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

[Larry Purss]

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
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