Workshop 4
Attention, desire and Narrative approaches to working with those who use violence
There appears to be much space for violence in the world. Violence tends to separate and polarize, it simplifies reality taking with it a rich language to name subdelty, complexity and nuance. When conflict, which lets us recognize difference, is named as violence, it creates confusion that only serves those in power. Dominant understandings of violence tend to naturalize it, or essentialize it, this makes it difficult to recognize how the context in which actions are taken determine violence.
In this workshop we are going to reflect on the stories that are used to legitimate the use of violence. We will talk about the difference between sex, gender and sexuality and how these concepts are understood from a colonialist/patriarchal perspective, we will see how queer theory can destabilize what is assumed to be stable dichotomies . We will explore the difference between conflict and abuse, and the risks involved in confusing one with the other. We will expose some stories we have about attention and how they influence the relationship we have with desire. We will practice ways of inviting people who have used violence against others to engage in their ability to respond to the effects of what they have done, response-ability as a way to reconnect with dignity and preferred ways of being in the world.
Facilitated by Alfonso Diaz
Alfonso Díaz is the founder of the Colectivo de Prácticas Narrativas. He works as a therapist, teacher and community worker. In his community work Alfonso has collaboratively developed projects to promote autonomy, land and water defense, as well as projects to respond to gender and State violence. As a teacher he created and coordinates the International Diploma in Narrative Practice, the Masters in Narrative Practice in Community Work and Education, the Masters in Narrative Therapy, and in collaboration with Itziar Urquiola the Masters in Narrative therapy and Communality. Alfonso coordinates the therapy team for the Colectivo de Prácticas Narrativas where marginalized communities can have therapeutic conversations pro bono. This team explores how therapeutic conversations can contribute to organizing that contributes to challenging the structures that maintain structural inequality. He has worked with different organizations like National Geographic Society, the MoMa in New York, the Campamento Audiovisual Itinerante in Oaxaca and Otrxs Dreamers en Acción, among others. He has also participated in artistic Residencies like el Canto de la Yerba Bruja in Acatitlán, Mexico and the performance residency Rencontre in the Island of Base-Terre in Guadeloupe. He finds ways to weave what he learns from cooking, fermentation, taking care of chickens and walking in the forest where he lives into his work.
