Starhawk, your work never fails to inspire me. And i've been reading it and following your various projects since first coming across Dreaming the Dark in the early 80s. I think i mentioned this before, but we met in the 80s when Rosemary Sullivan organized a workshop at her Pigeon Hill Centre in Quebec. And Truth or Dare and The Empowerment Manual have been a regular part of the syllabi of several courses and workshops i have facilitated/taught for the past 35 years. So, this newest project of yours fills me with hope and joy. Since the late 70s i have devoted my life to the praxis of popular education, inspired by Paulo Freire and the Latin American social movements that grew from his work. And now i'm completing a dissertation about popular education in which I am making a case for the centrality (inextricability? necessity?) of learning as part of social movement struggle. So, when the first thing you mention in this podcast is "to meet people where they are..." i recognize what is perhaps the single most important inspiration (and theory and starting point and and and) for popular education. Following Freire, i tend to use the language of "beginning with the experience of the learners/participants," which i believe is the same ethic/practice as what you describe. As you can guess, I have been involved in countless debates about popular education, pedagogy, social movement tactics and strategies, etc. Which, not surprisingly, brings me to a place and time to see what sense of it all I have learned. Thanks to the support of friends and colleagues the opportunity of a PhD sprung up and, voila, here i am (with a year to go, more or less). In short, what I am working at is theorizing popular education as being made up of both "popular education IN NAME" (i.e. those instances that use the term "popular education" to describe/define their work - contradictions and all) and "popular education IN PRINCIPLE" (i.e. the learning/pedagogy of social movements for social and environmental -etc- justice who do not use the term "popular education" but whose praxis, nonetheless, corresponds strongly - again contradictions and all). My theory and practice (or praxis) of popular education has been strongly influenced by your work for a long while. All that is to acknowledge a profound connection with your work as well as gratitude and excitement for your continued work.
Finally, i'll share one issue I was thinking of while listening to your latest podcast. It's another aspect of learning/teaching, of course. And that's the issue of the role and power of the expert and expertise. As I expect you know, if not from your knowledge of popular education, then certainly from your own practice, the learning/teaching/facilitation we do in the context of social movement struggle is highly critical of the power that we grant to those we deem experts. Popular education has, from it's outset, been highly critical of that power and actively (and critically) resists the way that many experts wield that power which is oftentimes unjust power. Which is not to personalize things and simply blame the experts - for surely it is a commonplace that people tend to defer to experts, hand over their power (which many are unaware they even have), and elevate that expert above and beyond what they rightfully have earned from the development of their expertise. Popular education tries to focus on the expertise and not the expert (when experts are needed at all, of course). That said, i have witnessed over and over again the tendency of activists to elevate experts as people who are categorically different (and more deserving of power if not also agency) than themselves. I'm positive you have experienced this yourself - it's kind of unavoidable (being bound up as it is in class and patriarchy and racism and so on). What strikes me as different in this day and age is the ubiquity and sheer volume of expert opinion available to anyone with an internet connection. But for all my admiration of writers and scholars and journalists (Rebecca Solnit, Heather Cox Richardson, Timothy Snyder, adrienne maree brown, Charlies Aengus (up here in Canada), and i daresay, yourself, and so many others), what we write and share is just information - damned important information, but information nonetheless. And i've noticed a tendency in social movements (trade unions, especially, bastions of patriarchy that many of them continue to be) to feature such information as the most important aspect of learning. I refer to this as "the truth will set you free" tendency. To conclude (cuz i can be rather wordy), i see all this as existing in the tension between authoritarian/expert-driven and participatory/democratic approaches to learning/teaching as well as the actions that emerge from such. I see lots of positive movement towards the participatory/democratic (so many people like the ones i mentioned, are saying again and again, to get together and learn and act WITH others, not to act alone). But the urgencies that we face of capitalist-driven exploitation, the rise of fascism, and so much more, afflict me more and more. There is so much to be done. And time seems to be running out.
So, that's some of what your podcast sparked in my thinking. I have always seen you as an exemplar of popular education praxis. And i look forward to continuing to learn from and with you.
I propose an action with balloons that say 'Pop Trump's Ego!' - we pop them together before the budget vote to embolden our representatives who need a spine. Won't it feel great? We can do this across the globe. What a great visual!
Safety is also an issue on the left, at least I see that here in Sebastopol. Folks with all the good political views seem to think that they can make themselves safe, and they give the effort considerable time and energy. It's similar to the privilege concept in that one can recognize one's privilege, but refusing to benefit from it is something else entirely. No one is free until everyone is free, no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Just in general, I would love you to explore (next, cause you asked) the inner work we all do and need to keep doing. How do we know what to do in the outer world without that? How do we come up with the new approach that will bring about the changes we long for? Even marching in the streets, which we have always done, with the inner preparation, will be more.
Starhawk, your work never fails to inspire me. And i've been reading it and following your various projects since first coming across Dreaming the Dark in the early 80s. I think i mentioned this before, but we met in the 80s when Rosemary Sullivan organized a workshop at her Pigeon Hill Centre in Quebec. And Truth or Dare and The Empowerment Manual have been a regular part of the syllabi of several courses and workshops i have facilitated/taught for the past 35 years. So, this newest project of yours fills me with hope and joy. Since the late 70s i have devoted my life to the praxis of popular education, inspired by Paulo Freire and the Latin American social movements that grew from his work. And now i'm completing a dissertation about popular education in which I am making a case for the centrality (inextricability? necessity?) of learning as part of social movement struggle. So, when the first thing you mention in this podcast is "to meet people where they are..." i recognize what is perhaps the single most important inspiration (and theory and starting point and and and) for popular education. Following Freire, i tend to use the language of "beginning with the experience of the learners/participants," which i believe is the same ethic/practice as what you describe. As you can guess, I have been involved in countless debates about popular education, pedagogy, social movement tactics and strategies, etc. Which, not surprisingly, brings me to a place and time to see what sense of it all I have learned. Thanks to the support of friends and colleagues the opportunity of a PhD sprung up and, voila, here i am (with a year to go, more or less). In short, what I am working at is theorizing popular education as being made up of both "popular education IN NAME" (i.e. those instances that use the term "popular education" to describe/define their work - contradictions and all) and "popular education IN PRINCIPLE" (i.e. the learning/pedagogy of social movements for social and environmental -etc- justice who do not use the term "popular education" but whose praxis, nonetheless, corresponds strongly - again contradictions and all). My theory and practice (or praxis) of popular education has been strongly influenced by your work for a long while. All that is to acknowledge a profound connection with your work as well as gratitude and excitement for your continued work.
Finally, i'll share one issue I was thinking of while listening to your latest podcast. It's another aspect of learning/teaching, of course. And that's the issue of the role and power of the expert and expertise. As I expect you know, if not from your knowledge of popular education, then certainly from your own practice, the learning/teaching/facilitation we do in the context of social movement struggle is highly critical of the power that we grant to those we deem experts. Popular education has, from it's outset, been highly critical of that power and actively (and critically) resists the way that many experts wield that power which is oftentimes unjust power. Which is not to personalize things and simply blame the experts - for surely it is a commonplace that people tend to defer to experts, hand over their power (which many are unaware they even have), and elevate that expert above and beyond what they rightfully have earned from the development of their expertise. Popular education tries to focus on the expertise and not the expert (when experts are needed at all, of course). That said, i have witnessed over and over again the tendency of activists to elevate experts as people who are categorically different (and more deserving of power if not also agency) than themselves. I'm positive you have experienced this yourself - it's kind of unavoidable (being bound up as it is in class and patriarchy and racism and so on). What strikes me as different in this day and age is the ubiquity and sheer volume of expert opinion available to anyone with an internet connection. But for all my admiration of writers and scholars and journalists (Rebecca Solnit, Heather Cox Richardson, Timothy Snyder, adrienne maree brown, Charlies Aengus (up here in Canada), and i daresay, yourself, and so many others), what we write and share is just information - damned important information, but information nonetheless. And i've noticed a tendency in social movements (trade unions, especially, bastions of patriarchy that many of them continue to be) to feature such information as the most important aspect of learning. I refer to this as "the truth will set you free" tendency. To conclude (cuz i can be rather wordy), i see all this as existing in the tension between authoritarian/expert-driven and participatory/democratic approaches to learning/teaching as well as the actions that emerge from such. I see lots of positive movement towards the participatory/democratic (so many people like the ones i mentioned, are saying again and again, to get together and learn and act WITH others, not to act alone). But the urgencies that we face of capitalist-driven exploitation, the rise of fascism, and so much more, afflict me more and more. There is so much to be done. And time seems to be running out.
So, that's some of what your podcast sparked in my thinking. I have always seen you as an exemplar of popular education praxis. And i look forward to continuing to learn from and with you.
I propose an action with balloons that say 'Pop Trump's Ego!' - we pop them together before the budget vote to embolden our representatives who need a spine. Won't it feel great? We can do this across the globe. What a great visual!
Safety is also an issue on the left, at least I see that here in Sebastopol. Folks with all the good political views seem to think that they can make themselves safe, and they give the effort considerable time and energy. It's similar to the privilege concept in that one can recognize one's privilege, but refusing to benefit from it is something else entirely. No one is free until everyone is free, no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Just in general, I would love you to explore (next, cause you asked) the inner work we all do and need to keep doing. How do we know what to do in the outer world without that? How do we come up with the new approach that will bring about the changes we long for? Even marching in the streets, which we have always done, with the inner preparation, will be more.