Teaching Civic Artisanship Using Ignatian Pedagogy in Interreligious Contexts

• In Event: TLC at APSA: Tools for Civic Engagement

Abstract

The extensive, well-established Jesuit educational network of schools and higher education institutions draws on St. Ignatius of Loyola. The Jesuit educational mission includes the inculcation of lives of solidarity and service with others. Given the many multireligious, multicultural contexts in which Jesuit institutions are embedded, it is appropriate to explore how the Ignatian “examen,” a set of well-established reflective exercises, can contribute to local problem-solving in interreligious contexts.
This paper introduces a course module, training workshop, and supporting materials for an Ignatian pedagogy of civic artisanship, and describes efforts to implement these in a specific interreligious community context.

Artisanship involves combining diverse materials in creative ways to produce forms with purpose. Drawing on work by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, civic artisanship means creatively identifying and generating complementarities across different individuals and groups to produce shared understandings for governing common areas. The traditional literature on civics focuses on knowledge of formal government process. The growing literature on civic artisanship emphasizes creative skills, but assumes that underlying preferences and culture are fixed. Civic artisanship is usually considered to be difficult in diverse settings where there is cultural and religious distance between social actors. Ignatian exercises in contemplation, imagination, and discernment, particular in regard to the vulnerable and marginalized “other”, offer an unappreciated possibility for improving civic artisanship across religious lines.

It should be noted that the Ignatian approach can be used without requiring that one belong to the Catholic community or Jesuit order. The purpose of such engagement is not for one group to convert another, but to overcome hurdles to collective action between religious communities and thereby addressing shared problems. The paper will summarize the effort to use Ignatian pedagogical techniques to both teach and improve civic artisanship between Muslims and Christians in the context of Cincinnati. Depending on the results, the effort may indicate a path to teaching civic artisanship and local problem-solving in interreligious contexts.

Author

• Anas Malik, Xavier University