Hi Rosan & All
The nature of human communication across borders between cultural and social difference is the context of my design practice...the thing with this design field (ie designing process for restructuring human relations in regard to racism for example)is that the 'subjects'or material, if you like, which is the stuff with which we are designing is alive, intelligent in some way (always) and self-directing (sometimes). The aim here (in my work) is to foster critical literacy (social/cultural intelligence)and empower human agency (structure for diverse and individual agency).
A first step in this process is to structure human communications within a set of principles that aid in this literacy and empowerment. The paper by Bohm, Factor and Garrett Dialogue a Proposal...available at:
www.muc.de/~heuval/dialogue/dialogue_proposal.htm
... outlines the dialogue process and principles...this talking process does not limit any speakers input...in fact in the processes i design we encourage, instigate and support all persons to speak in any way about any issue (and we are most often engaged with issues of racism and social dominance and processes for mediating conflict). One thing that the Dialogue process requires all listeners ( equally important partners in any conversation) to do is to become meta-cognitively aware of the ways in which some conversations pattern themselves as divisive and centered on different "zones of experience"; "centers of understanding" and "cultural assumptions" concerning the ways things are...what thing mean...what is true etc.
Being unrestricted in expressing views from these standpoints allows a group to explore difference and similarity as well as gowing to understand those meta-dynamics that emerge from the ways our conversations pattern themselves...struggle, conflict, agreement, reassurance, all these element assist groups to become communities....if the groundrules of respect, freedom, suspension, and responsibility are enacted...i love these debates and see them as a grow in progress.
Norm
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