INFOCON Final Progress Report

INFOCONFinal Project Report

InternationalCivil Society Platform

on Conflicts

Title Infocon Final Project Report: InternationalCivil Society Forum on Conflicts.

Editor Stephan KampelmannTypesetting in LATEX Internationalist Foundation (Netherlands)Photos David Brulotte and Renaud Philippe/Stigmat

Photo (Canada)

Grant Agreement 210615Project acronym InfoconProject title International Civil Society Forum on ConflictsFunding Scheme Research for the Benefit of Specific Groups

Research for Civil Society OrganisationsProject co-ordination Stephan Kampelmann

Internationalist FoundationPO Box 751040 Brussels, [email protected]

www.infocon-project.org

Copyleft Infocon project, 2011

[email protected]


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Disclaimer 1The research leading to these results has received funding from the EuropeanCommunity’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2011) under grantagreement Nr. 210615.

Disclaimer 2The views expressed in this document are purely those of the authors andmay not in any circumstance be regarded as stating the official position ofall partners in the Infocon consortium.

Executive summary

European societies host a variety of diasporas that are potentially instru-mental in preventing and resolving conflicts in Europe and the world. Thesetransnational communities offer unique opportunities for constructive dia-logue, opportunities that could be exploited more effectively. But how ex-actly should the European Union and its Member States go about doing that?This question was at the heart of the Infocon research project.

Combining the complementarystrengths of researchers and civil so-ciety organisations (CSOs) in sev-eral countries (Belgium, the Nether-lands, Germany, the United King-dom and Kosovo), Infocon has pro-duced a concise set of observationsand recommendations that provideEurope’s policy making communitywith some guidance on a matter ofbroad public concern.

The first thing European policy makers need to understand regarding thissubject is the importance of engagement. Europe must engage diasporas inpolitical means such as debate, advocacy or political mobilisation, as oppor-tunities for these forms of exchange may not be possible in a transnationalcommunity’s home country. While many EU citizens may take the mod-ern European standard of political dialogue for granted, the project remindsus how powerful this form of dialogue can be as an instrument for conflict

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resolution.

Infocon focused on diasporas representing conflicted communities inTurkey, Kosovo, and the Great Lakes region of Africa. Interviews were car-ried out with members of those communities both in their country of originand in various European host cities where they are strongly represented —Amsterdam (Randstad), Berlin, Brussels, and London. Thus the findings aredrawn from populations representing a diverse set of regions and issues.

Through these targeted case studies, the consortium identified severalcommon characteristics. Among diaspora groups in European societies, forexample, the researchers found a link between maintenance of conflicts andfeelings of injustice, deprivation, and a deficit of integration. In order tocounter this tendency, policy makers are urged to provide access to citizen-ship and fight economic deprivation among these populations. Also, not-ing that conflicts between transnational communities undergo a process oftransformation in European societies, the researchers caution against treat-ing them as if they were simply an extension of conflicts back in the country oforigin. Crucially, while about a third of civil society organizations represent-ing transnational communities are actively promoting economic developmentback in their countries of origin, on the whole the project concluded thatsuch civil society organizations in general have so far played a limited role inefforts to resolve or prevent conflicts in their homelands. Indeed, Infoconreveals that diaspora communities can be vectors of conflict and conflict res-olution at the same time. In other words, the diasporas are no less complexthan the countries and conflicts that have shaped them.

Surprisingly, given the explosive potential of the problem, Infocon ob-serves that few public authorities in Europe have developed initiatives to dealsystematically with transported conflicts. The project suggest this may bedue to the fact that policy makers (including those that are themselves partof diasporas) misunderstand these conflicts or are afraid to be seen as tak-ing sides. Acknowledging the risk of being instrumentalised by transnationalcommunities, the consortium advises policy makers to first gain a thoroughknowledge of both home and imported conflicts before taking any steps to ac-commodate associated tensions. Finally, the project has tabled a Mousebook— a handbook freely accessible on-line — with a series of recommendationsfor diaspora organizations engaged in peace-building and development activ-ities.

Infocon Mousebook |

Diaspora communities in Europe clearly defy a simplistic view that isfrequently encountered in media reports and policy briefs. According tothis view, the communities are either “peace-makers” or “peace-wreckers”.While they undoubtedly play a significant role in on-going conflicts aroundthe world, diaspora communities in Europe are neither peace-makers norpeace-wreckers but spaces of solidarity and conflict, of close ties and mu-tual avoidance. This is why Infocon warns against policies that aim toinstrumentalize transnational communities for peace-making or economic de-velopment. Transnational communities are an integral part of contemporaryEuropean societies and add to their diversity and complexity. Their role inviolent conflicts will depend to a large extent on Europe’s capacity to inte-grate transnational communities in effective dialogue processes, political andeconomic participation, and the production of knowledge on violent conflictsand Europe’s role in them. Infocon was a step towards the integration oftransnational communities into conflict research, but much needs to be doneto deepen the role of diaspora communities in European civil society.

Chapter 1Context and main objectives

The Infocon research project aimed at promoting a better understanding ofhow civil society organizations representing transnational communities canwork on preventing and resolving conflicts in Europe and worldwide. It waspresumed that these civil society organizations were potential agents of peaceboth “here” and “there”, since they forge and sustain multi-stranded socialrelations that link together their societies of origin and settlement. Therefore,in the Infocon project, the term transnational community included both:

1. migrants with a transnational status as residents abroad who are eco-nomically, socially and politically engaged in their country of origin;and those

2. people who remain in the country of origin but whose life is shaped bytransnationalism.

Infocon addressed the above-mentioned overall question by conductingresearch among civil society organizations in four major European cities (Am-sterdam, Berlin, Brussels and London) and their three regions or countriesof origin (Kosovo, the Great Lakes Region in Africa and Turkey). This focusof fieldwork was based on two basic assumptions. First, it was assumed thattransnational communities are not only the result or cause of conflict but canequally be carriers of conflict. Empirical examination of this aspect by theInfocon research teams indeed confirmed that conflict can be transported

Infocon Mousebook | Context and main objectives

through migration of transnational communities from a given region of ori-gin to a city/country of settlement. This raised the question of the extentto which the communities under examination created opportunities to buildpeace in their cities of settlement. Second, based on previous research findingsthat transnational communities have an imminent role as “peace-wreckers”in conflict in their region of origin, it was assumed that the same form of link-age could potentially constitute an influential leverage point for communitieswilling to engage as “peace-makers”. Therefore, transnational communitiescan simultaneously constitute result, cause, carrier, and potential solution toconflicts in their countries of origin. Research undertaken within the frameof Infocon highlighted several cross-cutting issues and questions related totransnational communities and to the civil society organizations representing(or claiming to represent) them. These issues can be grouped into five mainclusters which illustrate the various linkages and interdependences which stillexist between the situation of the transnational communities in their cities ofsettlement, on the one hand, and the political, social, cultural and economicsituations in their country of origin on the other hand. These groups of issuesand questions can be briefly summarized as follows.

The first issue relates to the var-ious levels of mobilization in thecities of settlement and beyond, inrelation to the conflict in the regionof origin. The levels of mobiliza-tion within transnational communi-ties vary greatly and may be influ-enced by a series of factors, whichinclude the size of the transnationalcommunity, the political situation inthe country of origin (escalatory/de-

escalatory/conflict resolution phase) as well as generational, economic, social,or other situational factors. Moreover, this mobilization is likely to take amultiplicity of forms, for instance in a given city of settlement only, involv-ing one or several (coming from various regions) transnational communitiesthrough a network of civil society organizations originating from several Eu-ropean countries or through links between cities of settlement and countriesof origin etc. This great diversity in patterns and levels of mobilization ob-

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viously poses a number of challenges but also creates opportunities for civilsociety organization’s activities.

A second and related issue is one of content and objectives of the ac-tivities implemented by diaspora organizations. The literature on diasporasusually distinguishes these activities as either peacemaking or “spoiling” onesin relation to the conflict in the region of origin. However, the results of theInfocon project suggest a somehow more complex and less Manichean pic-ture. The main cleavage seems to be between those civil society organizationsdealing mainly with issues of integration in the cities of settlement while alsosometimes maintaining some cultural links with the country of origin andthose involved in often intense activities of lobbying and awareness-raisingregarding the situation in their country of origin. Somewhat surprisingly,considering the wealth of academic literature on the topic, the researchersinvolved in the Infocon project found scarce evidence of structured recon-ciliation or peace-building activities within cities of settlement themselves,and many civil society organizations seem to consider that it is the conflictoccurring in their country of origin that needs most of their attention andnot the “transported” conflict which sometimes sharply divides individualsoriginating from the same region but belonging to different ethnic, religiousor linguistic communities. From this perspective, it is also worthwhile tokeep in mind that civil society organizations might not be representative ofthe whole transnational communities, and that this might make them morewary of launching activities that might, in the end, prove to be more divisivethan reconciliatory.

A third issue relates to the influence and weight of the government of thecountry of origin on the situation and level of mobilization of transnationalcommunities. Transnational communities and civil society organizations rep-resenting them often operate in a specific environment where their “home”government still plays a powerful role. Our results document, for instance,the fact that some states of origin (Kosovo, Rwanda) have set up specific in-stitutions to deal with diaspora matters. These institutions might be createdfor various purposes, including practical and political, and this undoubtedlyhas consequences for the work of civil society organizations and for theiraccess to funding.

The influence of the political, economic, and cultural context in the citiesof settlement constitutes a fourth major issue. Needless to say, states of resi-

Infocon Mousebook | Context and main objectives

dence can also constrain the activities of transnational communities by layingdown rules regarding their activities and by trying to control their attemptsto influence the situation in their country of origin. In addition, the im-pact of (social, economic, and political) opportunity structures in Europeansocieties cannot be underestimated when trying to understand if and howtransnational communities organize to make political claims related eitherto their integration in host societies or to the situation in their country oforigin. Research undertaken within the frame of the Infocon project sug-gests that difficulties linked to access to nationality and citizenship might,in certain cases, lead to the emergence of grey parallel structures that arerather invisible and difficult to grasp — and thus possibly beyond the reachof research. The fact that some communities have easier access to citizenshipand to political participation might constitute a mitigating factor favouringtheir moderation regarding the situation in their country of origin, whilesome communities, whose access to the political scene is hampered, mightbe encouraged to further radicalise their claims and stances. With regard totheir wish to mobilize, the potential leeway that transnational communitiespossess is thus dependent on several factors like their political loyalty to thecountry of settlement, their citizenship status, international relations factorsas well as economic factors such as their level of access to employment, socialsecurity, etc (which is often relatively poor).

A final and crucial issue relates to the transportation of conflict in thecities of settlement. One of Infocon’s objectives was to assess to what ex-tent — and how — conflict is transported from countries of origin to cities ofsettlement. The importation of conflicts undoubtedly affects the communi-ties’ process(es) of integration in the European Union, but existing literatureseems to hesitate between, on the one hand, the claim that homeland re-lated political activities increase the level of political awareness of migrantsand therefore constitute a first step in the process of integration and, on theother hand, the idea that transnational linkages undermine the integrationprocess by maintaining a cultural orientation towards the homeland. Info-con research suggests that there are various levels of visibility of transportedconflict, some transnational communities being more affected by conflict thanothers (Kurds and Turks in particular, regardless of the city of settlement),and that communities who are the less integrated in host societies, for in-stance because of a low economic status, are not necessarily those who drive

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conflict transportation. What is more, while the current level and evolutionof the conflict in the countries of origin undoubtedly impact on the relationsbetween transnational communities in European cities, it is not, and by far,the only determining factor.

In sum, Infocon dealt series of issues and questions of paramount im-portance for understanding the role civil society organizations representingtransnational communities can, and wish, to play in the management orresolution of conflicts in their countries of origin. At a more general level,they also provide a sense of the various links and interrelations that connect,beyond national borders and policies, local and international politics both“here” and “there”.

Chapter 2Main results

Migration and integration remain major policy challenges for European soci-eties. At the same time, long, protracted, and often violent conflicts jeopar-dize human security and rights around the world. Infocon linked migrationand conflicts by focussing on transnational communities with personal, social,political and economics ties not only in Europe, but also in regions struck byviolent conflicts. Infocon’s diverse team of research institutions and civilsociety organizations set out to promote a better understanding of how civilsociety organizations representing transnational communities can work onpreventing and resolving conflicts in Europe and worldwide.

The team collected over 160 in-terviews in Europe’s urban cen-tres (London, Brussels, Randstad,Berlin), and more than 70 interviewsin regions that experienced conflict(African Great Lakes region, Kosovoand Turkey). In addition, focusgroups and in-depth interviews havebeen organised with diaspora com-munities and policy makers. Info-con also conducted a series of con-

flict resolution workshop in Lille (2009), Nijmegen (2010) and Brussels (2010)and edited a “CSO Mousebook” — i.e. an on-line handbook with practical

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information for diaspora organizations engaged in peacebuilding and devel-opment activities1. This section sums up the projects main policy recom-mendations and research results.

Policy recommendations

� It is important to engage diasporas in political means such as debate,advocacy or political mobilisation. European societies provide usefulfora for dialogue, offer opportunities for exchanges that might not bepossible in home countries and that might prove useful for conflict res-olution.

� Diasporas should be deeply involved in development processes, but theinternational community should be wary of attempting to harness themfor conflict mitigation or peace building. The communities are highlydiverse groups that can lean towards both compromise and radicalism.

� Maintenance of conflicts between diaspora groups is linked to feelingsof injustice, deprivation and a deficit of integration. It is of utmostimportance to guarantee, as much as possible, access to citizenship tothese populations and to fight economic deprivation.

� The conflicts arising between transnational communities are not simplytransported from home countries. They undergo a deep transformationprocess and adapt to new local settings. “Imported” conflicts shouldnot be treated as if they were simply extensions of home conflicts —even when they refer to seemingly similar oppositions and ideologies.

� The importance of gaining in-depth knowledge of both home and im-ported conflicts, before taking any decision regarding the accommoda-tion of tensions between transnational communities, cannot be over-stated. Such a detailed knowledge is essential to lower the risk forpolicy makers of being instrumentalized or manipulated.

1www.infocon-project.org/output/mousebook

www.infocon-project.org/output/mousebook

Infocon Mousebook | Main results

Are diasporas peace makers or peace wreckers?

1. Diaspora communities are neither peace-makers nor peace-wreckers.The reason for this is their high internal diversity: instead of being acollective political actor, diaspora communities can be thought of assites in which processes of conflict or peace take place. They can thusbe vectors of conflict and conflict resolution at the same time.

2. Diasporas are generally considered as important with regards to con-flict escalation or resolution. However, INFOCON interviews revealeddifferences in perception: for instance, the Kosovo-Albanian diasporais regarded as “historically important” but perceived to play a smallerrole today; members of the African Great-Lakes diaspora in Europeancities regard their influence on the region as limited, but in the GreatLakes region itself their influence is perceived as highly significant.

3. There are marked differences in opinion and behaviour between di-aspora groups, and also between diaspora groups and populations inthe countries of origin. The perceptions of parties in different settings(especially socio-economic status and date of arrival) are extremely im-portant for explaining their attitude vis-a-vis the conflict in the countryof origin.

4. Size doesn’t matter for explaining the level of involvement of diasporasin their country of origin: small diaspora groups can be more activethan larger groups (e.g. Rwandan diaspora versus Turkish diaspora).

5. On the whole, civil society organizations representing transnationalcommunities have so far played a limited role in efforts directed at re-solving or preventing conflicts in their homelands. There is an overalllow level of involvement of CSOs representing diasporas in countries oforigin. By contrast, the project found more evidence of active engage-ment in dialogue and peace building efforts among CSOs in countriesof origin.

6. There are also clear differences according to the conflict stage: lobbyingand advocacy activities seem to be greater when the conflict is acutebut take a second place to survival and adjustment to host society whenconflict de-escalates.

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Economic and development activities

1. About one third of the civil society organizations representing transna-tional communities are involved in activities directed towards the eco-nomic development of their country of origin, and approximately 15per cent of them send remittances home. Diaspora groups originatingfrom the Great Lakes region are the most active in that respect.

2. The more recent the date of settlement in European societies is, thehigher is the involvement in the home society.

3. More than two thirds of interviewees in the countries of origin say thatthey have received economic and non-profit assistance from diasporasgroups settled in Europe.

Transportation of conflicts

1. The level of tensions between transnational communities varies acrossgroups and cities; however these tensions are often highly visible: abouthalf of the people interrogated in countries of origin think there aretensions between the communities settled in Europe.

2. Conflict transportation is apparent in the existence of spatial segrega-tion between communities, habits of avoidance and lack of contact ineveryday life. It sometimes leads to violent confrontations, but it ismostly salient at the discursive level and in the use of symbols (e.g.separate commemorative events in the Rwandan communities).

3. The relations between the communities in countries of settlement areperceived to “reflect” closely events taking place in home countries –but the tensions between diaspora groups should not be interpretedas genuine extensions or reproductions of the conflicts in the homecountries.

4. Economic deprivation and marginalisation play a great role in the main-tenance of these conflicts: the precarious situation and lack of perspec-tive of many members of these transnational communities constitute afertile ground for the hate speeches of some of their political leaders.


5. So far, local and national governments have launched few initiatives tomitigate these transported conflicts, either because they underestimateor misunderstand them, or because they fear of being seen as takingsides. This is also — and perhaps especially — the case for electedpoliticians with migration background.

Detailed results

Sample overview

During the first phase of the project, whichroughly corresponded to the first and secondreporting periods (April 2008-April 2010),researchers from four university teams car-ried out interviews on civil society orga-nizations in London, Brussels, Amsterdamand Berlin, as well as in the homelandsof the transnational communities: Kosovo,Turkey and the Great Lakes. The teamsaimed to interview a representative sam-ple of civil society organizations by select-ing at least ten organizations from eachtransnational community, representing dif-ferent categories of organization. CSOswere chosen to represent trades unions,religious/philosophical organizations, socialand cultural associations, media organiza-

tions, community groups and associations, women’s organizations, socialrights movements, opinion leaders (excluding journalists and think tanks),economic actors such as chambers of commerce or business groups, profes-sional organizations and student organizations.

The study was carried out in conjunction with ten civil society organi-zations representing transnational communities, or the interests of transna-tional communities, migrants or minorities. Previous research has focusedmainly on politically active individuals, factions and parties or individualhouseholds. Infocon was the first study to have systematically examined the

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role of civil society organizations from transnational communities in home-land conflicts.

It is worth noting that the selection of civil society organizations wasnot intended to capture a random selection of the transnational communitypopulation. The civil society organizations may not necessarily represent theopinion of diaspora communities as a whole, and the respondents may bemore articulate, more politically active and perhaps more oriented towardthe homeland than others. Nor should the transnational community be seenas having cohesive views. People without strong political views, or out ofsympathy with the leadership of their own community, may be less likelyto be represented by civil society organizations. Transnational communitiesare divided by a number of significant cleavages (including age, rural/urbanorigin, regional origin, income, employment status, educational level andpolitical and religious affiliations) and we have not been able to sample acrossthem all.

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with representatives of morethan 230 civil society organizations, around 160 in cities of settlement and 70in countries of origin. The researchers attempted to interview equal numbersof CSOs representing the main parties in the conflict, though this was notpossible in every case (for instance, there seems to be hardly any organizedRwandan diaspora in Berlin).

Profile of interviewed diaspora communities

The interviews conducted in European cities allowed to characterize thetransnational communities studied by Infocon. The vast majority of dias-pora members the consortium spoke to arrived in Europe more than 10 yearsago, and for some of them the arrival dates back more than 30 years. Giventhat all interviewees are active in diaspora organizations, this illustrates notonly the persistence of transnational linkages over time, but probably alsothat diasporic civil society organizations are often run by established mem-bers of the respective community. As for the degree of integration into thehost society, almost all interviewed diaspora representatives speak the lan-guage of their host society, and many of them declare to adapt and/or partic-ipate in its culture and political processes. This being said, only few of themdeclared to fully “accept or respect” the hos societies culture — an indicatorthat interviewees continue to distinguish between integration and assimila-


tion, the latter often being associated with a negative connotation. Almost70 per cent of interviewees travel frequently to their regions of origin, a figurethat underlines that transnational linkages are not merely “imagined”, butalso influence the physical mobility of diaspora members.

Surprisingly, most interviewed organizations entertain relatively weaklinkages with other civil society organizations, so that the there is still con-siderable potential for horizontal networking among organizations. As forthe perception of the conflict in the region of origin, around two-thirds ofrespondents state that the conflict has improved over recent years. Finally,31 per cent of diaspora interviewees are “economically involved” with theirregion of origin, with 15 per cent of them sending remittances back homeand 8 per cent of them engaged in activities to attract investments.

As for the members oftransnational communities inthe regions of origin — i.e.people who remain in thecountry of origin but whoselives are shaped by transna-tionalism —, more than 70per cent perceived an im-provement of the core con-flict over recent years. Atthe same time, more thanhalf of them declare thattensions from the home con-

flict have been “transported” to the members of their communities living inEurope. This indicates that “new conflicts” in Europe, for instance betweenKurds and Turks in Berlin or Brussels, are not only detected by the media,but also by parts of the transnational communities themselves. This is allthe more salient since almost 60 per cent of transnational community mem-bers argue that the diaspora — i.e. those individuals they feel attached tobut who temporarily or permanently live abroad — play an important rolein the conflict in the country of origin. This influence can come in manyforms, including political intervention and economic assistance. Overall, 66per cent of interviewees in regions of origin declared that they co-operateclosely with the migrant communities in Europe. This means that European

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Table 2.1: Profile of transnational communities in Europea

Mean SD Min Max

Date of arrivalb 1.85 0.597 1 3Degree of integrationc 1.85 0.800 0 3Travel frequencyd 0.67 0.470 0 1CSO linkagese 1.25 0.432 1 2Perception of conflictf 1.34 0.477 1 2Economic involvementg 0.31 0.464 0 1Remittances sendingg 0.15 0.359 0 1Attract investmentg 0.08 0.271 0 1a Interviews conducted in Brussels, Berlin, London and Randstad; all regions

of origin combined.b date of arrival (1 => 30 years ago, 2 = 10 − 30 years ago, 3 =< 10 years

ago)c Degree of integration (0 = no integration, 1 = language, 2 = adaptation

and/or participation, 3 = accept and/or respect)d frequent travel (0 = no, 1 = yes)e CSO linkages (1 = low / average, 2 = high)f Perception of conflict (1 = improved, 2 = worsened)g 1 = yes

influence in these regions goes far beyond business co-operation and officialforeign policies: for instance, 70 per cent of interviewees received economicassistance, 50 per cent direct remittances. This is all the more importantgiven that the countries studied by Infocon are mainly perceived as being“politically unstable” by our respondents.

While many the transnational communities studied by Infocon share arange of common characteristics, it would be misleading to draw conclusionson their involvement in activities such as conflict resolution, peacebuilding ordevelopment processes without distinguishing between the different cities ofsettlement (diasporas face a completely different socio-political opportunitystructure in the Randstad than in London or Berlin) or the different regionsof origin (the dynamics of the conflict in Kosovo differ considerably fromTurkey and Rwanda). An important step to understand diaspora-specificprocesses was therefore to map and analyse the influence of transnationalcommunities in countries of origin on a case-by-case and city-by-city basis.


Table 2.2: Profile of transnational communities in countries oforigina

Mean SD Min Max

Perception of conflictb 0.71 0.456 0 3Tensions in Europec 0.52 0.505 0 1Role diaspora communityc 0.59 0.495 0 1Cooperation migrant communityc 0.66 0.478 0 1Political stabilityd 1.91 0.805 1 3Received assistancec 0.70 0.463 0 1Received remittancesc 0.50 0.505 0 1a Interviews conducted in Turkey, the Great Lakes Region of Africa and

Kosovob Perception of conflict (0 = no conflict, 1 = improved, 2 = no change, 3 =

worsened)c 1 = yesd Political stability (1 = not stable, 2 = average, 3 = stable)

Influence of Transnational Communities in Countries of Origin

During the fieldwork, Infocon interviewers put a standard questionnaireto respondents in one to two hour interviews. The first group of questionsconcerned the influence of communities in the country of settlement on thecountry of origin. In the countries of settlement, we asked ‘Do you believeyour community in this city has any influence on national policy-makingor public opinion or policies in your country of origin?’ The majority ofrespondents answered no to this question. In the country of origin, we asked‘Do you believe the community in European cities have played a significantrole in the situation in your country.’

Kosovo Albanians and Serbs. In the case of Kosovo Albanians, in Londonabout a third perceived a slight influence, while two thirds perceived only apotential for influence or no influence. In the Randstad, about a quarter ofrespondents saw some influence through networking or the media, but themajority did not; one respondent replied, ‘It is only possible to influence fromwithin Kosovo’. In Berlin only one out of five respondents saw any influence.In Kosovo itself, almost all Kosovo Albanian respondents saw the diasporasas having played a major influence in the past, though most saw its role as

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diminished now. Kosovo Serbs perceived their diaspora as having had noinfluence.

Turks and Kurds. In all of the cities the Turkish respondents perceivedTurkish communities in Europe to have very little influence on Turkey, andthe majority of Kurdish respondents also perceived that their communitieshave little influence. This was the case in London, Berlin and Randstad; inBrussels, respondents who answered positively saw the possibility of indirectinfluence through the EU. In Turkey, none of the Turks interviewed saw asignificant influence of the Turkish communities in Europe, but exception-ally, almost half of the Turkish Kurdish respondents believed that Europeancommunities had either contributed to defining the Kurdish identity, or devel-oping projects and initiatives that benefited their community. Great Lakes.In London, Tutsi respondents perceived that only a small pro-governmentelite is able to have any influence on the situation at home.

In the Randstad, respon-dents either said there wasno influence or that influ-ence was indirect, for exam-ple through the Dutch gov-ernment. In Brussels, fewrespondents answered pos-itively; rather, several re-ported that the homelandgovernment influences thediaspora. In contrast, in theGreat Lakes, respondents re-sponded more positively tothe question of whether their own communities in Europe affect the situ-ation in the homeland. Half the respondents from Rwanda, and almost allthose from Burundi, saw such an influence. It is striking that, on the onehand, most respondents in the cities of settlement perceive the current influ-ence of transnational communities on the homeland to be limited, but that,in the countries of origin, respondents were more likely to see the role ofthe communities in Europe as significant. This suggests that they see thepotential for a significant role — and that they value the contribution ofremittances.


Results for specific research themes

In order to increase the focus of the research and shed light on the diversityof issues related to transnational communities, the overall research design ofthe project was structured by three thematic fields:

1. Transnational Communities and Conflict Policies (Work Package 3).The objective of WP 3 is to assess the scope for transnational commu-nities to contribute in efforts to prevent, manage and resolve violentconflicts in their countries of origin. In particular it will explore theexisting and potential links between transnational communities and theCSOs in this project and propose ways in which this contribution canbe strengthened.

2. Transnational Networks and their Role in Poverty Reduction (WorkPackage 4). The main objective is to identify the implications of re-mittance streams within diaspora networks and transnational commu-nities for poverty reduction and economic development through tradeand (self-) employment.

3. New Minorities, Confrontations and Policies (Work Package 5). Theobjective of WP 5 is to assess how conflicts in countries of origin areimported into the countries of settlement and examine the responses ofauthorities and CSOs in the country of settlement to these importedconfrontations.

The following three sections summarize the main results for each of thesethree thematic research fields.

Transnational communities and conflict policies: scope for ac-tion by civil society organizations and host societies

Our survey and interviews of civil society organizations from transnationalcommunities from Kosovo, Turkey and the Great Lakes reveal very differentpatterns of engagement with homeland conflicts. Each diaspora is madeup of different waves of migrants, and migrants often come from differentbackgrounds in their home society. We should not expect diasporas to becohesive actors, and our findings confirmed this picture. There is rarely a

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single diaspora view. It is misleading to see diasporas as collective politicalactors, either fuelling conflict or making peace.

Precisely because they are open and leaderless structures, transnationalcommunities offer an important space for participants to engage with con-temporary conflicts. It is possible for initiatives to develop in transnationalcommunities that might not be possible in the home environment. In prin-ciple, the situation of diasporas allows for new ways to frame situations andnew forms of collective action.

The evidence and analysis de-scribed in Infocon Deliverable 3suggests that views of transnationalcommunities themselves are mixedabout the scope for influence in thehome country. In the case of Turkey,we found little optimism about theprospects — this reflects the Kur-dish community’s frustration withmaking progress and the Turkishgovernment’s unwillingness to recog-nize Kurds as a minority. Similarly, there was little evidence of involvementin conflict mitigation activities. There was, however, a considerable engage-ment on the Kurdish side in advocacy, lobbying and efforts to influence thesituation indirectly through the European Commission or the European Par-liament and counter-demonstrations by members of the Turkish diaspora.Lobbying and advocacy sometimes takes peaceful, constructive forms, butthere is also evidence that the rival claims of the communities contribute topolarization and tensions and hints that the conflicts were taking new formsin the European cities (“autonomisation”). The political space for moderateactivity, pursuit of reforms and minority rights will depend to an extent onthe course of relations between Europe and Turkey, and there is evidence ofTurkish and Kurdish migrants working together, though generally in organi-zations which have a radical political agenda.

In the case of Kosovo, the general perception was that the Kosovo-Albanian diaspora had played a crucial historical role in the struggle forindependence, but the communities in European cities regard their scope forinfluence now as limited. We found little evidence of participation in conflict


mitigation or peace-building activities from Europe. An Infocon surveycarried out by Kosovo Young Lawyers, one of the project’s CSO partners,showed that while there is a good deal of cross-community reconciliation andpeace-building underway in Kosovo, the European diaspora communities playlittle role in it; if anything, initiatives in Kosovo reach out to the diaspora.There was a great deal of involvement in advocacy, lobbying and efforts toinfluence international actors. Again, this can be seen as a peaceful and con-structive form of activity, although lobbying and counter-lobbying generatessome tensions, though no direct conflict, between the rather polarized Al-banian and Serb communities. There was little evidence of involvement orinfluence on the part of the very much smaller Kosovo-Serb communities inEuropean cities.

Perhaps surprisingly, the conflicts in the Great Lakes, which are recentand still on-going in the Democratic Republic of Congo, showed most evi-dence of diaspora involvement in peace-building and reconciliation. Althoughmost respondents in European cities saw the influence of their communityin the homeland situation as limited, about half the respondents in Rwandaand all the respondents in Burundi thought that their communities in Eu-rope had played an influential role. We found more evidence of involvementin peace-building and conflict mitigation activities, and two examples of on-going dialogue work involving members of the diaspora. While it is difficultto assess the political impact of these initiatives in the African Great Lakes,there is evidence that new initiatives and political developments in the di-asporas can be important. A significant factor here is that the governmentsin Rwanda and Burundi have embraced reconciliation as a policy aim, andthis may help to explain the level of involvement by the diaspora in suchefforts, and also the wish of opposition groups to develop dialogues of theirown. As in the other cases considered here, it is characteristic that the na-ture of the disagreements underlying the conflict affects the terms of peace,so even what constitutes reconciliation and peacebuilding can be a chargedand divisive issue. Yet, if any of these initiatives have the potential to make asignificant contribution to a peace process, they deserve support and nurture.Capacity-building, training and workshops can all contribute to such efforts.

Intra-party dialogues may be as important as inter-party dialogues whenconflicts are polarized. Diasporas offer distinctive opportunities for dialogue,such as the Intra-Rwandan Dialogue. Even if dialogue does not lead to agree-

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ment, the clarification of interests and positions and better understanding ofconflicting strategies may help to limit more violent strategies.

Even when the activities of transnational communities are not directedtowards reconciliation and peace-building, it is important to recognize thevalue of engaging members of diasporas in ‘political means’, such as debate,advocacy, political mobilization and so on, which may help to ‘hold the ring’when progress on peace processes is not possible. If European host societiescan provide fora for agonistic dialogue, debate and discussion, even betweengroups who radically disagree, this is a valuable function. The media, na-tional parliaments and the European parliament all play a valuable role here.

Conflict mitigation efforts among civil society organizations may havebetter prospects when the organizations provide bridging rather than bondingsocial capital. Where, as in Belgium, Hutu and Tutsi protestants attend thesame church, and members of the elite in the diaspora meet together, it maybe possible to seed new initiatives. Even in London, when Kosovo-Serbsand Kosovo-Albanians attend a cultural association or Turkish and Kurdishmembers work in the same organization, they take a step beyond conflict.Economic development that benefits all the communities in conflict ratherthan just one may have more stabilising effects for a post-conflict country.But such developments also need to be supported by positive internationalengagement with the conflict, appropriate development of institutions and apolitical process that offers a way forward.

The international community has become aware of the importance of har-nessing diasporas for development purposes, particularly since the volume ofremittances now exceeds that of overseas development aid. It should be waryof attempting to harness diasporas for the purposes of conflict mitigation andpeace-building. Some diasporas are already seen as agents of Western govern-ments, and this is not helpful for any party. European societies perhaps followtheir best traditions when they not only offer asylum but also open them-selves to deep, critical and inquiring engagement with those who have beendriven from their homelands, creating places where those with intractabledifferences can speak and debate.


Linking motives for remittances and investment from supplyand demand side

The economic aspect of conflict-related transnational communities was stud-ied under the lead of Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (CIDIN), whose teamexamined the engagement of migrants in transnational economic activitiesin their home countries and tried to identify key factors influencing the re-ceipt of economic assistance and remittances by individuals. In InfoconDeliverable 4, the researchers found that at the supply side, social networks(CSO linkages) represent the single most important factor influencing allkinds of economic activities in which migrants engage. In a similar vein, atthe demand side linkages with diaspora communities represent an importantfactor for attracting remittances and investments. Even while sending re-mittances remains essentially an individual decision, it takes place within asocial-cultural network.

Looking at the overall picture,Infocon research concluded that,at the supply side, people who con-sider the conflict in the home coun-try as more conflictive will be lesslikely to be involved in economicactivities and remittance-sending.The date of arrival is also foundto be an important determinant forboth activities: more recent arrivalresults in a higher probability of eco-

nomic involvement and remittances. The views on integration (in Europe)and the reason for migration do not appear to be strongly related to en-gagement in economic activities. On the demand side, a strong relationshipbetween variables concerning the conflict in the home country and the eco-nomic activities was identified, pointing to an inverse impact of the conflicton the economic engagement of migrant communities.

It is commonly believed that poverty reduction should be part of conflictprevention and post-conflict reconstruction processes. Transnational com-munities might play a crucial role in this domain. Even though the focus ofWork Package 4 did not contain specific questions regarding the way or theextend to which these communities can contribute to this issue, the research

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discerns some interesting outcomes. In particular, Deliverable 4 provides con-sistent evidence that regarding the determinants on the supply side, variablesrelated to the conflict (i.e. position in conflict) appear to be strongly, albeitnegatively related to the likelihood of engagement in economic activities inthe home countries. We cannot ascertain, however, whether the oppositerelationship holds. CSO linkages and frequent travel to the home countrycan partly mitigate this relationship and tend to favour economic engage-ment. Similarly, all variables that were significantly related to the receipt ofeconomic support are strongly related to the conflict perception in the homecountry: respondents who perceive the local conflict as deteriorating are lesslikely to receive economic assistance. Wherever the diaspora community isconsidered to play a role in local conflict mitigation, the likelihood of receiv-ing remittances clearly increases. Consequently, the study concludes thatmigrant networks act as an important link between sending and receivingeconomic support.

Beyond the core conflict: new minorities, new confrontationsand new policies

Work package 5, led by the CEDEM at the Universite de Liege, focused onthe conflicts associated with transnational communities in Europe. Startingwith the observation that an immigrant is above all an emigrant, InfoconDeliverable 5 argued that, Firstly, this fact involves that the immigrant hasa specific relationship with a country besides the one he has with his coun-try of settlement. Secondly, it implies also that the immigrant’s biographyhas begun before its settlement, and that his or her socio-emotional rootsmight lie in another country. These factors have been neglected in stud-ies on migration. However, the events of September 11, 2001, for instance,have shown that many conflicts are not any more contained in any specificterritory. Recent technological developments, whether it is in mobility orin communication, have had a major impact on the way these conflicts aretransported in the host societies in which migrants settle.

In Brussels, as in other European cities hosting many migrants like Lon-don, Berlin or in the Randstad region, the transportation of the core conflictsis a reality. Whether they are of low salience (as in the case of the Kosovoconflict) or more visible (such as in the Kurdish conflict or the Rwandantransnational community), they have an important influence on the relation-


ships that the conflict-related communities entertain with each other. Whileavoidance is one symptom of transported conflicts, the “new” conflicts inEuropean cities are also detectable at the discursive and symbolic levels. Asa consequence, the most visible forms of transported conflicts — the violentconfrontations such as those that occurred between Kurds and Turks in Brus-sels and Berlin — are therefore but one modality of the conflicts associatedwith diaspora communities: policies that address the transportation of con-flicts should be aware of other, arguably more subtle forms of diaspora-relatedconflicts in Europe.

Deliverable 4 distinguishes be-tween endogenous and exogenousfactors contributing to the trans-portation of the core conflicts intothe countries of settlement. Mas-sive flows of refugees, often still feel-ing bitterness and anger, tend to bemore active in this process. But themassive arrivals of asylum-seekersare not enough to explain the per-petuation and mutation of the coreconflicts in European cities. In par-

ticular; Deliverable 5 argues that the role played by political authorities orpolitico-militaristic factions of the home country should not be neglected.But, above all, the responsibility of some ethnic leaders has to be high-lighted. These leaders are able to mobilise members of their community, no-tably younger generations often born in European countries, often by employ-ing obscure threats that the other conflict-related community is supposed torepresent. As a result, they tend to reinforce and increase the socio-politicalfragmentation already existing in the homeland. Through their use of sym-bols and narratives, they fuel without any doubt the transported conflict.

However, diaspora leaders are only one factor contributing to the trans-portation and perpetuation of the core conflicts. According to Infoconresearch by the Universite de Liege, the immigration and integration policiesof the host countries have also had a considerable impact in this respect.For instance, Deliverable 4 argued that the precarious situation of asylum-seekers and the lack of perspectives felt by many young people of the second

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and third generations constitute a fertile ground for occasional hate-speechesby ethnic leaders.

This being said, diaspora communities and their leaders also develop ac-tivities and events in order to mitigate the transportation of conflicts intoEurope, for instance by working in favour of social cohesion. Indeed, as sev-eral interviewed diaspora organizations emphasized, conflict mitigation andsocial cohesion are closely intertwined. Even if the transported conflicts havecurrently limited visibility in Europe, they pose a genuine threat to overallsocial cohesion of European societies to the extent that they have a negativeimpact on the relationships between conflict-related communities that areconcentrated in large European cities.

Civil society organization related to transnational communities have alsobe found involved in initiatives aiming at the mitigation and solving of thecore conflicts. Besides their political activities oriented towards the politicalauthorities of their country of origin, some leaders interviewed by Infoconlobby European authorities and engage in lobbying and advocacy activitiesin order to influence public opinion. Giving up nationalist slogans, manyof them moved towards framing their case by referring to the declarationof the Human Rights or the European Convention on Human Rights. Oth-ers engage in economic or cultural activities that actively contribute to thereconstruction of their conflict-torn regions of origin.

The research on the transportation of conflicts, in many respects a newfield of investigation, has raised many questions which merit further atten-tion. First, it would be worthwhile to improve our understanding of themotivations of ethnic leaders who knowingly fuel the transportation of con-flicts into European societies. In light of the diversity of communities andfactions, this can only be achieved on a case-by-case basis gathering in-depthinformation on the internal organization of diasporas and their representa-tives. Another important question concern the way that the members of theconflict-related community, as opposed to their leaders, consider the trans-ported conflicts, and how they evaluate the impact of the conflict on theireveryday life. It would be improve Europe’s capacity to respond to conflicttransportation if further research could clarify and analyse the many obsta-cles that conflict mitigation initiatives appear to meet in practice, and tostudy the effective impact that existing initiatives have had so far.


Challenges faced by diaspora organizations — and how theycan be addressed

While past research on diasporas and transnational communities has been rel-atively extensive (focusing, for instance, on the relations between diasporasand their countries of origin or on the nexus between migration and devel-opment), little is known about the civil society organizations that grow outof these communities, and how these organizations in turn shape, structureand represent the communities. Admittedly, most of the civil society organi-sations are small in size and of a limited membership; but according to mostpolicy makers or researchers, they nevertheless contribute significantly tobuilding links between countries of origin and countries of settlement. Theyhave a key role to play in peacebuilding initiatives in these two locations aswell as in development in home countries.

The INFOCON Mousebook

TransnationalCommunities and Conflicts

Challenges and how to address them

Nevertheless, they face greatchallenges in their everyday activ-ities, related to their transnationalnature and sometimes limited size,their relations with the local andnational authorities in the coun-try of settlement and the very highinternal diversity of members ofthe transnational communities theywish to represent. To explore thesechallenges systematically, the Info-con consortium compiled a “Mouse-book” — i.e. an on-line hand-book with practical information fordiaspora organizations engaged inpeacebuilding and development ac-tivities. This publication aimed todescribe and analyse some of thesechallenges to peacebuilding and de-velopment activities and to presentthe ways in which the civil societyorganizations involved in the Info-

con project have been trying to deal with them. The aim of the Mousebook

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was not to be comprehensive or to prescribe one-size-fits-all formulas, sinceall authors recognize the specificity and singularity of their own experience.It was, however, hoped that discussing specific examples and highlightingsolutions that were found will foster a better understanding of the work ofthese civil society organizations and help others to imagine and set their ownpath through the various traps and quagmires — as well as opportunities —that lie ahead of them.

Indeed, one of the objectives of the Infocon project was to launch areflection and a debate on the challenges faced by diaspora communities,both in their cities of settlement and in their countries of origin, and howthese challenges could be addressed, and the Mousebook is the product ofsuch a reflection. The objectives of this publication, a joint collaborationbetween Infocon’s academic and civil society partners (both contributingto the conceptualization and writing of the following chapters), are to helptransnational communities think through critical issues related to their day-to-day engagement with economic development and conflict transformationin home and host societies. As such, it intends to provide very practicalguidance (supplemented by case studies in boxes, check-lists, etc.) to think-ing through and dealing with these issues. It therefore is a mix between“guidelines” and “lessons learned” that draw on the results of the Infoconresearch and highlight the main trends that have been observed.

Instead of organizing the chapters around various types of activities orof civil society organizations, the consortium has chosen to structure thecontributions around “questions” or “issues” that are representative of thetypes of challenges diaspora organizations face on an everyday basis. Theseissues are to a large extent cross-cutting in the sense that they pertain to alarge number of activities undertaken by these organizations, irrespective oftheir specific focus, be it reconciliation, development or advocacy work.


Generally speaking, all contributions included in the Mousebook havestrived to address three main questions:

1. What is the scope of influence and intervention of civil society orga-nizations representing transnational communities? How can they dealwith their perceived lack of accountability?

2. How can they usefully contribute to ease conflicts back home and todefuse tensions emerging in countries of settlement? And more specif-ically, how can they deal with the difficulties related to the fact thatsome of them embody one side or the other and thus have to be ex-tremely cautious in order to avoid to further escalating the “home” or“transported” conflicts?

3. What kind of tools can be set up, and what kind of strategies haveproven to be the most effective for these purposes?

While each contribution in the Mousebook focuses on specific challenge,together they highlight some key issues that seem to be cutting across alltypes of activities and structures and thus require specific attention. Firstof all, most of the organizations studied within the frame of the Infoconproject voice a sense of powerlessness due to the widespread economic depri-vation and social marginalization affecting their members and thus under-mining their own strength and bargaining power. Many organizations alsomention the difficulty they face when trying to find effective interlocutorsin countries of settlement. This elusiveness of interlocutors in host societiesmight be related to the fact that diaspora organizations are traditionally notwell integrated in policy-making networks, but it also points at the generallack or very low level of interest of national and local authorities in thesematters. Raising the interest of local and national stake-holders in the typesof activities implemented by diaspora organizations is thus an urgent andvital task if they wish to be better included within policy-making networksand facilitate their access to funding.

Most diaspora organizations also acknowledge a certain lack of organi-zation and institutionalization which hampers the setting up of coherentand strong initiatives. This seems to be due to their inherently dividedand fragmented character, closely mirroring the cleavages existing betweenthe various groups composing transnational communities and dividing them

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along political, religious, ethnic or social lines. Managing their own divisionsand fragmentation without obliterating this internal diversity seems to be aprerequisite for agreeing on a common and coherent strategy that could in-crease their bargaining power. What is more, fragmentation makes exchangeswith policy-makers and funding agencies more complex. While fragmenta-tion within diaspora groups is generally considered as a normal occurrencegiven the high internal diversity of transnational communities, the fact thatcivil society organizations reflect such a diversity is sometimes consideredby funding agencies as a major limitation in their capacity to reach all sec-tions of the communities and to launch and implement consensual programs,especially in the field of peace building.

More generally, diaspora organizations cannot ignore the fact that cleav-ages existing between or within rival communities might lead to violent con-flict — not only in their countries of origin but also in host societies. Whilesome of these organizations dedicate some or most of their time to reconcil-ing these differences, all of them recognize the importance of managing theseconflicts, as they reinforce negative stereotypes about transnational commu-nities and impede their own access to funding. But diaspora organizations allface considerable constraints in their everyday work, among which the oppo-sition from homeland governments when these are opposed to the homelandstate-led approaches that are promoted, or the lack of information- haringbetween the various transnational communities and between the transna-tional communities and the governments in countries or origin. While thediaspora organizations representing a given community generally know eachother and may engage in exchange around their activities, the level of inter-action between civil society organizations representing different transnationalcommunities remains very low. This hampers the transfer of knowledge ongood practices, on opportunities for funding and obviously hinders their ca-pacity to present a united front to national authorities and funding agencies.

In order to deal with these challenges, diaspora organizations can, how-ever, build on two main assets. On the one hand, it has to be recognizedthat these organizations are committed actors. Most are committed to de-velopment processes and peace building both in their countries of origin andin the cities where they have settled. And unlike many foreign developmentagencies they are not likely to shift quickly to other sites of interest. Sucha sustained interest is key, as all studies have shown that development and


peace building processes follow a very slow pace that is often not matchedby international interest. As such, they have a great contribution to maketo the development of their regions and countries of origin as well as to thestabilization of these areas. At the same time, they also contribute to pub-lic spheres in countries of settlement, because they can channel claims ofcommunities that would otherwise be completely unheard or silenced. Theythus play a fundamental role for enhancing our democracies and for improv-ing the representation of the various groups that make up our societies. Onthe other hand, these organizations provide a link between communities hereand there: they are often well informed about what is happening on theground, and are culturally better equipped than most foreign agencies forunderstanding the local processes, because they are familiar with the localcultures. As such, they possess a crucial and detailed knowledge about theneeds, claims and wishes of local communities, which is key to the design andimplementation of relevant and tailored policies. Civil society organizationsrepresenting transnational communities can act as “brokers” and “bridgebuilders” because they are intermediaries between communities in home andhost countries and also between various diaspora groups. They have a knowl-edge and a familiarity with both home and host societies that is embodiedfirst in a network of relations “here” and “there” and in a series of projectsthat foster exchanges and transfers at cultural, economic and social levels.

Among all the challenges discussed in the Mousebook, several stand out,highlighting the difficulties encountered by diaspora organizations in theireveryday practice. First of all, there seems to be an overall agreement overthe need to tackle the issue of the impact of diaspora activities on both home-and host- land societies. Most of the organizations involved in the Infoconproject were often wary when asked to assess the impact of their activitieson the ground, and they warned against overestimating the effects inducedby their initiatives. Most of them are small or medium size and focus onone specific type of activity or development project. They might thus havea greater impact in terms of setting up models and of drawing attention toa specify issue than in quantitative terms.

It is also important to differentiate their impact at the economic and de-velopment level, especially on the integration of migrants in host societies andon local development in countries of origin, from their impact at the politicallevel, for instance on peace processes in their home countries. For example,

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there is a wide recognition at the policy and political levels that remittancessent back home can have a strong economic and development impact at thelocal level. Collective remittances are often presented as a solution for devel-opment, but so far there has been no systematic and thorough assessment oftheir real economic impact. In fact, the impact and amount of family remit-tances is generally far greater than those of “collective” remittances, namelyremittances channelled via civil society organizations. The amount of moneygathered via these organizations is very modest and symbolic with regardto development activities, especially as compared to what is sent directlyby families. Family remittances are primarily used for consumption purposesand thus also contribute to economic development because they allow familiesto buy food, to pay for education, health and housing expenses. In the caseof Kosovo, for instance, it is very interesting to see that most migrants aresending remittances and that most Kosovo inhabitants are receiving remit-tances. In such a small country, the sending of remittances at the individuallevel could thus almost be assimilated to a collective phenomenon. Anotherimportant thing to recall is that, in the case of Kosovo at least, migrants andcivil society organizations send money back home, but not only: remittancesalso take the shape of cars, trucks, clothes and other kinds of materials thatplay a major role in stabilising the situation in Kosovo by engaging its in-habitants in practical projects, for instance reconstruction ones. But evenin such cases where remittances are significant, social and cultural contri-butions made by transnational communities may be more important thanremittances per se, for instance via an exchange of ideas. More generally,there seems to be a need to stress the existing link between development andconflict transformation; development projects can contribute to stabilization— or hamper it — as surely as political ones. The issue of the degree ofinclusiveness of these development projects is particularly important in thisperspective, as, for instance, the place where an infrastructure is built hasan impact (positive or negative) on the relations between communities whilestill contributing to local development.

It is way more difficult to trace the political impact of the activities imple-mented by civil society organizations representing transnational communities.The potential role of civil society organizations in this field is often in factquite modest, because even if they can in principle do a lot they are facingmany difficulties and obstacles such as marginalisation and opposition from


the home government, especially in the case of high intensity conflicts. Whatis more, the research conducted within the frame of the Infocon projectshowed (as the one done by the Diaspeace project) that conflict mitigationis not the top priority of these organizations which, by and large, prefer to fo-cus on development, cooperation or education projects. Many organizationshave the feeling that getting involved in conflict resolution activities can betricky and in any case extremely difficult and complex, because conflict isdynamic and leads to contested understandings of peace and reconciliation.Therefore, when some of them engage in political activities, they are oftenseen as contentious and accused of fuelling the conflict instead of contribut-ing to its resolution. Civil society actors also stress the fact that “peace”might mean different things according to the scale that is adopted (for in-stance, in the case of Kosovo, peace in Mitrovica, in Kosovo, in the Balkans,etc.). Thus, “peace” as seen and conceptualized by national and internationalpolicy-makers and stake-holders often bears a different meaning than whatcivil society organizations are looking for in their local programmes. It doesnot mean that civil society organizations representing transnational commu-nities cannot contribute to stabilization of conflict-prone societies, though. Ifone moves away from idealized conceptions of peace, diaspora organisationsprovide opportunities for free speech, as well as an easier access to media andinternational organizations than organisations in home countries, especiallyfor minority and/or oppressed groups. In that sense, civil society organiza-tions contribute to the establishment of dialogue, which is usually seen as acrucial step towards the pacification of conflict relations. Most of the civilsociety organizations that participated in the Infocon project are, however,cautious with regard to the impact of these dialogue activities: according tothem, one should not expect dialogue to necessarily lead to consensus butto the positive expression of disagreements. The latter should already beconsidered as an achievement in itself.

A second challenge lies with pressures for institutionalisation and net-working. Many civil society organizations, if they wish to receive govern-mental and international funding, are encouraged to tighten their links withother organizations and funding agencies. For instance, over the past yearsand even decades, under the pressure of the government and funding agenciesthat felt that organizations focusing on development issues were too numer-ous, Dutch civil society organizations involved in development work have been

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clustering and forming networks. There are some obvious risks related to sucha move, because the organizations participating in these networks might beimposed an agenda by the funding agencies and therefore get involved ina field they do not necessarily approve of, such as forced return migration.Other risks involve loosing along the way some specificities,for instance bybecoming a professional development organization instead of a developmentorganization focusing on the specific needs of their region of origin or of thespecific group of people they represent. Many diaspora organizations alsostress the fact that the trend towards institutionalization threatens the in-formality that characterizes many of their activities, and that is preciselywhy they are needed and complementary to other types of intervention, suchas governmental ones. But if they do not participate in such networks andclusters, they face the risk of seeing their sources of funding dry up. One ofthe alternatives might be to encourage diaspora organizations to form theirown networks in order to stimulate exchanges across types of activities andalso across organizations originating from different regions. In that sense,“going from transnational to international”, namely linking up with and be-ing involved in a series of countries rather than focusing on one country oforigin and/or one country of settlement only, is seen as an alternative togovernment-led networks. This strategy would also allow diaspora organi-zations to go beyond the interests related only to their home/host country,for instance by creating links on the basis of professional affiliation or on thetype of activities they wish to implement. Such a strategy would also favourthe setting up of coherent and strong initiatives across a series of civil societyorganizations and increase the level of information sharing between them,hence reinforcing their position and bargaining power.

At a more general level, most civil society organizations face the dilemmaof bonding or bridging — namely either bond with similar organizationsor organizations representing the same transnational community, or bridgethe gap and link up with organizations of a different nature or representinganother transnational community, and especially a community with whomthey hitherto had a difficult relation. Each option has its advantages andshortcomings, but among those whose aim is to foster dialogue and conflictresolution among transnational communities and in the countries of origin,many wonder whether bonding actually helps or prevents bridging.


Another underlying chal-lenge lies in the attitudesof the homeland vis-‘-vis di-aspora organizations, espe-cially when these are seenas opposed to the policiesof the government in thecountry of origin. Exam-ples where homeland author-ities have resisted the in-volvement of civil society or-ganizations in political but

also development activities are numerous. This trend is particularly notice-able for divided diasporas or diasporas made up of members of groups thatare opposed in the home country, such as in the cases of Rwanda or Kosovo.Some civil society organizations are, for instance, worried about what theysee as a wish of home governments to try to monitor and control diasporaactivities. More specifically, the creation of ministries or offices of diaspora,or the adoption of laws on diaspora — such as the Law on Diaspora adoptedin Kosovo — are seen as possible tools for controlling diaspora activities,or even as ways of defining the boundaries of legitimate diaspora activities.Beyond the fear of being instrumentalized by home governments, other morepragmatic concerns underlie the will of civil society organizations to avoidtoo much interference from the home country, such as the need to preservethe very high internal diversity of transnational communities in which dif-ferent generations, opinions, levels of engagement and politicization can befound. What is more, there is now a wide recognition that very differentorganisations are active in the so-called transnational space, all of which donot belong to a specific ‘diaspora’ but rather represent various circles of sup-port and interest in the affairs of a specific State or social or cultural group.Any attempt at framing or controlling the activities of such diverse groupstherefore runs the risk of impoverishing them. Of course, in the eyes of theconcerned home governments, the objective is not to control the activities ofthese civil society organizations but rather to organize them and, sometimes,to encourage via diaspora organizations investments or tourism in the coun-tries of origin. Needless to say, the relations between a specific transnational

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community and its home government obviously change across groups andeven over time, so that generalizing is incredibly complex.

For the civil society organizations focusing on conflict resolution activities,both in the countries of origin and in the countries of settlement, reachinggenuine reconciliation stands out as the main challenge. Most researchers andpolicy-makers recognize that reconciliation is always very difficult to achieve.Beyond the very important issue of timing — when should the reconcilia-tion activities be organized? can they be launched in a top-down manner, orshould we wait for bottom-up initiatives, testifying for a genuine will for rec-onciliation? —, most actors agree that it has to be a win-win process withouttaboo topics. What is more, in order to promote a genuine “re-conciliation”,a prior situation of conciliation seems to be needed, when in fact in manycases this never existed. Many diaspora organizations thus have the feelingto have to start this reconciliation process “from scratch”, with very limitedmeans of action. Thus, if reconciliation is often stated as the ultimate goal,the pragmatic focus is often put on the establishment of dialogue betweentransnational communities originating from the same country and betweenthe communities remaining in the home country. Dialogue has therefore be-come an objective in itself, while still standing as an intermediary and morerealistic step towards the more distant objective of reconciliation.

After a conflict, one of the main difficulties lies in reaching an agreementabout what has happened, because it often determines who can be recognizedas a victim or not, and who has to be judged. But there are often confusionsand seemingly too high expectations about “establishing the truth”: on theone hand, because home governments sometimes tend to impose their ownversion of the events and therefore of what stands as an “official truth”— in order to serve their own political interests, or in order to genuinelyfavour reconciliation —, and, on the other hand, because each conflict partyhas difficulty in accepting that the other’s perception of what has happenedmight be held as “true” as its own. Most diaspora organizations do notrepresent all conflict parties, and some of them face opposition from homegovernments and struggle in establishing channels for dialogue that wouldinclude everyone — though some of them have been successful, as has beendescribed in the previous chapters.

The concept of “apologies” also proves to be controversial for most di-aspora organizations, as it is difficult to determine who should apologize, to


whom, and within which frame: Should apologies be part of the juridical pro-cess or take place outside of it? Should they be part of some social or politicalprocess? What role might civil society organizations play in facilitating oreven enabling apologies to take place?. . .

More generally, the issue of justice also appears to be a cross-cutting is-sue for all civil society organizations involved in peacebuilding activities. Itseems difficult to establish what form of justice — reparative or punitive —is the most appropriate in each case, and what are the potential relationsbetween these various forms of justice and the search for “truth” and recon-ciliation. It is generally thought among civil society activists that justice ismostly important for reparation purposes, not just for punishment. Whilejustice should be fighting impunity, most diaspora organizations involved inpeacebuilding consider that it should also foster reconciliation, and henceaddress the root causes of the conflict. However, the exact role civil societyorganizations might play in these processes is unclear. In this respect, lob-bying for the respect of human rights in the countries of origin seems to beone of the most promising avenues explored by diaspora organizations.

Promoting the respect of human rights indeed allows them to put pres-sure on the governments of their countries of origin while using a type ofdiscourse and vocabulary that are appealing to an international audience.What is more, the language of human rights might help them to build fur-ther links with other transnational organizations, thus favouring the “bondingand bridging” objective evoked above. Several civil society organizations alsostated their wish to contribute to the work of various International CriminalTribunals, such as the ones set up for ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as thetasks of these tribunals are deemed essential for the stabilization of thesepost-conflict societies.

Finally, the issue of accountability seems to represent a major challengefor all civil society organizations representing transnational communities. Ac-countability is the key to credibility and also, up to a certain extent, to accessto funding by Western agencies often wary of supporting organizations thatdo not have a strong popular basis. It is very difficult to determine whoexactly these organizations represent and how representative they are. Mostdiaspora organizations strive to demonstrate that they represent significantsections of transnational communities, but not all of them are very rooted,and in many cases it is very difficult to assess how representative they are of

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groups in the countries of origin. What is more, all diaspora groups displaya high internal diversity, and there are significant differences in opinion andbehaviour between diaspora groups, within them and also between diasporagroups and populations in the countries of origin. Civil society organizationsoften offer fora to the most mobilized and politicized, and therefore do notnecessarily represent the majority. Needless to say, a single organization canhardly account for all types of opinions, claims and strategies.

In any case, it seems crucial for home societies’ authorities to engage thesecivil society organizations in political means such as debate, advocacy or po-litical mobilization, because it helps them to progress towards their objectiveof establishing channels for exchange and dialogue between communities here(in the countries of settlement) and there (in the countries of origin). Lastbut not least, it also allows them to further the integration of their membersin the societies of settlement. In that sense, European societies provide use-ful fora for dialogue: they offer opportunities for exchanges that might notbe possible in home countries, and this might in turn prove useful for theresolution of home conflicts.

Chapter 3Impact and dissemination activities

Given its unique structure and research design, Infocon differs from tradi-tional research projects. Instead of focusing exclusively on scientific publica-tions, the project attempted to bring the research community and transna-tional community CSOs together on a common platform. The often vividdiscussion between these two “worlds” can be regarded as an impact on itsown right, since CSOs are typically not included at all in research designs orfieldwork.

In particular, an important impact of the project was to remind all stake-holders how idiosyncratic all conflicts are, and that generalizations acrossdifferent regions and diasporas can often only be made at the expense ofoversimplification and excessive abstraction. Instead of proposing one-size-fits-all solutions, the project recommended the improvement of processes thatpotentially lead to beneficial transformations of conflicts in Europe and theworld. These processes include, among others, dialogue, advocacy, lobbyingand integration. Through its dissemination activities, Infocon has not onlycontributed to identifying and raising awareness of process of conflict trans-formation, but also actively supported individual initiatives aiming at theresolution of specific conflicts (e.g. Infocon’s support of the Inter-RwandanDialogue in Brussels in December 2010).

A follow-up projected, currently prepared under the lead of one theproject’s civil society partners (SMS), will be explicitly based on the lessonslearned from Infocon. In particular, this includes lessons concerning the

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balance between research and civil society organizations in terms of work-load and budgets. Taking into account a criticism that traditional researchprojects are biased towards university partners, the follow-up project willemphasise even more than Infocon the activities for which CSOs have acomparative advantage, such as training and workshop activities. This islikely to improve further the balance between all stakeholders in co-operativeprojects and take advantage of the complementarities between research andcivil society partners.

In addition to the scientific publications presented below, a major im-pact of the project was to raise awareness of differences in perception amonguniversity partners and civil society organizations. The project helped exam-ining what CSOs expect from the research community in order for scientificfindings to be helpful and beneficial to their day-to-day activities. The ex-change between the different stakeholders of the project has led to a commonpublication, the Infocon Mousebook, in which challenges faced by diasporaorganizations and lessons learned from the project are condensed in a hand-on document targeted at practitioners in civil society organizations, researchinstitutions and public administrations dealing with conflict and migrationissues.

In order to take the impact of the project beyond traditional audiencesof scholars and experts, the project management has developed a series ofinnovative tools that facilitate the dissemination of the work. These toolsinclude not only the above mentioned “Mousebook”, but also annual conflictresolution work shops, broad on-line dissemination of research outputs anda unique on-line platform targeted at transnational communities (“Here andThere”). Below, the main dissemination activities are summarised in turn.

Conferences and workshops

Lille (France), May 6-7, 2009: Transnational communities and conflict. Acivil society approach.

The first Infocon conference was titled “Transnational Communities andConflict: A Civil Society Approach — Conflict resolution from below?” andfocused on the cross-border dimension of communities linked by similar back-grounds but confronted to multicultural societies modifies both the regions oforigin and the cities of settlement of those communities. The conference has

Infocon Mousebook | Impact and dissemination activities

been organized in coordination with the Internationalist Foundation, Uni-versite Laval and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lille. Moreover, theDIASPEACE project join the debate and, in coordination with the Inter-nationalist Foundation, organized a workshop about the Here and Thereinternet platform and the place for new technologies in community basedresearch.

The two-day conference explored dif-ferent perspectives of transnationalism andconflict resolution. The invited specialists,from both academia and civil society, in-teracted with the audience in the quest tounderstand the transnational actors’ role insolving conflicts both in their regions of ori-gin and their current cities of settlement.

Key note speakers from the Interna-tional Crisis Group and the Mairie de Lilleenriched the discussion on the Infocon casestudies with their respective international(ICG) and local (Mairie de Lille) viewpoints.Another important element of the event inLille was the setting-up of three conflictanalysis work shops, each of which dealing in

turn with one of the three regions of origin (Turkey, Great Lakes, Kosovo).Again, external experts (journalists, activists, researchers) were invited toparticipate in these work shops.

Nijmegen (Netherlands), April 22 and 23, 2010: Diaspora Organisations andScience. Two Worlds, One Mission — A Dialogue on Migration and Conflict.

The second Infocon conference in Nijmegen was the occasion to presentthe main research deliverables of the project. In addition, the two-day eventincluded a second conflict resolution work shop on Kosovo and a debate onthe role of migrant organizations in development processes. This event wasorganized under the title ‘Without Romance no Future?’ A debate on theintegration of diaspora organisations in the development sector” and askedquestions like “Do diaspora organisations and development organisations ac-

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tually want to work together?” and “What is the actual surplus value ofdiaspora organisations compared to development organisations?” Partici-pants of the debate included directors of several migrants’ and developmentorganisations from the Netherlands.

The conflict resolution workshopon Kosovo builds on a previous dia-logue experience moderated by Prof.Hugh Miall in Lille in May 2009.The workshop is based on the ideathat if the parties cannot agree, adialogue can still help to assess thepossibility of CSO engagement andtheir strategic possibilities for con-flict transformation and resolution.

Video footage of the debate onmigrant cooperation in developmentand the conflict resolution workshop on Kosovo is available on the projectwebsite1.

Brussels (Belgium), December 16-19, 2010: Diasporas and conflict transfor-mation — final conference of the DIASPEACE and Infocon projects

The international event was the occasion of presenting and discussing theresults of more than two years of intensive research on diaspora communitiesin Europe and around the world. The dense conference programme reflectednot only the diversity of research and policy questions in both projects (par-ticipation of diasporas in peacebuilding and development, diaspora-based di-alogues, diasporas and NGOs etc), but also the different communities understudy (Horn of Africa, Kosovo, Great Lakes region, etc).

The objective of the event was to create a discussion forum for the dif-ferent strands of research conducted by Infocon and DIASPEACE. Thesetwo projects together unite more than ten European universities and aroundtwenty civil society organizations around the issue of the role of diasporas indifferent conflicts in Europe and the world.

1www.infocon-project.org/output/nijmegen-conference

www.infocon-project.org/output/nijmegen-conference


The conference has allowed bothteams to present their results toan international audience made upof university researchers and stu-dents, policy makers and membersof the civil society. The Infoconresults have be summarised duringthe conference by the project’s re-search director, Elise Feron (Uni-versity of Kent). One of the mainoutcomes underlined during the con-ference was the distinction betweentwo types of “capital” that diasporasand diaspora organizations are en-dowed with: so-called “bridging cap-ital” and “bonding capital”. Whilediasporic communities in Europe ap-pear to be strong in creating linkswithin their respective communities

(i.e. they develop bonding capital), they might be less active in develop-ing bridges and relations with other communities (i.e. they do not focus onbonding capital). The ensuing discussions at the conference helped clarifyingthat this analytical distinction could explain why most of the diaspora orga-nization interviewed by Infocon have only engaged to a very limited extentin processes of reconciliation and conflict resolution.

The DIASPEACE results presented at the conference in Brussels appearto confirm this view. A major result of the project underlined by the Germanscholar Andrea Warnecke is that the dialogue between the representatives ofdiasporas in European societies is rather limited in continuity and compre-hensiveness and that the European public is in general perceived by diasporasas having a limited and superficial vision of the conflicts in countries of ori-gin. An encompassing dialogue on the transformation of conflicts is thereforebound by a lack of information and analysis among European decision mak-ers.

In addition to the presentation of research findings, the conference pro-gramme dedicated several time slots to other experts in the domain of migra-

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tion and conflict analysis. Among the external speakers were Nicholas vanHear (University of Oxford), Jolle Demmers (Utrecht University), JeremyLester (DG Development), Alexandar Mitic (Project Director at the Euro-pean Center for Development and Peace in Belgrade), Vladimir Radomirovic(Analyst at Center for Strategic Alternatives), Ylli Hoxha (Foreign PolicyClub Prishtina) and Lawrence Meredith (DG Enlargement).

The Brussels conferencewas framed by several sideevents on the theme of dias-poras. In particular, a novelexposition of the Canadianphotographer David Bru-lotte (Stigmat Agency) un-derlined the individualityand diversity within everydiaspora communities withportraits of migrants takenin Europe, Asia and Africa.In addition, on December 16and 17 many conference participants joined the cultural evenings organizedby the non-profit NGO “Les enfants d’Afrique”, including traditional food,concerts and African dances.

Participation in external conferences

All Infocon partners have been encouraged to participate in external confer-ence on themes related to Infocon. Events in which Infocon participationappear to have been particularly relevant include:

� DIASPEACE kick-off conference on May 6, 2008 in Brussels.

� GoverScience seminar for Civil Society Organisations, October 9-102008 in Brussels.

� Conference on Human Rights in the European and Global Perspectiveon December 16, 2008 in Brussels


� SHUR conference: Human Rights in Conflict: The Role of Civil Societyon June 4-6, 2009 in Rome

� Here and There seminar organised by the DIASPEACE project at theAfrican Diaspora Policy Centre (ADPC) on July 3, 2009 in Amsterdam

� SciencesPo/CERI conference “Diasporas and Conflict Importation inUrban Settings” on December 18, 2009 in Paris

� ISA Annual Convention on February 17-20, 2010 in New Orleans

� ECPR joint sessions of workshops “Cross-Border Migrant Organiza-tions - Rethinking National Integration Policy” on March 22-27, 2010in Munster

Publications

The project’s flagship publications summarize all findings on each of its threethematic fields, respectively. These are:

� Transnational Communities and Conflict Policies (2010). Hugh Miall,Anna Ornert and Dogus Simsek, with contributions by Flutura Kusari,Armend Bekaj and Liridon Shurdani. Infocon Deliverable Number 3.

� Factors Influencing Migrants’ Engagement with Transnational EconomicActivities in Post-Conflict Countries? (2010). Nienke Regts, Mariekevan Houte and Ruerd Ruben. Infocon Deliverable Number 4.

� Beyond the Core Conflict: New Minorities, New Confrontations andNew Policies (2010). Nathalie Perrin and Marco Martiniello. InfoconDeliverable Number 5.

Infocon CSOs contributed to each of these three publications (in thecase of Miall, Orrnert and Simsek (2010), for instance, the CSO KosovaYoung Lawyers made substantial contributions concerning conflict resolutionactivities in Kosovo). However, several CSO partners ceased the opportunityof consortium meetings to stress the added value of more practically ori-ented publications that could, for example, used as training materials (SMS

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suggested to produce input for “training-for-trainers”). Given that the over-arching objective of Infocon was to produce knowledge that is both scientif-ically sound and beneficial for the involved civil society partners, the conceptof a flagship publication targeted at diaspora organizations emerged and wasfurther elaborated at consortium meetings in Liege (2009), Nijmegen (2010)and Brussels (2010). The final outcome was the “Infocon Mousebook”:an on-line handbook with practical information mainly targeted at diasporaorganizations engaged in conflict resolution, development or integration ac-tivities.

� Elise Feron and Anna Orrnert (editors) (2011). The Challenges Facedby Diaspora Organizations — and How They can be Addressed. Brus-sels: Internationalist Foundation.

Indeed, Infocon launched a reflection and debate on the challenges facedby diaspora communities both in their cities of settlement, and in their coun-tries of origin, and how these challenges could be addressed. The Mousebookis the product of such a reflection. The objectives of this publication, a jointcollaboration between Infocon’s academic and civil society partners (bothcontributing to the conceptualization and writing of the following chapters)are to help transnational communities think through critical issues related totheir day-to-day engagement with economic development and conflict trans-formation in home and host societies. As such, it intends to provide verypractical guidance (supplemented by case studies in boxes, checklists, etc.)to thinking through and dealing with these issues. It therefore is a mix be-tween “guidelines” and “lessons learned”, which draws on the results of theInfocon research, and tries to highlight the main trends that have beenobserved.

The dissemination of the Mousebook relies, as the name indicates, mainlyon on-line tools (pdf downloads, flipbooks, issuu referencing, placement oflinks in social media). The Mousebook can be freely accessed at www.

infocon-project.org/output/mousebook.




Websites

Project website

One of the first management activities was to set up an attractive internetwebsite for external and internal communication: all relevant informationabout Infocon can be found on www.infocon-project.org. The externalwebsite has the following features:

� It provides general information about the project, its objectives and itsstructure. Users can download the Description of Work and follow itsimplementation.

� All partners are presented, including biographies of key participantsand links to the their respective websites.

� Users can visit an output section where all documents with Infoconresults (e.g. Deliverables, Progress Reports etc) can be downloaded.

� A newsletter is regularly published on the website, informing the widerInfocon network on upcoming events and results that have been achieved.

� A contact section, including an automatic contact form, facilitates ex-change with external stakeholders.

The internal website is only accessible to Infocon participants who havebeen provided with individual user names and passwords. The most impor-tant features of the internal website are:

� An announcement system, which allows to communicate important in-formation to all partners, including automatic email notification of newannouncements

� Discussion fora on specific topics (e.g. the transversal questionnaire,implementation issues during fieldwork etc).

� A document repository that allows to classify uploaded documents bywork packages, region of origin and city of settlement. In addition,repository with a general bibliography has been created. All uploadeddocument can be tagged with free keywords, which make the document


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repository particularly user-friendly. In addition, documents can betagged as being confidential, so that all partners are aware that thedocument in question is not to be disseminated beyond the consortium.

Both the internal and the external website have been created with up-to-date web technology in the context of on-line co-operation and externaldissemination. Particular attention has been paid to interactivity and user-friendliness. The following features of the website underline this emphasis:

� The external website provides RSS feeds that interested user can sub-scribed to. The

� RSS feeds send automatic updates as soon as the content new contentis made available.

� Users can easily subscribe to the Infocon newsletter by simply typingin their email address on the website’s front-page. At the time of writingthere are around 250 subscribers of the newsletter.

The knowledge platform “Here & There”

One of Infocon’s major goals is to provide strategic tools for Civil SocietyOrganisations. For this purpose, we developed an innovative communicationtool: the internet platform Here & There, accessible at www.here-there.

org. Here & There allows organizational networking via the exchange ofknowledge related to transnational communities. Transnational communityorganisations and also research institutes or governmental actors use Here& There to present themselves in tailored spaces and exchange information.Here & There makes use of innovative Web 2.0 technological features to fosteractive participation and frequent visits of the target community.

Here & There was launched in March 2009. Since then, all features ofthe platform have been continuously improved, often in co-operation withthe FP7 project Diaspeace. The Infocon management employed differentcommunication channels to promote the platform. In co-operation with Di-aspeace, information e-mails and postcards have been largely disseminatedto civil society organisations, research institutions and policy makers. Info-con also engaged in face-to-face promotion of Here & There, for instance atthe Diaspeace seminar at the African Diaspora Policy Center in Amsterdamon July 3, 2009.

www.here-there.org

www.here-there.org


In order to keep improv-ing the functionalities of-fered by Here & There, In-focon works closely withthe French IT service providerTymate, who has also beencharged with the regularmaintenance of the website.

Other impact and dis-semination channels Info-

con support for a session of the Inter-Rwandan Dialogue

Parallel to the official programme of the Infocon conference on Decem-ber 17, 2010, a session of the “Highly Inclusive Intra-Rwandan Dialogue” washeld with support of Infocon. The Intra-Rwandan Dialogue was foundedby Isidore Munyakazi, a Tutsi residing the United States, and Elysee Ndayis-aba, a Hutu residing in Belgium. The goal was to engage in dialogue with theaim of creating ‘true mutual understanding’ in order to arrive ‘at commoninterpretations of a given matter.’ It was stressed that arriving at a commoninterpretation doesn’t mean that the parties involved in the dialogue alwayshave to agree with each other; rather, they need to have the same interpre-tation of the matter they disagree on. Dialogue differs from reconciliationbecause the latter implies re-establishing harmony among the people whohave previously been divided by conflict, harmony that has been regained byasking for and granting forgiveness. Participants will include Hutu, Tutsi andTwa individuals from political parties and Rwandan civil organisations fromthe diaspora in African countries, European countries and from the UnitedStates of America. Regular “youngster meetings”

In order to foster the coordination between the research teams in the in-tervals between consortium meetings, the PhD students of the project metregularly with the management team in Brussels (Nathalie Perrin, Mariekevan Houte, Anna Ornert, Jan Hanrath and Stephan Kampelmann partici-pated in these “youngster meetings”). The meetings helped to evaluate theprogress on the different work packages, to exchange knowledge on diaspora-related issues, as well as to initiate and develop other joint publications basedon Infocon research. During the second reporting period, three youngstermeetings were held on July 16 and September 21, 2009 and March 22, 2010.

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Co-operation with DIASPEACE

Since the beginning of the Infocon project, the relevance of a cooperationwith the project DIASPEACE was stressed by the all involved parties andseveral synergies between both projects were identified and targeted. There-fore, several steps were taken in order to build the cooperation between thetwo research projects, mainly regarding the internet platform Here and There(managed by DIASPEACE partner BICC, the Bonn International Centre forConversion) and the organization of a joint final conference.

In July 2008, a joint Intranetsystem was set up in order to fa-cilitate the share of research find-ing between the two sister projectsand highlighting potential synergieswith DIASPEACE by linking andpromoting similar research interestsand conceptual frame; comment-ing papers, discussion on conclu-sions/recommendations; joint dis-semination, events and publications.It requires the same user name andpassword as the Infocon Intranet to login. Many relevant documents thatinterest to both projects have being shared through that system.

Newsletter service and RSS feed

The management team created a newsletter system which allows the man-agement team to create and disseminate the Infocon newsletter to a wideaudience. Since June 2008, the management team has circulated the newslet-ter a monthly intervals, and the service will be continued after the officialend of the project in April 2011. At time of the submission of this report,twelve issues of the newsletter were released. Currently, the newsletter systemcounts around 250 subscribed readers, representing an important dissemina-tion channel for the project. Past editions of the newsletter are available inthe news section of the project website.

Find out more

Contact details Stephan Kampelmannc/o Internationalist FoundationAvenue de Cortenbergh, 16P.O.Box 75, BE-1040 Brussels-Schuman,Belgium

Project website www.infocon-project.org

“Here & There” platform www.here-there.org


www.here-there.org

List of Acronyms

CBO Community-Based OrganizationCSO Civil Society OrganizationEU European UnionHIIRD Highly Inclusive Inter-Rwandan DialogueINFOCON International Civil Society Forum on ConflictsNGO Non-Governmental OrganizationSMS Stichting Mondiale SamenlevingTC Transnational CommunityTCOs Transnational Community Organizations

European societies host a variety of diasporas that are potentially in-strumental in preventing and resolving conflicts in Europe and the world.These transnational communities offer unique opportunities for constructivedialogue, opportunities that could be exploited more effectively. But howexactly should the European Union and its Member States go about doingthat? This question was at the heart of the Infocon research project.

Combining the complementary strengths of researchers and civil societyorganisations (CSOs) in several countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Ger-many, the United Kingdom, and Kosovo), Infocon has produced a conciseset of observations and recommendations that provide Europe’s policy mak-ing community with some guidance on a matter of broad public concern.

Infocon focused on diasporas representing conflicted communities inTurkey, Kosovo, and the Great Lakes region of Africa. Interviews were car-ried out with members of those communities both in their country of originand in various European host cities where they are strongly represented —Amsterdam (Randstad), Berlin, Brussels, and London. Thus the findings aredrawn from populations representing a diverse set of regions and issues.

Infocon is a joint project of Akagera-Rhein e.V. (Germany), Centre d’Etudesde l’Ethnicite et des Migrations/Universite de Liege (Belgium), Conflict Anal-ysis Research Centre/University of Kent (UK), CRAN (Netherlands), Inef/Universitat Duisburg Essen (Germany), Institut d’etudes politiques de Lille(France), Kosova Young Lawyers (Kosovo), Minority Rights Group Inter-national (UK), SOS Rwanda-Burundi (Belgium), Navend e.V. (Germany),Stichting Mondiale Samenleving (Netherlands), Universite Laval (Canada),and Zentrum fur Turkeistudien (Germany).

Co-ordinated by the Internationalist Foundation (Netherlands) and the Uni-versite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium)

www.infocon-project.org/output

INFOCON Final Progress Report

Documents

Transcript of INFOCON Final Progress Report