This week’s readings really drove home the power and importance of culture. By ‘culture,’ I mean the ways of seeing and understanding the world that shape our ways of being in the world. What I have always found deeply empowering about the concept of culture, and which was driven home once again in this week’s readings, is the fact that it is malleable. It can seem natural or given, but it is in fact created, challenged, reinforced, and recreated continuously. This process of cultural production is what gives us the ability to create a world of our choosing. Understanding this makes us powerful.
Now, this is not to say that we are not affected by the contexts (existing cultures and material circumstances) in which we operate – on the contrary, they help to shape the methods, priorities, and values that, in turn, shape the cultures we create. ACORN-Bronx, NWBCCC, SBU, and the IAF all come out of different contexts, were motivated by different factors, and organized by people with different sets of experiences and perspectives (yes, even the collection of Bronx-specific organizations). Each made use of various tools, some pulling more strongly from the Alinsky tradition, others from the Freire school, and still some drew on both. Combining this lesson with those from past weeks reinforces my belief in the power of reflection – to think critically about who we are, where we are, what we are trying to accomplish, and which tools will be most useful in helping us to achieve our visions.
ACORN-Bronx, the IAF, and to a lesser extent the NWBCCC, are more hierarchically structured and focused more on building the power of their organizations. They draw more readily from the Alynskyite tool kit, which has helped them bring together already existing organizations, define clear role definitions, and win important campaigns. Given their histories and their goals, this approach makes sense. SBU and MOMs, on the other hand, employ the Freirean model more so, as they focus more on relationship and trust building, developing the leadership and community-building skills of their members, and making the personal political through substantive workshops around polity, politics, and organizing. Given their membership and their goals, this approach makes sense. Each organization has nurtured the creation of a certain kind of institutional culture, which has allowed them to be successful, if in different ways and in accomplishing different things.
What I’m curious to explore is the potential of combining the lessons learned from these organizations with a critical reflection on my own goals and priorities and those of the communities with which I am working. I see many strengths in all of their approaches and I wonder if the efforts in which I am involved would benefit from the opportunity to think about how we can employ methods and priorities from each. We can create whatever kind of culture we choose, and it does not have to be singular or exclusive in nature. Critical reflection and collective visioning allows us to create the kinds of emotional and material relationships we envision by cultivating cultures that support them. Taking our own specific circumstances into consideration and realizing that flexibility and diversity of methods and goals are what make us strong and able to collaborate may be key in creating the beloved community that so many of us yearn for.
Here are a couple of questions that I’d like to consider with the class:
1. Is the best bet is to have a coalition of organizations that do things differently, use different tactics, but that have a common vision and share some core tenets (like nonviolence, for example).
2. Are these coalitions even a good idea?
3. If not, to what kinds of contexts are the approaches individually best suited?
4. If so, what competencies/habits need to be cultivated in order to allow these kinds of relationships/coalitions/alliances to work?
5. What methods can we use to cultivate these habits?
6. What sorts of institutions do we need to help support these kinds of relationships and habits?