Standing at a Crossroads: Appropriate Action for Challenging Times
view PDF online download PDF The invitation to participate in this Conversation at Towerland was accompanied by the following articulation of the times that we find ourselves in, and the challenge of finding ways – through our actions – that might in some measure make a difference in an often seemingly intractable process of deepening impoverishment at every level.
A Sabbatical Journey
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Originally published in a Community Development Resource Association annual report, this piece is a reflection on a journey through the United States at the time of the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Centre. It combines a personal experience with reflections on the soul of America as well as Goethean methodology. An attempt to use a Goethean way of seeing to get to the meaning of a particular social situation.
The Practice of Struggle is the Struggle to Practise
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Expanded from a report written originally for an anonymous client, this paper – written in the form of a story - is a reflection on the practice of a social practitioner as organisational consultant. At the same time it demonstrates a reading of a particularly intransigent social situation, and provides reflections on broader observations around questions of social struggle and the underlying dynamics of human endeavour.
Development Interventions as the Crossroads of Consciousness
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Adapted from an evaluation report for a client, this paper details aspects of a development intervention amongst the first people of southern Africa, the San. It is a reflection on the nature of development interventions, as well as being a meditation on the confluence between different, evolving forms of consciousness and our relationship with the world we inhabit.
Engaging with Civil Society in Bosnia and Herzegovina
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A report written for the international aid agency, CARE, this paper takes a ubiquitous request for the development sector - a conventional assignment for a consultant to make recommendations as to future CARE strategy - and turns it into an in-depth narrative addressed to the underlying character of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a meditation on aspects of civil society, and a commentary on the aid sector itself. It utilises a Goethean approach to a very complicated social situation, couched within the format required by the client.