[Xmca-l] Re: The Place of REFUGE as expressing particular qualities

[Lplarry]

Henry,
What I see as similar is the exploration of  place as intimately related to the formation of identity.
We have been exploring qualities of the imaginal and I am suggesting the imaginal may be, like identity,  intimately connected to particular places.
In Buenos Aires the place is the community school. This place is bricks and mortar as building material but this does not explain this schools meaning to the self-identified community of destiny.
This school is a place of significant meaning which emerges because of  the sense of refuge generated within this self-organizing place.
Henry, I want to raise up this word -refuge- as place based.
Ana's article describes the source of this words meaning emerging from a mental health model in Brazil.
The key shift is the connections Ana makes between the quality of this mental health model of refuge and the quality informing the educational place of refuge.in Buenos Aires.
Why I am sharing her work is the quality of place this self organizing community has generated.
The bricks and mortar building houses a place of safety, a place of refuge, a developing consciousness of belonging to a community of destiny.
What are the qualities that transferred from a mental health model of refuge to an educational model of refuge?
* this place emerges as manifested from a framework of what is possible.
* aimed at supporting marginalized and traumatized persons living in extreme conditions.
* in this place children, youth, and adults can re-construct their lives.
*struggle is connected to community AS reference
*struggle is also connected to educational place as support system.
* the place does not exist a priori, but becomes a place of refuge by our shared acts.
* this place is a place to come to rest. I consider this a key quality of refuge.
*this place also opens a space to plan future action.
*a self-identified collective of people who dare to dream and think it is possible to create spaces
*all different and unique subjectivities are protected and supported.
*educational places of refuge can be co-ordinated as a network
* to start these places is to start a journey of learning and community building as the focus of the community.
*destiny is a core image and can be constructed across time and across individuals within places.
* action occurs within society at large, and this is the arena where place of refuge is justified as a struggle for human rights.
* the critical understanding that refuge is not a withdrawal from society at large but remains an open space. No predetermined story line is determined, only an approach. 
*The purpose of place as refuge is to create something anew and not be static within refuge.. This is imaged as destiny not given but imagined.
*one can always be open to learn something else, become a companion to someone else.
*one learns how it feels to INHABIT a place.
*this place can be conceptualized as a space where one can feel protected enough, cared for enough, and protect and care for others.
*from a place of refuge one can imagine a possibility of something new yet to come.

Henry, what is significant is that this image of place as refuge now exists.
It may be a fragile place, but Ana is documenting how hope is an actual place and is a particular approach. To listen, really listen, to the suffering of the other within actual communities.
The shift from mental health models to educational models as places approaching the open see of the not yet, but possible.

I have stayed close to the 5 pages shared in order  to highlight the quality of certain places to respond to and address the traumatized and marginalized people living on the streets of Buenos Aires.
In this particular narrative is something general indicating the need for places where we can come to rest.








-----Original Message-----
From: "HENRY SHONERD" <hshonerd@gmail.com>
Sent: ‎2015-‎12-‎14 10:53 PM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Cc: "Ana Inés Heras" <herasmonnersans@gmail.com>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Place of REFUGE as expressing particular qualities

Larry,
I have read quickly through Ana’s article and imagined “concrete” connections with Mike’s work with the 5th Dimension and any ‘Zine project with young people. As well, with the work of Alfredo Jornet and Rolf Steier on gesture and boundary objects in a museum design project. (The Matter of Space: Bodily Performances and the Emergence of Boundary Objects During Multidisciplinary Design Meetings)
Does that make sense to you?
Henry

 
> On Dec 14, 2015, at 7:47 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I want to introduce a friend, Ana Ines Heras,  who lives in Buenos Aires.
> She has translated an article into English which captures what she calls an approach to generating meaning in places she calls communities of destiny 
> We have been exploring third spaces and Ana’s focus on particular qualities of places that she calls “places of refuge” extends this conversation.
> Refuge is the idea/concept  I am hoping to bring to awareness and stabilize. 
> On page 3 she introduces Moises Rodrigues who works in Brazil and has facilitated state designed and implemented health policy aimed at supporting witnesses and victims of torture dealing with trauma and stress.
> Ana takes this framework and applies it to understand the situation of thousands of children living in extreme conditions of marginalization in Buenos Aires.
> Under certain circumstances this framework is connected to a living community which is seen both as “reference” and as support system. The community becomes a “place” exhibiting particular qualities.
> A place that “simultaneously” becomes embodied as a place to come to rest AND a place to plan action.
> What I find significant is Ana’s approach that takes Moises Rodrigues ideas, categories, and practice within mental health settings and transitions these ideas, categories, and practices to Buenos Aires and a network of community organizations. These organizations self-identify as a collective of people. These self-identified collectives believe and share a  faith that it is possible to CREATE spaces where all different subjectivities are protected and supported in places OF refuge.  This collective considers their shared actions as a social orientation.
> 
> However, refuge is not the end goal but is more like a stepping stone that is necessary in order to navigate to what Ana metaphorically calls the “open see”.  This is where I want to pause at this connection of [refuge] and [open see]. I want to stabilize this connection of refuge to open see.
> Ana’s approach [and her framework] is to create refuge as holding places which become a necessary step to be able to navigate to the open see as a shared journey within communities of destiny. 
> The children learn how it feels to inhabit and embody *a* space as place. THIS place where one may feel protected enough, cared for enough, and in turn can protect and care for others IN ORDER TO build a [possibility] of something yet to come. THIS is the place of the imaginal that does possess certain qualities of place. 
> 
> A question we have been exploring on this site is where does meaning exist? I would answer that meaning exists where life is experienced as embodied and enacted. Two other concepts that share a family resemblance with this concept are  incarnated” and “animated”. 
> When we say the voices of the dead “live” within places of refuge and communities of destiny we are invoking [animated] notions of meaning located in particular cultural historical places. 
> This introduction of Ana is highlighting her approach captured in the phrase [give place a chance]. Ana’s work embodies this potential and possibility of place as refuge 
> 
> Ana gave permission for me to post this article so I am sending her work out for reflection
> Larry 
> 
> 
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
> <DECEMBER 12 2015 HERAS ANA INES a-city-in-flames-and-a-community-of-destiny1.pdf>