | sara

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Abou the IFU:

Tje 'IFU', an international women's university, took part in summer 2000 
in different german cities. The IFU still exists in virtual form (vifu), 
through websites, mailinglists. Since militaristic action started again 
in the palestine region and terrorists attacs continue in israel we the 
members of the vifu-mailing-lists keep reading horrible stories of both 
(or more) sides of the conflict, the civil society in palestinia and 
israel suffer, we don't know if all of our friends survived.

VEINS, this virtual encounter gives us the possibility to do something,
tough far away, we would like to find an understanding of what happens in
palestinia and israel.

----------------------------

The Virtual International Women's University (vifu) presents its first
international conference VEINS - Virtual Encounters In North-South Politics
(1)

Call for Papers:
War, Peace, and the Future of Civil Society: The Case of Palestine

A virtual international conference will be offered from 2nd May until 22nd
May 2002 with the aim of analyzing the structure of conflicts between two
peoples or nations focusing initially on the conflict between Israel and
Palestine. This conference is supported by the Virtual International Women's
University (vifu), which is a network of nearly 1000 women academics from
over 100 countries.

In the tradition of a feminist science that came into life through women's
concern for social justice and their insights into the necessity for
societal change, vifu-participants from all continents, including
Palestinian and Israeli participants, thought about appropriate topics to
be explored in the current Middle-East-Conflict.

In order to contribute to building a future for Civil Society in Palestine
and the Near East, we believe that the following issues should be addressed
and discussed:

1.	Conflicts and their backgrounds: Potentials for solutions and
	reconciliation

2.	The histories of migrations in(to) Palestine: What are their causes and
	effects? What are the regional developments and what are the impacts of
	"Globalization"?

3. 	Water, natural resources, sustainability: Where are natural resources
	located? How are they used? What effects do they have on the conflict?

4. 	Body, health, nutrition: How is the physical health of civilians
	affected by strategies of the conflicting parties?

5.	Information, communication and the media's role and potential: How is
	control centralized? How to access information as a social resource? What
	is the impact of national and international media? How can the people
	participate?


As a network of international women academics, researchers and
NGO-activists, vifu serves as a platform for women academics to exchange
information and discuss critical issues. The network was created through
the International Women's University (ifu), a three-months postgraduate
study semester which took place in summer 2000 in Germany. About 1000 women
academics met from more than 100 countries, with the majority coming from
the so called South, thus an interesting honest North-South dialogue was
started. International and interdisciplinary research concentrated on six
globally relevant thematic fields: body, water, information, city,
migration, work. 

The server "Virtual International Women's University" (www.vifu.de) serves 
these women (as well as others who joined them later) as a means to maintain 
worldwide networks of scientific cooperation and exchange. In one of these 
still very active networks the idea took shape to offer a virtual conference 
on women's views on the serious conflict between the people of Israel and 
Palestine arguably tied into a global political situation decidedly altered 
since September 2001.

As a result of this collective process, we put forward the idea that a
better understanding of a region such as the Middle East and the problems
implied in "the case of Palestine" can be developed by following the paths
provided by the ifu 2000 study programme and its major thematic fields.

The vifu-participants wholeheartedly invite you to join the vifu virtual
conference from 2nd May until 22nd May 2002 at
http://www.vifu.de/network/conference.html .

In preparation for this we ask you to send articles, papers, documents and
links by 30th April to be posted during the virtual conference according to
the fields of concern stated above to: zorn@vifu.de . If you prefer, you
can also upload your article by yourself on the conference site.

Initially, the conference will open with one discussion forum which will be
developed into different topics/ threads as needed. We ask all of you to
contribute to the discussion. Please pass this call on to colleagues who 
may want to provide a contribution or who may "just" be interested.
Thank you for your interest, your contributions and your support!

----------------------------

The VEINS conference organizing committee

Isabel Zorn
Virtuelle Internationale Frauenuniversität Vifu
University of Bremen
Fac. of Mathematics/Computer Sciences
Postf. 330440,
28334 Bremen, Germany
Tel. +49- (0)421-218-7021, Fax +49- (0)421-218-4269
email: izorn@informatik.uni-bremen.de


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