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Opening Blogpost: Introducing the EWANA Center for Cultural Understanding

In the summer of 2022, I found myself touring Germany with a group of Iraqis for a project related to promoting peace and dialogue when I met Ali Bakht and Hussam Fallah. During our days together, we spoke about many topics; dialogue, peace, culture, and arts, all while walking through the symbolic city of Berlin.

Giving rise to the EWANA Center

This was the conversation that catalysed the creation of the EWANA Center for Cultural Understanding. Once back in Baghdad and Brussels, Ali and myself started brainstorming about the vision and goals of the organisation. It didn’t take long before the other founding members joined: Fuad Atiye, an insightful political analyst and anthropologist, and Laura Bannan-Fischer, a young professional in the field of peace and conflict research.

We settled on the name the EWANA Center, a name which in English stands for Europe, West Asia, and North Africa, and in most of the languages of the West Asia and North Africa region refers to “Iwan”, a traditional architectural form developed in Mesopotamia and found in religious and non-religious buildings, as well as contemporary architecture all around the region. It functions as a place for social gathering. This latter is also what the EWANA Center aims to provide: a space for exchange and discussions. 

The significance of culture

I personally have been interested in the topic of culture for many years. Aside from my own artmaking, I have translated literature and written on my personal blog about socio-cultural issues in Europe and Arab-majority countries. I found that engaging with other cultures has greatly added to the awareness of both myself and the world I live in. For me, it was thus inevitable that my passion for the topic would at some point translate into an organisation. 

I was fortunate to meet like-minded people who eventually became the initial members of the EWANA Center. As a team, we believe that cultural understanding takes on a central role in human development and that it can strengthen the inclusion of a wide range of actors in social, economic, and political activities. Therefore, we are set on using a broad definition of culture, allowing for an interdisciplinary approach that relates the cultural field to that of the political, social, security, economy and others.

In turn, we see the power of cultural exchange in its ability to educate and increase cultural understanding. Furthermore, cultural exchange allows for the reflection of one’s own practices through that of the other. Cultural exchange is also necessary to tackle common areas of concern, such as environmental degradation, sustainable economies, migration, education, and the promotion of democracy and human rights. It is also a helpful tool in addressing issues that have formed an obstacle to better relationships and understanding between peoples from different regions.

Imagining the "EWANA" region

The specific focus of the EWANA Center is to cultivate cultural understanding between what we call the EWANA region, meaning; Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. We believe that although there have been initiatives focussed on cultural exchange between these regions, its value has been under-explored and cultural misconceptions persist. We thus aim to prioritise conversations on under-highlighted social, material, and mental aspects of cultures in the respective societies. 

The founding team is based in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Iraq. This makes the EWANA Center exceptional, as the organisation’s ownership is stretched across the EWANA region. We believe that this shared establishment allows for the EWANA centre to adequately address issues of cultural understanding.

The EWANA-Blog

What started as a simple conversation on a train in Germany, made its way to an organisation. This blog, the first initiative by the EWANA Center, is a platform to continue the conversation with you on topics related to cultural understanding and exchange in the EWANA region. We welcome a variety of contributions: from personal testimonies to research articles, all between 700 and 900 words, and from short documentaries to photo essays. The posts can be written in different languages, but will appear on this blog in English and Arabic. 

Below are some examples of topics the EWANA Center is interested in addressing. This list, however, is not exhaustive, and we would welcome contributions on additional topics related to cultural understanding and exchange. 

  • Culture and freedom of expression;
  • Culture and dialogue;
  • Cultural memory;
  • Diaspora culture;
  • Digital technologies and cultural exchange;
  • Culture and gender issues;
  • High and popular culture;
  • History, traditions, and cultural heritage;
  • Language and dialects;
  • Media discourse;
  • Migration and mobility;
  • Minority rights and minority participation in decision-making;
  • Multiculturality and cultural coexistence;
  • Mutual cultural perceptions; 
  • Religion and religious exchange;
  • Discrimination and stereotyping;
  • The intersection between culture and climate change / environmental degradation;
  • Environmental imaginaries;
  • The culture-development-security nexus;
  • The cultural sector and cross-sector partnerships.

Please feel free to send an email to info@ewanacenter.org if you have any questions or would be interested in contributing.

Looking forward to meeting you!