gratitude & generosity in cross cultural exchanges-revision2
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BEARING WITNESSACTING IN SOLIDARITYBUILDING COMMUNITY
Gratitude & Generosity in Cross-Cultural Exchanges
My context
My power
We (first world, privileged) and I (white male, first world, privileged) carry inherent power.
It cannot be set aside – going “native” is a comforting myth.
The question is – how do we employ this power?
“I can look on a tree…”
encounter
Travel, whether cross town or international, is encounter.
Each encounter is a call evoking a response.
Each response is based in, and reveals, the travelers intent.
Exploring intent
We are intentional, rarely accidental, in our cross cultural encounters.
We go somewhere for a reason – which may be clear or obscure to us.
Understanding our intentions can be challenging
And may span a range of intention
Mistaken intentions & false generosities
To hell with good intentions “I am here to entreat you to use your money, your
status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help.” Ivan Illich, 1968
Service? Service has a tendency to emphasize a “focalized”
view of problems and issues .
Student trips
2011 and 2012 learning exchanges to Nicaragua.
Small student groups engage in experiential learning – decidedly not “service learning”.
Receiving generosity
In my experience, we – the privileged from North America – are most often the recipients of true generosity.
Returning gratitude
Encountering this generosity, we can return only honest gratitude to our hosts.
Now what?
Dialogue
'Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediated by the world, in order to name the world'.
Hope
“…dialogue cannot exist without hope. Hope is rooted in men's incompletion, from which they move out in constant search-a search which can be carried out only in communion with others"
WE ALWAYS (EVENTUALLY) COME HOME
Returning home
Solidarity
Solidarity deepens and transform service, creating a lens through which what has been seen and experienced creates a bridge. There is no other world, no place to go to – there is only the struggle of humans working together to build a world
Community
Building a community of truth which can bear witness and act in solidarity to sustain hope, support dialogue and transform the world.
In gratitude
Don Teofilo – unknowing mentor for much of my work on this subject
Thank you.
CONTACT INFORMATION:PAUL TREADWELL
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