on behalf of the Lectorate Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts, we would like to welcome you to our publication. What started as two women coming together in an adventurous journey to define and program a research unit has turned into a program with a clear vision and philosophy, with research activities ranging from singing to engaging with dance education students in Amsterdam and Senegal, to listening to stories in barbershops on different continents with collaborations including students, teachers, researchers, community members and more, nationally and internationally. There is a trend in higher applied education where bigger is better. Extensive collaborative networks are encouraged, funded and steadily becoming the norm. We chose to do the opposite. Our primary tenet is that everything starts, rises and falls in relationships. Hence, we focused on relationships, with each other, our constituents, and our collaborative research partners. Given the sensitivity of our topic we felt that was important. Our job was not just to generate information, but to create knowledge and help people embrace that knowledge, while understanding that social justice and diversity issues are sensitive issues.
Often our time and energy was not spent on research projects and activities, but merely to listen to people and to support them in their struggles as they were trying to figure out how to deal with certain issues. This affirmed that a lectorate dedicated to social justice and diversity could not just be dedicated to generating knowledge but had to include knowledge and practices that help restore and heal some of the injustices and diversity issues that have plagued our communities, academically as well as in our everyday lives.
We came up with a particular approach to thinking about and pursuing social justice and diversity, using Five Pillars. You will see the
Five Pillar approach reflected in many of the chapters. It is a structure that has worked for us as we plan, think and reflect on our work in search of transformation. It is something we want to share with you here.
In this publication, you will learn about our vision and our approach to generating and cultivating knowledge within the community. Our community has included students, teaching and support staff, researchers and educators from other institutions, volunteer community members, community and arts activists and more. We have assembled a small team of researchers, including Gabriela Acosta Camacho, Tayfun Balçik, Camiël Kesser and Paulina Trejo Méndez. Layzmina Emerencia, David Cham, Janne Groen, Swindey Helm, Daan den Hertog, Lola de Winter and Chadiedja Buijs also conducted research with the lectorate. Madieke Hupperets, Hila Masa, Sally Mometti, Kelly de Wildt, the Research Center and our former coordinator Chris de Ploeg have been invaluable in coordinating, administrating, communicating and supporting the work of the lectorate. We have joined forces and learned along with these people, under the watchful and guiding eye of our Community Advisory Council. This council consists of Wadia Aktaou, Janne Igbuwe, Jerrel Plet, and Rolando Vázquez who have functioned as our sounding board and hold us accountable.
You will also learn about some of the activities we have engaged in. We have included links to reports, podcasts and videos where you can get an even closer insight into our work. After these two years we are at a point of transition. We hopefully have planted some seeds not only to help the next lector but to help the AHK and the artistic community to pursue social justice and diversity as a means and as an outcome. We hope you will enjoy our work and will share it with others.
Enjoy!
Aminata Cairo and Rosa te Velde
Research Foundation
Aminata Cairo, Ph.D. & Rosa te Velde
This research group has the title Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts. We had an understanding of the meaning of diversity as it is commonly used, but what about ‘social justice’? The term ‘social justice’ was not commonly used in Dutch institutions. If we heard it, it mostly came from students. The general terminology we heard was ‘diversity and inclusion’. So what to do? Rather than a problem, we saw an opportunity to formulate a new approach and a new story. For us, social justice goes beyond the concepts of diversity and inclusion in that it offers an ethical driving force and an urge to heal and restore from the fragmentation, alienation, and indifference caused by a certain historical trajectory. This questioning departs from the relation between the ways in which the well-being and modern lives of some have come at the cost and erasure of the lives of others. In Vistas of Modernity, decolonial scholar Rolando Vázquez asks: “[Can we] live an ethical life in a world in which our well-being is dependent on the suffering of others and on the wasting away of Earth?”1 Inspired by Vázquez’s work, we set out to define and pursue social justice for the research group as follows:
We see social justice as the effort to address and restore inequities, inequities that may have a very long history and somehow have become part of our norm. We believe that some, because of their (personal) closeness to the topic, are more aware of socially unjust practices than others. However, social injustice affects everybody. The pursuit of social justice, then, is not just limited to the obvious, big social inequities, but includes daily, interpersonal practices as well.
We decided to pursue attention to social justice in the lectorate through two approaches: 1) Social justice as an outcome; and 2) Social justice as a practice. Meaning, how do we use the arts, research, and arts education to pursue social justice (as an outcome), and how can we move (in the arts, research, and education) in a socially just way?
Furthermore, we see the pursuit of social justice as a project that is about us. Who do we want to be as a community (artistic, educational, or otherwise)? Hence, social justice for us carries a sense of urgency, accountability and a desire for transformation. What are we willing to do? What should we be willing to do? And how do we make sure we do it together?
As far as ‘diversity’ in the title of our research group, we did not forget about it. For us, diversity embodies the variety and wealth of stories that we possess and are inherently valued in our working process.
The research group’s work is informed by and rooted in two related theoretical lenses, namely decoloniality and indigenous knowledge. These theoretical lenses shape our thinking and work approach.
Decolonial theory
Decolonial theory acknowledges that due to a particular colonial history, we have a world filled with inequities and inequalities where a dominant story has become the norm and has presented itself as universal and natural: the dominant perspective presents itself “as not only real but
true, and not only true but good”.2 Decoloniality hails from Abya Yala (South America) and understands modernity/coloniality as a tandem concept; modernity was only possible because of its ‘darker side’ of coloniality.3 Decolonial theory does not refer to undoing colonialism per se, nor is it the same as postcolonial theory, but it refers to undoing the structural remnants that have invaded and structured our (intellectual) lives. Examples are the knowledge production from a particular perspective; standards of aesthetics and validation that only reflect one norm; or the overall exclusion of multiple voices, stories, and perspectives with associated power differentials.
Decoloniality is, at its core, the return to relationality, the acknowledgement of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all, with others and with Earth.4 It seeks the acknowledgment of plural stories as a starting point and a given, rather than a struggle for validation. In order to do so, we might have to spend some time undoing, unlearning, and ‘detoxing’ from the conditioned behaviors we have acquired along the way. It also requires trust in ourselves and each other and a whole new way of being that requires surrendering to not-knowing and what might be possible.
Indigenous knowledge
Indigenous knowledge always starts from the premise that we are related to everything and anything at any given time. Indigenous knowledge teaches us that the knowledge we seek is already out there, all around us and between us, which offers a relational approach to knowledge.5 It is how we stand in relationship to that knowledge and what we do to have that knowledge revealed to us that matters.6 To have that knowledge
revealed to us requires attention, patience, reverence, but most of all, connection. The knowledge we seek will be revealed to us when the time is right.
Because we are connected to anything and everything, we have infinite resources when it comes to inspiration, gaining insight, becoming aware, etc. What is required, then, is to develop the skill of listening, sensing, connecting, and trusting. It requires one to be okay with not knowing at the moment, to step into the unknown, and to be patient that when the time is right and everything is right, the right insight will reveal itself. Indigenous knowledge honors local knowledges and local approaches to knowledge. Indigenous knowledge, in particular as it pertains to research, is inherently political and about social justice, as it strives to undo the (epistemic) damage that has been done in the name of research.7
Through this link, you can find our researcher Paulina Trejo Méndez’s introduction to decoloniality and indigenous knowledge: bit.ly/sjda_decoloniality
A socially just research approach takes into consideration how structures of inequality and inequity shape how we value certain types of knowledge and knowledge production. Thus, even the most progressive, open-minded, and experimental research can be intimidating and exclusionary. The research team might be homogeneous; the frameworks might reflect dominant perspectives; the language used might be daunting; the research methods used might be known and comfortable only to those who have been trained in a specific field or discipline; the outcomes might remain inaccessible to the general audience and irrelevant to their everyday lives; ‘radical innovation’ for the sake of innovation and being cutting-edge might come at the cost of long-term local knowledge practices and infrastructures.8
A socially just research approach then tries to focus on knowledge production while considering these factors. A socially just approach inherently tries to correct or heal some of these longstanding practices and patterns, while taking into consideration that doing so might cause dissonance or flat out resistance. Socially just research then does not only require for us to do things differently but for us to engage people and bring them along on this new and perhaps uncomfortable journey.
In order to either move towards social justice or move in a socially just way, the research group proposed Five Pillars that ought to guide and question one’s steps of action and reflection, whether they are education, artistic practice, or research related. These Pillars include: relationality, temporality, transformation, cost, and joy. Collectively, these Pillars are rooted in decoloniality and indigenous knowledge.
Relationality
Relationality starts from the premise that all our interactions are based on relations. It behooves us then to be mindful and question how we engage in the relations that we hold, from interpersonal, between species, to our relationship with Earth. Some guiding questions might be: Which relationships do we tend to engage in? Who are we always including or overlooking in the relationships that we hold? How do we practice ‘relational accountability’9; meaning how are our relations responsible, reciprocal, and respectful? How do we honor or abuse the relationships we have, including the relationship with resources and our environment?
Collage by Paulina
Trejo Méndez.
How do we relate to place? What do we have to commit to in order to make our relations better? How do we stay in relation in spite of difficulties and discomfort we encounter?
Temporality
Temporality refers to the expansion across time and space. Often we engage as if we are starting from a point zero.10 This is something we, unfortunately, have gained from modernity. By acknowledging temporality, we acknowledge that there is a previous story at any point of entry. What was that story? How are we honoring or dishonoring that story? What are we overlooking when we fail to acknowledge that story? Which legacy should we honor before we start anything? Are we perhaps holding on too much to the stories of the past and should we let go of some stories before we get started? How do we listen to and incorporate the stories of those who came before us, and how will what we do honor and cherish the stories of those who are still to follow? In terms of space, we might be too focused on the here and fail to acknowledge that we are connected to ‘those’ out there. Who is experiencing similar experiences that we could consult, incorporate, need to recognize, or be inspired by? How do we not stay stuck in our arrogance and ignore our connection in whatever journey we undertake?
Transformation
A lot of the work we undertake is based on information. We generate, delve into, and strengthen loads of information on an ongoing basis. How do we make sure that we are not just invested in information but also, and perhaps more so, in transformation? To what extent does our information contribute to embodied transformation? What do we need to do to make sure that we contribute to transformation? Are we open to our own transformation, or are we only focused on the desired transformation of others?
Cost
What is the material and emotional cost of our engagement? What is the price that is being paid or the sacrifice that is made in terms of time,
(emotional) energy, finances, resources, human capital, the environment, etc.? What kind of sacrifice or price should we be willing to pay if we desire the change we proclaim we want?
Joy
Where is the joy? The pursuit of social justice or the grappling with diversity issues is often paired with frustration, anger, and dismay. Those are valid emotions, but where is the joy? What is precious, valuable, hopeful, and pleasant that is worth taking a stand or fighting for? How does what we do contribute to the joy of future generations? In addition to or in place of anger, can we be motivated by love, joy, and appreciation? And if we can no longer find the joy or appreciation, then what are we doing? How long do you think you can last in this type of work without the appreciation of joy? How can you retrieve your sense of joy, hope, love, preferably with the use of creative imagination, so you have something constructive to add towards this socially just world we are trying to create?
Through this link, you can find members of the research team introducing the Five Pillars: bit.ly/sjda_5pillars
In conclusion, we have dedicated ourselves to producing and giving access to knowledge that contributes to restoring some of the inequities that have become part of our norm and prevent us from being the best us we can be. We have devised the Five Pillar concept that guides and reflects on our working process to ensure that social justice is always inherently embedded and/or pursued. Diversity for us is a given and is core to the belief that it is because of the wealth of our stories we should make a better effort to make sure those stories contribute to a better and more complete representation of us. Some of the projects we have pursued are community building through protest singing, creating sacred spaces for marginalized men in barbershops, evaluating disability access, highlighting the rural youth voice, and more.
What does ‘Transformative Research’ look like for you?
Research, for me, is about discovering. Transformative research is about re discovering and layering: everything that seems new actually already was. New often presents itself to the individual, was becomes visible through collectiveness. We have to keep rediscovering to transform toward a more socially just world.
Transformative research is all about putting yourself outside your comfort zone. Engage with people you don’t usually meet in daily life, talk about subjects you don’t feel comfortable discussing. Transformative research is a collective intervention, putting that effort into social cohesion while the whole society is tearing us apart.
“ We want people to know that men have feelings too,” said the man tearfully during a barbershop Story Circle session in the US. The same sentiment was echoed in Amsterdam and again in London. The emotion was palpable and was felt throughout the space, not just by those in attendance but by the researchers as well. “That’s what we do this for,” I said to myself. When you get to use your academic skills to really contribute to a shift, what more can you ask for? Our goal should never be just to inform but to contribute to transformation, always.
What does ‘Transformative Research’ look like for you?
In a nutshell, ‘transformative research’ to me, is reciprocal. Because there is no extraction and usage of the substance toward a new situation for the researchers only. There is an obtained incentive for both parties that changes something within them by doing transformative research. There is something to be gained, a clarity of the experiences.
The participants get to view those in a new light, and researchers get a chance to explore their positionality towards those. Actually, in some sense, it makes the ‘research results’ secondary. The primary is undergoing this reciprocal, transformative experience.
For me, transformative research means to put the body into the process, to never be detatched from the reality that is being researched, to allow the process to be meaningful, and to let the relations created throughout it touch us deeply.
Good, rigorous research is always about not knowing where you’ll end up exactly. Transformative research, in addition, is about being affected not only intellectually, but also emotionally. It’s about peeling off the layers of the onion of our norms, habits, and tendencies. It’s about learning together about ourselves on a deeper level, being moved, and being challenged. It’s about creating meaningful and real connections, about things that matter in life.
What does ‘Transformative Research’ look like for you?
About Young People and Community
Aminata Cairo, Ph.D.
What attracted both me and Rosa to this position was our opportunity to directly impact young people. The call for social justice came more from students than staff. Black Lives Matter and Covid were still fresh in everyone’s sensibilities. This was a crucial time. This was an opportune time to not only engage, but also to hopefully contribute something to that quest for social justice and an environment where diversity is truly valued. Our approach is to listen and tune into the community and let the voices from the community guide our work. The first such opportunity came from Amsterdam South-East (SE). In a casual conversation with Mr. Otmar Watson, founder and director of Untold, a black empowerment and performing arts organization in Amsterdam South-East, he expressed that he had informally been coaching young artistic producers for years. There is a lot of talent in Amsterdam South-East but they tend to not venture outside of the neighborhood, let alone pursue higher arts education. There is an Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK), but that is considered a whole other world, a world where they feel they do not belong. As rich in diversity as the city of Amsterdam is, there are definitely distinctions in class and ethnicity. It might seem like a wonderful, diverse, multicultural melting pot. The reality is often different and there are segregations at play in this city. We talked more and discussed that places like the AHK are not only part of their world: they have every right to enjoy that world. Both Otmar and I easily navigate the various worlds of Amsterdam, and hence it might be up to us to help bridge those worlds.
In collaboration with the BA Production program we planned to do several things. Young talent from Amsterdam SE would come and visit the Academy of Theater and Dance (ATD) where they would get a tour of the building and have an opportunity to meet with staff and students of the Production program. Secondly, staff and students would visit them in Amsterdam SE and engage with them on their home turf. “Zo gezegd, zo gedaan”, and so we did. These were not formal meetings, but meetings designed to break down walls.
As a result of these meetings our young visitors shared that they now think differently about the AHK and about attending a higher arts institute in general, something that now seemed a possibility. Furthermore, the BA Production program, which was already in the process of developing outreach programs, received a boost and affirmation that these kinds of exchanges are valuable and worthy of being included in their standard planning.
After this experience we wanted to reach students and hear their thoughts on social justice and diversity. We planned three meetings for which we invited students to come and talk with us. At the same time we enlisted the help of Chadiedja Buijs. We asked her to do a small research project with the goal to connect with students and their ideas for creating a platform to engage around the topics of social justice and diversity. What we learned from the meetings and Chadiedja’s work is that there
Exchange between the Academy of Theater and Dance and Untold in Amsterdam South East, November 2022.
Photo by Otmar Watson.
is an interest and passion for these topics, but that there currently is no room, nor the infrastructure to support them.
Chadiedja’s report can be accessed here: bit.ly/sjda_studentbranch
The community spoke again, this time in the voice of Damar Lamers, the artistic leader of the Dance Education (DE) program, who on behalf of her students approached us in search of tools that could help students stay engaged in difficult conversations. We listened and connected and together we designed a research/learning trajectory, with the Inclusivity Pathway Training (IPT).1 In this trajectory students and teachers functioned as both research and knowledge ambassadors. All students in all four classes were introduced to the IPT, went more in depth and were responsible for learning together about the possibility of using the IPT to impact their own behaviors.
Students and teachers ambassadors were joined by our researchers
Gabriela Acosta Camacho and Camiël Kesser and guest researcher
Esther Kamara from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. In addition they were joined by Dance Education (DE) alumni Layzmina
2023.
BA Dance Education students taking part in an IPT exercise at École des Sables, Senegal, February
Emerencia and David Cham who, now Master Students in Arts Education, were working on their Master’s thesis. Their research focused on diversity and decoloniality in dance education and was a perfect fit for our project.
Layzmina and David’s thesis can be accessed here: bit.ly/sjda_decolonizingdd
As a result of this learning journey, which included a trip to Senegal to help apply the IPT to the collaborative learning journey of DE students with young people of the African continent, the impact has been both broad and deep. Students have shown an improvement in their ability and confidence to stay engaged in difficult situations, the IPT and the findings of Layzmina’s and David’s research are becoming embedded in the standard curriculum, the African dance exchange program has improved, learning lessons are shared in a podcast, and the IPT has been introduced academy wide as part of the ATD-wide 5:30 event sessions.
The lessons learned can be found in the podcast here: bit.ly/sjda_iptpodcast
Another community voice was heard, this time through Barend Elias, an ROC senior student who attends public classes on Saturdays in the RDM program. RDM stands for ReDiscoverMe and is a program under the direction of Damar Lamers, dedicated to having dancers of all abilities to dance and create art together. As Barend, who is legally blind, applied for admission to the DE program, a question was raised. How prepared is the ATD and in particular the DE program to accommodate Barend if he would choose to enroll and study with us? Barend along with two members of the RDM team Janne Groen and Swindey Helm (who also happen to be DE alumni) and (now) junior researchers Layzmina Emerencia and David Cham and Camiël Kesser, set out to explore exactly that question and to engage with other students around the issue of accessibility. Are we aware of the (potential) issues for our fellow students with disabilities (visible or not) and do we care enough to engage with each other around this important issue? We learned various insights that were informative for both the DE program as well as the building staff.
The results of this small project can be found here: bit.ly/sjda_inclusivedance
Our journey with young people in the community continued to guide us. This time a conversation near the copying machine with one of the students in the MA Arts Education program led to an invitation to participate in a research project around Rural Youth Voice. Daan den Hertog and Lola de Winter, while partnering in their thesis research, joined us in exploring how arts education can play a significant role in addressing and amplifying the rural youth voice.
Along with collaborating researchers Antine Zijlstra (NHL Stenden) and Nathalie van Barneveld (ROC van Twente) and our own Camiël Kesser, we looked at the use of the IPT and Story Circles in facilitating conversations. What does it mean to be rural? We engaged with young people at the high school level (Johannus Fontanus College Barneveld), the middle vocational level (ROC van Twente), and at the applied university level (NHL Stenden Leeuwarden). There are many different views about what it means to be rural. The older students are, the more likely they are to consider their rural background as they contemplate moving away to pursue higher education or other career choices. Students expressed their visions in a video love letter about their love for their region and engaged with each other in a podcast, reflecting on their collaborative learning experiences throughout this small project.
Researchers
Janne Groen, Swindey Helm & Barend Elias.
The students from NHL Stenden created a workbook on how to make a video love letter with the intention of assisting students at the ROC and high school levels in creating subsequent video love letters. We organized a working conference in Twente where we invited those who work with young people to learn about our findings and to experience firsthand the power of using the IPT and Story Circles to engage young people.
The video love letters and podcast can be accessed here: bit.ly/sjda_ruralvoice
Our engagement with young people was not limited to these research projects. School events like the opening of the new year, Chaos week, the Wastelands, having a guest speaker on Black Lives Matter, a workshop on weaving and mourning, a Summer and Easter School and more were all intended to create relationships and be in community with students, but also and perhaps especially create an atmosphere where engaging around social justice and diversity was normal and invited. Who do we want to be as a community? How do we make sure that we can be present in the fullness of our complexities as part of this community and engage in issues that are important to us? We have diligently tried to engage students and other young people around these issues as co-learners and hopefully consequently as ambassadors. We have shared with them our vision, energy and knowledge, always with the aim of sparking theirs.
Researchers Daan den Hartog and Camiël Kesser at the Rural Youth Voice Symposium at ROC Twente Almelo, March 2024.
Relationality
Wasteland, Academy of Theatre and Dance, March 2023.
Everything starts, stands and falls in relationships. We have tried to make ourselves accessible to students, which given our location at the Marineterrein, required us to visit the different academies. Whenever a student or student group requested a consultation or visit, we would try to honor it. It is through our community relations and conversations that all our projects came about.
Temporality
In our engagement we tried to pay attention to previous stories. What are the legacies that are lingering and should be honored or let go? Chadiedja in her engagement with students found that some painful stories about students struggling with mental health and isolation still lived among the students. Those stories of suffering seemed to have a major impact and perhaps need to be addressed rather than ignored. Space wise, we were inspired by the Rural Youth Voice project Aminata was a part of in the US. It was a worthwhile and humbling experience to have voices from outside the Randstad be dominant in the pursuit of knowledge, and to really make room for those voices. For the young people from Amsterdam South-East, coming to the center of Amsterdam might not be far in distance, but it was like stepping into another world, a world they thought was out of reach.
Transformation
Time and time again we received confirmation about the effectiveness of the IPT and Story Circles in all our projects. We heard about class
situations in which students stayed engaged in difficult conversations without escalating or walking away. Individually students came to us and shared how our lessons had impacted them. Our young people in Amsterdam South-East stopped seeing the AHK as an insurmountable and unwelcoming world. We as researchers were transformed as we were challenged – in a good way – to push our boundaries. Facilitating learning between African and Dutch students or prioritizing rural over urban voices broadened our horizons and our skills.
Cost
Cost comes down to the investment we are or should be willing to make to work with this population. Once we committed, breaking down the bridge between Amsterdam South-East and the BA Production program at the ATD turned out to be not so difficult after all. But it came down to commitment and willingness to travel and move out of our comfort zones. The same goes for being willing to travel outside the Randstad. Being based in Amsterdam we can get comfortable thinking that people are always willing to come to us. Sometimes we need to be willing to go elsewhere, sometimes as far away as Friesland or Senegal. Even though the lectorate is committed to knowledge production, given our subject matter it is important that we are willing to do emotional labor too. One of the biggest sacrifices that touched us was when one of our young people shared that she had to sell her beloved horse of eight years, so she could attend higher education. You never know what kind of sacrifices people make in order to participate.
Joy
Working with young people gives us, at the lectorate, immense joy. This is why showing up for them fuels us. Addressing issues of social justice and diversity can be about the pain, frustration, disappointment and dissolution. But it can also be about inspiration, hope, joy and healing. Whenever we stay ‘in it’ with our young people and our communities we always encounter that flip side of the coin. After making the video love letters, our young people at NHL Stenden were so inspired to create a manual for other, younger students on how to create a love letter themselves. We didn’t ask them to do that. They felt it important to give back and inspired by that same fuel committed to pave the way for their fellow young people. These kinds of gestures not only bring us joy, they keep reminding us how important it is to keep investing in our young people and to put them first.
Internal Transformations
A Qualitative Evaluation Study of the Experiences of Participants in the
‘Inclusive
Working and Learning Environment’ Module at the Amsterdam University of the Arts
Gabriela Acosta Camacho
The past two years, the research group received many requests from colleagues and students at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) to ‘help out’ with creating environments where difficult topics about social safety and inclusion can be discussed and exist in a nonpolarizing way.
We wanted to translate our work from the research group into a more sustainable educational program, where we could combine the Inclusivity Pathway Training with the Five Pillars and other tools we had developed. Then, an opportunity presented itself: the research group was asked to develop a study program for staff members about social safety and inclusion by the coordinator of the ‘teacher development’1 program within the AHK.
I accepted this challenge and combined researching, creating and teaching the pilot that took place from February to April 2024. It was open to all who were interested and mandatory for those obtaining the Basic Didactic Competence qualification (BDB) within the AHK. The aim was to create a program that invites teachers and staff members to work on and (un)learn about creating and maintaining inclusive work and learning environments. How do you work towards an inclusive working and learning environment with students as well as with co-workers?
To evaluate the pilot, a qualitative evaluation research was conducted. The purpose of the study was to understand the learning experiences of the participants in the Inclusive Work and Learning Environment module, the value of the module, and possible recommendations for improvement.
The module ‘Inclusive Work- and Learning Environment’ is for all teachers and staff members at the AHK who want to work on, and learn about, creating a more inclusive working and learning environment. Goals for the participants were:
• Gaining new insights and/or sharpening existing ones regarding the creation of an inclusive working and learning environment, which can more strongly support your own vision;
• Analyzing one’s own working practice and connecting it to the methodologies and theoretical frameworks provided;
• Gaining practical tools that can be immediately applied in one’s own professional practice;
• (Re)considering one’s own work practice and that of colleagues from various perspectives and learn from them;
• Engaging in a valuable network of colleagues within the AHK.
The implementation of the pilot took place from February to April 2024. The module required 30 hours of study time and consisted of four physical meetings of three hours each, self-study, and assignments.2 The module is built from different theories and tools from the research group, including the Inclusivity Pathway Training (IPT)3, Story Circle method4, and the Five Pillars.5
Research questions and research set up
The purpose of this study is to understand the learning experiences of participants in the newly designed course. The following questions were addressed:
• What are the learning experiences gained while following the ‘Inclusive Work and Learning Environment’ module according to the participants?
• To what extent do participants feel (more) competent and dare to (start to) act differently?
• What recommendations do participants have for a continuation of this module?
To answer the research question, several interconnected methodological approaches were applied. These were informed by Lub and Rensen’s work6 and Swanborn’s methodology.7 This approach formed the base of the study and was combined with the Five Pillar evaluative framework according to the research group Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts and an indigenous knowledge approach informed by Keane, Khupe and Muza8 and DeMarrais.9 Some of the methodological approaches presented in this framework, such as listening, intuition, transformation research and participation of researcher and community, are applicable and appropriate for this type of study.
Participants
Initially, a total of five participants started the pilot program, but three fully completed it. All participants were teachers working in different programs at the AHK with different (art) backgrounds.
In addition, I, as the trainer of the module, also actively participated as a participant of the module and conducted the research at the same time. Given that this is a pilot and the goal is to learn about experiences and possible improvements, we considered this acceptable, especially from an indigenous knowledge approach.10
Learning evaluation
For this study, information from (written) assignments, a survey, oral interviews, and practical experience was analyzed. Participants submitted interim assignments that were reflective in nature. Some of the assignments were submitted in writing, but other forms, such as (audio) visual, were also allowed. Reflections were documented in writing after each meeting. Because of the number of participants and discussion of personal and sensitive topics, a decision was made not to record the meetings so that participants felt truly free to express themselves.
For the document analysis, the written assignments submitted by respondents were analyzed and coded into themes focused on learning outcomes and actions.
The participants created their own IPT-inspired exercises. The exercises were tested in practice, and in a live gathering, the exercises themselves were recorded in writing. There was room for exchange, questions, tips, and advice to sharpen and further develop the exercises (a small form of co-creation).
After the module, a survey was distributed to the participants for evaluation. This survey, including questions, was distributed by the coordinator of the ‘teacher development’ program at the AHK.
From the data analysis, the findings were presented using the Five Pillars as a framework. Quotes from participants were included to capture the learning experiences from different voices.11 Participants are numbered for anonymity as Participant 1, Participant 2, and Participant 3.
These findings were shared with the participants. None of the participants requested a change in quotations. Additionally, advice was given to consider “space for processing time” for the recommendations.
Relationality
Throughout the module, the question of the relationship between the human and personal versus the professional attitude in work practice emerged. The final reflections clearly showed that this balance can be achieved and that both aspects can coexist. Working in a group and peer-to-peer learning contributed to this, as Participant 1 mentions: “I learned [from other participants] that you can both get personal in a lesson without compromising professional distance, integrity.” With the relationality Pillar, it’s important to be able to see context (time, place, history, power relations, emotional and physical relationships, etc.).
But this context is easily compartmentalized. Much of our conditioned thinking relies on those compartments and our habit of binary thinking. Working with the Pillars and exercises in this module stimulated another way of thinking. For example, regarding setting boundaries, as Participant 2 wrote:
A boundary is not a fixed thing that the other person can or cannot cross, and if that happens, then there are those and those consequences... You see, there are also costs to setting boundaries and also to the way you set boundaries. And that too is a topic of conversation when we talk about costs and boundaries. In that, I have learned to look at that more fluidly, without losing my belief in the need for clear guidelines.
In particular, the IPT exercise ‘Dominant and the Other’ generated discussion and also resistance. One insight gained was that we engage in a lot of binary thinking and categorization, but that this hinders inclusive working. Participant 1: “You can’t work inclusively if you leave the human touch out of work, something that does happen a lot in the work culture.” The exercise again showed that we cannot compartmentalize the multi-layered context of human beings and history, even though we
often try to. It highlights that sometimes you belong to a dominant norm and sometimes you don’t. Fluidity (flexibility) was a recurring concept.
Temporality
A noticeable observation was that during many exercises, participants’ past and childhood memories came up during the discussions various times. Sometimes there was a clear prompt or direction for this, such as the use of the ‘I Am From’ poem. But at other times as well, such as explaining which Pillars are the most distant from you or what still feels the least easy, past life experiences of the participants were linked.
Recognizing old (childhood and family) patterns in teaching practice and being able to work through resistance in a ‘pleasant’ way provided a shift to being able to work more intuitively: “I’m glad to have found a little more access to a more emotional and intuitive world again without being weighed down by it.” Also mentioned was (the joy of) being able to be surprised by one’s own assumptions, and what was emphasized several times throughout the module: the need to continue to see humanity, no matter how difficult a situation can sometimes be.
Transformation
During the program, all participants experienced a shift (transformation), with the insight that the human connection actually has to be central to make learning possible at all.
The IPT utilizes exercises that call for embracing and feeling with the body. The participants had varied backgrounds, with some being more experienced with physical work than others. This was not always easy for the participants, as experienced with the ‘I am From’ poem or when they had to create their own exercise in which they were asked to utilize the body and non-verbal communiation. This provided a variety of work formats, deepening of learning, and a better relationship with students. In a final reflection, Participant 3 wrote: “In the various IPT exercises that we entered into together and that I developed myself, I was lovingly forced to take off my cognitive coat, quiet my head, and thereby ‘detoxify’ from that which feels so familiar to me but by which I also leave behind another part of myself, namely my body.”
The other exercises, such as the Story Circle and the evaluation tool, also contributed to the transition from head to body. Participant 3 during this exercise: “It touches me emotionally to see you standing there, and
that I am standing here by myself.” The evaluation tool is inspired by the game Twister and design thinking. You create a playing field in the form of a circle and you literally take your body into the field. The evaluation tool was also used by one of the participants as inspiration to further develop their own tool.
Cost
One participant felt attracted to the Pillar of cost related to power dynamics: How do you avoid constantly overstepping your own boundaries when it comes to inclusive work, keeping yourself from burning out? How do you make sure, from the dominant perspective, that by setting boundaries you do not exclude others? And from the other perspective, stand up for yourself enough?
The underlying question arose during group discussions and shared stories: To what extent can you stay true to yourself when work conditions are so contrary to what you want to do and what you stand for (cost)? We used the IPT’s guidelines as an inspiration to create an environment in which all participants (students, co-workers) can join and in which you can allow yourself to continue an inclusive way of working and keeping yourself from burning out at the same time.
Joy
It became clear by the start of the program that there was a desire to also work from (the Pillar of) joy, which was described in the reflective assignments as positivity, fun, air, and breath. For example, Participant 1 wrote afterward:
[I tried to] ... engage in the module as judgment-free as possible. What was a surprising payoff was that it brought me joy. The Pillar I have the most trouble with because I don’t really know how to fit that in. I always feared it would come at the expense of content. But during the module, I found that applying joy in educational methods can actually add value to the content or have it land in a totally different way.
The Pillar of joy was one of the Pillars longed for, but also one of the most difficult Pillars to embrace organically in the work environment of the participants. It really took focus to implement this Pillar, but when focused, it did come back, for example, in exercises created. During
the evaluation with the IPT Evaluation Tool, it was expressed by some participants that they want to specifically include the Pillar of joy more into their work practices.
One important lesson was that working from an inclusion and social justice perspective requires an internal transformation by continuously placing oneself in context and relationality within and outside of one’s direct environment. How to achieve this transformation should remain a core element of the module. A number of recommendations were also revealed from the participants, divided into (1) time for space and process and (2) framework and tools for co-creating. The main recommendations I highlight here.
Even though time for reflection was implemented in the module, the meetings were very full. Feedback was that more gatherings would be beneficial and/or that the period could also be extended (e.g. over six months) to allow the material to sink in more. The module ignites learning mechanisms that consume a lot of time. This is an important consideration for the continuation of this module.
The jump to creating and implementing an IPT-inspired exercise could have been built up more step-by-step (with more tools provided as well). In the original plan, this was also the intention, but due to the reduced number of participants, one session was removed from the program, which included this intermediate step. A participant also suggested that a tighter framework around the assignments would be useful for more structure, because now ‘basically everything was good’. This raises a question about our conditioning and whether this reflects a lack of familiarity with the idea that within educational programs, something can just be good – an important lesson to take away.
In summary, there are several learning outcomes. In particular, carrying out different forms of work, moving beyond the ‘cognitive’, and establishing a stronger relationship with one’s work practice through physical assignments is something the module has provided.
Participants were encouraged and became more confident in (re)discovering and sharpening their own skills. They, for example,
(1) demonstrated this in their classes and work environment by creating and executing their own IPT-inspired exercise, (2) used the Story Circle in class, and (3) one participant also used the IPT Evaluation Tool to create a new grading system to implement in their own classes.
Another important learning benefit is the importance of peer-topeer learning. Thanks to the small group of participants, much was shared about (sometimes tedious) practical experiences in the workplace. Learning, testing and creating IPT exercises together created connectedness and, at the same time, a wealth of inspiration and a sense of collectivity.
Carefully, it can be concluded that a learning benefit is that the module has contributed to a different attitude, such as daring to be flexible, following intuition, hearing the learner’s voice, and involving the learner in the lesson material and program. The participants gained more (self) confidence to act when it comes to creating inclusive work environments by undergoing internal transformations.
Read more about this project here: bit.ly/sjda_ilwo
Story Circle
Aminata Cairo, Ph.D., Camiël Kesser, and Tayfun Balçik
Men sit in a semi-circle in a barbershop in England. Emotions are high, but there is a good feeling. There is a small audience of onlookers, including our own and our fellow guest researchers. The Story Circle method has once again done ‘its thing’.
The Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts research group has embraced the Story Circle method as a core methodology of unearthing and sharing knowledge. Aminata Cairo was introduced to the Story Circle method in her work with Partners for Rural Impact in the United States and decided to introduce it to the lectorate. The Story Circle was developed by John O’Neal during the Civil Rights Movement as a means to bring communities together. John O’Neal, a theater maker and co-founder of
the Free Southern Theater, devised a very simple yet effective method to get different people not only to share stories but to really connect with each other1. The methodology and underlying philosophy seemed to align seamlessly with the principles of the research group.
Within the team, Camiël Kesser and Tayfun Balçik added their own expertise to the method. Camiël, our podcast maker, has a knack for asking the ‘right’ questions to engage people. Tayfun, in his turn, has experience facilitating peace dialogues. The purpose of the method is to set up a space to share and weave participants’ stories. Through weaving stories, it moves beyond mere extraction of data and pursues unearthing knowledge, building relationships, and personal transformation. “Once you truly engage with someone’s story, you are transformed” is a credo Aminata, Camiël and Tayfun truly believe in.
“The rules of the Story Circle are the rules of civil participation in society. You agree to listen. You agree to respect.”
—John O’Neal
Procedure
The Story Circle method as designed by John O’Neal is pretty straightforward. People sit in a circle. Each person gets a specific amount of time to share a story based on a given prompt. Each person shares their story uninterrupted. Listening is more important than speaking, as listening allows for the connection with one’s own and each other’s stories. Subsequently, participants are invited to respond to what they have heard. As the facilitator guides the shared responses, the stories become interwoven with each other.
For the research group, Aminata, Camiël and Tayfun have fine-tuned the method to be most effective for their given populations, particularly regarding embodiment and the role of the facilitator.
Embodiment
Within the research group, the Story Circle is used within a particular context and understanding. We are aware that the sharing and ‘ingesting’ of stories may do something to people on a physical and visceral level, especially given the difficulty of the stories at times. As a result, we make choices about how we structure the environment and we require a certain level of sensitivity and ‘being in tune’ by the facilitator. We thus pay attention to what happens to the body in the space, but also to what happens to the body during the story-sharing process, so we can be ready to respond.
The standard set up of the Story Circle is a single circle, with the facilitator being part of the circle, where everybody can see everybody. When we use the single circle method, we generally have the facilitator walk around the circle so they can oversee and tune into what is happening, but also to discourage participants from wanting to talk to the facilitator rather than to each other. In addition, we use the double circle or the semi-circle format.
In the barbershop project, for instance, space was limited, and we knew that the subject matter could be extremely sensitive. Hence, we used the semi-circle set up, which allowed the men to see each other but also allowed them to focus on the facilitator rather than each other. Camiël has also used the double circle method, where the inner circle gets to share and the outer circle gets to respond and reflect. All the while, Camiël walks around the double circle and pays attention to the dynamics in the group.
Facilitator
The Story Circle sessions are highly facilitated encounters, which rely on the facilitator’s skill in asking evocative questions while holding space for everyone in the group. Facilitating the Story Circle requires a certain level of sensitivity and flexibility. It is not enough to just let the stories rise. The facilitator is at all times responsible for the well-being of the whole group, which requires a lot of emotional labor. The facilitator thus constantly has to pay attention to relationship dynamics and internal processes, which might be revealed in body language. The facilitator encourages the participants to ‘trust what comes up’. Waiting for the right moment to speak or to allow for silence is important.
Generally, a set of preselected prompts is chosen to stimulate the stories. However, we tend to use the prompts in service of the story
sharing. We pay attention to what is brought up and the emotional loading it might carry. We then adapt the prompts accordingly. In the barbershop project, especially, this was the case.
The Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts research group has used the Story Circle method in their Summer and Easter schools, in various research projects, and in educational settings, exploring a variety of themes and subjects. For example, Camiël led a Story Circle gathering in Amsterdam Nieuw-West to discuss the impacts of gentrification and how community members have historically taken action to deal with this challenge. Aminata used the method to engage marginalized men in the US, the Netherlands, and the UK to share stories about manhood and fatherhood. Tayfun and Camiël led a Story Circle at a regional secondary vocational education with barbershop education students and several other educational settings.
Relationality
The Story Circle starts from the Indigenous principle of ‘relationality’, that we are connected to anything and everything at any given time. The Story Circle allows us to tune into that connection. Another goal is to build a more equitable society by building greater common ground between
Story Circle
people of diverse backgrounds. We can do that through weaving our stories together or through understanding how our stories are interwoven. How do we relate to each other’s stories? How are we connected through stories? How do we hold space for each other’s stories? These are some of the underlying questions that drive our usage of the Story Circle method.
Temporality
Temporality relates to the expansion across time and space. Hence, the Story Circle is about connection to those present and those non-present, the realm seen and unseen. Participants are encouraged to relax, trust, and allow the story to reach them and come up. Those stories are out there, are whispered to them by their ancestors, or reverberate in other ways. “Trust that you have a story to tell”, we often tell people. Therefore, it is important to really listen. Temporality includes the acknowledgement of engagement across space. We have connected stories from specific neighborhoods, like with Tayfun’s gentrification project, or across continents, like with our barbershop project.
Transformation
We have consistently received feedback that participating in the Story Circles was transformative. We underestimate what it can do to people when one’s story is truly heard without judgment. We underestimate what it can do when one’s story connects with that of someone else. Participants of the Tuning in! project were deeply moved and surprised by the wealth of stories that came up. One of the participants reflected that he will look differently, not only at the members of the choir, but also at people on the street, all of whom carry stories. The same sentiment was expressed during the Summer school, where participants shared that they were surprised by what they had shared. Not only did they feel seen, but they also “saw themselves differently”. In the barbershop project especially, where the Story Circle was used with marginalized men in society in the US, the Netherlands, and the UK, the effect was profound. Men expressed their gratitude for having a platform where they could share deep feelings in a safe manner, something they hardly ever do. In each setting, the request for more sessions was uttered, and people were eager to learn how to hold sessions themselves.
Story Circles do not require a lot in terms of materials. One just needs a comfortable space to accommodate the participants. The biggest cost is the mental preparation and the emotional labor involved for the facilitators.
Joy
Joy, lastly, is experienced in the exchange of stories itself. Once people start to trust and know that their stories are safe, something happens. When there is no pressure, and people know that they are not going to get judged, things start to flow. The experience becomes an enjoyable experience. Even for the facilitators, even though facilitating a Story Circle session can be emotionally taxing, the often visible and tangible impact of one’s work is very enjoyable.
Read more and check out the video of the Story Circle method here: bit.ly/sjda_storycircle
Progress)
Quality Criteria (Work in
What do we find important in Research?
The research centers a topic/question from a perspective that is/can be meaningful/relevant in the everyday lives of people (non-institutional). Everyday life or conditions that might be neglected by institutions and can benefit from some type of restoration.
The research is a response to a question or need expressed by the community. The request can come from a department, student, or staff member from the Amsterdam University of the Arts, or a member of the broader community.
The research can center a topic/question from a non-dominant perspective. The perspective can include a ‘non-professional’, non-trained, non-academic, amateur perspective.
Certain members of the team take responsibility (and are equipped) to ensure the well-being/a ‘brave space’ of the group throughout the process. They set up the conditions for people to learn across differences, use guidelines for creating a ‘brave space’, and check in and evaluate the well-being/ ‘brave space’ in the group.
The research is collaborative/communal/ participative. The research involves a community representing different knowledges, and can include non-academic partners; everyone who takes part in it has a voice in conducting and shaping the research. The research is not extractive, the research is ‘relationally accountable’. The researcher questions their relations to the research theme, co-researchers, and participants. The data becomes available to the community members, and they can use it.
The research is well documented and made widely accessible through different means (audio/video/ visuals/text), engaging with different audiences. Documentation and output may include notes, journal entries, reflections, photography, videos, podcasts, zines, collages, IG campaigns, websites, articles, tools, or educational material. The output is freely available.
Iterative learning is central to the research process, and the ‘in-between’ trajectory and transformation is key to the research process. Different forms of reflections take place throughout the process, and the things that happen informally, in between the lines, and unexpectedly are taken into consideration as informative and valuable.
The research is inspirational and transformative and plants seeds for future learning and knowledge development (not ‘single outcome’ focused). Researchers and/or participants are transformed by the process and they are inspired to take the project further (in their own way). The project leads to new iterations or collaborations.
The research engages with creative methods and methods that encourage listening, connecting with others, embodiment, and social transformation. The research engages methods such as the Five Pillars framework, the Story Circle method, the Inclusivity Pathway Training (IPT), body-territory mapping, and other creative expressive methods.
Trapped and Gentrified
Bicycle Tours of (y)our Lives in Amsterdam Nieuw-West
Tayfun Balçik
Step 1
Find a city resident from a gentrified area in the city and ask them to share their story as part of a bicycle tour.
Hello, my name is Tayfun Balçik. I am a Dutch citizen of Turkish descent. That is significant for the story you will experience today. I was born in 1984 in Amsterdam Oud-West but moved to Nieuw-West in 1992.
Step 2
Organize cycling trips following the housing biography of their gentrified lives. Map out their housing biography on the map of the city. Plan 3-5 stops. Two and one-half hours (including reflection) should be sufficient. Alternatively, you may want to organize walking or fatbike tours, depending on the audience you want to reach.
Hi, Tayfun again. Make sure you are in good physical condition because the story I’m gonna tell you is gonna get you. Like I said, I was conceived and lived in relative harmony at Gerard Schaepstraat 11-1 (in Oud-West) until city renewal policies kicked in when I was eight. In hindsight, I could say that I was concentrated and trapped at Jan Tooropstraat 112 III, with a bunch of other Turks and Moroccans from the inner cities, from 1992 until 2021. ‘Freedom’ came to me after 36 years of ‘Amsterdamnation’ in Geuzenveld, at Dirk Sonoystraat 305.
In one year, I received more white people in my house than in the first 36 years of my life.
Step 3
When advertising the bicycle tour, be precise with language. This will be a tour to get in contact with the stories of gentrification and its impact on its citizens. If you use euphemistic, neutral language such as ‘woonverhalen’ (‘housing stories’), people might get disappointed or hurt. We aim to engage people on a visceral level with the politics of housing and exclusion policies explicitly.
Yo, yo, mic-check, mic-check, it’s your boy Tayfun. On my bike tours, we will have real conversations, and yes, we will touch upon poverty, segregation, and racism. Get ready to learn about true housing and housing policies affecting this city. Word!
Step 4
At the beginning of the bicycle tour, find a place for an introductory round. The guide is the first one to break the ice and will share a memory at this first stop. Subsequently, everyone is asked to introduce themselves
by sharing where they live and how long they have lived there. If time allows, a longer ‘housing biography’ can be shared.
So, where are you from? What is one thing that stands out about how you belonged where you grew up? There might be multiple locations, please choose one that stands out the most. And don’t feel ashamed that you are not originally from Amsterdam, who is nowadays? Except Tayfun, joke.
Step 5
The guide introduces the bicycle tour and encourages the participants to carefully observe their surroundings during the next two hours. The scenery will change street by street. Don’t be a stranger, really engage.
Don’t limit yourself to what you see. Use all your senses. What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you sense?
Step 6
During the bicycle tour, the tour guide must use their own brutal honesty to engage people in the story. Sharing the often painful details of poverty, segregation, and racism that comes with the housing biography of a gentrified area is the entry point for some to sympathize or to bicycle away. Ouch! We are asking you to connect, but know that can be hard and that is okay too. As the tour advances, the guide can connect their own specific anecdotes with larger histories and political events. Additionally, if time allows, the audience can be asked how they remember a specific moment in the city’s history and how it affected their life.
I hope you won’t turn away or bike away, but will stay in it with me. Come with me, like the legend 2Pac said. Growing up in the nineties I was educated by this rap icon. What he said still inspires. You can’t define Nieuw-West without Tupac Amaru Shakur.
Step 7
The body is important during the bicycle tour. Moving the pedals will help the audience to digest the stories and breathe. Gentrification is like a ‘beautified’ war zone. It may look beautiful, but there are many sacrificed and erased stories in its foundation. In ancient times, when soldiers left Trapped and Gentrified
the battlefield on their horses, they were riding home for months. That was their me-time to digest what they had experienced.
Don’t underestimate the power of riding the bike and the power of your body to get you through things.
Step 8
After the bicycle tour, find a place to sit down and reflect. Guiding questions may include: You have connected with the environment and the environment has spoken to you. It might even have shaken you. What did you learn about gentrification, about who belongs as ideal residents and who do not? What did you learn about this particular city and its efforts to be a city for all? What did you learn about exclusion practices?
You have just been on your bike and have seen, heard, and felt a lot of stuff. Really take some time to sit with it.
Step 9
You might want to consider a short reflection with each other. See where people are. They might not be ready. You have just given them a gift to physically engage with the environment and with stories. This is not the time to have an intellectual deep dive. The danger of going into an intellectual or analytical reflection is that it may interfere with the emotional impact and potential for a shift. People are allowed to feel whatever they feel without having to justify or identify how they feel. You might ask people to respond with one word. Or you could ask, “What is one thing you take away and one thing you want to give to the group?” You might want to encourage them to share one thing they learned with somebody else after they leave and after a period of reflection.
Trust that this experience will make an impact, even if you do not immediately get to hear what kind of impact. Time is important. I waited 15 years to finally get awarded a house. We will be okay with practicing some patience.
Step 10
Make sure to organize support and aftercare for the guide. Sharing personal anecdotes in a brutally honest way can be a way to release oneself Trapped and
from the burden of shame, but also may be emotionally draining. Inviting some colleagues and friends to join the bicycle tour is a good idea. They can intervene, offer support, and function as witnesses. Some type of debriefing with friends or colleagues afterwards may be advisable.
Giving the bike tour was cathartic for me.
Takeaway 1
Turkish and Moroccan Amsterdammers have a special relationship with the history of Nieuw-West. Gentrification processes are erasing that history piece by piece. Social housing is being demolished or sold. New housing is being built, but not for them. And these processes are not limited to Amsterdam Nieuw-West but also occur in other areas of Amsterdam and many major cities, both nationally and internationally.
Takeaway 2
Social cohesion and development of a neighborhood are impossible without considering its residents. What do these housing policies say about how immigrant citizens are regarded by the municipal government?
Takeaway 3
Listening to the stories of exclusion and addressing discrimination in public housing may be uncomfortable for some of the (white) participants. That is not the intention, but this is about our collective story. We assume that (white) participants will join the tour because they want to learn more about the city and their fellow inhabitants. We will, therefore, encourage them to stay present even when it gets uncomfortable. This is an opportunity to get a little closer to fellow residents who are used to having their stories of exclusion trivialized.
A selection of the responses we collected from participants:
• “Hmm, is the research correct?”
• “Not everyone is a PVV’er.”
• “Some people apparently just want to live together in the same neighborhood.”
• “Everyone is affected by the housing shortage; it has nothing to do with your background.”
• “I don’t feel like having a political discussion.”
These comments confirm the sense of discomfort with some of the confronting information. Therefore, it is important to prepare participants beforehand that things might get uncomfortable, but that we hope they will stay engaged.
Takeaway 4
Social justice involves listening to uncomfortable and painful stories. The current political climate is not conducive to this. In addition to acknowledging possible discomfort upfront, additional instructions might be given about bravery and about the value of weaving stories. They are here to learn. Learning will take place in a different way than they are used to, but they should be patient and trust the process.
Takeaway 5
A different organization of society that works for all Dutch people is not only necessary but also possible. We have to do our best and pedal even harder on that bike! Cycle to appreciate and connect with those other stories. What is your story?
Read more about this project here: bit.ly/sjda_gentrification
Tuning in! Protest Choir
Creating an ‘Embodied Community’ through singing Resistance Songs
Rosa te Velde
This research project explored the process of establishing an amateur protest choir. We were interested in developing specific voice- and body-based exercises that can contribute to creating an ‘embodied community’. The project1 was an exploratory participatory action and ‘transformation research’2 that used the framework and methods3
developed by the Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts research group at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK).
The project was initiated by researcher Rosa te Velde, who was inspired by Nadia Tilon and the Afrogrooves Jam sessions to explore the potential of an amateur protest choir.4 It started with conversations with Yinske Silva (stichting metStem), Priya Keet, Levent Aslan and Zuhâl Gezik (Aslan Muziekcentrum), and with members of the Arts of Resistance network.5 With these three partners, different areas would strengthen each other: social justice, experimental singing and dialogue facilitation, expertise in music education and a welcoming rehearsal space, and a network of artists and activists.
In March/April 2023, the project took off with a pilot at Aslan Muziekcentrum, with Priya Keet, Yinske Silva, and Rosa te Velde as facilitators and researchers. Around 18 people joined three rehearsals where we experimented with exercises and singing. We met Farzad from Iran, who taught us the Farsi adaptation (‘Woman Life Freedom’) of the Chilean protest song classic ‘El Pueblo Unido’ (1973).6 Farzad’s conducting and sharing of his own story gave the project depth.
After the pilot, we made a poster and shared it through our personal and professional networks to invite Amsterdammers to join the Tuning in! Protest Choir. We set out to bring together a diversity of knowledge, experiences, life stories, and resistance. Researcher Camiël Kesser was involved to host conversations and to make a podcast of the project.7
Between October and December 2023, nine rehearsals took place at Aslan Muziekcentrum (location: Corantijnstraat), culminating in an open, public rehearsal at Aslan Muziekcentrum (location: Louis Bouwmeesterstraat). The first rehearsal attracted almost 40 participants.
During this rehearsal, we set the tone using the IPT guidelines8 at the start and a ‘dominant/other’ exercise.9 During the following weeks, a group of 20 participants committed to the project, consisting of artists, teachers, activists, members of a former choir consisting of Kurdish and Turkish Dutch singers, mothers, people working in NGOs and involved in community work, all with different expectations and intentions. During the following rehearsals, we experimented with many different exercises10 that contributed to the notion of ‘embodied community’. The following reflection is written by Rosa, with input from Yinske and Priya and the reflections from the participants.11
1. Auditive Learning
After the second rehearsal, the invasion of Israel in Gaza daunted us, and Rosa proposed a Palestinian song by flutist and singer Nai Barghouti during the next rehearsal on the 30th of October. Not knowing the different stances on the matter, we decided to first share the song through humming. Yinske guided us through an ‘auditive learning exercise’: first, we listened and only joined in once we knew the melody. We hummed the song and asked the participants what they thought the song was about. For some, it reminded them of the Kurdish mountains. For others, it was deeply sad and nostalgic. The auditive learning exercise helped to create an opportunity for the participants to feel the song before understanding it cognitively. They could relate to the heaviness and the sadness of the song on their own terms, from their own memories and cultural archives.
2. This Is Not a Protest Song
During the fifth rehearsal, one of the founders of Aslan Muziekcentrum, Zuhâl Gezik, joined us and shared a song with us in Zazaki: ‘Asme Vejiya’. We first learned the hijaz (the makam, the melody type) of the song and then practiced the song. For Nilüfer, who knew the melody of the song, this was not a ‘protest song’, but for Zuhâl, it was. The song is in Zazaki, a language that is dying out. In Turkey, speaking another language than Turkish is socially not accepted. Therefore, singing it may be considered a protest already. For Naïme, the song struck a very personal chord, as she moved from East to West Turkey when she was four and had since forgotten her Kurdish language. ‘Asme Vejiya’ tells the story of a boy and a girl who take up arms to fight in the mountains. This is their goodbye, which is both dreadful but also joyful, as it is the only option for safeguarding any future for the next generation. This song urged us to question what protest looks like.
3. Are We a Group?
During the sixth rehearsal, Naïma raised a poignant question: “Are we a group?” Having a background in theater, she proposed doing a group exercise. In preparation for this rehearsal, she asked the group to think about these questions: “Can you write some notes for the four songs that we have sung so far? What kind of image/feeling/emotions do they give you? What does it mean for you to be a group? What is a group?” The next week, everyone took the time to sit and draw images or write words
down for each song that came up. These were not shared. We then split into two groups. Farzad played the songs we knew on the piano in a medley. Naïma asked to split the group in two: half of the group stood in front of the other half. No instructions were given, other than “move in the way you feel is right”. They were witnessed by the second half of the group. Some started to move, some started to connect with each other. Some took the lead, some froze. During the second round, we swapped places. We discussed the exercise: some experienced a deep sense of awkwardness, while others described it as being very vulnerable. Others described their desire to ‘perform well’, but felt lost because the exercise was not about doing well. After this exercise, Camiël set up the space for a Story Circle. He asked the inner circle to respond to the question of how the songs we sang were connected to the participants’ personal stories of resistance. With Naïma’s exercise as preparation, participants seemed ready to share. We heard their very personal life stories, which for some were very emotional.
4. This Is Not a Performance
The last rehearsal was an open rehearsal. We explicitly tried not to frame it as a performance, but this didn’t take away from the anxiety that some participants felt. The open rehearsal drew a great number of people: everyone had invited their family members and friends.12 The rehearsal started with the finger exercise: participants joined and touched fingers and closed their eyes while Berk played his Kabak Kemane. Connecting with a stranger without any conversation creates a special bond. We were also joined by Jun Saturay (Philippines) and Jacqueline Castro (Chile). Jacqueline sang ‘El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido’, while Jun performed the Tagalog adaptation of the song. Together with the audience, we chanted the slogan of both songs, after which Farzad guided us in the Farsi version. Similarly to the Story Circle, we asked Jun, Jacqueline and Farzad, to share how their personal story of resistance related to the song.
Relationality
The project foregrounded the importance of entering in relation with each other and with the songs and stories of struggle and oppression. In December, Yinske, Priya and Rosa discussed the different expectations for the project that they each had, as well as those of the participants. Throughout the project, this remained a ‘negotiation’, and in a way, that was the project. Staying in relation requires acknowledging the things said, as well as the things left unsaid or unspeakable, the energy, those more in the back, the silences, and emotions, and is at times hard and emotionally exhaustive work.
The guidelines of ‘language’ and ‘patience’ became important throughout the project. Not everyone spoke English, and not everyone spoke Dutch, meaning we had to translate everything. Rosa, Yinkse, and Priya took turns, and sometimes one of the participants would take over. And even if we did speak the same language, we came from different places. Accommodating each other became important. The guidelines increasingly became more meaningful and also became a practice: we came back to them many times, reformulated what we meant by them, and sometimes some of the participants would remind us of them during conversations.
Temporality
Choir singing and protest songs bring specific connotations and expectations and have specific traditions, in the Netherlands and beyond. Technical virtuosity, harmony singing, perfection, strictness in conducting on the one hand, and resistance, direct actions, demonstration, protest on the other hand. Tensions rose around expectations about what it means to be a choir. The complaint of “too much talking, too little singing” was voiced, as well as the lack of technical improvement (singing in harmony). Working towards the ‘open rehearsal’ also revealed the strong expectations some participants held when it came to their idea of ‘good performance’ (for example, wearing the same outfit). Also, it seemed some of the participants would have wanted to sing at demonstrations while for others this was not so much their goal.
The Pillar of temporality also speaks to the ways in which we are connected with others near and far. Through each of the four songs we sang, we became connected with different stories, both of the struggle of a specific place and time but also with some of the members who were close to the song.13 This proved to be important: to have one member be our ‘entry’ into the song.
Transformation
The project explored what embodied knowledge could contribute to engaging with each other, as we all “carry and transmit the stories of inequality in our bodies”.14 Cairo refers to the founder of psychodrama, Jacob Levy Moreno (1889–1974), who described that people are never harmed in isolation, and therefore healing must occur in interaction and community.15 Rae Johnson, who works at the intersection of somatic studies, queer theory, and social justice, advocates for cultivating “strategies for regaining access to the sensing, feeling, and knowing body”16.
For activists, the project allowed for a ‘softer’, body-centered approach. Sofie explained how activism often centers a rational approach, namely analyzing, organizing and doing. The importance of ‘feeling’ – also pain –and sharing was for her a powerful experience.
A significant moment of transformation was during the exercise with Naïma and the Story Circle where people ‘dropped their social masks,’ as Naïma had intended. The exercise helped us become hyperconscious of our bodies through the gaze of others looking. The only way to ‘do well’ was to lean into the discomfort completely and embrace one’s own awkwardness and movements, which helped in becoming ready to share and receive the stories of others. The Story Circle was a transformative moment where people shared about their deeper motivations to join this project, their values, and life questions.
Cost
Organizing a choir and a research project like this requires a lot of investments in terms of time and energy. Commitment and openness to the trajectory from the participants were key. Communication, preparations, and facilitation, as well as the responsibility of holding space during the rehearsal, required a lot from the facilitators/researchers. Becoming a group required a lot of ‘groundwork’, such as implementing the guidelines as values, which took time to really make them our own.
Joy
The project revolved around creating a meaningful experience, carving out a space to practice ‘hope’ in unsettling times. While singing in itself is known to be a joyful activity, activating endorphins in the brain, perhaps more importantly, the project made space for stories of struggle and pain. During one of the rehearsals, while discussing how we wanted to convey the project during the open rehearsal on December 11th, Tammy referred to Toni Morrison. “How do you survive whole?” she is asked. Toni Morrison answers: Sometimes we don’t […] but the grandeur of life is that attempt...”1 With this quote, Tammy showed us what the ‘practice of hope’ despite “completely impossible circumstances” looked like, and how we as an amateur choir carved out a small but beautiful and meaningful space of surprisingly deep connection.
This project pushed the boundaries of what an amateur choir is or should be. What else can a choir be about than good singing or performing well?
Moving beyond ‘information’, the project addressed the importance of transforming and healing with and through the body. Learning a song, its pronunciation, repeating, rehearsing, remembering the melodies from other people’s stories and struggles near and far became a way to absorb, relate, and embody. The participants became carriers of the songs, the words, and the melodies.
This project produced insights and concrete exercises for the field of music education and anyone working with groups, including community organizers, artists, and activists. The exercises can help musicians and educators center inclusive group dynamics where genuine connection through the voice, body, storytelling, vulnerability, and solidarity becomes more interesting and important than technical virtuosity, individualism, and perfection.
Bringing these people together who so generously and trustingly joined the project was a great pleasure and a beautiful experience.17
All the participants contributed in their own ways. Being hosted by Aslan Muziekcentrum, the most welcoming and inclusive music school in Amsterdam, and bringing together different people with different knowledges was key to the project. The success of the choir was confirmed by the continuation of the choir in 2024, rehearsing weekly at community center Ru Paré,18 as well as with new plans to develop the project further within the context of music education later in 2024.
Read more about this project here: bit.ly/sjda_tuningin
Decolonial Deliberations
Paulina Trejo Méndez
For the lectorate, Paulina Trejo Méndez, Ph.D. has made many creative translations from theory to practice, aimed at making decolonial theory accessible to a broad audience, especially students. They have given lectures, workshops and contributed to the visual identity of the lectorate. You can find Paulina’s creative mind and their collages throughout the publication, as this publication was inspired by their visuals. They also made a zine about decoloniality, which you can access here: bit.ly/sjda_decolonialityzine. Paulina wrote a series of blog posts for our website, analyzing mundane and personal objects and the stories and lessons they hold, from which you can read some excerpts below.
What are the stories of the food you eat? How does food migrate and how can we think of food relationally?
The UN declared 2008 as the “International Year of the Potato”. The potato comes from the South of the territories that were colonized and called: America, but which had their own names and foods cultivated by the inhabitants of those same territories. Food is linked to culture, to the way of understanding and relating to the environment, it is what nourishes and shapes identity. Those of us who have migrated know that there are flavors that are irreplaceable, there are also smells that remind us of a familiar place or sensation. That provides a warmth in the heart and body that is difficult to replicate from a distance.
Read more: bit.ly/sjda_potatoesblog
Similarly to how food migrates, migration stories are often not included in the dominant narrative of a nation but are captured in personal archives and stories.
Last time I went to visit my family in Mexico, I found a photograph of my father that I had no idea existed. In the image he is an elevenyear-old boy wearing an apron and a hat outside a shop. When I asked him about it, he shared that it was from his job. My grandma came by that evening, she is in her nineties and still has a sharp memory. I showed her the photograph. She remembered the day she found out my dad had asked for a job at the hardware store
which belonged to a Japanese man, Mr. Hioki, a neighbor. This was in a popular working-class neighborhood in Mexico City called Héores de Churubusco during the early 1960s.
Read more: bit.ly/sjda_photoblog
Stories of resistance are embedded in everyday objects such as the clothes we wear. What stories do you wear?
Scholar Caitlin Hamilton wrote “it isn’t possible to know world politics without knowing the everyday; and one way in which the everyday can be apprehended is through everyday artefacts”. Clothes are an example of these “everyday artefacts” that can give a deeper understanding of the political. Are all clothes fashion? How or who decides that? And what is our relationship to fashion? Not only in terms of what is trendy, but perhaps in that which is not, that which has been deemed as “unfashionable” because it belongs to another region of the world or system of knowledge. And what does that have to do with decoloniality and social justice?
“People need to know that we have feelings too!” —participant in Barbershop Story Circle US
It started with a chance encounter in the stands at a high school football game in Illinois. Two parents met and struck up a conversation. “I want to write a book, a story for my son, but I need some help,” Justin said. “I might be able to help you with that,” Aminata answered. A visit followed at Justin’s house where he told his story. When Justin finished, Aminata spoke: “You might think this story is for your son, but it is not. It might be inspired by your journey with him, but it is meant to touch a lot of people.” And thus the journey began.
Justin Johnson and Aminata Cairo.
Justin and Aminata began meeting to talk and listen. They spoke at his house, in the barbershop, on the phone, but most often on his ride from the shop as he left the barbershop to go pick up his daughter from school. As the story progressed, so did the inspiration to do more with this story. This story that was about Justin’s journey in fatherhood, manhood, and entrepreneurship had the potential to inspire and touch many, especially men, black men. What came then was the inspiration to make a podcast with Justin at the barbershop, and to engage with men around this issue of fatherhood and manhood. Aminata contacted filmmaker Luwi Clarinda from Pathos Studios, with whom she had worked before and shared her thoughts. In the meantime she also started to talk with researcher Tayfun Balçik. Talking with Tayfun confirmed what she suspected, that the barbershop in the Islamic community in Amsterdam played a similar role as the black barbershop in the US. He suggested contacting with his own Turkish barber (Dursun) of many years to see if a connection could be made.
To what extent are barbers aware and purposeful about creating these potential sacred spaces in their shops? To what extent are barbers aware that they can offer significant space for the community to come together? To what extent do we prepare care professionals to offer sacred spaces for men? To what extent is the barbershop valued as cultural heritage? Subsequently plans were made to record podcasts in both Justin’s black barbershop in the US and in Tayfun’s Turkish barbershop Dursun in the Netherlands. Patrick Mitchell was recruited as a photographer
Aminata
Cairo and Tayfun Balçik in conversation with barber Dursun, Amsterdam Nieuw-West, September 2023. Photo by Zamani Verwey.
and scriptwriter in the US. Başak Layiç was recruited as a scriptwriter in the Netherlands. Başak, who is also of Turkish descent, was going to work with Patrick on writing a script based on both podcasts to make an educational video in which lessons from both barbershop sessions would be interwoven and used to engage an audience. Lotte Hopstaken was recruited from the lectorate of Cultural Heritage to do literature research on the significance of the barbershop in cultural heritage and as a ‘sacred’ site for men, especially men who are marginalized in their respective societies. Finally Paul Stavenuiter from ROC Amsterdam was recruited as a teacher in the barber education program, to help us make a link to barber education. A choice was made to use the Story Circle method to engage with the men in the barbershops and to use the Story Circle to engage with Paul’s students in the barber education program.
The Story Circle method is a creative method developed by theater maker John O’Neal in the 1960s and was a community tool during the Civil Rights Movement.1 It was specifically used to bring communities together and to learn about each other through story sharing. Somehow it felt appropriate to use a Civil Rights methodology for what we aimed to do: validate the stories of men whose voices are often overlooked and silenced. Throughout the planning, Justin’s story was being finalized. Alizée Bollen, a former design student Aminata had worked with at
US Barbershop podcast session.
The Hague University of Applied Sciences was hired to design the book. Tayfun, who had attended the podcast sessions both in the US and the Netherlands, was asked to write a reflective text for the back of the book.
After completing the barbershop sessions in the US and Amsterdam, The School of Pan African Thought showed interest in organizing some barbershop Story Circles in London. We visited London this time with Luwi Clarinda, Tayfun Balçik and Camiël Kesser. In London we were joined by researchers Tegha Kum and Michael Iyob. In London we visited three barbershops in East London, North London and Birmingham, respectively.
What started as Justin’s personal story grew into creating sacred spaces for men to talk with each other about manhood and fatherhood. Whereas in the US the focus was on black men who were marginalized in society because of a particular racial history, in Amsterdam marginalization was based on ethnicity and migration status. In England those factions came together. Here were men whose blackness, ethnicity and migration status combined contributed to their marginalization. What was a central thread throughout each of these settings was their vulnerability, their desire and willingness to talk and share, and their desire to heal from some of the painful experiences they suffered as men, sons and fathers, within the context of their marginalization.
This research was designed to be a collaborative learning journey. Furthermore, this research was ever evolving. It started with documenting Justin’s story, but ventured out to a Turkish barbershop in Amsterdam and three black barbershops in the UK. We used our Five Pillars as a conceptual guide. Furthermore, this research used the concept of ‘weaving of stories’. Researchers and barbershop attendants interwove their stories with each other. Specifically, an educational video has been developed demonstrating the interweaving of the American and Dutch barbershop stories, with the intent of being used in educational institutions.
Relationality
This journey started out of a budding relationship between two parents who had children attending the same football program at a US high school. As the two parents (Justin and Aminata) teamed up and delved into Justin’s story they spent many hours together and became as close as siblings. But the relationship was also tested as the role of researcher and friend had to be navigated. The value of sharing stories and knowledge across international lines with other communities might seem valuable for us as researchers, but that was not necessarily the case for community members initially. Especially for those who are not used to work or think internationally and who are weary of extraction by outsiders, trust needed to be built and transparency was important. Seeing the value of international learning and cooperation was much easier for the migrant populations we worked with.
Furthermore, previously existing relationships with Luwi (videographer) Patrick (photographer) and Nigel Stewart (Director School of Pan African Thought) were a godsend in terms of navigating logistics and serving as (male) sounding boards. The volunteer researchers Tegha and Michael in the UK also quickly bonded as a team with Camiël, Tayfun and Aminata. Relationships were also strengthened during the Story Circle sessions. Some of the men were well familiar with each other, but there were
Barbershop Story Circle session, Amsterdam Nieuw-West, May 2023.
Photo by Zamani Verwey.
some who had never shared such personal stories with each other. They shared their appreciation for the opportunity, not only to share, but to really bond with these men that they did not know so well before.
Temporality
This project definitely embodied working across time and space. Through diving into Justin’s story we learned about the history of St. Louis, in particular about how a once vibrant city lost more than 60% of its inhabitants due to loss of industry, jobs and white flight, and how that affected those left behind, especially working class people who could not maintain the city, with poverty and survival as a result. We learned how for Justin to move up and out of his circumstances, he had to move across state lines into Illinois to get away. We learned about the hardships immigrants endured as they migrated to the Netherlands and were seen and treated as second class citizens. Similarly, black men in the UK had stories of immigration from Africa and the Caribbean, disrupted families, and racism as they made it to the UK or were born there as second generation immigrants. For men especially, the ability to provide for their families was a struggle and a significant part of their identity. For all of these groups, history and the legacy of those who came before and in whose footsteps they followed was something significant. Patrick started his script by reflecting on going to the barbershop with his father as a little boy.
The definition of immaterial (cultural) heritage includes those things from the past and the present that we want to pass on to the future. The barbershop as an institution would thus qualify as immaterial cultural heritage. But the things that were discussed in the barbershop also repeatedly touched upon wisdom from the past that the men wanted to pass on to the new generation. In both the US and in the UK there were several instances where the most impactful words came from the youngest participants. The elders acknowledged, sometimes in surprise, about the wisdom of the young people present.
The teacher of the barber education program at ROC in Amsterdam has shared that the educational video will be especially helpful for his Syrian refugee students. So here is how a story of a black man from North St. Louis is making a contribution to the lives of Syrian refugees in the Netherlands who want to pursue barbering as a career.
Transformation
What was unique was that the lead researcher and facilitator of the stories in these male spaces was a woman. Aminata deliberately used ceremony to open up and honor the space. In addition she used specific guidelines to structure the Story Circle. Men were seated in a semi circle in a way that they could see each other, but also could focus on her as a facilitator. We saw men opening up and sharing their deepest emotions in the presence of other men. We saw men that stayed to listen and came back for more. We saw joy, tears, and sincere listening. We saw men, young and old leaving the barbershop a little bit lighter. At each site the men shared their appreciation, didn’t want to leave after the sessions were over, and the request was shared for more sessions.
Cost
We learned about the sacrifices the men had to make in order to function in a marginalized position in society. Especially for the immigrants in the Netherlands and the UK, emotional availability was often sacrificed, something their sons painfully lamented. Working internationally with different groups of people requires money. People need to be compensated fairly and travel and accommodations are essential and necessary. We chose to work with Alizée Bollen as a designer for the book about Justin’s story. Alizée first came to Aminata as a design student at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and has always delivered excellent work. Now a young professional Aminata felt it important to give her the opportunity to shine and be part of such a significant project. Whenever possible as a lectorate we involve our young people and teach them that they are capable professionals and need to be compensated as such. Most importantly, managing a team across the ocean with different schedules and time zones demands a lot of mental and emotional strength. It was extremely helpful that two of our researchers (Tayfun and Başak) were native Turkish speakers. Lastly, there is the emotional labor required to facilitate the stories and emotions that rise to the surface. The facilitator has to do more than guide the stories, they have to constantly be aware of where the men are, if they need a break, if the subject needs to be changed, etc. Aminata was able to do her work because she had a supportive team. Tayfun, Camiël, Patrick, Nigel and Luwi were invaluable. They Held Space for her so she could Hold Space for the men.
Joy
There has been a lot of joy in executing this project. Seeing the immediate effect during the Story Circle sessions was highly rewarding. The relationships that were built during the execution of this project brought a lot of joy. But a lot of joy comes from seeing and hearing the outcomes. At all sites men have asked for more sessions. One of the barbers in the UK has opened his shop one night a week for people to come in and talk. The other two barbershops are also looking to find a format to use their barbershops for more social interaction. The educational video has sparked interest as far away as Suriname.
Sacred Spaces
What makes a space sacred? We learned about the concept of sacred space in two different ways; first “what is a sacred space?”; and second “what makes a space sacred?”. We learned that there is sacred space within the barbershop in the way the barbershop is structured and in the way the men are treated in the barbershop. Furthermore, the barbershop functions as a sacred space or icon in the community, especially in immigrant communities. The presence of immigrant barbershops contributes to a feeling of belonging in that particular community. We identified three things that contribute to making the barbershop a sacred space: an atmosphere of safety, the room and ability to speak freely, and being seen and recognized. We learned about the importance of the ‘keeper’ of the space, of their intention to hold the space for their constituents. Spaces do not become sacred on their own. We learned from watching barbershop owners (Justin, Dursun, Andrew) who were deliberately committed to create and offer something to their clients and communities.
This was a research project that organically developed and grew. As needed, people joined and consequently more and more people were reached with this work. Although this is always the goal for the lectorate, we have learned that this might be a difficult step for community members to make. They might not understand the value of their knowledge
being shared in other communities and instead might see it as extraction and exploitation. Worse, they might not be able to communicate these sentiments. Hence, constant dialogue is essential. We learned about the concept of sacred space and what that can mean to men who are often marginalized within the larger society. We learned about the importance of feeling safe, having the room to speak freely and being seen and recognized. We learned about the importance of those who keep the space and their commitment to Holding the Space for others and their communities. This is a valuable lesson we hope to pass on to those who attend barber school or other professions of care. We chose the Story Circle Method because of its legacy of its use during the Civil Rights Movement and its foundation in the theater world. Whereas the barbershop can be considered valuable cultural heritage, so can the method that we used be considered immaterial, cultural heritage. It has been a journey and a joy to weave these stories from each other with each other. The value of the barbershop and the barbershop as a special place within the community deserves its recognition as valuable cultural heritage. Finally, it is a great joy to know that those interwoven stories will contribute to student learning, community learning, and more community barbershop sessions.
Read more about this project here: bit.ly/sjda_barbershop
Barbershop Story Circle Session, Birmingham, March 2024.
Colophon
Authors:
Gabriela Acosta Camacho, Tayfun Balçik, Aminata Cairo, Camiël Kesser, Paulina Trejo Méndez, Rosa te Velde
Editors:
Aminata Cairo, Rosa te Velde
Final editing:
Aminata Cairo, Rosa te Velde, Kelly de Wildt
Coordination and image research: Madieke Hupperets
What does transformative research look like? What does it mean to move in ‘socially just ways’ in and through creative practices? What kind of education is needed to cultivate such practices? How can we use socially just practices to contribute to community building inside as well as outside the institution?
The Lectorate for Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts was founded in August 2022 at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. Guided by the belief that every injustice deserves attention, particularly on a smaller scale, the SJDA lectorate focused on doing research that would contribute to daily interactions, advocating for improvements in listening, creating space for each other, navigating discomfort, speaking out, and intervening.
This publication celebrates the work of two years of the SJDA lectorate, with contributions by:
