I’m
seeing it again. The tilt toward everything.
Most people say it is impossible.
That community is always closed. That we only know where we belong when we know
whom and what we have barred. In a review of several books on community
participation, Malcolm Payne argues that community identity is necessarily
formed through a definition of inclusion and exclusion, of who belongs and who
does not. Social Identity Theory agrees with him. It tells us that as soon as
humans are placed into groups of any kind (even random groups in a lab), they
immediately begin to exaggerate their differences with other groups and to compare
those other groups unfavorably with their own.
I imagine this description is
probably a fair one of most human experience. But is it an ironclad
sociological law or is it simply the history of who we have been so far?
In my years of studying and working
with Santropol
Roulant in Montreal, the most profound thing I observed was that the
organization quietly acted as if it were for everyone, as if everyone in the world
somehow belonged, even people who had never heard of the place.
This unbounded acceptance wasn’t
true in form, of course. There was an explicit definition of membership (i.e.,
who could vote at the annual general meeting), though that definition was broad
and gentle. And the organization didn’t have an unlimited number of staff or
client or volunteer slots. But I always sensed that there was a deeper kind of
intention at work. Anyone who walked in the door had a place there, if only for
a moment. There was no questioning of anyone’s fundamental connection to the
organization, their right to be there, to take part. (This seemed to me to be
true even in the rare event that someone was asked to leave. Something like,
“You still belong here. You just need to belong from farther away.”) The
underlying identity of the organization was radically whole.
I think this is one of the reasons
that people often told me they didn’t feel sharp divisions and cliques at the
Roulant. New arrivals told me this. Staff who had been there for years told me
this. People always sounded slightly surprised when they said it. When the
fundamental pulse that defines who we are includes, literally, everyone, then
smaller group identities, though they may exist, seem to lose their weight.
Now here at Kufunda Village
in Zimbabwe, I see a similar intention. In a previous post, Tana wrote about how welcoming it
is here. That welcome appears to come from the superficially absurd belief that
everyone everywhere is somehow a Kufundee.
The belief is imperfect. Holding the
intention can be difficult, especially in the face of economic instability and
hardship. People here can struggle with their own sense of belonging in a
daily, lived way. But no one is excluded by definition. What it means to be a
Kufundee does not fundamentally rest on what it means not to be a Kufundee.
Such a stance might seem
impractical, but in the few (the very few) places I have seen it at work, it
strikes me as anything but. When we lean, however falteringly, toward oneness,
our normal organizational divisions (the ones we think of as “internal”)
dampen. Our sense of expectancy (Who might walk in the door today?) grows. We
become more creative. We become braver. We make room for the parts of ourselves
that we normally exclude from the work we do. And strangely, by throwing our
doors permanently open, we may become safer, due to the webs of care, support,
and attention we create.
I think we also become more deeply
in touch with what the true purpose of our organizations really is. On the
surface, Planned
Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN) in British Columbia is a narrowly
defined organization with a sliver of a constituency: adults with developmental
disabilities. But PLAN is one of the wisest organizations I know at recognizing
the universal call inside of its particular mission. Founded by parents, PLAN
began its life with a rights-based, advocacy approach to its work. But the
founders soon began asking themselves deeper questions: What is it we really
want to create for our children? What is a good life?
These questions not only energized
PLAN. They also caused it to recognize that the root of what they were seeking
belonged to everyone. A good life for someone with a developmental disability
is no different from a good life for anyone else. We all seek the things PLAN began
to focus on: relationships, security, home, contribution. Thus, even though
PLAN’s direct work continues to be focused on people with developmental
disabilities, the organization has become very attuned to the core yearnings of
everyone who crosses its path. It is a rich place not just for “the people at
the center,” but for staff, board members, funders, interested politicians, and
visitors. PLAN’s understanding of its own universal nature eventually became so
embedded that some of the founders started an offshoot project, Philia, which
focuses on ways of developing meaningful citizenship for anyone who is
marginalized (and I imagine that, in the end, we are all marginalized in one
way or another).
PLAN’s history shows us two roads
for any identity-based organization to go down. The first involves sharply
defending what makes us different. The second asks us to go far enough into the
identity in question that we can find the essential human yearnings underneath.
PLAN’s history shows us two roads
for any identity-based organization to go down. The first involves sharply
defending what makes us different. The second asks us to go far enough into the
identity in question that we can find the essential human yearnings underneath.
The first approach is shallow, and it fractures the world. It causes us to
continually focus on the dispiriting question: “Who is this work not for?” The
second is deep and it connects us all. It answers that dispiriting question
with an uplifting commitment: “There is no one this work is not for.”
All social purpose organizations
seek the same essential things for the people they work with: health, respect,
participation, growth, freedom, creativity, connection, meaning. Working from this
common understanding – knowing that everyone belongs to the work we do – does
do not diminish the honor and pride we can take in the different social
categories and cultural traditions of our experience. It increases our
reverence for and delight in them, knowing that they are the many-colored and
brilliant manifestations of the one human heart.
I am writing this outdoors during a
rapid dusk. I have carried our little wicker couch out into the clearing in
front of the cottage. The first rain in six months is coming soon, maybe
tonight. The light is heavy in the sky. It flexes and shifts like a tendon.
It is a strange light to me. It
seems different than the light I have seen at home. It cuts the atmosphere at a
new angle. It refracts through the red Zimbabwean dust. Still, I think it is
the same light. I think I will begin to recognize it if I can sit here long
enough.
About The Author
Warren Nilsson
Click
here to learn more about me.
One of the things we’ve gotten used to in meetings at Kufunda is ants. 
