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CSUDH - Habermas - UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: October 22, 2001
Latest Update: Novvember 10, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Olivier Urbain, Soka University

The "Other" and Habitat for Humanity
By Jaime Shepherd and Marlene Boykin.
Scheduled for presentation at ACJS, Spring 2002.

Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors: November 2001.
"Fair use" encouraged.

Members Present:Thesis Project Meeting: November 8, 2001
Members Present: Pat Acone, Jaime Shepherd, and Marlene Boykin.
Topics:

• SBS B-325. The Dear Habermas, Moot Court office.
• Topic and Literature Review for Marlene's and Jaime's Projects.

Notes:

• Topic: Berthena has settled on the project of setting up our cross the oceans connection network with Zambia and Zimbabwe. That means that one of our interdependent projects this semester will focus on expanding the world-wide reach of Dear Habermas. Coupled with that Crossing the Oceans Project we want a Crossing the Street Project.

• Statement of the Problem:

  Through our Dear Habermas connections with other peacemaking groups, we had some contacts in Zambia and Zimbabwe. These were enhanced by travel to these two countries in the Summer of 2001. Through our contacts we began a network that we would like to use to exchange information and some minor funding that will alleviate some of the difficulties our friends are facing.

  We discovered that a casual donation of $5 meant that there could be thatched roof erected over a church building or school building this Fall. We plan to extend our efforts in the community to provide such minimal help when we know that it is needed. Although that is not the pupose of our extending Dear Habermas to Zambia and Zimbabwe, it is something we can offer as we get to know our friends a little better.

  Our goal in this project is to come to know some people whose lifeworld differs considerably from our own, for we have discovered since September 11, that we are extremely remiss here in America when it comes to making an effort to "know Others." Their dire need for tiny bits of money that can accomplish something like that $5 did this summer is a simple enough project for us to manage easily and to arrange methods of getting that little bit to them effectively. That gives us a nucleus around which to begin discourse.

  We have already discussed with Berthena the ways in which our sharing of our experiences and collection of a dollar here or there, provides an opportunity for us to share with the local community our exchanges with our network. In the process of that sharing we have a chance to speak of colonialism and its effect on their country and their lives. That's easy to understand. Then we have a chance to speak of the same dilemma with food, housing, jobs, educational opportunities right here at home. That's a little harder to understand because we tend to cast our own country as one of freedom and opportunity, and we tend not to focus on poverty, health needs, and housing needs right here. So we will be using the analogy of sharing basic skills in other cultures with sharing basic skills in our own country.

  This corresponds to the concerns that many of you expressed in the Seminar on Wednesday, November 7, 2001. (Week 11) One of the major social issues in the US is how we justify to ourselves and our citizens the enormous outlay of funds to stem problems in foreign countries, while opposing so vehemently welfare and safety nets in our own country.

  The approach that we are taking in these projects is that the skills we need to work on to deal with these social issues are critical thinking and the challenging of the dominant discourse when it advocates actions that harm others. That would include environmental harm, physical harm, emotional harm, and the complicity of denial that any harm results from our actions. In keeping with the philosophy of Dear Habermas we believe that such solutions require awareness, consciousness raising, and critical debate at the community level, for it is at the local community area that social change really occurs and is mutually enforced by the people themselves. Our objective is to transform that community discourse to encourage an understanding of the constraints of dominant discourse and the strength of critical information gathering and critical thinking.

  Berthena's project grew out of her concern for young black children. Her Crossing the Oceans, Crossing the Street projects meets her concerns. But Jaime Shepherd's concern was for his young students who suffer also from poverty, hunger, lack of supervision, and dysfunction within the family and the community. Jaime's project will thus deal with the "Other" right here at home. The Other who lives in an impoverished area, with needs that most often go unmet.

  We discussed the problem of agency in a community plagued by poverty, drugs, alcohol, and unemployment. Agency and the ability to actually use the control over our own lives that we do have is not just a matter of having some money or having a place to sleep. Agency is a matter of developing the skills needed to make decisions, and to put them into effect within the constraints of the social context within which we find ourselves.

  That means that taking someone by the hand and showing them what they can do, is not going to result in their initiating and carrying out such activity on their own. The skill to decide what needs to be done, the discipline to gather the necessary tools and/or documents and/or permissions, and the discipline to follow through in the face of obstacles is learned. And it is learned through experience, and through repetition. It is not one-trial learning. Cheerleading and well-meaning but superficial ploys at building self-esteem won't work. (Elizabeth Cohen, Stanford. Curran, USC, 1970. Status Characteristic Theory)

  The needs we seek to build have been tackled successfully in Habitats for Humanity. In this program, poor families who cannot afford a house are helped by volunteers and the funding of the agency to build their own home. We wanted a project like that that would help community members to build the skills of leadership and decision-making and follow-through and maintenance.

  But we also want to stay at the level we find ourselves at now. We want to discuss the social problem, consider alternatives, and take intitial steps towards solving the problem. We discussed the possiblity of cleaning and repairing apartments, instead of building a whole house, unless there is already a Habitat for Housing in Los Angeles. In both funding and worker power we need to start small and probably stay small because of the minimal discretionary time and money available to most of us. But we figure that $5 here or there can really make a difference, just as it could in Zambia. And most of us can skip a lunch or two and offer $5. That's more realistic for us when our goal is one of creating long-term discourse and of altering our patterns of discourse at this level.

  . . . .

  This needs to be interwoven with out notes from Thursday night.

• Methodology:

  The project will be comprised of a collection of all the contacts we will need to make in order to establish this network. We will use a snowball sampling technique because we won't to extend the network from friends and contacts already established.

  We will describe the setbacks, the obstacles we encounter, as well as the successes, and will provide a qualitative analysis of these data in terms of patterns for the establishment of such world-wide networks, using the skills we have learned in the process of establishing Dear Habermas over the last three years.

  Procedures: Knowing that Dear Habermas planned to undertake this project, we have already begun our work. Those who have the information on this we need to collect for the Project are:

  • Kerry Partika who has attempted to contact Mrs. Landless in Zambia.

  • Father Peter, who spoke with us on Zambia and is in contact with us from Dublin.

  • Professor Munashe Furasa, of CSUDH, who spoke with us on Zimbabwe, and will help us.

Review of Literature:

Each of us shared ideas and references on the review of litrature. Darby has Marx on feudalism and the shift to capitalism. jeanne has Gonzalez on the commodification of land in th colonial setting. Collaborative writing means having sessions like this where we can exchange theoretical ideas and help each other.

The primary focus of the review of literature will cover:

• Colonialism, post-colonialism. Edward Said, Frant Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, etc.

• Alterity and the Other, including Edward Said's analyses of literature and the complicity of cultures in not permitting awareness of colonialism. this section will focus on the complicity of denial and how we can overcome that denial. The establishment of this network is meant to help in that process.

• Transforming Discourse. Here we will examine theoretically the praxis of how to overcome our willingness "not to know" as well as our assumptions that we "know."