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Workshops will be running concurrently during each of the three workshop sessions:

• Dancing with Power and Conflict: Communicating Effectively Across Hierarchical Relationships
• From a Social Justice Frame: Dismantling Language in the Context of ‘Ability’
• Differences among us: Obstacles or Pathways to New Understanding?
• Strategic Questioning: The Art of Co-Creating New Information and New Answers to Old Questions

Full descriptions below.

Dancing with Power and Conflict: Communicating Effectively Across Hierarchical Relationships
Facilitated by Ryumon H.G. Baldoquín, Sensei

For those who identify as ‘social justice activists’, the 21st century has brought a complexity of challenging global issues demanding courage, vision, and wisdom as prerequisites to responding effectively to these challenges. Among these issues are the shifting of power bases, multicultural conflicts, inter-religious wars, widespread hunger, the depletion of natural resources, and the ongoing legacy of racism and genocide. In this context, the workshop is located at the juncture of social change and spiritual activism. Through a series of small and large group experiential activities, participants will grapple with the following:

In attempting to address any social justice issue in the present, the modern change activist must be willing to enter into a multiplicity of relationships across power differences and communication levels. In order to do so, such person must be willing to:

1. Shift metaphors of what it means to communicate with those perceived as ‘being in power’;
2. Respect a diversity of communication skills and abilities;
3. Open to seeing conflict as productive, and necessary to social change;
4. Engage confidently with those who hold authority and decision-making power;
5. Practice whole-hearted curiosity when faced with opposition; and
6. Examine how their own journey and experience of who they are impact their effectiveness as social change agents.

The Attitude of compassion, the Skill of contemplation, and the Knowledge of the dynamics of power, oppression, internalized oppression, and privilege, are fundamental to shifting the metaphors that will allow for authentic and effective communication across hierarchical relationships. It is the aim of this workshop to create space for the exploration of these ideas.

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From a Social Justice Frame: Dismantling Language in the Context of ‘Ability’
Facilitated by Dr. Anne Potter and Ryland White

The overarching intention of the workshop is to broaden understanding of the critical differences inherent in ability constructs based on a ‘medical’ model and constructs based on a ‘linguistic minority’ model. We will explore what a beginning alliance among differently-abled people would mean as well as to increase awareness of avenues in which to advocate for basic fundamental human rights at a local and global level. On a personal level the intention of this workshop is to broaden our views of the words culture and disability; to fully listen in order to understand different realities; to become more conscious of our own skill in ‘shifting our frame of reference’ especially when it may be drastically different from our own; and to explore our own power to include and/or exclude people struggling to access their basic human rights.

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Differences among us: Obstacles or Pathways to New Understanding?
Facilitated by Adin Thayer

While struggle between power-holders and advocates for equity is a familiar theme in all social justice work, we are often unsure how to address struggle when it arises among ourselves as activists for social change. What happens when we differ with those we expect to “identify with”? When we feel offended, misunderstood, or unsupported by others we work with, our feelings can overpower our intentions, leading to unintended outcomes such as impasse, withdrawal, or further division. How do we meet differences that arise in the groups we work with, in ways which foster growth and strengthened alliances rather than anger and distance?

This workshop will explore both how we get stuck or silenced by differences with those we work with, and what to do when this happens. We will use exercises to understand how our multiple identities affect our perceptions of ourselves and others, and how, when triggered, they can prevent us from finding common ground. We will explore specific skills which help us, in facing important differences within our communities, to express ourselves so that others understand us, and equally feel understood by us, whether or not we agree. This capacity to fully recognize the other person, even in the presence of difference, is a key skill for doing effective social justice work, which aims to foster “multi-partiality," respect for the needs and perspectives of diverse stakeholders. Paradoxically, actually affecting each other’s perspectives and reaching new ones depend on this kind of collaborative understanding of where and how we differ.

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Strategic Questioning: The Art of Co-Creating New Information and New Answers to Old Questions
Facilitated by Ryland White

Strategic Questioning for Personal Discernment and Social Action:   This workshop will present a model of question posing applicable to personal discernment and social action. Strategic Questioning is a tool of empowerment, and at its heart rests our own skill in the process of co-creating new information that may help us move toward new solutions to old problems. We will explore our own underlying values that drive our styles and approaches. On a deeper level, the workshop is intended to begin an exploration of the question: If I do in fact believe that people have their own answers what will it mean for my engagement in social justice work?

Register online!