OST and decolonization

Harrison Owen owenhh at mindspring.com
Sat Feb 15 04:01:55 PST 2003


At 04:58 PM 2/14/2003 -0800, CHRIS CORRIGAN wrote:
>He said that at the end of the day he realized that this kind of
>expectation is what cultural assimilation is all about; that we expect
>others to set the agenda and tell us what our work is supposed to be.
>He concluded that Open Space works well because it invites us to do our
>own work.  In that fundamental and simple act, OST begins to unlock a
>lot of years of conditioned thinking, and reveals the possibility of
>truly decolonized communities: communities where we do our own work.

Marvelous, Chris! The experience recounted matches that of groups with
which I have worked, and many more facilitated by the likes of Elwin Guild,
Mikk Sarv, and John Engle. In a word, the experience is not unique, but the
statement is -- at least in terms of its simplicity and directness. I am
not quite sure what we do with all this except  -- more of the same.  But I
do think it is very worth while to closely consider what is going on here
and how we might better assist the progress. This is a tricky one, for our
role clearly must be both supportive AND invisible. I find it to be true
that every time I do something for somebody, to some extent I dis-empower
them.

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm

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