INSPIRATIONS

All of us have inherited certain traditions which may or may not be in alignment with our desired futures. Some aspects of our cultural traditions are beautiful, other are exclusionary and even promote violence. In subtle or not subtle ways, we learn that some social groups are ‘the problem’; often seen as both inferior and dangerous. While the stories we use to communicate with may undoubtedly have a high artistic value, sometimes they convey messages that limit our life experiences or those of others. They may be in contradiction to who we want to be, how we want to act, and where we wish to go. Some powerful yet outdated past narratives can be in contradiction to our preferred presents and futures. Gender and cultural stereotypes in traditional folk tales are a case in point. Violent conflict resolution is another, and even girls and women’s empowerment is in some contemporary revisions imagined to be impossible without ’embracing of the sword’. Fortunately, there are generations of thinkers and activists focused on progressive social and individual change which go beyond such limited imaginings. Here we mention only a few, whose impact on our life and work has been the most pronounced.

 

Not all storytelling is the same

Peace educator Dr Jessica Senehi makes a critical distinction between ‘destructive’ and ‘constructive’  storytelling. She defines destructive storytelling as ‘associated with coercive power, exclusionary practices, a lack of mutual recognition, dishonesty, and a lack of awareness’. Constructive storytelling, on the other hand, is ‘inclusive, fosters shared power and mutual recognition, creates opportunities for openness, dialogue, and insight, brings issues to consciousness, can be a means of resistance … and an important means for establishing a culture of peace and justice’.

These broad principles can be used in educational settings in a variety of ways. We have chosen to ‘reconstruct’ the traditional, widely known stories as this immediately opens up the future by presenting at least two alternatives. We look forward to others continuing with constructive storytelling by creating their own futures visions.

 

Cultural transformation towards partnership is needed for us to survive and thrive

Futurist Dr Riane Eisler is the founder of cultural transformation theory. According to this theory – as developed in her numerous books – cultural shifts move between two basic organizational forms: the dominator [androcracy] and partnership [gylany] models. Androcracy gives high priority on technologies of domination and destruction, emphasizes control, authoritarianism, violence, gender discrimination, and environmental degradation. Storytelling in androcracy is destructive – humans are portrayed as ‘bad, cruel, violent and selfish’; these stories are ‘full of cruelty, trickery and violence’. Partnership model, on the other hand, embodies equity, environmental sustainability, multiculturalism, and gender-fairness. In a nutshell, while dominator model relies on ‘myths and stories honoring and sacralizing domination’, the partnership model is based on ‘myths and stories honouring and sacralizing partnership’.

We have written our stories with the goal of facilitating individual and social transformation towards partnership. We look forward to others sharing such stories which have always coexisted with the dominator based ones.

Let’s envision and create gentle societies

Peace activist and futurist Dr Elise Boulding has articulated her vision of the ‘gentle society’. Such a society would be situated within a decentralist and demilitarized but yet still interconnected and interdependent world. She imagines this society as an exciting and diverse place in which ‘each human being would reach a degree of individuation and creativity such as only a few achieve in our present society’. Boulding encourages us not only to say what future we wish for but to imagine the details of this preferred future, because ‘if it can be imagined it can be created’.  She also invites us to recover ‘hidden peace cultures’ from our collective pasts, because, ‘if it exists, it is possible’.

The heroine’s journey project is an attempt to both recover hidden peace cultures as well as imagine in details what our desired futures could look like. We are well versed in critique and deconstruction of what we do not want yet have in this project decided to take a risk of envisioning exactly what we would want. While our vision of the desired future will certainly not be shared by all, we hope that we can still find a common ground where the basic principles of the gentle society which incorporate kindness in communication will be created.

 

Let’s tell other type of stories and narratives

Like many other feminist authors, author Barbara G. Walker has retold numerous classic fairy tales, compiling these stories in Feminist Fairy Tales book (1996). Her heroines are vibrantly alive, strong women who take fate into their own hands. Her seminal work, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (1983), twenty five years in preparation, offers 1,350 entries which uncover some pre-patriarhcal origins of numerous myths and symbols. By uncovering certain aspects of our cultural heritage she recovers hidden, yet more peaceful and gender balanced histories. Like many other scholars and writers in this tradition she draws upon the past to inspire toward more humane future.

Our stories are similarly informed by feminist epistemology, more specifically by spiritual eco-feminism. They are also informed by intersectionality – the realization that all systems of oppression are interlinked. We envision equitable and collaborative cultures and societies where all people, living beings and the nature itself are highly valued.

 

There are many other authors and books that inspired us and continue to. Here is a partial list of some of those titles:

  • Positively Mother Goose (Diane Loomans, Karen Kolberg, Julia Loomans)
  • Emergency Skin (N.K. Jemisin)
  • The Hill We Climb (Amanda Gorman)
  • All Along You Were Blooming (Morgan Harper Nichols)
  • Fierce Fairytales (Nikita Gill)
  • Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls (Elena Favilli & Francesca Cavallo)
  • Spin the Dawn (Elizabeth Lim)
  • Cinderella is Dead (Kalynn Bayron)
  • Elatsoe (Darcie Little Badger)
  • Buddha at Bedtime (Dharmachari Nagaraja)
  • Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter (Diane Stanely)