On June 1-4, 1999, the IV International Conference of the Ethnic Research Network (INCORE, Northern Ireland) on "Moving towards Pluralism"was held as part of the III Congress of Ethnographers and Anthropologists of Russia.

The Ethnic Studies Network was established in 1990 by the University of Ulster Conflict Research Centre, which has been operating since 1977 as an interdisciplinary research centre with a particular focus on the Northern Irish conflict. The decision to create an Ethnic Research Network was made as the Center expanded its comparative and cross-national research programs. The aim of the Network is to support and collaborate on comparative research on conflict and ethnicity, as researchers studying different multicultural societies deal with the same issues and approaches. Although each ethnic conflict is unique in its own way, it can also be covered from the experience of other similar conflicts. The network explores common features of different conflicts and theoretical approaches to the study of the latter and operates on the basis of the non-governmental organization "Initiative for Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity" (INCORE) at the University of Ulster. It functions as an international community of correspondents and currently includes 350 participants representing a wide geographical (all continents of the world) and disciplinary area. The largest share of participants is made up of political scientists, but other disciplines of social sciences are also represented. Almost all participants of the Ethnic Research Network are representatives of regions and countries with long-term experience of ethnic conflicts, and therefore their common interest is in finding ways to resolve conflicts and mediate. Many of the participants represent local networks of researchers that have developed locally and are associated with the Ethnic Research Network: for example, Australian, Chinese, Indian, Central and Eastern European, Middle Eastern, South and West African, and South Asian.

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The first international conference of the Ethnic Research Network was held in Northern Ireland in 1992, the second in Denmark in 1995, and the third in Northern Ireland in 1997. The idea to hold the IV International Conference of the Network of Ethnic Studies in Moscow on the basis of the Center for Conflict Research and Resolution of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences originated in 1997. This was in response to INCORE's hiring of our Ethnological Monitoring and Early Conflict Prevention Network (EAWARN) for an annual workshop in 1996. The main idea in 1999, as in 1996, was to "bring together" two networks of experts dealing with the same topic-interethnic relations, interethnic tensions, conflicts and ways to resolve them.

The IV International conference was attended by 40 representatives of the Ethnic Research Network from 14 countries representing all continents of the world: Great Britain, Australia, Greece, Israel, Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Lebanon, Portugal, Northern Ireland, USA, Philippines, Switzerland, South Africa. The ethnological monitoring network was represented by 20 experts from Russian regions and republics, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. During the two days of the conference, 60 reports were heard.

The conference included the following sections: "Inter-community relations in conflicting societies"; "Constitutionalism and State-building"; "Economic Factors and their impact on progress towards successful pluralism"; "Literature, Culture and Ethnic Identity"; "Immigration and Integration", "Building Peace: Supporting Peace"; "Mixed Media". marriages"; "Consequences of ethnic Violence"; "Nationalism and ethnic Conflicts"; "The role of political and cultural education in Conflict Resolution: the case of Northern Ireland"; "Post-war reconstruction"; "Ethnic identity";" Causes of ethnic conflicts";" Women and conflict";" Societies in Transition-establishing peace";" The role of networks in Resolving Ethnic Conflicts";"Methods and tools for studying conflicts".

At the plenary session of the conference, John Darbis, Director of the Network for Ethnic Studies, made a report on "Managing Ethnic Pluralism", V. A. Tishkov, Director of the IEA RAS ("On the phenomenon of separatism"), and A. A. Tishkov, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation . Arinin ("Ethnicity and Federalism in a Transforming Russia") Gillian Robinson, Director of Research (INCORE).

The conference ended with a working meeting of participants of the Ethnic Research Network, where the strategy of its work for the coming years was determined.

The conference was productive and interesting. Speakers reviewed the results of their long-term research, and lively discussions allowed us to outline the prospects for further research. The opportunity to exchange experience in the study and resolution of conflicts, expand both professional and theoretical knowledge of the nature of conflicts and methods of studying them in different countries, and get acquainted with the positive and negative results of practical work in this area was important both for the participants of the Ethnic Research Network and for our colleagues from post-Soviet states. One of the important results of the conference is the expansion of relations between the participants of the two networks, which, we hope, will be implemented in further joint research on ethnic conflicts and ways to resolve them in different countries.

M.Ya. Ustinova. 4th International Conference of Ethnic Studies Network

The article is devoted to the work of ESN.

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