Learning about othering
Jul 26, 2025
At the end of May I was in Budapest stewarding an Art of Hosting training. Hungary is a place like many others. Control is rising. Activists and community workers are feeling despondent, desperate for resources and under threat. We don't know how much longer we can bring participatory practice.
So we held for ourselves the metaphor of "seed bombing" -- you know that practice of throwing a little ball of earth packed with seeds out of the window, supporting life to make beauty. We intended to throw a spark of hope, energy and ideas into the field to support those who are working so hard on behalf of others.
The calling question we were working with was: "How can we stand together and collectively build new paths forward in the age of polarisation and "othering"?
The government had just announced that the very popular PRIDE parade would be canceled and people attending could be photographed by drones and fined. This put our calling question into sharp relief.
But what does that mean for all of us and the people we work with? During the World Café on Day 1 we began grappling with this as we worked through these questions:
- What are you arriving with in your backpack?
- What is othering? How are each of us involved and what can we learn from that?
- What's on the other side? What do we see collectively?
During the training, each foundational piece, new method and conversation took us deeper and deeper into becoming a learning community. At the midpoint of our time together, we invited people to imagine they were standing at the crossroads and they had an opportunity to put something down or pick something up. We asked them to write it on a piece of dissolving paper and toss it into the water. It was very special to hold space for each other like this as grief, anger and other emotions arose.
Picture 1: World Café in the courtyard at the Impact Hub in Budapest. Picture 2: Some of our harvest. Picture 3: Participants recorded their harvest on our flow. Red stood for HEART, blue for HEAD, Grren for HANDS, Yellow for MAGIC.. Picture 4: Checking in with the question: "What do I need to be in good learning today?"
What do you want to let go now? What do you need to pick up now?
As I look back on these three days I am reminded of the very real challenges each of us are meeting as we face an unknown future. Each of our participants had a powerful story of othering and edges.
It takes courage and tenderness to face your own edges and to stay in the not knowing rather than moving to avoid whatever you find there. This truly is a time when we need community and solid practices for creating relationships more than ever.
PS In the end over 10,000 people attended PRIDE, coming from all over Europe to show their support.
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