Communicating Peace: Entertaining Angels Unawares

Communication rights and the ever more urgent need to construct a culture of peace are central to a vision of a world in which universal human values displace the accumulated weight of history’s tyrannies. Michael Traber, to whom this book is dedicated, believed that there is only one way of overcoming the political, economic, social, and cultural inequalities and violence that have marred and obstructed justice for all – and that is genuine

communication. Building a culture of peace means building a culture of communication in solidarity with those whose freedom has been taken away, or seriously diminished, rendering them less than human.

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Latest titles from the CfDSC series

Where The Rivers Meet The Sky:
A Collaborative Approach to Participatory Development

The SKYRIVER process has received a great deal of recognition for its innovative use of video and film tools to enhance and strengthen citizen participation in the decision-making processes of government. The

collaborative process of economic and social development, facilitated within and among Native Alaskan villages, led to direct communication between the villages and government officials and, ultimately, to positive social change. This book provides a detailed review of how the SKYRIVER process evolved and the many lessons learnt from its evolution.

"Tim (Kennedy) was respectful to the people he came to help. He learned to listen rather than lecturing to the people he came to serve. He became in spirit an Alaska Native. He demonstrated through his work a statement made by Father Oleksa, Russian Orthodox priest, who said, “we need the wisdom of the old and the knowledge of the new.” Tim was respectful of the wisdom of the ancestors and taught the Alaska Native people to navigate through the external decision process (State of Alaska legislative process) of making change through the use of modern film and video technology. The making of the film statement was a process much like the old way of reaching a consensus, to discuss the issue for as long as it takes for everyone to agree. Everyone had a voice. He taught us the knowledge of the new by the use of filmmaking to carry the message to the decision makers and to get a response from the receiver to play back to the senders of the message. Much like the Yup’ik story tellers using the story knife, a picture is worth a thousand words."

Kanaqlak (George P. Charles), Yup'ik PhD
Center Director, National Resource Center for American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Elders University of Alaska, Anchorage

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Understanding Micronesia:
A Cultural Guide for Researchers and Visitors

"Tom Hogan's Understanding Micronesia is a welcome addition to the growing body of works on communication in the Pacific. Based on many years of productive fieldwork, this book is theoretically sophisticated and rich in insights. The author has lucidly and cogently laid bare some of the very significant issues that impede cross-cultural understanding in this region. I strongly recommend this

book to all those interested in culture and communication in Micronesia and beyond."

Wimal Dissanayake , University of Hawaii

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Moving Targets: Mapping the Paths between Communication, Technology and Social Change
in Communities

Communicators are shifting their focus of attention towards local communities and with the model of communication becoming multidimensional. This shift confronts both scholars and practitioners with a series of questions:

These questions raise timely and serious issues related to communication for development and social change. This book attempts to address those issues, particularly at the community level, by investigating why some community initiatives succeed while others fail. Lessons learned from the past and present will help scholars and practitioners to better position themselves and better utilize their resources to bring about desired outcomes in the future.

This book, comprising 13 chapters contributed by both academics and practitioners specializing in the field of communication for development and social change in communities, has just been published to launch the CfDSC series. Prof. Jan Servaes is the Series Editor.

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About the CfDSC series

More information about the series is available in the two announcements below which may be downloaded from the links below as PDF documents:

Call for book proposals and manuscripts
Guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts

Visualisation in Participatory Programmes: How to Facilitate and Visualise Participatory Group Processes

This manual has been written for the trained facilitator of group events. It is designed to reinforce concepts and techniques learned in training of facilitators and trainers in participatory group processes. VIPP is not wedded to a particular framework or academic discipline in problem solving, planning or training. Rather it is a set of tools that can be applied to just about any group process as long as the intention is to make such processes more participatory
and democratic.

This is a manual for facilitators and trainers involved in:

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