Chapter 47: The Anthropology of Becoming

We are unfinished works of art. Each choice that we make, each hard decision, orients our becomingness. The words we use to tell our stories and the images that we draw upon to illustrate our lifeworlds are future forming. Opening the door to new generations is also part of the becoming process. Living is a relational project. We are attracted to new relationships and opportunities for collaborating, finding more desirable ways to be together.
 
Autoethnography is part of an integrated conflict resolution continuum. My book has been an invitation to all my relations to meet me in this dialogical space so that we can explore how to go on together, working through the past so that we can pass on a hopeful future.
As we transform relational patterns, we open to new flyways that are revealed as we fly into the horizon with the hope each sunrise brings.
 
Autoethnography is a form of narrative conflict resolution that offers a dialogical space for intrapersonal conflict resolution. Mediatorship is a vessel of transportation that contains multiple levels of methods and practices spanning from the individual to the glocal. Mediatorship is also the connectivity that we experience while writing, connecting to living wisdom that guides and sustains us on our journey home. When we home in to our hearts, the Way is revealed. And our life-o-grams become transformagrams.
 
With bright strokes of color we fill in the outlines of our Selves, sometimes painting over the initial lines. We use the life forms that nature has provided to inspire our portraits. The colors of each season as well as the different shades of diverse landscapes and waterbeds, all provide a palette to paint our lifescape. Here we map the self-world and the story strands in our narratives, asking “What makes a better storyline?”.
 
Depth psychology and liberation psychology that Mary Watkins refers to as psychosocial accompaniment provides an understanding of how we can walk alongside each other in a form of mutual liberation. The Taos Institute provides a series of podcasts that explains social constructionist approaches. And Sarah Cobb develops narrative conflict resolution that is part of the mediatorship continuum. I have included resources that you can access for your own journey of becomingness.
 
There is an important question we can ask. “How can we bring the unfinished into our storytelling?”.
 
“Unfinishedness is a feature as generative to art and knowledge production as it is to living.”
 
Autoethnography allows individuals to transform their stories into works of art, reinforcing the emancipatory process. But what are the ethics framing the production of stories and how can we reinforce the aesthetic aspects of our story mandalas? How can we show up as works of art?

Here is my article about transformative pedagogies:

Here is a link to Unfinished: An anthropology of becoming
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822372455-001/html
 
Here is a link to Mary Watkins website that has videos and interviews explaining her approach to psychosocial accompaniment: https://youtu.be/Onyngjgw4lA
https://www.mary-watkins.net/audio-video/
 
Here is a link to the Taos Institute podcasts on social constructionism: https://www.taosinstitute.net/resources/podcasts
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Here is Sarah Cobb presenting her book-Speaking of Violence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKRTsKL-29I