OTANES

The Aim of OTANES NIT Studies is to Bridge the Divide

The OTANES Network for International and Transnational Studies is a Non Governmental Organization based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a worldwide operating range. Although its scope of activity may seem wide and diverse, it is focused on knowledge and development issues. Indeed, the purpose of the OTANES NIT Studies is to advocate and promote the widening, deepening and dissemination of knowledge within a large spectrum of academic as well as professional fields and subject matters by bringing people and competencies closer together. In this perspective, the OTANES NIT Studies primarily defines its role as a facilitator of enhanced understanding and sustainable decision making in a diffuse context of hyper complexity. In other words, it is a meeting point between human goodwill and intellectual enlightenment, and a free networking space for a learning-by-sharing community. Furthermore, it is a bridging medium between relevant information, sound reflexion and democratic practice. The Otanes’ aim is about shaping strong and meaningful interactive bonds through valuable partnerships and a constructive exchange amongst individuals and organizations, as well as between them and the environment they operate in.

Johan Jaouad Malki Jepsen, Chairman

The Otanes’ aim is about shaping strong and meaningful interactive bonds through valuable partnerships and a constructive exchange amongst individuals and organizations, as well as between them and the environment they operate in.

Knowledge by Reflective Thinking, by Mystical Insight, and by Exchange

O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.

My heart has become capable of every form:

it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, and a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Kaa'ba,

and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.

I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take, that is my religion and my faith.

Muhyiddin IBN ‘ARABI (1165-1240)

Forthcoming

Forthcoming

THE BORDERLINE OF CROSS-BORDER KNOWLEDGE

Border issues are never as simple and univocal as it might seem to be. Thinking and trying to grasp their nature and meaning can be in itself a tremendous challenge. Of course, borders in some extent may have an undoubtedly valued purpose and function. They may contribute to delineate territories and areas both of physical and normative type. They can be abstract as well as loaded with symbolic value. Not alone borders can be visible but also invisible. They are mainly situated in the mindset of men and women. They can enable a better involvement of individuals in the forming and improvement of the communities which they are part of. Thereby, borders can help with designing a sustainable common future for people. They can be useful to put visions into perspective and to point out goals to be achieved. They contribute to the shaping of the notion of mission, as they also do regarding the very idea of identity. But  borders shift.

They are a highly unstable reality. They even vanish. Borders at their core rely on an unsurpassable paradox.They are aporetic. They can additionally be casuistic, deceitful, counterproductive and even destructive, dooming thereby prospects for any sustainable common good life for many people to be a bitter failure. Borders have always a history, but most of the time not of the glorious kind. They can feed ideologies and other beliefs with forged truth and poisoned views. They can stand in the way for a better future for all too many men and women of the globe. They can stop the sharing of progress, but not the spreading of devastating diseases or  war. Indeed, borders can also be a threat. Therefore, this lack of reliability specific to the border phenomenon and its intrinsic dangers justify more than ever the need of knowledge. Knowledge is solid when it’s shared. A valuable cross-border knowledge firstly requires crossing that very borderline.