NAF 2015
Announcing NORTH ATLANTIC FORUM (NAF) 2015
City of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada: 17-18-19 September 2015
Theme:
Building Communities: New Approaches to Governance, Resilience and Culture as Resources
“The periphery is a place where opposites clash or converge, where creativity and danger are at their most alive” - Kevin MacNeil (2011: xxi)
NAF 2015 invites explorations of how various ‘dark horses’ in the broad North Atlantic – including minorities, small towns, peripheries, aboriginal communities, those with little money, status, voice or political leverage – can rise to the occasion and chart liveable futures.
NAF 2015 will examine opportunities for sustainable living that are more likely to emerge from small and peripheral communities – rural, coastal or island - that would otherwise struggle in a McWorld driven by scale economics.
North Atlantic Forum 2015 will serve as a platform for the critical and inter-disciplinary discussion of experiences where those living ‘on the edge’, however defined, show unexpected ingenuity and mettle; and respond cleverly to dire economic straits or public policy negligence. Including:
- Politically, by developing suitable governance practices; flexing jurisdictional powers; and engaging in multi-level political and (para)-diplomatic relations;
- Economically, by facilitating small-scale entrepreneurship; promoting investment; creating skill-rich jobs; encouraging inward and circular migration; and developing new forms of human-scaled, place-based, no-growth economies, sensitive to environmental needs;
and
· Culturally, by nourishing strong communities that celebrate traditions and encourage artistic expression; sustaining suitable environmental practices; and welcoming newcomers in their rooted yet routed ways of life.
Thank you!
North Atlantic Forum 2013 was a rewarding experience full of good presentations, workshops and hands on experience of rural tourism in the rural setting around Hólar. On behalf of the hosts, Holar University College Department of Rural Tourism we wish to thank all of the participants, staff and sponsors as well as the businesses we visited during the conference. Please visit the Holar University College facebook site and our picture gallery to share some of our experiences.
Guðrún Helgadóttir, department head
