IKIKO is the Esperanto acronym for “International Congress on Intercultural Communication”. That is, a congress in which anyone, regardless of their academic and economic status and language, can participate by contributing material related to intercultural communication.
IKIKO aims to be more than just a congress, it has the following characteristics:
- The theme of IKIKO is intercultural communication from a broad point of view. IKIKO is multi-local, it is realised through the participation of autonomous venues from different parts of the world.
- IKIKO is multilingual. One of its objectives is to strengthen the mother tongues, chosen by the sites.
- IKIKO is multidimensional. On the one hand it is a scientific experience, which submits articles to a scientific journal. On the other hand it is a meeting of people and communities.
- IKIKO is multi-layered. Over the course of 108 consecutive hours, participants have the opportunity to enjoy, teach and learn through several layers of actions that take place simultaneously.
- IKIKO is hybrid. You can participate through face-to-face experiences, mixing it with virtual events.
IKIKO in 10 points
- Imagine a small-scale congress in a city, region or country. People from the scientific world participate with scientific contributions. Social movements and non-academics also participate, bringing their experiences, projects and realities. Contributions take the form of a text, a video, a sound file, a poster, a workshop, a song…
- The theme of the congress is intercultural communication. This is a very broad topic that is present everywhere. At the congress, participants share their experiences or research on cultural and linguistic hegemonies, on what happens in the street, in the classroom, in the media, in companies, in social movements… when two or more cultures or languages meet. We talk about inclusive language, language oppression, cultural domination, justice.
- The congress takes place because there is an organising team. It is a small group of people who decide on the schedule, the language, the venue and the virtual, and all the details to make the programme relevant to the local population. The congress is an example of linguistic and cultural justice.
- Now imagine this experience happening in several places around the world at the same time. In Italy, Peru, Tanzania, South Korea small organising teams set up local congresses, which take place in the local language, according to the local calendar, with local cultural references. In Tanzania, people participate in Swahili and prefer face-to-face meetings. In South Korea, they do it in Korean and almost everything is done on the Internet.
- IKIKO is a congress of congresses. An interval of more than 100 hours in which they will try to link several independent venues taking place in different parts of the world and dealing with intercultural communication, justice and oppression, hegemonies and emancipations.
- In order to make the connection between the sites a reality, we will use several resources. These resources aim to (1) create a common IKIKO environment, (2) solve communication between speakers of different languages and (3) facilitate access to all contributions, regardless of where they take place.
- The IKIKO environment is achieved by sharing a common spirit, an international organisational team, common times, a global headquarters or layer, and common resources: a scientific and popular journal, a repository with all contribution materials in open access, etc.
- To facilitate communication between sites with different languages, we have set up two systems. On the one hand, the world layer is in Esperanto, a language we chose so as not to unbalance communication by choosing a national language. Each site translates a selection of its contributions to the world layer into Esperanto, and translates a selection of contributions from the world layer from Esperanto into its home language. The translation can take the form of a literal translation of the texts, simultaneous interpretation or a synthesis. There is at least one Esperantist at each site who ensures this communication.
- Several sites will share a language and others will be able to communicate with each other using their own translation and interpretation resources. We also want to test automatic translations via chat. The most important thing is that people participating in an event only need the local language to participate and are never pressured to use another language. It is important that they experience that their language and the congress resources are sufficient to participate in this international and intercultural event.
- There are two procedures for accessing the contributions. On the one hand, we have a journal that will publish the selected scientific contributions. On the other hand, the contributions and their materials will be available in a resource repository. You will be able to browse the repository and find the resources you want, some of them available in several languages.
The organisation of this phenomenon seeks to break down the barriers between theories and practices, research and policy, universities and communities. We have learned a lot from current and previous congresses and we do not want to reproduce the same hegemonic habits, but to be creative and courageous people.