BRIEF REFLECTIONS ON THE WORKSHOP PROCESS:
Thank you to each of you for sharing your reflections on the process one-on-one. There are two questions I would be very grateful if you could respond to in writing (very briefly - approx. 500w each, though you are welcome to write more if you feel inclined).
The first of the questions is, “What is the learning here, about fostering listening to what is difficult to hear?” This might be what you learned or are learning through the process, or the learning you feel is there for the group. This might be about the particular challenges of listening, about what is needed for listening to happen, or about what works or doesn’t as a strategy to foster listening. Whatever you feel the process shed light on: what is the learning in this process?
The second is, I believe, the overarching question that was left in the ‘middle of the room’ but not picked up during our short time together, and the core purpose of bringing you all together. This is a question for those who are coming from listening-centered fields, rather than those working in advocacy and activism regarding inequality. It is also, I believe, something of a middle ground between the call to go deep into wananga and the more specific strategic ‘how to’ questions offered by the five (Jess, Laura, Max, Peter S, and Jolyon) working to engage communities about socioeconomic inequality. The question is, “Drawing from your experience on fostering listening in challenging contexts, what is your response to hearing the challenges these five described, that they face in their work engaging communities about socioeconomic inequality?” Hearing what you did from them about the biggest obstacles to listening to this issue by more advantaged (middle class and wealthy) communities, what would you like to say to them? (This might be specific advice, or it might be something else you feel, based on your experience with fostering listening, that is potentially helpful to them).
Thank you for your thoughts on these questions! I will post them to this site once they're read, so that this can be a collective process. Below are a few resources to facilitate response to the second question (in case you'd like to listen again to the panel on inequality, or read the questions they offered again - though there is no need to respond directly to the latter). I also invite you to explore the resources commissioned and created for the workshop on this website, on some of the key challenges to fostering listening regarding this issue, as further resources that might be of use in this.
LINK TO AUDIO RECORDING OF INEQUALITY PANEL:
Response to the question, "Drawing on your experience, could you speak to the difficulties people have in perceiving, feeling responsible for, or having a sense of agency to affect socioeconomic inequality?”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X4k-8mxSbq6Yp7gd7uiRK50IBG96oNwP/view?usp=sharing
QUESTIONS FROM INEQUALITY GROUP:
(1) What are the tools that can help tell the systemic story? (that can make structural conditions visible)
(2) How to foster listening when there's a scarcity of time, attention, and sense of insecurity across the system?
(3) How to translate small group skills and approaches to deep listening and connection to a large-scale or online level?
(4) How to engineer moments where diverse groups encounter and are brought into meaningful contact and interaction with one another?
(4) How to extend action and connection after and beyond a particular encounter?
(5) How to create a modulating politics - that can have diverse forms (slow or fast, oppositional or radically receptive, etc) to respond effectively to different contexts - and not get stuck in one way of working?