| Quarterly Newslettre n° 7 | July- September 2006 |
PEKEA NEWSLETTER
IN THIS ISSUE (click on a heading to jump to that section) :
1- A few words by Marc Humbert, Executive Secretary of PEKEA
2- « Individual and Society », Dakar, 1-3 December 2006
3- Report from the successful PEKEA- Eumed virtual conference held last May
4 - Information about conferences, publications, websites
1- A few words by Marc Humbert, Executive Secretary of PEKEA
Dear Friends,
Let me give you some news, to you all : this letter is sent to approximately one thousand people in seventy-five countries. Please let know to a few good friends, how it is important to back this project, to give voice at the international level, to a constructive and sound thinking, in order to build a better future for our planet.I would like to make four points.
Fisrt, I am pleased to confirm to you that, following the advice given last January by its NGO Committee, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, decided, at its Substantive Session of July 2006, to grant Special consultative status to our organization. We will have to submit a report to the Committee in 2010. And we are allowed to participate in international meetings and this will be an opportunity to express our way of thinking which is different from the mainstream.
Second, I would like to inform you that we have just slightly improved our website which receives about 3000 visitors each month. The research engine "Pekea-doc" (Click here to check) is very convenient to find a text from any PEKEA conference with a word, a name of author etc.
Third, we start with this issue to give information about events and conferences that are sharing some of our preoccupations : about each event, there are only a very few lines and a link to find more about it, so that, even if it is a cross posting for you, the burden will be light... but for others, it will be an opportunity to know where to get a valuable information.
Fourth, our main present task is to organise our Vth international conference and we hope you will come or at least you will send a note for one of the sessions. Thus I look forward to seeing you in Dakar or/and to reading a piece from you about one of the points that are on the agenda. With my best wishes,
Marc Humbert
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2- « Individual and Society », Dakar, 1-3 December 2006
Our Vth international Conference and General Assembly will be held in Dakar, addressing the following question :
What relationships between "Individual and Society"?
If we address this question it is because we share with the majority of the people in the planet their whish to have : An economy in the service of the society. And that the kind of relationships between individual and society is a key question to achieve this target.
Questions on the agenda during the Dakar Conference :
Adam Smith gave birth to Political Economy as an attempt to find out how a Nation, a Society, can become wealthier. According to what the dominant thinking learnt from his inquiry, it is sufficient for the Nation to entrust itself to the principles of the market. When everyone takes care, selfishly of her or his interest, an "invisible hand" will allow the Society to become richer. This very specific model of relationships between individual and society has become the dominant paradigm to guide any research in the social sciences.
However, researchers and decision-makers, making along this line, did not succeed neither theoretically, nor practically, to find out how a Society can become richer without an outcome where a few number of very rich people mix with a huge number of poor people and without an over-exploitation of Nature : a situation which is not satisfactory for the Society as a whole.
We are going to explore, more precisely, various other ways that are available to deal with the relationships between " individual and society ". These debates are part of the follow-up of the previous conferences, part of this collective enterprise to build a political and ethical knowledge on economic activities, a project that has been launched by PEKEA. The discussion will be organised during a dozen of sessions and workshops as follows.
Full information about the programme and the organisation of work is now available in English : Click here
en Français : Click here
en Español: Click here
The Chair of our local organising committee for our next conference in Dakar is Mr Abdou Salam Fall, Professor of Sociology, Senior Research Fellow at IFAN, UCAD, Dakar, Senegal and visiting fellow at University of Quebec. He is also President of RIPESS, International Network for Social and Solidarity Economy.
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3- Report from the successful PEKEA- Eumed virtual conference held last May
Thanks to our colleague Pr. Juan Carlos Martinez Coll, University of Malaga, Spain, Eumed has organisd, for the 3rd consecutive year, a virtual conference in Spanish, principally but also in Portuguese and even in Gallego.
This PEKEA-EUMED conference through Internet lasted from 5 to 23 May 2006
The discussion took place between 50 participants from eighteen countries : Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, México, Panamá, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Papers in line have been discussed in a formal forum with more than ninety notes. There was also an informal Exchange of messages ( more than seventy messages)
All main PEKEA themes have been discussed
For more information, go to the site : : Click here
A CD-ROM in Spanish is available: Click here
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4 - Information about conferences, publications, websites
Conferences
- ICAPE:
The second international conference of International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics entitled "Economic Pluralism for the 21st Century" will be held on 1st-3rd June 2007 at the University of Utah -Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Therefore ICAPE and the organizers of the conference invite proposals for papers that discuss or demonstrate the value of economic pluralism in any of its domains: economic theory and philosophy, economic institutions and policies, or economic education. Please go to the online website: Click here
- LERASS:
The Laboratory of Sudies and Applied Research in Socials Sciences and its partners, the IUT and the University of Toulouse 3 organize a conference entitled "Participative democracy in Europe"; which will take place in Toulouse ,France, from 15th to 17th November 2006. This conference will discuss how to approach, to highlight, to question and to clarify in a communicational perspective the "principle of participative democracy". Details, program, fees, registrations in the online website: Click here
- IRAM:
The Institut of Research and Applications of Methods of development organizes the 15th and the 16th September 2006 two days of study at the FIAP, Paris, France:
- Friday 15th: "food crisis 2005 in Niger: are policies of development deadlocked? "
- Saturday 16th (morning): "decentralization in Africa: administrative reform or new political deal?".
Registration will be closed on the 15th August 2006. To get the introductory note, the pre-program and the registration form, please send an e- mail to <ongpekea@yahoo.fr>
- RLCU:
The 3rd International Encounter of Researchers of the Latin American Network of University Cooperation: "Political, Economy and Development. Latin America between democratic governance and social inclusion ", will take place in the University of Ibagué-Coruniversitaria - Ibagué, Colombia 5th and 6th October 2006. Four thematic areas will be treated: Policy and Government in Latin America; Economy and Regional Development; Education and Society; Environment and Sustainable Development. Electronic mail for more information and for sending communications: <IIIencuentro@nevado.cui.edu.co>
Publications
- The Bolivian Centre of Multidisciplinary Studies (CEBEM) and the Ibero-American Network of Researchers (RII) have issued their bulletin RIPPET n°11 of July 2006. It releases information about programmes, courses, scholarships, documents and calls from various countries in Latin America and from their partners throughout the world. To read it, Click here
- The Post-Autistic Economic Movement whose masters words are sanity, humanity and science pluralism in economics proposes its Post-Autistic Reviews which are in free access online on its website. To read the last Issue n°.38, 1st July 2006 please: Click here
To read other issues and to subscribe to this email-delivered journal, please go to their online website: Click here
- Correa E., A. Girón (coord.) and co have the pleasure to announce us the publication of the book Reforma Financiera en América Latina, CLASCO, Buenos Aires, 2006. This book shows the way taken by the financial reforms under the Washington Consensus and its coherence with the interests of the transnational financial corporations. Also, it points out the enormous necessity to recover the money and the finances to serve the Latin American people in order that they find their own way towards development and equity. The CLASCO publisher is used to give free access to the contents of its books, this one is now available : please: Click here
Websites
- The International Celso Furtado Center for Development Policies, located in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, has the pleasure to inform us that since the 17th July their website is on line. The first purpose of the Celso Furtado Center is to promote academic activities related to the study of the multiple facetted reality of development in all its economic, social, regional and urban, infrastructural, environmental and international dimensions. Classes and seminars, of a training nature, are directed towards students and all those interested in the problems of development. For more information, see the website: Click here
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| PEKEA President: Yves BERTHELOT yves.berthelot@unog.ch Executive Secretary: Marc HUMBERT Marc.Humbert@univ-rennes1.fr Scientific VPdt : Theotonio DOS SANTOS theotoni@terra.com.br Treasurer: Danièle BENEZECH daniele.benezech@univ-rennes1.fr |
PEKEA Newsletter Chief editor : Marc Humbert |