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1991

Towards Transformative Conferencing and Dialogue

Collection of papers and notes, problems and possibilities
on the new frontier of high-risk gatherings concerning social development

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Produced and distributed in an earlier form (as a set of 'topic sheets') under the title: Large-group Conferences: maturing their reflective, focusing and transforming power, especially in conditions of societal upheaval (1980) as a contribution to Commission IV (Meeting sociology, dynamics and practice) of the World Forum of Transnational Associations (Brussels, 1980). This follows, but is distinct from, another collection on Transformative Conferencing: Problems and possibilities on the new frontier of high-risk gatherings concerning social development (1984). The topic sheets were a basis for the 207 entries in section on 'Transformative Conferencing' in the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (1986).

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Contents / Overview

General

• Comment (4k)
• Envisioning the perfect meeting (5k)
• Clues to the nature of the gathering (5k)
• Articulating "the Way for Forward" (3k)
• Strategically relevant evocative questions (5k)
• Creating a context for more meaningful dialogue (8k)
• Clues to working insights in conferences (5k)
• Traps and opportunities of dialogue (3k)

Integration and focus

• Integrative failure (5k)
• Integrative skills (3k)
• Meeting focus: a description (7k)
• Meeting focus: a checklist (3k)
• Loosing meeting focus (4k)
• Focus subtleties: meeting magic (5k)
• In quest of radical coherence: a group design initiative (10k)

Metaphor

• Complementary metaphors of discourse (8k)
• Configurative metaphors (7k)
• Meetings as metaphors (5k)
• Modelling meetings: analogies and metaphors (7k)
• Guidelines towards dialogue through metaphor (16k)
• Some clues to social harmony from music (17k)

Participants and participation

• Participant interaction modes (3k)
• Differences in styles of artistic and policy endeavour (15k)
• Participant personality needs and problems (3k)
• Participant entrapment: alienation of committed activists (4k)
• Participant entrapment: repetition of learning cycles (3k)

Inter-cultural challenges

• Systems of categories distinguishing cultural biases 1993 (19k)
• Facilitation in a cross-cultural environment (18k)
• Axes of bias in inter-cultural dialogue (5k)
• Premises for an inter-cultural gathering (4k)

Patterns, agendas and declarations

• Structure of declarations challenging traditional patterns 1993 (6k)
• Non-linear agendas and linear thinking (5k)
• Pattern language for participants (10k)
• Self-constraining configurations: energy dissipation (4k)
• Self-constraining configurations: communication patterns (4k)
• Structure of declarations: challenging traditional patterns (6k)
• Geometry of organizations, policies and programmes (12k)

Inter-faith dialogue as a special challenge

• Reframing inter-faith relationships (5k)
• Aesthetic challenge of interfaith dialogue as exemplified by meditation 1997 (23k)
• Jerusalem: a parody of current interfaith dialogue 1977 (22k)
• Towards an ecology of spiritual traditions as articulated by a dynamic system of metaphors (25k)
• Towards a language of spiritual concord (8k)
• Possible traps towards spiritual concord (12k)
• From Culturgrams to Religrams

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