KC Bookclub: Holding Space for Difficult Conversations
The cover of Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World
A few months ago our friend, Katharina Brinschwitz, recommended that Koné Consulting reads Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World by Dr. Anu Taranath. The book uses engaging personal travel stories and thought-provoking questions about the ethics and politics of travel, and provides advice on how to grapple with discomfort and navigate differences through accountability and connection. Katharina had read it as course material for Global Scholars, a study abroad program with the University of Washington Bothell.
Once a month, some of us from the KC Team discuss one or two chapters at a time with a few participants from our last Travel With Purpose tour. This book has helped both the KC Team and the participants create a safe space to recollect and talk about our individual moments of discomfort traveling through Côte d'Ivoire.
Dr. Taranath explains that while traveling abroad can provide much-needed perspective, it can also be deeply unsettling, confusing, and discomforting. As westerners, we can be naturally curious about different people and cultures, especially with low income countries. These racial and cultural differences can even be the primary motive to travel but they can still leave the western traveler to be unsure about their own feelings and place in the world. Dr. Taranath uses personal stories and thought provoking questions to help westerners navigate their place as visitors in different cultures.
This will be a first in a series featuring indivdual team member and past participant reactions and responses to the book, either on a chapter basis or entire book themes. We would like to normalize holding space for uncomfortable and difficult conversations about race and identity, and by sharing our own thoughts we hope to encourage others to do the same!
As we move our tour to Côte d’Ivoire to July of 2022, we are also encouraging anyone interested in traveling with us to read Beyond Guilt Trips and begin learning how to create safer spaces to process discomfort and other emotions that may come while experiencing a new culture.
- Isaac
Koné Consulting
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