Hospitality-Plus (?)

Felt it was time to write something here as I proposed this theme back in April 2010 at our first retreat. I also attended the workshop last month on Hospitality that Maurine facilitated. After a year of being involved at GHIC, it is quite clear there is a strong, if not primary, practice of hospitality that is non-controversial in our Center and community. Thus far, I have not seen any theory of hospitality put out within a particular lens or perspective, it is rather an assumed 'place' and 'space' we have as an organization made an agreement about that's implicit and unexamined. I mean, how does one critique wanting to be an organization that practices "hospitality." The issue for me is not the good intention and practice of hospitality. Clearly, we are fairly good at it as I hear people talk about it. Of course, the quality of our organization's hospitality is questionable and open for debate, or at least that is what I assume. Maybe in future workshops Maurine may facilitate a deeper reflection on how hospitality fits as a value in our organization in terms of not only "creating a safe space" (as I often hear) but as a part of a whole set of critical reflective practices (i.e., a theory and practice = praxis).

In such a critical evaluation of praxis for our organization and community, with an emancipatory and evolutionary 'edge' of change and transformation, I'd want us to look at what is the downside (and/or shadow or problematics) of hospitality, especially if we don't have a theory for it to contextualize it with our mission statement and enacting our mission statement. My initial concern in any movement is that in its need to create "safety" first-- a whole lot of dynamics can come in place with that, mostly unintentional-- I call this downside the survivalism pattern and culture of fear. Such patterns when they overly-penetrate an organizational culture inevitably lead to insularity and to cliques of power that are not as inviting of 'difference' as they may think they are. This downside of survivalism is common in activist organizations, which I have been involved with and observed for over 30 years. It can lead to ideology and a blind spot to see the ideology that dominates the good-intentions of the organization and community.

Praxis, derived from the tradition of critical philosophy and theory, is ancient, and provides a rigor to our self-awareness, to our experiential sharing, and to our thinking overall. Not everyone wants to be that aware and rigorous, I understand. It is challenging to live a praxis as an individual and as a collective in an organization or relationship. My research shows that without such praxis, there is an inevitable survivalism (tribalism) and 'protection racquet' that takes over interractions and relationships-- also called a culture of fear/mistrust. However, it can be very very subtle to detect.
My own experience in GHIC is that we have little or no agreed upon praxis but we have an implicit agreed upon practice of hospitality. I'm wondering how and when we are going to inquiry into this relationship further. I look forward to contributing my part in this. -M.