IDEAS, NEWS AND RESOURCES | June 2022
The Taos Institute's mission is to bring together scholars and practitioners concerned with the social processes essential for the construction of reason, knowledge, and human value, and their application in relational, collaborative and appreciative practices around the world.
The Many Ways to Get Involved!
Brief Encounter with The Taos Institute
"Who can I connect with to make my professional efforts more impactful?"
- Pedro Martin
"What does ‘non-judgmental’ mean for ourselves and our clients?" - Greg Spiro
UNFOLDING DIALOGUE

Taos Institute Co-Founder and Vice President Sheila McNamee invites you to join in an online dialogue with her on these ideas.
Please join in!

Are Relational Practices, Dialogue, and Collaboration Enough: Part II

by Sheila McNamee, Taos Institute Co-Founder
and Vice-President

Last month I offered a Brief Encounter entitled, Are Relational Practices, Dialogue, and Collaboration Enough? In that piece, I raised these questions: How do we call others to dialogue when their interest is only directed toward wealth and power? How do we adopt a curiosity for ideas that are so different from our own? Is it possible to refrain from judgment of one who believes that the color of one’s skin is surely linked to the degree of one’s humanity? How do we cultivate curiosity about another nation’s apparent disregard for human life?

Pedro Martins responded to my invitation to join in this conversation. He said, I usually like to look at my surroundings and ask myself: who can I connect with to make my professional efforts more impactful? Can I take these ideas to someone who has the means to broaden and strengthen them? I am thinking here about a big range of social actors, such as politicians, business people, news staff, digital influencers, etc., who might be impactful in ways that my single actions are very often not. I am also trying to be aware of how I can use my own privileges to amplify these connections and make them worth the while of others.

Greg Spiro also shared some provocative words. Greg shared a poem he wrote called, Non-Judgment Day: A Proposal (2018). (You can read Greg’s poem at this link.) In keeping with his poem, Greg wrote, So the specific suggestion I propose, somewhat presumptuously, is that the Taos Institute might be the perfect forum to establish ‘Non-judgment day.’ What does ‘non-judgmental’ mean for ourselves and our clients? How does it play out in practice? How do we reconcile this core value with our own opinions and indeed our judgments? The . . . poem starts off with some warm and cuddly possibilities but culminates in a darker challenge: we have to find ways of engaging in dialogue with our adversaries. I wonder if there is any appetite to establish ‘Non-judgment day’ as a forum in which we could explore and roll out its possibilities?

As I read Greg’s comment and poem, I recalled the Milan Systemic practice of engaging in what they called a “linear orgy” as a way of cathartically releasing their judgement. Working as a team, they would take a break from their conversation with a family and, once separated from the family, give voice to their prejudices, judgements, and opinions. Rather than ignore these judgmental positions, the Milan Team believed that voicing their prejudices prepared them to engage in more generative, respectful, and appreciative ways with their clients. Rather than act as if our judgement is non-existent, can we first acknowledge so that we might then move toward curiosity for our differences?

In some ways, the ability to entertain curiosity over judgement while also moving a bit beyond our comfort zone in our practice is the focus of the Taos Institute’s upcoming virtual Gathering, November 12-18, 2022, Unfolding Dialogues: Relational Resources for Global Good. Given the global challenges facing us in this increasingly complex and potentially volatile world, there is a vital need for innovative ideas and practices of promise for our ways of relating. This virtual gathering, a kind of un-conference, will offer all of us the opportunity to share ideas and practices that bring insights and inspiration for addressing these challenges. From the local to the global, how can social constructionist ideas and practices help us create and bring forward new ways of going on together? I hope you will join us to continue this important conversation and work together to expand constructionist practices for the global good.

Taos 2022 Gathering
Join us online for a week-long series of global, virtual events, conversations, explorations and co-creating!
From the local to the global, how can social constructionist ideas and practices help us create and bring forward new ways of going on together?

Given the global challenges facing us in this increasingly complex and potentially volatile world, there is a vital need for innovative ways of relating. Social constructionist ideas have offered new insights and inspired wide ranging practices addressing these challenges.

Come join us online to share, explore, and co-create with practitioners, scholars and students from around the world as we generate conversations and actions for community collaborations through local and global resources.

We hope you will plan to join in!

THE TAOS INSTITUTE 2022 GATHERING


Professional Development
"The course content allowed me to understand concepts in more depth. I had certain ideas from reading but the opportunity to discuss this on the online
platform or in class or with a learning partner or to hear the facilitator speak directly to the content was so helpful to really start to understand the material."
August 29 - October 10, 2022


A 6-week online course with Taos Institute Board Member

Featuring videos and writings of Ken Gergen, Mary Gergen, Sheila McNamee, Harlene Anderson, Barnett Pearce, John Shotter, Saliha Bava and more, this course introduces the framework of Social Constructionism and presents cutting edge ideas and concepts on the collaborative construction of realities, reason and value. It introduces common premises and orienting ideas central to dialogue and meaning making. The course provides the groundwork for understanding how groups and organizations can work in the context of continuous, and sometimes radical change, and how innovation takes place by embracing dialogic approaches.

Participants engage in meaningful dialogue each week on a live video call, and deepen their learning through reading, interactions with the group in our virtual community platform, as well as during meetings with a new learning partner each week. This course is for those familiar with constructionist ideas as well as those new to these concepts. It is a unique opportunity to engage in deep reflection with others from a diverse range of experiences, while exploring how Social Construction applies to their own life and practice.
Next cohort: September 1, 2022


An online program entirely customized to your professional goals with a Taos Institute Associate as your Advisor!
At the Taos Institute, we support and mentor creative practitioners to form the future through relationships, collaboration, and ethical action. The International Diploma in Social Construction and Professional Practice exposes participants to multiple disciplines, all focused on collaborative and relational approaches to generating meaning, value, and practices of significance. The online Diploma program is not a fixed curriculum, with required lectures, readings, and graded assignments. Rather, it is an innovative, informal and tailored process of growth for adults looking for an independent study option. The Diploma program lets the learner embark on a project of personal interest with professional guidance and support of a Taos advisor. Applications accepted until Aug. 1 for the Sept. 2022 cohort.
Friends of Taos Events
The International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogic Practices Network presents

Don't miss the conversation with Kenneth Gergen, Saliha Bava
& Rocio Chaveste, Instituto Kanankil (Mexico) on July 9, 2022
ICCP, HGI and The Taos Institute are pleased to announce this series of free online workshops, where leading voices in Social Constructionism and Collaborative-Dialogic ideas will engage in conversation with practitioners and scholars from different parts of the world. We will explore the principles and the applications of these practices in a variety of contexts and with different populations. The workshops will be in English with simultaneous translation. Details and registration are available here.

The Narrative Therapy Initiative presents
2 online workshops

June 29, 2022

In 2013, supporting counselling work with refugee children, Ncazelo Ncube created a methodology she called “The Narratives in the suitcase project.” This work drew inspiration from the Suitcase project (Glynis Clacherty, 2004) and combined ideas from Glynis’s work with narrative practice and journey metaphors. The project also was developed with the hope of opening up new possibilities for the young people and supporting those providing counselling services to children on the move to find meaning and derive hope in their work. Details and registration available here.

September 23, 2022

Working with people who are facing Despair and/or Suicidal Thoughts can sometimes invite Worry and even Panic for therapists/peer workers/etc; and can, at times, take us away from our preferred ways of being with people. This workshop will focus on how we can bring social justice into our work with people who are facing the difficult problems of Despair, and/or Suicidal Thoughts through Narrative Therapy practices and principles. Details and registration available here.
The East Side Institute Presents

A 9-month intensive online program

October 2022 - June 2023
With deepening social, environmental and political crises worldwide, many who want to make a difference in the world are finding that they need new tools to make social change, to grow, and to develop their communities. The East Side Institute’s International Class is a 9-month virtual immersion in creative and cultural approaches to human development, learning and social change. The course introduces and examines social therapeutics, a philosophically informed, practically oriented method in which human beings develop themselves while building the ensemble, group and community. Details and registration available here.

Resources of the Month
Videos of the month

This video holds a conversation between Celiane Camargo-Borges and Saliha Bava on how to articulate design and social construction. Design thinking is an approach that focuses on promoting innovation on a topic by fostering actionable knowledge. Its ideas are formed based on principles such as: being context-related; human-centered ; embracing an experiential stance; trial and error, and mindfulness of the process.
Website of the month

AIM2Flourish, a program of the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at the Weatherhead School of Management - Case Western Reserve University, is the world’s first higher-education curriculum incorporating the UN Sustainable Development Goals and "Business as an Agent of World Benefit" - our words for positive and profitable business. Using the UN Global Goals as their lens, students research and identify a positive business innovation and interview a business leader about it. The 2022 Flourish Prizes Finalists include 84 stories from 31 universities in 20 countries.
NEW: 3 WorldShare books now available in French!

Reading Corner

ISSUE 12 Available Now!

This free journal brings together members of a growing international community of practitioners, scholars, educators, researchers, and consultants interested in postmodern collaborative practices.

FREE downloadable books in 12 different languages. Like all of the Taos Institute Publications, WorldShare Books represent significant contributions relevant to social constructionist theory and practice. With over 30 books in English and many more from around the world, you will enjoy reading about education, spirituality, organizational life, community building, group dynamics, leadership and more.

By focusing on the positive aspects of aging and the availability of resources, skills, and resiliencies, research brings useful insights into the realm of practice, creates hope and empowers action among older people. By moving beyond practices of repair and prevention, to emphasize growth-enhancing activities, practitioners also contribute more effectively to the societal reconstruction of aging. For 20 years, late Taos Institute co-founder Mary Gergen, Ph.D. has inspired and driven the publication of this free newsletter - also translated in 9 languages!

Access hundreds of articles and papers on topics such as:

  • Appreciative Inquiry
  • Collaborative Practices
  • Dialogic Practices
  • Creativity and Change
  • Narrative Practices
  • Relational Research
  • Relational Learning
  • Qualitative Research
  • and so much more!
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In loving memory of Taos Institute co-founder and board member Mary Gergen, Ph.D.. Mary was an innovator in feminist theory, social constructionism, and qualitative methods. She was an inspiration and mentor to thousands of people around the world. She deeply cared about making the world a better place and her contributions will be felt for generations. Read more