FINDING THE LIGHT IN THE CRACKS
COMMUNITY WORKERS LEANING AND LEADING INTO 2021
PLEASE NOTE: This event has already taken place. To see Upcoming Community Praxis Co-op Events, see the Events page.
Facilitated by Peter Westoby and Jason MacLeod.
Facilitated by Peter Westoby and Jason MacLeod.
The Thinkery will:
Peter Westoby was introduced at a keynote of the 2018 International Association of Community Development as “a community development scholar, activist and analyst”. Peter kind of liked the ring of it; almost poetic. Yet, more accurately, from the age of 20, Peter has been on a journey of community development practice, deeply shaped by a grass-roots tradition, Freirean in nature, and place-based. That evolved over many years, particularly as he worked in places such as South Africa, Uganda, the Philippines, Nepal, PNG and Vanuatu.
At the age of 40 he found himself as a latecomer wading into the academy, and perhaps by chance, took up a position as a community development scholar just as Anthony Kelly retired from 40 years of teaching, practice and service at The University of Queensland.
He has been a writer or co-writer/editor of 14 books and over 50 professional journal articles on CD (https://uq.academia.edu/PeterWestoby), and loves that there is an emerging global ‘community of scholarship’ growing around the world. But more importantly, he loves reading, walking, sitting by a fire under the moon or stars, wandering daily in Mary Cairnross Park, exploring his bio-region, being with friends, sipping a coffee at dawn, and going to bed about 8.30pm (yes, he’s a lark, not an owl).
- Use Theory-U, a 'head, heart, hand' framework and deep listening processes to reflect on the year 2020 and lean into 2021.
- Focus on COVID19, climate justice, and the surveillance state, providing individual, group, and collective processes to reflect on issues to do with:
- how you/we are making sense of 2020 (mythically, metaphorically, analytically),
- what has enabled you/us to get through the hard times of the year,
- the choices made, and you/we want to make in 2021 around technology, lifestyle, consumption, work-life balance,
- setting intentions or questions for 2021,
- listening to what the stirrings within might be prompting,
- musings on emerging intentions and experiments - not just at a personal level but communally, even at the level of ‘soul of the world’.
- Weary community workers of 2020 wanting to do some collective thinking (thinking with others, with head, heart and hand)
- Active and engaged citizens
- Activists, social and ecological practitioners and workers wanting to end the year in a collective reflective space
Peter Westoby was introduced at a keynote of the 2018 International Association of Community Development as “a community development scholar, activist and analyst”. Peter kind of liked the ring of it; almost poetic. Yet, more accurately, from the age of 20, Peter has been on a journey of community development practice, deeply shaped by a grass-roots tradition, Freirean in nature, and place-based. That evolved over many years, particularly as he worked in places such as South Africa, Uganda, the Philippines, Nepal, PNG and Vanuatu.
At the age of 40 he found himself as a latecomer wading into the academy, and perhaps by chance, took up a position as a community development scholar just as Anthony Kelly retired from 40 years of teaching, practice and service at The University of Queensland.
He has been a writer or co-writer/editor of 14 books and over 50 professional journal articles on CD (https://uq.academia.edu/PeterWestoby), and loves that there is an emerging global ‘community of scholarship’ growing around the world. But more importantly, he loves reading, walking, sitting by a fire under the moon or stars, wandering daily in Mary Cairnross Park, exploring his bio-region, being with friends, sipping a coffee at dawn, and going to bed about 8.30pm (yes, he’s a lark, not an owl).
At this present moment he is also:
Director/consultant at Community Praxis Co-op;
a P/T practitioner at Hummingbird House;
a Custodian of Camellia Centre for Reflective Practice; and
a Visiting Professor, University of the Free State, South Africa.
Director/consultant at Community Praxis Co-op;
a P/T practitioner at Hummingbird House;
a Custodian of Camellia Centre for Reflective Practice; and
a Visiting Professor, University of the Free State, South Africa.
Jason MacLeod is, amongst other things, an organiser, educator, and researcher; a Quaker, wanderer and descendant of crofters from the Isle of Lewis. He/they work with diverse range of organisations, campaigns and social and environmental justice movements. Most of that work has been in Oceania, Asia and Australia. One constant in this community work vocation has been a 30 year journey accompanying the nonviolent struggle for freedom in West Papua. In recent years that leading, as the Quakers say, has been expressed through Pasifika, a social movement capacity building program. He also works as the lead educator with the Campaign Strategy Fellowship Asia, training and learning with climate justice activists from across Asia.
He is married with kids, wrestles with his Quaker faith, lives in a cohousing settlement, and has long standing aspirations to raise chickens that somehow never seem to be fulfilled. Jason is drawn to journeys under his own steam, whether by foot, paddle or paraglider. At the mythic level, a big part of their pilgrimage has been to reconstitute a destituted, wilder, and indigenous self. He’s also moving to Tasmania in 2020 :( :)
He is married with kids, wrestles with his Quaker faith, lives in a cohousing settlement, and has long standing aspirations to raise chickens that somehow never seem to be fulfilled. Jason is drawn to journeys under his own steam, whether by foot, paddle or paraglider. At the mythic level, a big part of their pilgrimage has been to reconstitute a destituted, wilder, and indigenous self. He’s also moving to Tasmania in 2020 :( :)
For Gustavo Esteva “a Thinkery is basically one element in the process of articulation, how you articulate ideas. It's how to talk about ideas that you do not have. You cannot really say the thing because the idea is not there. It is around but you need to capture it by talking with others, in that relation and that interaction with others. That is one very important element of a Thinkery”. (Community Development Journal, Volume 50, Issue 3, July 2015, Pages 529–534).
We will be drawing on some key thinkers such as Otto Scharmer (Theory-U), Joanna Macy (the work that reconnecs), David Snowden (Cynefin framework), Naomi Klein (shock doctrine) and Jenny Odell (attention economy).
PLEASE NOTE: This event has already taken place. To see Upcoming Community Praxis Co-op Events, see the Events page.
We will be drawing on some key thinkers such as Otto Scharmer (Theory-U), Joanna Macy (the work that reconnecs), David Snowden (Cynefin framework), Naomi Klein (shock doctrine) and Jenny Odell (attention economy).
PLEASE NOTE: This event has already taken place. To see Upcoming Community Praxis Co-op Events, see the Events page.