Global Utilities

La Trobe University
Centre for Dialogue

What is Dialogue?

Over the past several decades international society has experienced a rapid increase in the flows of people, money, technology, information and images across borders. It has also experienced an escalation of tension and violence throughout the world between states, nations, religions and cultures.

The challenges posed by these changes suggest that despite the interdependent nature of world affairs, problems of order and coexistence remain essentially unresolved.

Partly in response to these challenges, the Centre for Dialogue proposes to specialise in the theory and practice of dialogue across cultural, religious and geopolitical boundaries.

The overriding aim of this research is to promote a better understanding of the implications of identity politics, whether expressed in terms of ethnicity, race, religion, culture or nationality. It proposes to explore the conditions which facilitate dialogue across these boundaries, as well as the conditions which impede it.

Dialogue implies a relationship between ‘self’ (in-group) and other (out-group) which is characterised by a degree of empathy, the result of which is to curb the severity of intercultural, interreligious and international conflicts.

Notions of dialogue normally rest on a number of key propositions:

  • the key to dialogue implies a readiness on the part of participants to engage with the other in a common search for truth;
  • participants approach dialogue with humility — they recognise that no one has a monopoly on wisdom or truth;
  • dialogue as process places equal emphasis on speaking and listening;
  • in dialogue, participants hold up their own cultures and traditions to critical scrutiny;
  • the dialogical method nurtures and is nurtured by empathy and compassion for each other’s histories;
  • in dialogue the discovery of self is enhanced through discovery of the other.

This dialogical framework, though it is at best imperfectly reflected in social practice, offers a valuable set of analytical tools by which to examine historical and current trends on the one hand and future possibilities on the other.

Any comments or questions regarding the Centre's work and approach can be directed to:

Centre for Dialogue

Almost everywhere one looks in our world today one finds an actual state of war or the prospect of an impending war… as an antidote to these dangers, there is only one remedy: genuine dialogue'

Prof Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame

We… emphasise the need for a dialogue between North and South, not for the sake of dialogue, but for ensuring that the consequences would bridge the gaps between wealth and poverty, between state and society, and then between North and the South

Dr Clovis Maksoud, Director, Centre for the Global South, Washington DC