Course Syllabus

Keys for understanding cultural differences in

Human Resource Management

Period: Monday 9.30-12.30

Course Professors: Karine Gatelier and Claske Dijkema

Office: Modus Operandi, 151 Rue des Universités, Sciences Sociales UPMF, salle 116

E-mail: or

Course Description: A career in International cooperation will bring you in contact with different cultures. Culture may be defined as a system of taken-for-granted assumptions about the world that influences how people think and act. Those assumptions arise from the shared experiences of a group of people. Because different groups speak different languages and have different experiences, they construct different visions of the world and live those out in a common culture. An important first step in understanding other cultures is reflecting on the specificity of one’s own culture. From understanding our own bias, the course will look at important concepts for understanding other cultures. A few examples are: relationship to authority, secularism versus spirituality and individualism versus communality. We will discuss these concepts in the context of case-studies from Afghanistan, Conga and Somalia.

Course Evaluation: Evaluation will exist of an oral presentation and a written report about a field study students will carry out during the course period. They will individually contact an organization based in Grenoble that represents a different culture. The objective is to analyze how the organization functions based on observation. Students’ active participation during the courses will positively influence their final note.

Examples of organizations: Associations: Comité Tchétchénie, Réseau Afrique de l’Ecole de la paix, GUPS (Union Générale des Etudiants de Palestine), ATTAC, ADAFL (Association dauphinoise d’Amitiés Franco Libanaises), AFPS (Association France Palestine Solidarité), AHFL Grenoble, CCFD 38 (Comité Catholique contre la Faim et pour le Développement), Chrétiens et Proche Orient, CIIP (Centre d’Information Inter-Peuples), Cultures & Dialogue, Iran Solidarités, LDDHI (Ligue pour la Défense des droits de l’Homme en Iran), LIFPL (Ligue Internationale des Femmes pour la Paix et la Liberté), Maroc Solidarités Citoyennes,Mouvement de la Paix Isère, Nil Isère, Pas à Pas, Ras l’front,Secours catholique/Caritas38, UJFP (Union Juive Française pour la Paix).
Partis politiques: ADES, Les Alternatifs Isère,LCR (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire), PCF (Parti Communiste Français), PCOF (Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de France), Les Verts Isère, Front National, UMP.

Course Schedule:

Day / Room / Title
7 January / Petite salle de colloque / Introduction of key concepts
14 January / Grande salle de colloque / Relations to authority
Afghanistan, a case-study
21 January / Grande salle de colloque / Film: Mobutu, le roi du Zaïre
28 January / Grande salle de colloque / State survival, cultural aspects
4 February / Grande salle de colloque / Culture- blind foreign policy, a major reason for the failure of the Somali peace process
11 February
/ Salle P8 salle de colloque / Presentations of the students
25 February / Conclusion

Required Book:

Sauquet, Michel, L’intelligence de l’autre, Editions Charles Léopold Mayer, 2007.

Recommended Books:

Revoir Kaboul. Hemins d’été, chemins d’hiver entre l’Oxus et l’Indus, 1972-2005, Pierre Centlivres et Micheline Centlivres-Demont, Editions Zoe, Genève 2007.

Civil Society in Central Asia, Edited by M. Holt Ruffin and Daniel Waugh, Centre for Civil Society International, 1999

Femmes d’autorité dans l’Asie centrale contemporaine. Quête des ancêtres et recompositions identitaires dans l’islam postsoviétique, Habiba Fathi, IFEAC – Maisonneuve & Larose

Cahiers de l’Orient, Asie centrale, L’apprentissage de la démocratie, n°41, 1996

Holland, H. «African Magic, Penguin, 2003

Iye, Ali M. «"Paix et Lait”, Domestication du conflit chez les pasteurs somalis» in Les fondements endogènes d'une culture de la paix en Afrique : Mécanismes traditionnels de prévention et de résolution des conflits, Unesco, year unknown,

French H.W. «A continent for the taking, the tragedy and hope of Africa», Vintage, 2005

Recommended web-sites:

Background professors:

Karine Gatelier

Docteur en anthropologie sociale (EHESS, Paris), Karine Gatelier a conduit des recherches en Asie centrale (Ouzbékistan) sur les questions de construction identitaire. Elle travaille aujourd’hui à Modus Operandi sur des programmes de recherche relatifs à la transformation politique des conflits et aux dynamiques de construction et de délitement de l’Etat.

Claske Dijkema

After obtaining a Masters in Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies in Amsterdam and Berkeley, Claske worked in South Africa for the «African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)», a training and research center on conflict resolution in Africa. Of Dutch origin, she has developed with the Network University of Amsterdam, online courses on the transformation of conflicts for a global audience ( She currently works for Modus Operandi studying the political transformation in post-crisis states, the dynamics State disintegration, as well as the experiences and perspectives of the reorganization and reform of the State in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Horn of Africa.