We have created an experiential and intellectual "laboratory” where participants are challenged to test the limits of their ideas/prototypes for social change against dissenting perspectives, where they are sensitized to different understandings of fairness, wellbeing and global justice, where they are supported to face their complicity in systemic harm, where they may unlock “adjacent possibilities” for global justice work in their own contexts of practice and where they start to feel comfortable with uncertainty, complexity, plurality and improvisation.
We envisage this as a space where participants can
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step back, look at the bigger picture and “dig deeper”
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clarify, test and unpack assumptions and the implications of ideas without fear of judgment
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acquire/develop languages/vocabularies to name and productively host tensions, conflict, and paradoxes
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form relationships not mediated by knowledge, identity or understanding
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engage with difficult questions without relationships falling apart
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become comfortable with the discomfort of facing fears, contradictions and projections
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find peace and strength in vulnerability
In the creation of the “living lab”, we are experimenting with hosting a process/space based on four orientation-invitations to develop discernment and relational wisdom in face of complexity, uncertainty, ambivalence, asymmetry, paradoxes and incommensurability:
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decentering ego-logical investments and perceived entitlements to expand notions of self/being (open eyes)
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disarming symbolic (logocentric) lockdowns, affective landmines and “thick language” aspirations to embrace uncertainty/not knowing (open heart)
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decluttering (intellectual) projections, (affective) compensations, (physical) disconnections and (existential) distractions to develop stamina for the long haul (open flesh)
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dissolving boundaries of thought/senses/relationships/self to enable ontogenesis (open dreaming)
We use the “eARTh CARE justice framework” and the “Gorca eARTh CARE questions” to connect people and to deepen conversations about global change, alternatives, and education.