IAFOR > The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture (BAMC) > BAMC2024 Overview

BAMC2024 Overview

Join us in Barcelona for BAMC2024!

13-16 November, 2024 | Held in Barcelona, Spain (and online)

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Introduction

The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) and the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, Japan, invite you to join The 5th Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media, and Culture, running alongside The 5th Barcelona Conference on Education. With an open call for papers, this event offers an engaging exploration of Education, Arts, Media, and Culture's latest advancements, inspired by diverse global ideas. Rooted in international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary foundations, BCE/BAMC2024 provides exceptional networking, professional development, and opportunities to present and publish contemporary ideas for academics at all career stages.

Throughout its history, Spain has served as a bridge connecting European and Arabic thought, having been conquered by both Romans and Arabs. This historical intersection became the cradle from which Arab intellectualism spread into Europe, showcasing the potential for different cultures to thrive and mutually influence one another within the same geographical space. Situated at the crossroads of Europe and North Africa, with the magnificent Mediterranean Sea as its backdrop, Barcelona has long been a focal point for intercultural communication and exchange and a harmonious coexistence of various cultures and ideas.

Today, this legacy continues to thrive in the city. Barcelona not only boasts its status as an international hub, seamlessly blending tradition and modernity, but it also serves as a hub of political and cultural uniqueness. As the epicenter of Catalonian separatism, Barcelona is a living testament to a politically active civil society composed of a distinct cultural and linguistic minority that ardently fights for its rights. Barcelona is where the realms of multiculturalism, linguistic diversity, political activism, technology, and global communication intersect, making it an ideal setting to explore interdisciplinary themes and collaborate with scholars from around the world.

In this dynamic and globally connected city, our conference, with a thematic focus encompassing Education, Arts, Media, and Culture, provides an opportunity to engage with a rich tapestry of ideas, cultures, and perspectives. Barcelona is where the realms of multiculturalism, linguistic diversity, political activism, technology, and global communication intersect, making it an ideal setting to explore interdisciplinary themes and collaborate with scholars from around the world.

In keeping with IAFOR’s commitment to interdisciplinary study, delegates at either conference are encouraged to attend sessions in other disciplines. Registration for either conference will allow delegates to attend sessions in the other. We expect the resultant professional and personal collaborations to endure for many years, and we look forward to seeing you in Barcelona and online!

– The BAMC2024 Programme Committee

IAFOR Journal of Education (Scopus Indexed Journal)

This conference is associated with the Scopus and DOAJ listed IAFOR Journal of Education.
 

Key Information
  • Venue & Location: Held in Barcelona, Spain (and online)
  • Dates: Tuesday, November 12, 2024 ​to Saturday, November 16, 2024
  • Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: June 14, 2024*
  • Final Abstract Submission Deadline: August 16, 2024
  • Registration Deadline for Presenters: September 20, 2024

*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.

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Speakers

  • Eva Martín Álvarez
    Eva Martín Álvarez
    Teacher Center of Aragó, Spain
  • Heitor Alvelos
    Heitor Alvelos
    University of Porto, Portugal
  • Susana Barreto
    Susana Barreto
    University of Porto, Portugal
  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Middlesex University, United Kingdom
  • Joan Delgado
    Joan Delgado
    The Raval's Band, Spain
  • Agustín Gálvez
    Agustín Gálvez
    The Raval's Band, Spain
  • Raúl Fortes-Guerrero
    Raúl Fortes-Guerrero
    University of Valencia, Spain
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    Binghamton University, United States
  • Carme Martínez-Roca
    Carme Martínez-Roca
    Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
  • Mercedes Molina
    Mercedes Molina
    Valencian Community, Spain
  • Baden Offord
    Baden Offord
    Curtin University, Australia
  • Dolors Ortega Arévalo
    Dolors Ortega Arévalo
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes
    Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes
    Curtin University, Australia

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Programme

  • The Horizon of Our Common Cause: Narratives, Ideas and Conviviality
    The Horizon of Our Common Cause: Narratives, Ideas and Conviviality
    Keynote Presentation: Baden Offord
  • East Wind, West Wind: Intertextuality, Transculturality, and Temporal and Spatial (Re)creations in the Cinema of Miyazaki Hayao
    East Wind, West Wind: Intertextuality, Transculturality, and Temporal and Spatial (Re)creations in the Cinema of Miyazaki Hayao
    Keynote Presentation: Raúl Fortes-Guerrero
  • Future-Focused Education through Critical Appreciative Dialogue
    Future-Focused Education through Critical Appreciative Dialogue
    Keynote Presentation: Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes
  • Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
    Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
    Panel Presentation: Dolors Ortega Arévalo, Assutzena Badenes, Eva Martín, Carme Martínez
  • The Work of the University in Perilous Times
    The Work of the University in Perilous Times
    Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall
  • Communicating Knowledge Through the Wreckage of Disinformation: An Exploratory Workshop
    Communicating Knowledge Through the Wreckage of Disinformation: An Exploratory Workshop
    Workshop Presentation: Heitor Alvelos, Susana Barreto
  • Global Citizenship and Responsible Tourism
    Global Citizenship and Responsible Tourism
    The Forum: Donald E. Hall, Melina Neophytou
  • A Journey Through the History of the Catalan Rumba
    A Journey Through the History of the Catalan Rumba
    Rumba Catalana Performance and Workshop: Joan Delgado, Agustín Gálvez

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International Advisory Board

Dr Joseph Haldane, Chairman and CEO, IAFOR
His Excellency Professor Toshiya Hoshino, Osaka University, Japan
Professor Barbara Lockee, Virginia Tech., United States
Professor Donald E. Hall, Binghamton University, United States
Dr James W. McNally, University of Michigan, United States & NACDA Program on Aging
Professor Haruko Satoh, Osaka University, Japan
Dr Grant Black, Chuo University, Japan
Professor Dexter Da Silva, Keisen University, Japan
Professor Gary Swanson, University of Northern Colorado, United States
Professor Baden Offord, Curtin University, Australia
Professor Frank Ravitch, Michigan State University, United States
Professor William Baber, Kyoto University, Japan

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Conference Programme Committee

Professor Heitor Alvelos, University of Porto, Portugal
Dr Sue Ballyn, University of Barcelona, Spain (Conference Co-chair)
Professor Anne Boddington, Executive Vice-President and Provost, IAFOR & Middlesex University, United Kingdom
Professor Susana Barreto, University of Porto, Portugal
Dr Joseph Haldane, IAFOR and Osaka University, Japan, & University College London, United Kingdom (Conference Co-chair)
Professor Raul Fortes Guerrero, University of Valencia, Spain
Dr Mattia Mantellato, University of Udine, Italy
Gloria Montero, Novelist, Playwright and Poet, Spain
Professor John McLeod, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Dr Dolors Ortega Arévalo, University of Barcelona, Spain
Professor Antonella Riem, University of Udine, Italy

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Conference Review Committee

Dr Abdulrahman Alghannam, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia
Dr Joana Braguez, Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Portugal
Dr Matthew Brooks, University of Nebraska at Omaha, United States
Dr Mei-hsin Chen, University of Navarra, Spain
Dr Gennadiy Chernov, University of Regina, Canada
Dr Ana Gogilashvili, Sulkhan Saba Orbeliani University, Georgia
Dr Alexander Ibni, Zamboanga Peninsula Polytechnic State University, Philippines
Dr Lai Hoon Lim, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology, Malaysia
Dr Rebecca Lind, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Professor Elsa Maria Morgado, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Portugal
Dr Bharti Shandilya, University of Delhi, India
Dr Neda Soleimani, Islamic Azad University Science and Research Branch, Iran
Dr Noor Hasbi Yusoff, University of Wollongong in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

IAFOR's peer review process, which involves both reciprocal review and the use of Review Committees, is overseen by the Conference Programme Committee under the guidance of the International Academic Board (IAB). Review Committee members are established academics who hold PhDs or other terminal degrees in their fields and who have previous peer review experience.

If you would like to apply to serve on the BAMC2024 Review Committee, please visit our application page.

Apply to Join the Review Committee

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Eva Martín Álvarez
Teacher Center of Aragó, Spain

Biography

Eva Martín Álvarez is a graduate in Foreign Language Teaching and Speech Therapy. Her career has always been in public education, starting in 2005 with home and hospital care. She has worked in various classroom settings as a primary school teacher, mostly in rural schools, and served as the director of an educational innovation centre for four years. She has spent eight years at CPEPA Cella as an adult education teacher and is currently working at a teacher training centre, coordinating various Erasmus+ projects among other roles. Additionally, she has served as the Aragonese Ambassador of EPALE (Electronic Platform for Adult Education in Europe) since 2020.

Panel Presentation (2024) | Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
Heitor Alvelos
University of Porto, Portugal

Biography

Heitor Alvelos is Full Professor of Design and Director of The ID+ Research Center at The University of Porto, Portugal, where he coordinates the Unexpected Media Lab. He currently serves as Vice-President of the European Academy of Design and is a Member of Academia Europaea and the European Science Foundation. Professor Alvelos has held prior posts in academic institutions throughout Portugal and internationally, including Course Director of the PhD in Design programme at The University of Porto from 2011 to 2024; Chairman of the Scientific Board (HSS) at The Foundation for Science and Technology from 2016 to 2022, Outreach Director for the Digital Media programme at The University of Austin Portugal from 2010 to 2014, and Senior Tutor in the Drawing Studio at The Royal College of Art, United Kingdom, from 1999 to 2001. Heitor has coordinated a wide range of national and international research projects since 2007 and throughout his academic career, including curation of the FuturePlaces Media Lab for Citizenship from 2008 to 2017 with the University of Texas at Austin, United States, and the recent FCT/H2020 project Anti-Amnesia: Design Research as an Agent for Narrative and Material Regeneration and Reinvention of Vanishing Portuguese Manufacturing Cultures and Techniques.

Workshop Presentation (2024) | Communicating Knowledge Through the Wreckage of Disinformation:An Exploratory Workshop
Susana Barreto
University of Porto, Portugal

Biography

Susana Barreto is a researcher at LUME, Unexpected Media Lab and Associate Professor of Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, Portugal. In recent years, Professor Barreto has been involved in research projects focused on preserving specialised knowledge at risk of disappearance, specifically those embedded in the experiences of retired professors, artists, researchers, and practitioners in the arts, crafts, and design. Her research interests focus on the role of ethics in visual communication, design and crime, design culture, visual methodologies, and visual/history collections.

Workshop Presentation (2024) | Communicating Knowledge Through the Wreckage of Disinformation:An Exploratory Workshop
Anne Boddington
Middlesex University, United Kingdom

Biography

Professor Anne Boddington is Executive Vice-President and Provost of IAFOR, and oversees the academic programs, research and policies of the forum.

Anne Boddington is Professor Emerita of Design Innovation and has held executive and senior leadership roles in Higher Education including as Dean of Arts & Humanities at the University of Brighton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business & Innovation at Kingston and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Middlesex University.

In 2022 she concluded chairing the Sub Panel (32) for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory as part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) and has extensive experience in the governance and conduct of peer review, research evaluation and assessment in REF2014 (Sub Panel Deputy Chair and Equality Diversity Advisory Panel [EDAP]) and RAE2008. A former member of AHRC’s Advisory Board, she is the current Chair of the Advisory Board for the UKRI’s National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research (NICER) programme (£30M), Deputy Chair and a Trustee of the Design Council, the government’s strategic advisor for design, and a member of both the InnoHK Scientific Committee (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ).

Since the 1990’s Anne has worked across the UK and internationally with a wide range of quality assurance, professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Hong Kong, and India.

As an independent consultant she now works as a strategic advisor and mentor and is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in practice, developing effective governance, supporting career development, reducing bureaucracy, and improving organisational design, integrity, and productivity in the changing workplace.

Special Address (2024) | TBA
Joan Delgado
The Raval's Band, Spain

Biography

Guitarist Joan Delgado is an architect with a passion for music. He studied classical guitar from a young age, over time discovering the magic of the regional 'rumba catalana' sound and its ‘ventilador’. From this moment on, his interest in the guitar shifted to that of an accompanist, blending his background in flamenco with specialised training in the Andalusian guitar.

Mr Delgado has been a constant feature of Barcelona's musical scene since 2010, accompanying musicians in various styles (including flamenco, rumba, bossa nova) and combining the rhythmic base of the solo guitar with traditional latin rhythms. He is known for his collaborations with Swiss-Mexican singer Raissa Avilés and more recently with Argentinian singer Dominique Maucci and French-Tunisian percussionist Narjess Saad.

In addition to his work as a guitarist, composer, and arranger in his rumba catalana band, International del Raval, Mr Delgado has honed his skills as a musician with courses in percussion (including cajón flamenco and palmas) and has played as a trombonist in the Raval's Band and the Txaranga de la Prospe.

Interactive Performance (2024) | The Rumba Catalana: An Interactive Performance by Joan Delgado and Agustín Gálvez
Agustín Gálvez
The Raval's Band, Spain

Biography

Although musician-singer Agustín Gálvez was born in Bilbao, his family came from the region of Aragon of northeastern Spain. Mr Gálvez learned to play the traditional Aragonese bandurria when he was seven years old, performing in local groups throughout his youth. Although music has always been a part of his life, he began studying it seriously after he moved to Barcelona and transitioned from a competitive athletic career. He bought himself a tenor saxophone and began taking classes at the then-recently established Taller de Musics in Barcelona. He gradually added classes in solfeo at the Conservatory of Music and, given the quality of his singing voice, was urged to study singing.

Although he trained as a lyric tenor, he always gravitated towards salsa – boleros, rumbas, huarache – while performing professionally with various bands. He is now part of three Big Jazz bands – The Raval's Band, L'EM Big Band, and the Bibandinou.

Interactive Performance (2024) | The Rumba Catalana: An Interactive Performance by Joan Delgado and Agustín Gálvez
Raúl Fortes-Guerrero
University of Valencia, Spain

Biography

Professor Fortes-Guerrero combines his work as a researcher and lecturer of Japanese language and culture at the University of Valencia’s Area of East Asian Studies with his task as coordinator of the Asia and Oceania Committees at the university’s International Observatory of Intangible Culture and Global Village (UVObserver-Intangible Heritage), linked to the UNESCO Chair for Development Studies. He received his BA in Audiovisual Communication, his BA in History of Art with Special Distinction, and his PhD Cum Laude and International Doctor Mention in History of Art from the University of Valencia, Spain. To this can be added his duties as a member of scientific committees of congresses (XIV Congreso Nacional y V Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Estudios Japoneses en España), peer reviewer for scientific journals (MIRAI. Estudios Japoneses, FOTOCINEMA. Revista Científica de Cine y Fotografía), and exhibitions curator (Hiroshige y su época. Visiones de la naturaleza en el arte japonés y chino del siglo XIX).

His research achievements have awarded him two prestigious fellowships (Association of International Education, Japan; Spanish Ministry of Education and Science’s National Teacher-Training Program) an Erasmus grant for teachers’ mobility, and research posts at Waseda University, Japan; Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom; and the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Professor Fortes-Guerrero has authored a number of articles, books, and book chapters, including , among them the most comprehensive monograph on Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki written in Spanish (Hayao Miyazaki, Akal, 2019) and a reference film guide for his praised movie Spirited Away (“El viaje de Chihiro”. Hayao Miyazaki (2001), Nau Llibres/Octaedro, 2011).

Professor Fortes-Guerrero has also served as a translator for the reference journals “L'Atalante”. Revista de Estudios Cinematográficos and Hojas en la acera. Gaceta trimestral de haiku. He also publishes his tanka poems monthly in Kokoro no Hana, a renowned literary magazine published by the Japanese poetry society Chikuhaku-kai.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | East Wind, West Wind: Intertextuality, Transculturality, and Temporal and Spatial (Re)creations in the Cinema of Miyazaki Hayao
Donald E. Hall
Binghamton University, United States

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), USA. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA, and held a previous position as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Provost Hall has published widely in the fields of British Studies, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies, and Professional Studies. Over the course of his career, he served as Jackson Distinguished Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English (and previously Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages) at West Virginia University. Before that, he was Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for 13 years. He is a recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN, was a visiting professor at the National University of Rwanda, was Lansdowne Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria (Canada), was Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Studies at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, and was Fulbright Specialist at the University of Helsinki. He has also taught in Sweden, Romania, Hungary, and China. He served on numerous panels and committees for the Modern Language Association (MLA), including the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, and the Convention Program Committee. In 2012, he served as national President of the Association of Departments of English. From 2013-2017, he served on the Executive Council of the MLA.

His current and forthcoming work examines issues such as professional responsibility and academic community-building, the dialogics of social change and activist intellectualism, and the Victorian (and our continuing) interest in the deployment of instrumental agency over our social, vocational, and sexual selves. Among his many books and editions are the influential faculty development guides, The Academic Self and The Academic Community, both published by Ohio State University Press. Subjectivities and Reading Sexualities: Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies were both published by Routledge Press. Most recently he and Annamarie Jagose, of the University of Auckland, co-edited a volume titled The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. Though he is a full-time administrator, he continues to lecture worldwide on the value of a liberal arts education and the need for nurturing global competencies in students and interdisciplinary dialogue in and beyond the classroom.

Professor Donald E. Hall is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Arts, Humanities, Media & Culture division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Keynote Presentation (2024): The Work of the University in Perilous Times
Keynote Presentation (2023): There Is No New Normal
Carme Martínez-Roca
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Carme Martínez-Roca is Founder and Director of the Foundation Fem Pedagogia, an NPO aimed at generating learning opportunities for personal fulfilment, social equity and environmental sustainability. She is also an Associate Lecturer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, where she received her doctorate degree for her thesis on Guidance, competence development and reduction of structural factors for employment. She lectures and is an expert on Educational Guidance. Dr Martínez-Roca has developed programs addressing personal, interpersonal, and structural barriers for academic and professional success in Copenhagen, Denmark Johannesburg, South Africa; and Barcelona, Spain. She has worked extensively with adult basic education centres, secondary education centres, municipalities, supra-municipal bodies, and international organisations such as UNESCO, PNUMA, and The Red Cross. Her recent publications in English are GPS to a better future: career guidance for social justice in Catalonia’s adult learning centres (2019), Career guidance for emancipation. Reclaiming justice for the multitude (2017), and the chapter "Guidance in Catalan Secondary Education" in Career Guidance and Livelihood Planning across the Mediterranean. Challenging Transitions in South Europe and the MENA Region (2017).

Panel Presentation (2024) | Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
Mercedes Molina
Valencian Community, Spain

Biography

Mercedes Molina received a degree in Philosophy and Literature specialising in English Philology from The University of Alicante University, Spain, in 1997. After earning her degree, she served as a contract teacher in secondary education in public high schools in the Balearic Islands from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, Ms Molina continued her teaching dedication within the Valencian community as a contract teacher in public adult schools in various cities within the Alicante province of Spain, including Novelda, Petrer, and in Alicante City. She primarily taught languages, including Spanish, Valencian, and English at different levels.

In 2007, she passed the exam for secondary school teaching and became a state civil servant and took up a permanent position as an adult educator in the communicative field (Valencian, Spanish, and English) at the Adults School Center (CFPA) in San Vicent del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain. She currently serves as the headmaster of the Center, a position she has held since 2014.

Panel Presentation (2024) | Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
Baden Offord
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Baden Offord is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights at Curtin University, Australia. Born in Aotearoa/New Zealand of Māori and Pākehā heritage, he has lived most of his life in Australia, as well as several years in Spain, South India, and Japan. An internationally respected scholar in human rights, education, sexuality and culture, his latest book (co-edited with Fleay, Hartley, Woldeyes and Chan) is Activating Cultural and Social Change: The Pedagogies of Human Rights (London, Routledge: 2022).

Professor Offord has held academic appointments as the Dr Haruhisa Handa Chair of Human Rights in the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University (2015-2020); as Chair (Visiting Professor) of Australian Studies, Centre for Pacific and American Studies at The University of Tokyo (2010-2011); as Visiting Professor at the University of Barcelona; and as Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights at Southern Cross University (1999-2014). He has also had visiting positions at Indiana University, the University of Auckland, and La Trobe University. In 2021 he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) ‘for distinguished service in tertiary education in the field of human rights, social justice and cultural diversity.'

Professor Offord is a member of IAFOR’s Academic Governing Board. He is Chair of the Cultural & Area Studies section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Keynote Presentation (2024): TBA

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2021): Engaging with Culture: A Conversation on Decolonising the Future
Keynote Presentation (2020): The Relevance of the Humanities and Arts in Uncertain Times
Dolors Ortega Arévalo
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Dolors Ortega Arévalo has been a lecturer of Literature in English at the University of Barcelona, Spain since the year 2010, teaching courses focused on Contemporary Fiction in English, Modernist and Postmodernist Literature in English, Medieval Literature, North American Contemporary Fiction, Shakespeare and Postcolonial Literatures, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She received her PhD from the University of Barcelona and she was awarded the European Doctorate Mention for her thesis "Deterritorialising Patriarchal Binary Oppositions: Deleuze, Woolf, Masculinities and Film Adaptation", after a year as a Visiting Doctoral Researcher under the supervision of Dr Humm at the University of East London, United Kingdom. Her research has focused mainly on Modernist writers, Gender Studies, Contemporary British Fiction, Film Adaptations, Postcolonial Literatures and the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. She has most recently been working on transnationalisms and hybridity and has published the prologue and only authorised annotated Spanish translation of F.S. Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon (2014) as well as the prologue of F.S. Fitzgerald’s Cuentos Rebeldes (2018). She is a member of the consolidated research group Ratnakara with its current project “Rhizomatic Communities: Myths of Belonging in the Indian Ocean World,” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PGC2018-095648-B-I00). She has been a member of the academic committee of the MA “Construcció i Representació d’Estudis Anglesos” of “Facultat Filologia i Comunicació de la Universitat de Barcelona”, and is currently a member of the executive committee of “Centre d’Estudis Australians i Transnacionals (CEAT)” and the Head of Studies of CFA Rius i Taulet School for Adults in Barcelona.

Panel Presentation (2024): Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2022): “Adult Education and the ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’: Vulnerability, Resilience, and Lifelong Learning”
Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes is a researcher, writer, and poet from Lalibela, Ethiopia. He currently lives in Whadjuk Noongar Boodja (Perth, Western Australia), where he is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia. Drawing from the history, philosophy, and experiences of marginalised people, Dr Woldeyes contributes critical insights for reimagining the future and addressing epistemic and racial injustices. He researches African experience and Ethiopian traditions and writes creatively on diasporic lives and belonging. His research in education focuses on applying critical pedagogy and indigenous knowledges for transformative learning. Dr Woldeyes has won various university awards for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching. His publications include the sole authored book Native Colonialism: Education and the Economy of Violence Against Traditions in Ethiopia (New Jersey: The Red Sea Press, 2017), and the co-edited (with Offord, Fleay, Hartley and Chan) Activating Cultural and Social Change: The Pedagogies of Human Rights (London: Routledge, 2022). Currently, Dr Woldeyes is one of the chief investigators in a new Australian Research Council funded discovery project titled Roads to the Future: Infrastructure and new Development in Africa.

Keynote Presentation (2024): Future-Focused Education through Critical Appreciative Dialogue

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2021): Engaging with Culture: A Conversation on Decolonising the Future
The Horizon of Our Common Cause: Narratives, Ideas and Conviviality
Keynote Presentation: Baden Offord

Humanity faces existential crises that cannot be ignored; perilous futures are at our door with civilizational and planetary integrity teetering. Democratic institutions are in chaos and technological disruption is dominant. Given this, what mindset and energies are now required to deal with the enormous complexity, scale, and implications posed by problems such as nuclear weapons, climate change, AI, epistemic violence, political impunity, widespread poverty, and cultural infallibility? By what means and with what intellectual and creative tools can we respond to these urgent matters about human society and its survival? Drawing on the best of what the humanities can offer in this critical context, this presentation will focus on a horizon that invokes (1) the urgent necessity to create new narratives of co-existence; (2) developing and enabling robust intellectual and creative spaces for the emergence of salient ideas; and (3) forming a collective common cause, framed through muscular, critical, but also humble, sensitised conviviality.

Read presenter's biography
East Wind, West Wind: Intertextuality, Transculturality, and Temporal and Spatial (Re)creations in the Cinema of Miyazaki Hayao
Keynote Presentation: Raúl Fortes-Guerrero

One of the most recognisable hallmarks of Hayao Miyazaki’s cinema is its transculturality, visible in the unique blend of elements belonging to Eastern and Western cultural traditions. Such elements, spanning a wide range of disciplines and Subjects, highlight Miyazaki’s intertextuality and combine to (re)create different spatio-temporal universes where fantasy meets reality: an invention in itself, as it is composed of fragments from different realities.. Those universes then become magical reflections of the everyday world through which the filmmaker conveys messages or moral teachings easier to understand and accept. At the same time, however, they also become for Japanese audiences dimensions of the unknown, especially when they exhibit ‘exotic’ elements from European traditions; perfect for setting dark portraits of the uncertain future of humanity in them, initiatory journeys far from home and one’s own culture, or laborious searches for legendary objects/places. Additionally, the aforementioned references to Europe – a Europe filtered through imagination – give a dreamed West back to us and prompts us to think about our own legacy, while the revision of Japanese history and culture breaks down some Japanese stereotypes and clichés, leading us and Japanese audiences alike to reconsider a lot of ideas about Japan. While portraying a reinterpreted historical past or a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future, Miyazaki’s works also serve as parables of our current reality, making evident the changes in modern Japan, which go hand in hand with the great changes taking place around the globe today. Thus, his oeuvre serves as a paradigmatic example of anime’s capacity to capture the complexity of our world today, perhaps even better than live-action films.

Read presenter's biography
Future-Focused Education through Critical Appreciative Dialogue
Keynote Presentation: Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes

As our world faces complex challenges and boundless opportunities at the same time, education plays a key role in the emergence of just and sustainable futures. This paper proposes Critical Appreciative Dialogue (CAD) as a basis for developing future focused pedagogical practices. In this paper, being “critical” means seeking to liberate life from its confinement by dominant power structures and to resist the epistemic violence that invalidates diverse ways of knowing and becoming. To be “appreciative” means to inquire into life’s survivability; to name its values, potentials, and demands. Being critical of the totalising effects of power and appreciative of the survivability of life, CAD presents future focused education as a decolonial and pluriversal dialogue. This paper is informed by more than ten years of research and teaching at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Western Australia. At the Centre, we invite individuals that have rich lived experiences and scholars from diverse cultural and religious worlds to engage in dialogue with our students. Taking classroom encounters as important opportunities for engaging in the everyday questions and challenges of existence, we identify key pedagogical lessons that could guide the future of education as an inclusive, reflexive, dynamic, and contextually relevant field that responds to the memories and aspirations of multiple cultural worlds as well as to the ethical demands of our time and the future. CAD is informed by these unique pedagogical encounters, as well as research from the Global South, Grassroots Movements, and Minoritized Communities.

Read presenter's biography
Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
Panel Presentation: Dolors Ortega Arévalo, Assutzena Badenes, Eva Martín, Carme Martínez

International and national public policy debates emphasise the role of adult education and learning (AEL) as a crucial part of lifelong learning and personal, societal, and economic development (Council of the European Union, 2021; UNESCO & UIL, 2016). However, there is no consensus in understanding or defining what adult education should embrace and consist of.

This panel will explore the local realities and great challenges of AEL in Spain, which follows a decentralised pattern, as the state transfers responsibilities for policy implementation and funding distribution to the 17 autonomous communities (ACs) and two cities (OECD, 2018). While the Spanish Constitution indicates that all public authorities should promote every citizen’s right to education and training, it does not define lifelong learning, nor adult education. The distribution of responsibilities regarding adult education and learning takes place across three different levels: the state level, the 17 ACs, and municipalities.

The discussion will analyse the main differences and specificities of AEL policies in different ACs in Spain so as to evaluate to what extent there has been a general tendency to inscribe AEL in an economy-oriented EU Lifelong Learning (LLL) paradigm against more popular, people-driven and community-based agendas. The aim of this panel is to counterpoise UE LLL productivist and neoliberal undertones to an AEL approach which prioritises collective, communal aspects of learning, projecting an image of participatory citizenship at odds with the atomised versions prevalent today.

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The Work of the University in Perilous Times
Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

As wars rage across the globe and as narcissistic politicians stoke mistrust in institutions—fanning the flames of racism and anti-intellectualism—the university campus has become a battleground over questions of social justice and fact-based understandings of history and the roots of inequality. Japanese, American, and European institutions have certainly seen past instances of such violent clashes over the very purpose of higher education, but today we find political interest groups using both mass and social media to incite conflict in new and shocking ways. We who work at universities are on the front lines—whether as students, professors, staff members, or administrators. We must be prepared to act bravely, but also tactically, as guardians of historical truth, as defenders of science, and as advocates for the needs of those groups and individuals easily scapegoated.

This is not a call to martyrdom. However, if we are not clever and subversive, we will lose the very positionality that enables our work and effectiveness.

In this address which will reference (among others) works by Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault, both of whom were embroiled in the radical politics that shook late 1960s French higher education, I will argue for the use of multivalent tactics that are radical in intent but also self-protective in nature.

In drawing on examples from an international array of academic institutions, as well as works of fiction, film, and theory, I will ask conference members to take the work of IAFOR—its advocacy for international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary understanding—back to their home campuses. Indeed, the empathy, self-awareness, and commitment to understanding that we learn to exercise at IAFOR conferences represent critical skill sets that we must draw on as we wrestle with and respond to the growing volatility of our academic lives.

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Communicating Knowledge Through the Wreckage of Disinformation: An Exploratory Workshop
Workshop Presentation: Heitor Alvelos, Susana Barreto

Led by the organising team of The University of Porto’s Unexpected Media Lab, this workshop brings together the motto of the Lab’s latest research project and the current, exponential concerns regarding an apparent dissolution of the trustworthiness of knowledge with significant segments of the global population. From science to politics, from health to history, there is an ongoing crisis in the reliability of facts, as well as the credibility of rigorous epistemologies.

The workshop proposes a hands-on, open-ended search for unorthodox approaches to counter these phenomena. Source materials (news, articles, memes, abstracts, AI-generated content, etc.) will be provided as starting points for participants to undergo an exploratory making of ‘objects of anti-disinformation’ during the workshop. These objects may end up being online platforms, just as they may end up being fanzine prototypes: the media may end up being the message, as we well know by now.

The action-based moments will alternate between a joint critical analysis towards the future writing of a paper submission on the subject and respective workshop experience. Delegates will gain renewed insights into current disinformation phenomena, and contribute to novel ways of acting on these, on civic, educational, and policy levels.

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Global Citizenship and Responsible Tourism
The Forum: Donald E. Hall, Melina Neophytou

IAFOR continues The Forum discussions on Global Citizenship, with the theme of ‘Global Citizenship and Responsible Tourism’ slated for The Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE2024) and The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media, and Culture (BAMC2024). Join us during the Wednesday plenaries on November 13, 2024, at 15:45-16:45, to discuss and share insights with delegates from all over the world about this topic, which can be intimately felt within our host city, Barcelona.

Barcelona and other seaside towns like Palma de Mallorca and Málaga are seeing a rise in city-wide protests against mass tourism. Discontented activists are sending the message for tourists to ‘go home’, arguing that mass tourism, and especially the rise of short-term rentals through services such as Airbnb, is driving up housing costs and leading to residents being unable to afford life in the city centre. The problem of mass tourism extends to other European cities as well, with Venice, for example, suffering from cruise ship day-trippers, who visit the city for a few hours and don't contribute to the local economy. While the hospitality sector profits, locals feel the negative impacts, such as aggression and disrespect from tourists, without seeing significant benefits.

These negative sentiments around sustainability and quality of life provoke us to reexamine the commodification of tourism within a consumerist framework. Historically, the purpose of travelling was to expand knowledge, foster multicultural understanding, and enhance international cooperation. Capitalism has altered this definition, while social media has further exacerbated these issues: the role of travel influencers in creating hype around ‘Instagrammable’ spots, for example, leads us to question whether travelling has more to offer than accumulating likes and subscribers.

This prompts a critical discussion on the potential of responsible tourism to promote global citizenship. Can tourism be reimagined not just as an economic activity but as a transformative process that cultivates global awareness and responsibility? How can we ensure that tourists act as global citizens, rather than merely as representatives of their own countries? What is the role of education, the arts, and media in this reimagined context? Finally, how can tourists give back to the local communities of the countries they travel to? Explore these questions and more at The Forum.

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A Journey Through the History of the Catalan Rumba
Rumba Catalana Performance and Workshop: Joan Delgado, Agustín Gálvez

In the 1950s, the rumba catalana or Catalan rumba developed within the gypsy community of Barcelona out of the fusion of flamenco and other international musical styles. Today, some 75 years later, UNESCO is being asked to declare this popular foot-stepping rhythm as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

As we prepare for the UNESCO declaration, key questions must be explored to truly understand the art form. Who really developed the Catalan rumba? In what neighbourhood of Barcelona did it develop? What are the basic elements that characterise it? What makes it different from the Cuban and Flamenco rumbas? What is the famous ventilador, an essential feature of the rumba catalana? Barcelona guitarist Joan Delgado and vocalist Agustín Gálvez address these questions as they lead the audience through the origin and history of the rumba catalana in a participatory musical exploration of this fascinating rhythm, ever present at any popular festival in the region.

With only a guitar and two palms to clap, you need nothing more to set up a great shindig like Peret himself might have done.

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