The Àgora project launches its seventh edition this Saturday, 19 September, bringing together around twenty participants committed to listening, dialogue and coexistence.
Initiated by the ICIP in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Lluís Coromina Foundation, Àgora uses reading as a gateway to deep conversation among people with diverse backgrounds and ideological perspectives. This year, the sessions will be facilitated by FundiPau.
The programme takes place over three Saturdays. The first session, on 19 September, will feature an opening presentation by writer and translator Raül Garrigasait, who will draw on Seneca’s On Anger to initiate a discussion on how this classical text speaks to the present moment. On 17 October, philosopher Begoña Román, a specialist in ethics, will lead a session based on Cicero’s On Friendship. The final session, on 7 November, will be led by political scientist Ferran Requejo, an expert in democratic theory, and will focus on Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War.
Diverse and committed perspectives
This year’s group brings together people from a wide range of professional and personal backgrounds, with equal representation of women and men. Participants include academics such as Manel García Sánchez, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Barcelona, and Sergi Ferrer, Lecturer in Political Science at the Open University of Catalonia; professionals from the health sector, including doctor Mariona Vàzquez and psychiatrist and former MP Blanca Navarro; and legal professionals such as Carles Grima.
The group also includes voices from the third sector and public administration: Ariadna Manent, Deputy Director of Fundació Maresme; Martí Zamora, sociologist and Head of Projects at CATESCO; Toni Borrell, political scientist and social worker at the Catalan Development Cooperation Fund; and Rosa Suriñach, Councillor at Barcelona City Council and an expert in urban mobility. Other participants come from the business sector, scientific research, journalism and sport as a tool for social transformation, including people linked to organisations such as the Ateneu Barcelonès.
Dialogue through disagreement
Àgora is deliberately designed to be a demanding experience. Participants devote three full days to reading, discussion and listening alongside people with diverse ideological perspectives, in closed-door sessions that create a climate of trust. The aim is not to bring positions closer together or reach agreements, but to engage in dialogue through a thoughtful and unhurried conversation, even when there may be disagreement on the issues being discussed.
The Àgora project is part of the ICIP’s «Social and Political Dialogue» area of work, which understands dialogue as a necessary exercise in depolarisation in a context of declining standards in public debate and difficulties in listening to positions different from our own.
