International Course "A Delicate Activism"

The instrumental nature of much contemporary social activism has become a contributing factor to – rather than a resolution of – the rapid and escalating social and ecological crises that beset our world. Our urgency to achieve change often unfolds a calculative, strategic mindset; results, rather than process, become primary. Yet a closer look at how life actually lives reveals that means are the ends that we arrive at – that our points of departure foretell our places of arrival.

The approach introduced in these five days offers the possibility to understand and work with radically different, more appropriate, more organic approaches to social and ecological process and practice. To work in ways that are respectful of the complexity and true nature of our challenges. Encountering the problems we face in the world today requires the exercise of a responsive creativity premised on our own transformation in the process of engagement. This, we suggest, is built through the disciplined practice of observation as it enters the living processes through which life on earth unfolds. These five days introduce a grounded, aware, engaged and imaginative interpersonal practice.

The idea is to shift our penchant for management towards enabling the world to become more visible. To develop the ability to see into the depths of things, so that the processes and relationships that form the living skein of social, and socio-ecological situations becomes transparent. To enable the situation to transform from the inside, out. We ourselves, in the process, gaining an awareness of a larger reality. We become able to incorporate ourselves within that reality. Our own way of approaching the world has a significant role to play in addressing challenges which we face, at this juncture of world history. In a rapidly foreclosing world, we introduce a practice that seeks to provide an enlarged picture of the human being, and our relationship with a living world. Recognizing that the world we inhabit is socially and ecologically impoverished and compromised, we choose to work with a practice that opens people’s horizons – both to themselves and to their responsibilities in terms of intervening creatively into such a world.

Some questions that this practice works with:

Can a practice that foregrounds observation play a healing role in the world?
How can we get connected to what is alive in others’ processes?-How can we develop respect for what is in the state of becoming? How can we become an organ of perception?
How can we develop a state of “not knowing”, a state of questing or intentional silence that enables us to learn?
How can we develop the capacity of describing a situation in a way that helps the situation’s essence to be revealed?
How can we help people to value living processes so that they trust in the process of life?

Location: Biovilla is a project of agro-tourism inserted in Arrábida Natural Park which aims to be a “living example” of sustainable practices, offering the possibility of a deep individual and group immersion.
http://www.biovilla.org/biovilla-eng

Arrivals to Lisbon (closest airport) are expected on the 5th of February and departures on the 11th of February 2018.

Registration fee: 650 euros (plus VAT) (early bird until 31st of December); 720 euros (plus VAT) after that. Registrations are limited to 24 participants.
The fee covers all costs related with board, lodging (shared room with another participant), and course related work and materials. The travel costs from your place to the venue are not included.

More info in our website: https://recifealgarve.wordpress.com/formacoes/#30

This course is hosted by RECIFE NETWORK and THE EMERGENCE NETWORK - http://www.emergencenetwork.org/ with the support of ARISE Education and Community of JSM.