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testimonies:italy:dorothy

The Heterotopia Tour as one young person in the EU

As an attempt to reflect on the Heterotopia Tour for myself and in relation to the larger context of the EU, I take myself as a case to draw some inferences about what this experience offers for young people in the current state of society. Or, what was my experience of the Heterotopia Tour and how does this resound with larger youth issues in the EU?
My context, broadly, is that of a young adult in Greece, from a not underprivileged background, one could say; private international schooling, university and masters studies abroad. The issues the Heterotopia Tour aimed to address were those of tackling unemployment and supporting youth empowerment, among others. Although I needn’t elaborate on the difficult circumstances young people face finding work in Greece, even deeper than that, the issue of meaningful work is of great concern to me, and is gaining attention more generally too, with the growing awareness of the “bullshit jobs” phenomenon .
Parallel to finding a fulfilling livelihood, in my personal case, a feeling of social isolation is perhaps one of the biggest blocks to my own empowerment. Within my own circles I know I am not alone in feeling a lack of social support, indeed loneliness is lately discussed as a widespread problem in the US and Europe is likely not far away . Features contributing to this, in Greece specifically, range from the infrastructure of the city with car centered transportation system and lack of public spaces for community interaction, to the economic landscape in which oligopolies control the official media so that mainstream discourse focuses mostly on shallow iterations of large scale issues, interrupted by advertisements for extrinsically oriented products (). Extrinsic in this case means extrinsic values - status, appearance, wealth, as opposed to intrinsic - community, wellbeing, environment, as explored by the Common Cause theses . So the messaging we are more commonly exposed to emphasizes fear and status, which tend towards behaviors of competitiveness and closing off – not ideal for encouraging socializing. With this lack of systemic, socially minded dialogue, many do not question the frustrating interwoven phenomena of bullshit jobs, crises, austerity and inequality that are slow to change without broad civic engagement. Not to get too bogged down in the negative, changes and alternatives are all the more prevalent in the cracks of a challenged system.

Perhaps the most important point of intervention in our society is that of education. Having lived this experience in the Heterotopia Tour I saw that it is a radical intervention that touches on the aforementioned leverage point with great dynamism. The power for me was in the immersive experience of a new and unfamiliar living space with new and diverse people, all held and skillfully facilitated so as to create a productive and interplayful spirit of community building.
In the inquiry of meaningful work, the tour offered various levels of insight for participants to engage with somewhat unusual forms of occupation for the average European city kid. From living in an environmental education center to visiting alternative initiatives for solidarity, to hands on work and sharing amongst the many personal ways of making a living, we were surrounded by examples of working with meaning. We lived a patchwork crash-course in Schumacher’s “Buddhist Economics” - the idea that work is a means for self improvement and even self actualization, contrasting the occidental view of work as a drag and cost both to the worker - who wants to minimize it, and to the employer for whom it is a drain on the bottom line . In my own search for meaningful work I gained from the tour a renewed insight and faith that there are so many options and that we can truly find means to a livelihood that satisfies our souls and material needs synergistically.

In addition to the practice and examples we had of meaningful work, I would argue that the way in which our group processes were carried out and the participatory elements of the Tour developed essential soft skills for facing the uncertain future of the job market. As Sir Ken Robinson describes so movingly, the industrial model of education that most European youngsters have gone through, leave us significantly hindered in skill areas critical for responding to the complex issues that are leading to unpredictable changes in our socioeconomic landscapes . Areas of creativity and collaboration are emphatically lacking in the developmental trajectories of mainstream education. In a time of systems change, and as Einstein is probably misquoted as saying; “we cannot solve problems with the same level of consciousness we used to created them”. The process tools used in the Heterotopia Tour for enabling collective consciousness to emerge demonstrated principles and offered us the experience of co-creative group work. Part of the generative group process was the iterative cycles of reflection and adjustment highlighted in the nightly ‘family group’ sessions in which we had the opportunity to reflect and share daily experiences and supporting a feedback loop to organizing members. Furthermore exercises in collaboratively deciding core values and principles for the group allowed us to take agency in organizing ourselves, with guidance but also responsibility for how we want to exist and work together. Indeed the values that we decided; respect, freedom, responsibility, honesty, solidarity, were about as socially supportive and generative as any nation or union could hope for, from and for its people. Far from authority and enforcement these values emerged spontaneously from the hearts of this young group of people. The organizations, businesses and livelihoods of the future could greatly benefit from a familiarity of these processes, as we are likely going to have a much better time if we get creative and work together to shift our societies into the future.

Working together is also an important part of enriching the social fabric and patching the issues of social isolation that I am not alone in experiencing in our post modern European societies. Looking at this issue through the perspective of needs and satisfiers, community living as we experienced it, also expressed richly the features of synergistically satisfying needs in the way that Max Neef posited . Rather than separately attempting to satisfy needs of subsistence, participation, creativity, affection and such, with communal and self organized activities and living spaces, many needs can be satisfied at the same time without jeopardizing others. With a focus on the socially relevant dimensions, such as participation, understanding, affection and perhaps identity, the Heterotopia Tour provided an extensive lived experience of where sociality intersects with all other aspects of life, including, even, taking time for oneself. Through practices of self organization and management, sharing tasks of care for our place of stay, cooperating in joint projects of construction, and sharing skills and activities with each other, we felt the richness and diversity of interactions and possibilities of co-living. On a personal level my world was greatly enriched by the social fabric I helped weave in my time on the Heterotopia Tour. I greatly appreciated the intermediate group level of my Greek family group which played the role of a close knit group to share more intimate reflections as well as holding the before and after spaces of the Tour, helping us with introductory and reflection/transition processes in the aftermath. Having experienced alternative education styles before, reintegration has often been a challenge, as previously embedded habits have been difficult to shift. The integrated methodologies of reflection included the Heterotopia Tour, including the follow up meetings, activities and the learning journal, are I believe a valuable aspect for participants to bring the changes they want into their daily lives.

The learned tools and the methods that facilitate their integration into participants’ home environments resonate well with the posited goals for education of the EU . The practices in participatory group management and organization speak to the goals of youth empowerment and involvement in democratic processes. Contrasting the mainstream Greek education system in which authoritarian practices dominate the classroom, the Heterotopia exercises of participatory management, and decision making provides a unique opportunity to truly live democratic decision making and feel what it is like to have a voice that counts within a diverse group. I would say these experiences also serve the goal of the EU to cultivate a sense of citizenship for people in EU states. Both because participants contributed and felt part of a larger whole with other people from EU countries, and because it is thanks to EU funding that this enlivening experience happened in the first place.

The multiple levels of richness that brightened our lives over these two weeks will be a source of inspiration rippling through my future in subtle ways. I salute the vital work being done within and around the Tour in order to make it accessible and open to whoever wants to replicate a similar experience. It is promising that this transformative work could be done within the supportive framework of the EU. I hope such styles of non-formal learning spread like wildfire to meet the sparks in the hearts of our continent’s youth.

testimonies/italy/dorothy.txt · Last modified: 2018/11/08 18:50 by Clement