Entries by Robyn Stratton-Berkessel

What Can Social Constructionist Practice Offer in Times of Uncertainty?

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The professionals, researchers and authors in this podcast season have shared their specific social constructionist practice in a pre COVID world. In this episode, five of us reflect how social constructionism as an orientation is relevant and meaningful at all times, in all places and communities. More than ever, constructionist approaches that are available to us can help us heal the past and respond to current challenges and societal unrest in relational and collaborative ways.

Celebrating the Voice of Professor Mary Gergen

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Professor Mary Gergen, passed away on the morning of September 22, 2020. Mary was a lively, courageous, and innovative trail blazer of the Taos Institute. I celebrate her life with these lovely words in this 1 minute recording.  Mary is quoting herself in her joyful, fun way.  These words are timeless, priceless, and so-like-Mary!

Community Building Practices that Attend to Difference – Janet Newbury, Ph.D.

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How do we participate in community building practices in ways that attend to difference? Ways that are genuinely committed to consider power relations and how they play out when working amidst differences? Attending to such interactions opens us to surprises, and adjusts our ideas and practices. What we encounter in community can shift our perspectives and impact the relationships with ourselves and others.

What is Transmaterial Worlding and Why Pay Attention? – Gail Simon, Ph.D. and Leah Salter, Ph.D.

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Transmaterial worlding provokes us to pay attention. Once we start to realize that we are merely co-inhabitors of this world, we awaken to the notion we are making it or breaking it with each breath we take, each word we utter, and each action we take. The human species as all powerful and in control is a social-cultural construct. Globally right now, we need to listen differently to the distinct parts of the world and understand that other matter is also communicating. Humans need de-centering and de-throning from our illusion of being in control of the world.

Transformative Community Conferencing – A Constructionist Approach to a More Hopeful Future – David Hooker, Ph.D.

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Transformative community conferencing is an approach to community building or reconciliation. As a narrative practice, it embodies a more reflective orientation to relationships and to systems change. How and when we ask questions helps us think differently. It helps to begin to ask questions such as: “What is the narrative here? What is the story you are telling in relation to that narrative?” It enables people to engage and to flourish. When you look at events as stories you can always unpack them to make the narrative more visible to support flourishing for all.