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Staff (4)
Our current staff consist of:
- Co-Director - Maral Jefroudi
- Co-Director - Alex de Jong
- Commercial manager - Aat van Wijk
- Librarian - Arend van de Poel
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Former directors (13)
Few people have contributed to forming and developing the Institute like our former directors. We would like to thank each of them for the great amount of work they have done to make the institute what it is today.
View items...IIRE Islamabad (2)
The International Institute for Research and Education (IIRE) Islamabad is an independent chapter of IIRE Amsterdam. IIRE Islamabad is established in 2010 in collaboration with Amsterdam office. Now the institute is functioning independently with the aim to develop a cadre of political, human rights and peace activists to strengthen the democratic and progressive environment for the development of society.
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Cinzia Arruzza is Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York and was appointed an IIRE Fellow in 2011. She is author of the IIRE Notebook for Study and Research, The dangerous relationships, Marriage and divorces between Marxism and feminism. Originally written in Italian this book has already been translated into Spanish and Portuguese. German and Turkish translations are underway and an English edition is planned for publication by the IIRE at the end of 2011.
Arruzza hosted a gender panel at the 2011 Left Forum to discuss the overcoming of an approach based on the establishment of a hierarchy of priorities between oppressions.
Dr Arruzza is author of numerous articles and a book, Les Mésaventures de la théodicée. Plotin, Origène et Grégoire de Nysse. She is also editor of Pensare con Marx, ripensare Marx. Teorie per il nostro tempo and of “Cosa vogliamo? Vogliamo tutto”. Il Sessantotto quarant’anni dopo.
Two friends from the USA, three Dutch volunteers working at the IIRE, a pair of Greeks, one Puerto Rican comrade, two Belgians, a friend originally from Denmark and a Brit, what have they got in common?
They all were at social event which marked the thirtieth anniversary of the IIRE and the publication of Living Our Internationalism our new book about the history of the IIRE. Joost Kircz, the IIRE co-founder who edited the special issue of the Notebooks for Study and Research, opened the evening by introducing the attendees, who had worked for, volunteered at, or used the IIRE over the decades.
A choice of starters involved an endive salad for vegetarians or North Sea shrimps, both with home-made mayonnaise. The main course of couscous and a vegetable tagine came either with lamb cutlets off the grill or roasted vegetables.
Add a few good glasses of wine and organic soft drinks and we had the material ingredients for a convivial evening and political discussions on the war in Libya, the Arab uprisings and the perspectives for the progressive forces all over the world. Ten supporters could not make it and apologized. Four copies of Living our Internationalism were sold.
After a full year of operations at the Timorplein in Amsterdam, the IIRE stands strong as a truly international, radical left think tank and study centre for social activists. Thanks to commercial activity conducted at our building, the influx of volunteers and generous donations, the IIRE has proven itself to becoming a sustainable project serving the social movements geared towards transforming our world.
Our Global Justice School held in April, and the Youth School in August were as usual, well-attended by experienced activists from around the world. Likewise, the hosting of various important activities that spoke to contemporary debates brought life into the newly remodelled building.
For the IIRE, 2008 was also characterised by unprecedented outreach locally and internationally.
This year, the IIRE became a model for similar projects of activist training. In November, our sister organisation in The Philippines, IIRE Manila, opened the doors of its newly purchased building. Spaces for the library and lodging facilities have been completed.
The International Institute for Research and Education, Islamabad, organized a five-day-school titled "Global Justice School" from 9th to 13th October 2010. The school was attended by around 20 participants from various parts of Punjab and Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu & Kashmir. The participants were the activists of different organizations working for the rights of women, youth, workers, peasants and other underprivileged sections of society. It was the first time for most of the participants to attend such a long-week residential school.
Globally, 2009 has been marked by the economic crisis, which has turned out to be a systemic crisis for the capitalist world system as such. As this crisis is converging with the climate crisis, the world stage is set for a radical change in global social relations. This constitutes a major challenge for progressive forces around the world, and has required the International Institute for Research and Education to rethink its programmes and curricula. The global crises, and our attempt to analyse them from different perspectives, remained a cardinal point of all IIRE activities throughout 2009.
With no less than four seminars and two longer educational sessions 2009 turned out to be a very productive year for the International Institute for Research and Education.
Download the International Institute for Research and Education 2009 Annual Report.
capitalist world system as such. As this crisis is converging with the climate crisis, the world stage is set for a
radical change in global social relations. This constitutes a major challenge for progressive forces around the
world, and has required the International Institute for Research and Education to rethink its programmes and
curricula. The global crises, and our attempt to analyse them from different perspectives, remained a cardinal
point of all IIRE activities throughout 2009.
With no less than four seminars and two longer educational sessions 2009 turned out to be a very productive
year for the International Institute for Research and Education.
Marijke Colle studied Biology at the Ghent State University, from 1965 until 1970. She was always interested in ecology and the protection of the environment. As a student, she was active in radical left movements, in solidarity with the MAI 68 Revolt and in the campaigns against the Vietnam War. She became a founding member of the RAL/LRT, Belgian Section of the Fourth International in 1970. The seventies were also the start of the women’s movement in Belgium.
Marijke Colle was centrally involved in the struggle for free abortion and contraception on demand and later on, also in the struggles of trade-union women against the crisis. She participated in writing the Resolution on Women’s Liberation for the XIth World Congress of the Fourth International in 1979. In 2008, she became involved in the founding process of the NPA in France and was elected in the national leadership of the NPA in January 2009.
Her work as co-director of the IIRE opens a new prospect in which ecology and feminism will certainly play an important role.
Marijke was co-director from 2009 to 2013.
Alex de Jong studied history at the University of Amsterdam. He was editor of the socialist journal Grenzeloos and worked at solidarity fund XminY. He has a special interest in Left movements in the Asia-Pacific region.
The International Institute for Research and Education celebrated its 25 years anniversary in 2007, as it underwent the most radical relaunch of its history. Along with the physical move of the IIRE a far-reaching relaunch was intended, which now is in its early stages.
The comprehensive aim of the IIRE after the relaunch is summarized in the vision of the IIRE: “The IIRE's vision is to become a dynamic and visible centre of research and education, a meeting place for activists and scholars, united in a common struggle for a world freed from all forms of exploitation and oppression.
Read the entire Annual Report (pdf)
Dr. Antonio Carmona Báez was co-director of the IIRE, 2008-2009, and was appointed as an IIRE Fellow in 2011. He holds degrees in International Relations and International Political Economy from the University of Amsterdam, in The Netherlands. He started his career as a scholar-activist in 2001 at the Transnational Institute, where he served as communications officer and researcher.
Between 2003 and 2008, Carmona Báez taught Political Science at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, San Juan, where he was active in his country’s pro-independence and labour movements. He is co-founder of the Puerto Rico Social Forum and Apuesta, an independent magazine on politics and culture. Carmona Báez also served as a union coordinator for the Puerto Rican Association of University Professors (APPU).
He is author of State Resistance to Globalisation in Cuba (Pluto, 2004) and published several articles concerning the global justice movement, Caribbean political economy and the condition of labour. He is also a contributor to Living our Internationalism, the history of the IIRE.
Fluency: Spanish, English and Dutch.
Vision
The IIRE’s project is to establish a progressive centre of research and education, a meeting place for activists and scholars, united in the common belief that a world free from all forms of exploitation and oppression is necessary and possible.
