Launch of the Inclusive Communication Guide
With the Community of Practice on Inclusive Communication and HuCom, we have worked since April 2022 on topics of Inclusive communication. Together, we explored ways to make our communication work more ethical, inclusive and equitable in all senses. Not only through the stories we tell or the words and images we use but also in our ways of working with our international partners and communities involved. We discussed and worked on creating tools to make our communication practices more inclusive, just and ethical. The results of this exploration, we put into the Inclusive Communication Guide, which includes guiding principles, a glossary and future briefs with reflections on topics such as history and power relations and storytelling. We created the Inclusive Communication guide as an attempt to train ourselves and others in making the communication practices in our sector more inclusive.
The launch of the guide doesn’t mean the process is finished. Words, stories or images that are hailed as inclusive today may become problematic tomorrow. Continued efforts in changing language are necessary because the process of escaping power relations in language is dynamic and never-ending. As we discovered, the vocabulary within international cooperation is not a neutral reflection of the reality we want to describe but a historically grown language. Social relations, past and present, shape our language, and this language is, therefore, an expression of power relations within the field. Our language at our disposal was thus formed in colonial history and the unequal international relations that followed. To avoid reproducing these power relations in our language, it is essential to scrutinise them constantly. In this way, we can choose words that do not deny the power relations present but do not reaffirm them either: we are looking for a vocabulary that acknowledges and questions power relations, that names them but also deconstructs them. Balancing this is difficult and often paradoxical, but it is also productive because it forces us to rethink respectful, balanced and critical communication and collaboration.
Prize for the best master’s thesis on humanitarian communication
After the launch, it is time for the nominated students to present their research on humanitarian communication and the representation of international cooperation and humanitarian aid. Each nominee will give a short presentation of their thesis in Pecha Kucha style (i.e. 20 slides to be shown for 20 seconds each). Afterwards, the jury will announce the winner. Following the ceremony, there will be drinks and bites. The Humanitarian Communication Thesis Prize 2023 is supported by ASCA and BuzzHouse.