Last week our group gave a presentation in the Irvine auditorium on campus at MIIS. We collaborated with students from Dr. Iyer’s Spring Break course to LA, and gave a combined presentation entitled “Violence Explained, Peace Explored.” I’m sure many others will share about this experience on this blog. With months of anticipation, I was nervous and excited to see how exactly eighteen people were going to report out about the complexities of conflict and peacebuilding in a two-hour event. No PowerPoint allowed. Instead we created an immersion ourselves. In the form of storytelling, role-plays, and quotes from the field we brought the audience of about 75 people in. The result was a powerful experience but the best part, in my opinion, was the Q&A afterward.
One of the most thought-provoking questions we had from the audience (and there were so many!) was to tactfully and essentially press our translation of this knowledge. For those who grew up in South Central, or Mindanao, violence is nothing new. The shock and sobering sentiments of outsiders who learn about the atrocities, the injustices, the lengths that people have suffered and endured, still remains an outsiders’. “I’m sick of your revelations.” The road to raising consciousness is tiring. Especially for those who grew up impacted by such severe degrees of structural and physical violence. The stories we heard are peoples’ daily pain and suffering, and there’s no way to describe the full experience of how they survive. Our motivation for authenticity led us to take the storytelling and theater route, so that people could hear the words verbatim. See the action of a mentally ill homeless woman being gunned down by police. Feel the school children’s kindling hatred exchanging anti-Christian and anti-Muslim taunts on the school playground. What is being done about this? What can we do now? How is this advanced through academia and the web of relationships and conversations at the Institute? Our questioner described this as “knowledge gentrification,” when stories from the streets are heard, synthesized and validated through institutions. The experience resonates no matter who witnesses. What is the true power of our testimony? Where do we go from here?
This may be what the movement feels like.
