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Dear Kati, Maria and others, I appreciate your posts and I think they should not be dismissed as obstructing 'progress'. Be it a perceptual or a 'real' problem, a problem is a problem. I think a community geninuely interested in cross cultural interaction should take the 'complaints' expressed seriously and to listen carefully. If I were to organize a real or virtual conference, how might I take care of these issues? Any suggestions? Rosan "Maria F. Camacho" wrote: > Kati, you have raised what I think is a very relevant issue. I have been a > witness to how some of my colleagues in different Latinamerican countries > dislike the ways in which the "international design academics" discuss, > accept or reject their opinions. Many people feel they have different valid > ways to discuss issues, and don't bother following discussions in the > "international design academic world", be it because they don't think > english should be the main language to be used, or beacuse the ways used are > far from our own cultural ways of carrying on serious discussions. > "Kati Reijonen" wrote: > I was in a conference in Cape Town some years ago, the topic of which was > Design Education in Developing Countries. 30 papers were presented in the > conference, of which 3 came from countries "Kati labels non-Western" (and > one was a woman). A Kenyan delegate told me on a coffee break that he does > not bother sending abstracts to conferences any more as they are never > accepted. He also questioned the sense of conventional conference structure, > which he did not think promoted true interaction between the participants.