I really enjoyed this week’s readings—just as I have, for
the most part, all of the other material from the semester thus far. What struck me this week in Expanding the Boundaries of Transformative
Learning: Essays on Theory and Praxis (O’Sullivan, Morrell, and O’Connor,
2002) and Transcommunality: From the
Politics of Conversion to the Ethics of Respect (Brown Childs, 2003) was
the call to consider larger issues affecting humanity and the planet. In particular because of the focus we’ve had
thus far on individual identities, I’ve found myself thinking a bit myopically,
not necessarily in a bad sense, but certainly to the effect of not thinking
about how these larger global issues with which I am concerned fit in. This week’s texts though build upon these
notions of self-identity and empowerment toward the project of a more just and
sustainable world.
Brown Childs defines transcommunality as “the constructive
and developmental interaction occurring among distinct autonomy-oriented
communities and organizations, each with its own particular history, outlook,
and agenda” (Brown Childs, 10) and traces his interest in such collaborative
efforts toward social change back his own roots. Far from negating the importance of
individual and community identities, Brown Childs advocates for using these in
concert with those of others toward more a more socially just and ecologically
sustainable world. Borrowing ideas and
methods from indigenous communities and cultures and their connections to the
natural world, he looks at ways in which we may come together “without simply
duplicating the hierarchies of power and domination with which we are
contending” (Brown Childs, 10).
The concerns that
Brown Childs has (the human and ecological price of our rapidly globalizing
world) are similar to those of O’Sullivan, Morrell, and O’Connor in Transformative Learning. Transformative learning for them goes beyond
the projects of cultural studies and critical pedagogy, which focus primarily
on human issues and extends itself to integrate issues of peace, social
justice, and ecology in such as was as to present a fundamental challenge to
market-driven education (O’Sullivan, Morrell, and O’Connor, xvi). As a starting point for the volume, they
define transformative learning as:
Transformative learning involves
experiencing a deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought,
feelings, and actions. It is a shift of
consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters our way of being in the
world. Such a shift involves our
understanding of ourselves and our self-locations, our relationships with other
humans and with the natural world, our understanding of relations of power in
interlocking structures of class, race, and gender, our body-awarenesses, our
visions of alternative approaches to living, and our sense of possibilities for
social justice and peace and personal joy. (O’Sullivan, Morrell, and O’Connor,
xvii)
How do we begin to make connections between our own lives
and choices with the lives of others around the world and with the world
itself? How do we begin to integrate
consideration of these things into our everyday experience?
