One of the questions I keep coming back to in my work is: what really holds a community together? Not the big, flashy ideals, but the everyday stuff or what we might call the nitty-gritty. The washing-kids’-bums, negotiating-how-to-share-a-space, holding-a-meeting-with-too-much-cake kind of stuff. That’s where I think community is made—in the messy work of care.
Thinking-with, Dissenting-within
I am about three chapters in to Maria Puig de la Bellacasa's book Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds. In the same way that Richard Rohr seems to express my thoughts before I even am conscious of having them in the area of spiritual practice and belief, Puig de la Bellacasa seems to... Continue Reading →
Beyond public intellectualism: moving from ‘matters of fact’ to ‘matters of concern’ in research
Last week I posted on being a public intellectual, or someone who engages with communities and society outside of academia, communicating research directly and also being influenced by communities in choosing research topics. I stand by all that. But I want to think further about the more theoretical work that community-engaged, public intellectual researchers do,... Continue Reading →
