This two-day webinar is the most recent in a series of Nitobe Symposia which bring together a diverse range of experts and stakeholders to discuss contemporary developments in language policy in international and global contexts.

The aim of this year’s Symposium is to explore the theme of “Language, conflict, and security”, a theme that has particular relevance to many global and local contexts, including Northern Ireland.

While conflicts involving language are always intertwined with other issues such as ethnic and racial identity, religion, land and property rights, democratic participation, and so on, the importance of the language dimension is often underestimated, along with the difficulties of achieving just and sustainable compromises through language legislation and policy.

This year’s programme boasts an outstanding list of contributors who will explore the following aspects of the main theme over the two days:

• Language policy in Northern Ireland and implications for power-sharing in contested societies (Monday)

• Language in humanitarian crises and pro-active peace-building in the global context (Monday)

• Language in the context of security and conflict resolution in Europe (Tuesday)

• Promoting Linguistic Justice (Tuesday)

The event will be dual-language English-Esperanto with simultaneous interpretation available.

Local convener: Dr Michele Gazzola

The event is co-organised by the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, Ulster University, and the Centre for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems (CED); we are grateful for financial support from the Esperantic Studies Foundation (ESF).

Please note that the webinar will be recorded. By registering for this event you are consenting to be included in the audio and video recording as well as in any publicity around this event. This may include the Ulster University, CED and ESF websites and their respective social media and other channels. You may ask the moderator to stop the recording if you wish to intervene.

Further information (in English): https://esfacademic.org/en/nitobe-2021/

Further information (in Esperanto): https://esfacademic.org/eo/nitobe-simpozio-2021/

Programme

Monday 26th July: 12.30 – 17.45

Sarah Williams (Governance and Compliance Manager, Belfast City Council) ~ Belfast City Council’s Language Strategy 2018-2023

Philip McDermott (Ulster University) ~ Linguistic recognition and deeply divided societies: From Accommodation to dialogue?

Janice Carruthers and Mícheál Ó Mainnín (Queen’s University, Belfast) ~ Language policy in Northern Ireland after ‘New Decade New Approach’.

Niall Comer (Ollscoil Uladh/ Ulster University) ~ Preparing the path for language legislation: Conradh na Gaeilge, Ulster University and the New Decade, New Approach Deal.

Raffaella Folli, Juliana Gerard, Lynda Kennedy, Susan Logue and Christina Sevdali (Ulster University) ~ Lessons from multilingual immigrant pupils: 10 years of Ulster Centre on Multilingualism (UcoM)

Carmen Delgado Luchner (University of Fribourg) ~ Planning the unpredictable: the managing of language intermediaries in humanitarian organizations.

Javier Alcalde (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) ~ Peace and linguistic diversity. Which role for Esperanto?

Tuesday 27th July: 12.30 – 17.45

Alessandro Rotta (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) ~ Language policies as a conflict prevention tool: the experience of the High Commissioner on National Minorities.

Roberta Medda-Windischer (Institute for Minority Rights, Eurac Research) and Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark (Åland Islands Peace Institute) ~ Linguistic integration indicators as a tool for linguistic justice: Evaluating the implementation of Ljubljana Guidelines-based policies through indicators.

Sarah McMonagle (University of Hamburg) ~ Language policy in multilingual cities.

Timofey Agarin (Queen’s University, Belfast) ~ The role of language policy others in divided societies: Evidence from democratising postcommunist nation states.

Sonja Novak Lukanovič (University of Ljubljana) ~ Is language contact in Slovenia marked by language conflict?

Ljubica Djordjević (European Centre for Minority Issues) ~ Linguistic nationalism: Legal status of languages/"languages" that emerged from the Serbo-Croatian.

Irmgarda Kasinskaite-Buddeberg (UNESCO) ~ International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) as one of the international cooperation mechanisms for the promotion of language justice.

Michele Gazzola (Ulster University) and Mark Fettes (Simon Fraser University) ~ An index of linguistic justice as a tool for conflict pre-emption.