WHAT IS AT STAKE?

When we do social and politicized work, what we do in practice and what we commit to in theory constantly influence one another. Together, these two things can generate momentum and create congestion—ultimately, they give shape to what we produce.

This has real implications at home, across institutions, with neighbors, and in our contemporary realities: The principles an organization claims to stand by are in deep conflict with how daily meetings are run; We break an agreement with housemates to wash the dishes and exacerbate waning trust between us; You know, ancestrally, how to manage grief but you find yourself depending on institutions that you know have a history of harming your family. Western systems, workplaces, and schools enforce the separation of knowing and being, making it disturbing for many of us to navigate.

Both my professional and academic careers have been consistently concentrated on investigating theory and practice, values and actions, knowing and being, the abstract and the concrete. What’s come of these past ten years are methods, processes, frameworks, and sensibilities for handling theory and practice in westernized contexts.

Image credit: Philip Chang 2018 | Tanzania