North Atlantic Forum returns to PEI

The 10th North Atlantic Forum and 27th Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation (CRRF) conference, entitled Building Community Resilience: Innovation, Culture, and Governance in Place, is being held in Summerside, September 16-19. And it’s not too late to register! 

 

This conference represents a homecoming: the first North Atlantic Forum, held in September 1998, was hosted by the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI. Since then, the NAF has travelled to Corner Brook, Twillingate, Lance au Clair, and St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador; Sydney, Cape Breton Island; Lerwick in the Shetland Islands; Bornholm, Denmark; and Hólar, Iceland. Says Conference Chair, Dr. Laurie Brinklow of the Institute of Island Studies, “We’re happy to be bringing the conference home. We look forward to showcasing the many ways in which Prince Edward Island—and in particular the community of Summerside—demonstrates resilience by building on our strong connections to place. We’ll be sharing best practices of creating and sustaining resilient communities by looking at the ‘dark horses’—businesses, organizations, and people—who contribute to building strong rural communities.”

 

The conference also includes the Annual General Meeting for CRRF. CRRF is committed to bettering the lives of rural Canadians through collaborative research for rural leaders in the community, private sector, and in all levels of government. CRRF works to create credible insights and to improve our understanding of issues and opportunities that are of common interest to rural residents across Canada. 

 

Our opening session—open to the public free of charge—will be at Harbourfront Theatre in Summerside and will feature a fireside chat entitled “Globalization: Who’s winning? Who’s Losing?” looking at rural and regional development in Canada and Europe in the age of globalization. Guest speakers include Dr. Kelly Vodden of the Environmental Policy Institute, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Dr. Sally Shortall, professor of Sociology at Queens University Belfast, United Kingdom.

 

The fireside chat will be followed by the launch of Place Peripheral: Place-Based Development in Rural, Island, and Remote Regions (ISER Books) arising from the 2011 North Atlantic Forum in St. John’s Newfoundland, edited by Kelly Vodden, Godfrey Baldacchino, and Ryan Gibson. We’ll also be launching a special journal issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, stemming from the proceedings of the 2013 North Atlantic Forum in Hólar, Iceland. A reception will follow at the Harbourfront. This event is open to the public, so please join us! The session will begin at 7:30 pm; registration is not required.

 

The three-day Building Community Resilience conference focuses on sustainable community resilience in island and periphery communities and the sustainable living practices that allow those same communities to remain in place, on the edge. The conference will include a lively conversation with approximately 70 paper presentations and panel discussions from researchers, practitioners, and community members from across Canada and around the world. Our keynotes include Daniel G. Pottle (Minister of Finance, Human Resources and Information, Nunatsiavut Government, Newfoundland and Labrador) who will speak about indigenous resilience in Labrador, and a conversation between Dr. Robert Snyder (Executive President, Island Institute, Maine) and Maura Walsh (Chief Executive Officer, IRD Duhallow, Ireland) about community resilience in Maine and Ireland. 

 

There will be three community tour options available to participants: Environmental Resilience: Community Watersheds (Kensington region); Economic and Cultural Resilience (Evangeline Region); and Indigenous Resilience (Lennox Island). Each community tour will include transportation to and from the location as well as discussions from people involved in each community. 

 

The program can be found at http://pei2015.crrf.ca/. A French-language version can be found at http://ipe2015.crrf.ca/. The conference website also contains more information on keynote speakers, community tours, and discussions that will take place throughout the conference. 

 

Daily registration for Thursday, September 19, and Friday, September 18 is $125+HST for the full day (includes breaks, lunch, transportation, and all community tour materials) and $50+HST for the community tour only (includes transportations and all community tour materials). Come join us, and learn from other communities across the North Atlantic and beyond! 

 

The conference is hosted by the Institute of Island Studies, a research and public policy institute based at UPEI, in partnership with the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation (CRRF), and with funding from Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). Other supporting organizations include the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), Tourism PEI Hosting Grant, and the Summerside Tourism Accommodation Levy Fund.

 

For more information, please contact Conference Co-ordinator Emily Thomas at (902) 566-0909 or naf@upei.ca.