Invitation to Dialogue - A Progress Report

Fragmentation of knowledge and life milieux, so often associated with specialization in science and planning, provided the broad challenge in science and planning, provided the broad challenge for a DIALOGUE PROJECT initiated by Torsten Hägerstrand and Anne Buttimer in Sweden during the Academic Years 1977-1979. The initial incentive for confronting such a wide-ranging set of issues arose from a paper on Values in Geography (Buttimer, 1974), after which the author was invited as a Fulbright lecturer to offer a series of seminars in Lund on problems of knowledge and experience. More than forty participants from ten widely different disciplines took part in this seminar, and foundations were laid for an experientially-grounded approach to the problems of communication across disciplines. The present project was initiated when Anne Buttimer was invited to accept a full time position in Sweden by the Humanistisk-Samhällsvetenskapliga Forskningsrådet (Council for Humanities and Social Science) in 1977. Financial support for this pilot phase of the Dialogue Project was granted by the Swedish Committee for Future Oriented Research and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. The geography department at the University of Lund continues to provide material and administrative help, with Torsten Hägerstrand as Co-Director.