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Lightning Sessions are engaging, informative, and based on a powerful question or idea. With 20 image-based slides, advancing automatically every 18 seconds to accompany, these short presentations, presented in rapid succession, are both fun and inspiring. Plenary room.
Falling in Love, Breaking Up, and Everything in Between: Our Relationships with Place Often we see geography as merely a backdrop for the lives we lead. We act and interact in a place -- but forget that we also interact WITH a place. We have relationships with places: the places we’re from, live in, visit, and dream of. Think of the words we use to describe different kinds of romantic relationships; they all have parallels in the relationships between people and places. Relationships with people have ups and downs, high and lows. Sacrifices and compromises are required. So too in our relationships with places. This session is a light-hearted invitation to look more deeply into our relationships with places: to validate the deep feelings place evokes in us, and to offer vocabulary to help us articulate why we feel what we feel. Family Connections: Impact on Values, Identities, Traditions and Career Decisions for Dads The session will highlight some of the key issues for Dads in managing the change associated with a globally mobile family. Broadly, the main theme of this presentation will be to discuss the advantages and challenges from a Dad’s perspective when a family is globally mobile. In particular, the session will explore issues such as the connection between immediate and extended family members, parent relationships, balancing the needs and expectations of family members, self care for Dads and understanding the impact of career decisions. Growing Up in Transit: The Politics of Belonging at an International School As the number of international schools has burgeoned over the past five decades, schools have purportedly been struggling to maintain their sense of ‘internationalism’ amid an influx of students who they claim do not fit the bill. Fingers are often pointed at the local and Korean students, who form a large part of the student market, for ‘self-segregating’. But are they really self-segregating? Or is it time to change how we define ‘being international’? A yearlong participant-observation at an international school in Indonesia and interviews with over 130 students, alumni and educators of an international school show that despite the cosmopolitan rhetoric, hierarchies of race, culture and class still shape popularity and friendships on campus. This session discusses how schools contribute to the problem and possible remedies. Health, Leadership and Organizational Performance: The Expatriate Manager and the Relationship between Relocation Stress, Wellbeing and Performance The wellbeing of the expatriate leader or manager seems to be a neglected topic at most leading mobility and relocation conferences. It is time to disrupt relocation and training services as traditionally provided and develop a more human centered approach, with a vision of fostering long-term wellbeing and performance. This session presents findings on how stress impacts the decision making and performance of leaders, managers and the organizations they lead. The unique circumstances of the expatriate leader and the accompanying family is explored together with how they impact stress and performance. Proposals for changing the support provided to ensure long term success are presented. Helping Our Global Kids to Thrive in a Changing World by Identifying Strengths and Building Resilience With an increasingly globalized world, our cross-cultural kids are experiencing change, transition, a variety of languages, cultures and traditions both physically and virtually on a regular basis. For global teens, adolescence can be a very exciting period. It can also be associated with significant struggles related to identity and belonging, especially at a time when they should be developing a clearer sense of who they are. This presentation outlines four key concepts for empowering global teens including: discussing identity and belonging, addressing stress, finding unique strengths, and allowing kids to fail to develop resilience. By building on these core concepts, adults including parents, caregivers, and educators, can help global teens successfully navigate and thrive in a changing world. Survive or Thrive? How to Use Your Differences to Create A Happy Cross-Cultural Relationship Kyoung Mi Choi and Christel van der Boom This is an exploration of the delights and difficulties of cross-cultural relationships. One spouse from South Korea, the other from the Netherlands, living together in the United States will share their challenges and growth. At the heart are creative ways to deal with conflict -- not just ways to resolve it, but also learn about oneself and the partner. Based on scientific research as well as their personal experience, the presenters have developed five communication skills and strategies that improve cross-cultural understanding, empathy, and intimacy for cross-cultural couples. Unlikely Connections Jerry Jones and Cath Brew Two people. Poles apart. An unlikely friendship, slicing through the fear of "the other." Cath and Jerry met at FIGT18. Twelve months on, their unlikely friendship continues as they explore the bigger context and impact of their connection, especially within the polarization of their own communities. |
