Design to Define: Revealing the Paradox
Since the colonial era and the rise of the ideas of superiority and human-sanctioned authority, our knowledge systems and epistemologies have designed our relationships with each other, ourselves, and our common home. Since this emergence, there has been an ongoing protracted struggle for human self-determination and dignity, especially for the most marginalized and excluded.
The separation of the Public Body (the interdependent network of all bodies bound and rooted in the earth) is caused by beliefs—ideas about ourselves and each other that we use to rationalize and explain our behavior and the behavior of others. This impacts our imagination, our range of motion, and the flexibility of our bodies and minds. It has transferred our relationship with the earth from being one of stewardship to dominion and dominance. This is made a reality not by our intent, but by our impact. Disproportionate health outcomes and suffering for those at the bottom of the social order, the warming of the earth, and the seemingly cold disregard for others with fill-in-the-blank lives matter posters suggest it's not just what we say that matters, it's what we do. And it's what we all do together. This is not directed by what we know or the amount of knowledge we have accumulated, but rather by our beliefs that direct our actions.
This is not new and leadership training often talks about adaptive shifts and adaptive leadership as one of the competencies needed to move people and organizations while maintaining their dignity, creating compassion and a sense of self. However, this may have been lost as DEI work integrates into leadership practice, redefining what it means to be a leader in the 21st century, especially an education leader. Understanding that we are working with beliefs and not facts changes the nature of the work, what we design, and how we define and experience success. It also transforms the work further when integrating a healing discourse into diversity, equity, and inclusion work.
Start with Yourself reminds us that it's not other people’s beliefs we have to see, but our own. How do we see beliefs? Oftentimes they are invisible and can only be made visible in relationships with others. That is why sharing ourselves with the people we love the most often feels so high stakes. There is a risk that our feelings, likes, or dislikes conflict with the beliefs of others—more distance could be created when that conflict is across a line of power. This hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot and can be explosive. If the separation of the Public Body is caused by separate, competing, and often conflicting beliefs, it stands to reason that healing the Public Body can be activated by coming together, reconciling the bodies and beliefs in conflict, and seeking commonality in a world of difference. The Public Body then is more whole and well, allowing the healing process to flatten social power hierarchies without flattening people.
These lines of power are landmine edges of our designs that should not be avoided but diffused. But how?
Because we only see our beliefs in relationships, we have to be in relationships with each other so we can see ourselves—our epistemologies, hidden knowledge systems, and ways of being—and how we operate in relationships. Because we feel our beliefs in proximity, we have to be close to each other so we can feel ourselves—our fears, our dissonance, and discomfort—the product of our assumptions, questions, and the cumulative impact of our instruction. When we are aware of how our bodies move in space, it is called proprioception. When a human can walk without looking down at their feet because they know how the feet are moving, this is a process of proprioception. Balancing on one leg is enabled by proprioception. The word is the union of the Latin words proprious, meaning “one’s own” or “individual,” and capio and capere, meaning to “catch” or “seize.” Combining these Latin root words, we grasp that proprioception is about the ability of a person to understand how they are moving in space.
Moving Beyond Problems
This notion of proprioception has incredible implications for equity-centered design practices, and the awareness people need in order to make out the edges and the form of the dilemmas we face. In this phase of the Design Team’s Journey, attention to the proximity of bodies helps create more awareness of paradoxes, not just problems. This notion of a paradox is essential. In design work and equity-centered design work, giving attention solely to the problem can create an infinite and confusing loop of action without impact. We think this happens for two reasons. First, the idea of a problem suggests that it is rational and free of hidden assumptions. Second, a problem by definition is an assertion defined by the person that observes the problem. The knowledge system and beliefs of the observer govern it too. Too often, the work becomes a battle of beliefs where one system is shamed or guilted in surrender. The idea is still there in the subduction, creating a tremendous hidden trench of silence between the two systems. Only in the safety of like-minded people do the shamed beliefs get a breath.
The “you must see what I see” way of problem definition does not resolve or reconcile conflicting beliefs. Reconciliation rarely occurs because the thought systems that govern the ideas and their assumptions are seldom exposed.
Instead, the belief or way of seeing the world from one person dominates another. This imposition and surrender alone may feel like it's the work itself. While this might change sentiments and be lauded as courageous, the actions of believers stay the same or become apathetic. Along the lines and axes of power—the hierarchy may appear flattened with the adoption of a defined problem by someone else, but the people may be flattened too.
If, instead, we characterize equity issues as a paradox, the nature and form of the phenomena change. Paradoxes inherently hold contradiction by definition. And we then can begin to design experiences that make the lines of the paradox visible, not to other people, but to holders themselves. If the goal is to come together and heal the Public Body, then what we design must create experiences that help people see their own beliefs and feel and experience their own discomfort. Not with the intent of calling them out or even in, but with the intent of giving them the space, time, and awareness to dissolve it themselves. This creates the emotional, physical, and neurological space for a new belief and idea. This is the liminal space of emergence. Tom Gunning reminds us of the need for liminal space when he notes:
“If an individual or group wanted to generate a new idea or consider how to do things differently, they first have to separate themselves from familiar ways of doing and thinking about things…To become creative, we need to develop new neurological circuits.”
Design is the intention to create new ideas, not reproduce the old. Equity-centered designs intend to develop new ideas for our common home. The space between the old and the new is called liminal space. The need for liminal space cannot be overlooked in an equity-centered design process.
Healing the Public Body does not require flattening people. We need people to fully and willingly walk into the unknown, private, and scary rooms of their own making, observe the beliefs and thought systems that hold the walls up, breathe at the edge of discomfort, and then make the decision to dissolve their contradictions. Then they will be able to walk out with new actions and behaviors as more healed and integrated people. Without this, commitments to equity become sentimental platitudes that exist only in speech but fail to materialize in action and behavior. But how do we create these designs that help people see and feel their beliefs?
Design to Define: Space and Speech
Revealing the paradoxes and the contradictions between how our bodies move and what we say and do can be revealed in proximity—how close we are to each other, to suffering, to the margins, and to those who are condemned, marginalized, and oppressed. When we are designing a space to help people see their own beliefs, we have to be thoughtful about who is in the space. This is when acknowledgment of the borders of marginalization may become more visible to the designer. We offer these questions to help in the Design to Define process.
Intention: How will you use the space to heal?
Activation: What do you anticipate feeling that will tell you the process has started?
Proximity: What bodies need to be in the space for it to be transformative or transcendent?
Geometries of equity take different shapes and textures when the intention is to practice healing and commonality through proximity. For example, bodies may form a circle so there is an endless connection. Or they may assume the shape of parallel lines to practice connecting with each other, one at a time. Awareness of the geometries of bodies and the shapes they assume, their proximity to each other, and the feelings this generates can reveal the contradiction or paradox to be dissolved. While spaces of affinity can be helpful for affirmation, the comfort of these spaces cannot become the narcotic that numbs the discomfort of difference, conflict, and tension. When we understand that healing is a feeling of returning to the body, creating spaces to feel and experience the intelligence that comes from our emotions becomes a critical design feature when we learn more about the contradictions.
When we share the same space, invisible contradictions can be seen through speech acts—how we talk to each other, what we say, how we say it, and the response. David Bohm explains that when the concept of proprioception of the body extends to the thoughts it is called proprioception of thought.
When we are aware of our speech acts, the language we use, the actions our words inspire, and the knowledge systems governing our language, this is proprioception of thought that is only made visible through observation. Mirrors can help us observe our bodies in space. Other people help us observe our thoughts and why we think the way we do. With language and emotions as our guides, dialogue—an ancient technology—can reveal our beliefs to ourselves and others. We are able to see our beliefs when we are in dialogue. We see with our ears. We offer these questions to help in the Design to Define process.
Intention: How will you use the space to heal?
Activation: What do you anticipate hearing that will tell you the process has started?
Proximity: What bodies need to be in the space in order for it to be transformative or transcendent?
Beliefs are not interrupted by facts or more knowledge; rather, they must be revealed through experience. Then the holder must decide whether or not to dissolve the belief and emerge anew. In other words, you can't tell someone they are racist, elitist, misogynist, or violent if there is an interest in their healing, growth, and human development of the Public Body. As designers and leaders who desire sustained and transformative change, what we can do is design experiences for people to see the contradictions that live within them and trust the process so they can dissolve it themselves once made visible. This is neither romantic, neat, or easy. But it may help us compassionately see ourselves in each other, creating the space for emergence as new people with new relationships and a new social contract.
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