The A. K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems^® (AKRI) is the educational, not-for-profit organization for Group Relations in the United States. The Institute's educational mission is the study of how unconscious thoughts and feelings significantly impact our lives when we are in groups—from family to workplace to nation. AKRI aims to deepen our understanding of complex social behaviors by providing experiential learning opportunities called Group Relations Conferences, as well as through research, publications, symposia, professional meetings, organizational consulting, experiential workshops, leadership training, and Group Relations consultant certification.

Despite an awareness of the terrible damage caused by slavery historically, many forms of slavery are common and continue to this day. These forms include forced labor, debt bondage, contract slavery, sex trafficking, forced marriage, domestic servitude, and child labor and soldiering. What are the system psychodynamics, conscious and unconscious, involved in modern slavery? How are we complicit in contributing to their pervasiveness and persistence in the global economic system? This workshop will explore these questions, beginning with an overview presentation of the subject of modern slavery by Marta Furlan, Ph.D., Senior Program Manager for Research of Free the Slaves. We will then use small discussion groups and the large plenary group to share feelings, think together, and consider hypotheses about the systemic and societal dynamics involved in the exploitative and complex phenomena of modern slavery. Marta Furlan: Is the Senior Program Manager for Research at Free the Slaves. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center on Armed Groups and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Orion Policy Institute. Marta holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, UK. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of Human Rights Practice, The Middle East Journal, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, and Civil Wars. She also authored chapters in four edited volumes and contributed analyses for Armed Groups and International Law, the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, among others." This workshop is organized jointly by AKRI and OPUS with the aim of exploring and deepening collaboration between the two organizations.  The workshop organizers are: Raymond Bakaitis Rebecca Ellison Olya Khaleelee Veena Pinto Carlos Remotti-Breton Augustine Sagoe Rob Stuart

 Based on over 60 years of theory, research, and practice, Group Relations is an applied discipline that integrates open-systems theory and psychodynamic perspectives as a lens through which to view human behaviors in groups. Derived from the work of the British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, Group Relations can provide dazzling insights into the complex mysteries of the human psyche as it manifests in groups. Through those insights, one develops an increased capacity to navigate the challenges of today's increasingly complex and diverse neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, communities, and societies.

AKRI's focal interest, study, and training includes leadership, authority, organizational structure, boundaries, roles, work tasks, and the unconscious processes which give rise to non-rational behavior in individuals, groups, and organizations. Functions of the Institute include regular annual meetings, co-sponsorship of regular international meetings, and the authorizing and conducting of Group Relations Conferences, which are temporary institutions designed and formed to study the behavioral dynamics of groups, and individuals within groups, as they represent aspects of larger social systems ranging from family, local community, and business to multi-national corporation, country, society, and global relations.