Self and Others in Beloved Community: Toward Living With Dissonant Harmony

• In Event: Difficult Dialogues in Uncertain Times: Creating Duoethnographic Spaces and Taking Responsibility as Scholar-Educators

Abstract

In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr[1] spoke about aftermaths of nonviolent oppressive struggles leaving us with a beloved community, where people are seen as the people they want to be seen as; having no discrimination or oppression because of racial, gender, class, or other stereotypes, but communities of people who live in relation with each other and with their differences (hooks, 1996; Lorde, 1979). Our current times of populism, fascism, within a neo-liberal and neo-conservative context are disrupting any hope for a beloved community, and yet, without hope for the potential for a beloved community, what remains? The current trend in political and social situations is polarization and discordance. If we are to live together, with differences, how may we move towards a beloved community?

In this panel presentation, through an unpacking of our Whiteness and privilege, we consider how each of us lives in community with others. As both of us are White Canadian women grounded with/in our own urban communities, with differences, there remain commonalities with relational being with/in community spaces. Connectedness in any given community lies at the heart of relational understandings, and as society becomes more fractured and polarized because of oppression and power, there remains an innate desire to feel connected, to feel belonging, and to help each other, but not overstep contextual and sometimes elusive boundaries of human relations. It is inevitable that we disagree with others in community living. In this piece, we gesture to possibilities in creating moments in community that shift from discordant to dissonant with a kind of harmony that sustains a beloved community. We choose a small facet and particular context of the presenter's community living space in hopes that this potential discomfort felt in past experiences is the beginning of more dialoguing. The presentation moves in four parts: 1) situating ourselves in our living spaces; 2) a dialogic encounter of our experiences in living in community; 3) a discussion of how race matters; and 4) summing up by working toward finding or harmonizing with beloved dissonance in community relations.

In sum, we are in relation with each other - in harmony, dissonant harmony, or discordance (Rudhyar, 1928). We are in concert with each other, with our voices, our energies, our thoughts, our silences. And, we improvise within each community and context anew. In thinking and writing together, duoethnographers create a shared performance space potentially framed around acts of activism and resistance (Norris & Sawyer, 2012). Duoethnographers co-produce a critical consciousness and imagine new possibilities. Both writers and readers enter others’ identities and provoke difficult conversations in order to create a dialogue and contest stagnant politics or beliefs. Discomforting dialogues as well as careful actions intersect with our personal and collective experiences of living and being together.

Authors

• Stacey Bliss, University of Regina

• Teresa Anne Fowler, Concordia University of Edmonton