The Co-existence Expedition

The Copenhagen Co-existence Lab marks the launch of the Co-existence Expedition. Throughout 2007, the Expedition will visit several countries, organisations and institutions around the world with the aim of setting a new agenda for global co-existence.

To see the project description of the Co-existence Expedition please click here (NB: new version).  

The overall ambition of the Co-existence Expedition is to qualify the cross-cultural encounters in Europe and enhancing the level of debate and communication in general among citizens all around the world.

Throughout 2006 and 2007, the Expedition will serve to pass the Baton on to several countries, organisations, and institutions around the world. The receivers of the Baton are required to:

• Bring the subject of co-existence on the agenda in their respective country or organizational body
  
  
• Prioritize their five main challenges and solutions of local context and define the contributions that each institution and country have to offer the process of strengthening global co-existence
  
  
• Bring the results back to the Co-existence initiative for further exploration and dissemination

To fulfil its mission, the Co-existence Expedition aims at developing an analytical tool that can assist decision-makers in navigating in a multicultural environment. This is not a simple task. Nevertheless, it is a task that needs to be addressed to provide decision-makers with a strong and clear basis for adressing decisions, which are often very complex and context dependent.

Until now at least eight different perspectives have been identified, which all contribute with different explanations of the clashes between so-called Western values and Islam. Given the identification of these different explanatory views, the mission of the Expedition is to comprise these in a relative simple model that can help decision makers capture and comprehend the understandings and values upon which these different perspective builds.   

This work is to be seen as an ongoing process, which moves and evolves between different forums, organizations, sectors etc. with the aim of being able to publish the results by the end of 2007.