
INTER-MEDIACION. Inc.
is a company dedicated to two main objectives:
· Offer content, activities, programs and materials that inform and promote social awareness of the cost of conflict and teach conflict-resolution skills at all levels.
· Allow professionals to have access to the latest research information about conflict-resolution methods, take skills building courses online and off-line and keep in communication with each other. Enable teachers to have ready-made action plans to introduce conflict-resolution methods in schools.
· Have community-building features such as moderated bulletin boards, chat zones, personal publishing of research and content on the field, and wide information about professional meetings, conferences and related training opportunities.
· Offer connections with online libraries to obtain the essentials books on the field of conflict-resolution.
· Promote professional services, such as mediation, offered all around the Latin American world.
The second objective of Inter-Mediacion, Inc. promotes a permanent interest in the peaceful resolution of international conflicts, such as the dispute over the Falkland Islands' sovereignty. Inter-Mediacion, Inc. is managed by Nora Femenia, Ph. D. working as Associate Professor at the Center for Labor Studies and Research, Florida International University, University Park, Miami.
After the 1982 Malvinas/Falklands War, relationships with the Falkland Islanders were never formally attempted by Argentina. In the need to build bridges between the Falkland Islands and Argentina, Inter-Mediacion, Inc., Inc. while maintaining a permanent working relationship with the Falkland Islands Government, has undertaken since 1989 several academic and public education initiatives. Here are some highlights from this ongoing project:
- Presentation at the International Studies Association Annual Conference, (1999) of a paper detailing the experience of using direct connections with parties to the Falklands-Malvinas dispute to build a peace plan that includes all stakeholders, consulting Falklanders' views.
- A Course on International Conflict Resolution, offered at Nova Southeastern University's department of Dispute Resolution, used the case study of the Falklands-Malvinas 1982 War. (1998)
- The book: National Identity in Times of Crises, the scripts of the Falklands-Malvinas War (1996) by Nora Femenia, (N. Y.: Nova Science Publishers), covers the reciprocal construction of enemy-images between Argentina and the United Kingdom along the 74 days of the Falklands/Malvinas conflict. It shows the artificial nature of the attributed enmity, its political-psychological causes and the hidden needs for self-esteem in both parties' national identities. Socially constructed British and Argentine images of the Islanders stem from these processes, but have little coincidence with the images that the same Islanders construct for themselves.
- The book titled "Argentinos, Britanicos y Falklanders en el Atlantico Sur; identidad y desarrollo," (in Spanish, 1995) reviews the construction of mutual images and its importance in the inevitable future development effort in the area. Copies of this book (unpublished) will be made available through this FALKLANDS-MALVINAS FORUM in a short time period.
- A paper presented at the University of Huddersfield "Understanding the Social World Conference," in the U. K. July 1995, presented the connection between national identity mobilization processes and political myth construction.
- A 1994 presentation: "National Identity in the Falkland Islands," was given at CARI (Consejo Argentino de Relaciones Internacionales), Buenos Aires.
- A two-pages interview by Mr. Daniel Ulanovsky, on April 4, 1993, was published in the Sunday edition of Clarin newspaper, Buenos Aires, with the title: "A veces nos olvidamos que las Malvinas estan habitadas." ("We usually forget that the Malvinas are inhabited."). As a follow-up of this publication, in the week following April 4-11, 1993 several radio interviews were solicited from Buenos Aires radio stations (Radio Rivadavia and Radio Mitre) to Nora Femenia in Washington, DC.
- A paper titled: "National-identity script construction in times of Crises: the Falklands/Malvinas 1982 War." was presented at the International Society of Political Psychology Annual Meeting, at Boston, Mass. July 6-10, 1993
- By invitation of Dr. Guido Di Tella, Foreign Minister of Argentina, a Seminar titled "Argentina and the Falklanders: bridges for a successful communication," was organized on October 7 and 8, 1993. Designed to provide both theory on peaceful conflict-resolution methods and information about the Falkland Islanders' way of living, it was offered to the students of the Argentine National Foreign Service Institute. Along the second day of the Seminar, a simulation exercise of a negotiation process between an "Argentine delegation" and a "Falklanders delegation," fulfilled the purpose to provide students, for the first time, with insights about Islanders' mindset and wide perspectives in the main issues for the Islands: political status and self-determination; fisheries and oil resources; and ecological preservation.
- By invitation of the Dean of Latin American Area Studies, Mr. Richard Jackson, at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, in Arlington, Virginia, USA, a Seminar on "Britons, Argentines and Falklanders in the South Atlantic" was provided for the students of the Foreign Affairs Institute, U.S.A., on November 18, 1993.
- An article about the problem of cross-cultural differences between Argentine and Falklanders' social construction of policies in the region was published in the local newspaper "The Penguin News," at Port Stanley, and later commentated in local radio stations. September, 1993.
- Invitation to participate in a radio-conference organized by the BBC from Glasgow, Scotland, about the future of the Islands, together with Mr. Alexander Graham Yoll, in October, 1993.
- By invitation of Dr. Granillo Ocampo, Argentina's Ambassador to the U.S.A., a training Seminar for Armed Forces attaches and other Argentine Embassy personnel on "Falkland Islands national identity issues," was delivered on December 15, 1993.
- Articles sent for publication: "Cognitive obstacles in the Argentine mindset for a future peace process with the Falklander Islanders," and "Review of the sovereignty problem over the Falkland Islands," to the Buenos Aires Herald, December 1993.
- A paper by Nora Femenia: "Argentina, the United Kingdom and the possibility of post-Falklands War reconciliation," was discussed at the George Mason University Interactive Conflict Resolution Conference on the 10th Anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas War at Fairfax, Virginia, 1992. This conference was closed and only attended by selected delegates for each party, Falkland Islands included.
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