CIIS Public Programs Podcast

Transcript

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. Through our programming, we strive to amplify the voices of those who have historically been under-represented. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.  

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Rachel Bryant: Good evening, everyone. And thank you for joining us this evening. This Cinco de Mayo. I have been looking forward to this conversation Kari. I really have, you have done something really special with this book. It really speaks to our communities and to our hearts. It's very timely and valuable for the times that we're living in. And so, I just appreciate you joining me in conversation. I feel special because this is your first book, and I'm the first person to interview you. How does it feel it's out there now?  

Kari Grain: [laughs] Oh, thank you. It feels, it kind of feels like this very calm moment because it's so much. It's been so much lead-up to it and now and now it's here and I can actually talk to people about this. So, I want to thank you. 

Rachel: Yeah, that's right. And so, I want to start at the very beginning of the book when I read a book and I want to show you that I've eaten this book like a piece of chocolate cake. It is so delicious. The first thing I look at is the dedication, because I think in the dedication, you can sometimes learn something personal about the author and you dedicate this book to your grandma, your maternal Grandma Besta, right? [Kari: Yeah.] And you thank her and all the elders who have shared their wisdom, but also remain open for our possibilities for the future. And I wanted to ask you why you dedicated this book to your grandma Besta? I'm curious what your relationship was like or how she inspired you in this work?  

Kari: Yeah, I love that you opened with that question actually. I had the opportunity when I was, I guess 19. It was the first time I had moved away from home, and I ended up moving into the same apartment building for university as my grandparents lived in. And so, I would go up every morning and have breakfast with my grandma and Grandma and Grandpa who were called Besta and Papa. And I remember, I think I just had this distinct understanding that she, even though she was old, and she's still alive. She's 101 now. [Rachel: Wow.] She is not set in her ways, she has retained this open-mindedness to making the world better. And I remember there was one thing she did to preserve. She was trying not to produce so much garbage, and I remember thinking like, wow, and she said, she told me that she had just started that practice the week before, that she was trying to produce less garbage. And I thought, wow, at this age. She's forming new habits, even though she won't be around to see the world that she helps to create. So, [Rachel: Amazing.] I think that's why I was inspired. Yeah, and, I talk a lot about vibrancy in this book and she is the epitome of vibrancy, even now at 101.  

Rachel: Is she with us tonight? [Kari: I don't think she's online, no I don’t think so.] Oh. Anyway, big love to Besta. Thank you for inspiring your granddaughter and certainly, a lot of that goodness was passed down to you. You put this book out into the world. And why now? Why this topic and why now?  

Kari: Oh, that's such a big question. I think there are a couple of different ways. I could answer it. The first, the first way I think has to do with just so many global events that have been unfolding not only in the past couple of years while I've been writing the book, but when I first started exploring the idea of critical hope during my PhD. Lots of headlines about systemic racism and mass gun violence. And now, you know, with climate crises and there's so much to be- to feel hopeless about. And I think I, when I found this concept of critical hope which was coined by Paulo Freire. I feel like I found something that could grapple with all of those truths and still in a genuine way try to form a vision of a future that could be better. And I think sometimes I didn't always connect to notions of hope that were about- that were rooted in like toxic positivity or privilege or like a naive understanding of hope. So, I think for me critical hope was that thing that I wanted to explore.  

And then from a more personal stance, I began, I literally signed the contract to write this book with my publisher when I was having a miscarriage. I was at the end, it was day seven of my miscarriage. And I think that the emptiness and deep sadness from which I started writing this book made it better. I think had I begun this book from a place of really feeling like, doe eyed and hopeful and happy about the world. It might have been somehow disingenuous because I was like this empty receptacle that I needed to fill with understandings of hope and grappling with some of the grief and anger and regret that comes through struggle. And yeah, so in a way it was the thing that I created instead of what I had thought I was going to create. So, for me it has a deeply personal kind of connection as well. 

Rachel: And that is so clear when you read this book and I think it's what makes it so special that you are able to share from your lived experience. And we'll get into that much more as we go through the book in such a powerful, authentic, and real way. So, you immediately connect with you and also, you're a scholar, you're an academic. It's very well-researched. So, there's this balance in the book between personal story, not just yours, but community members and you know, deep scholarly research. So, I appreciated that. [Kari: Thank you.] The other quality that I appreciate about you as an author is that you are a word girl, [Kari laughs] you are into the etymology of words and you talk about the difference between like critical and hope and praxis and practice and grapple and all throughout the book you make it very clear what you're speaking about and give a refreshed I think definition of some of these concepts so why don't we start there, and you tell us what critical hope is?  

Kari: Sure. Oh, you know, it's funny. This is the first interview I'm having about this book and every time I've come across somebody that says what is your book about? I thought I need to practice this more, but I think critical hope as a concept. It is an approach to hope that is rooted in action and is concerned with systemic change, and I like to- in the opening few pages of the book. I wanted some somehow like a human entry point to what is critical hope from my perspective and what I came up with was it I think I'd always been told that you have, you’re either hopeful and that makes you naive or you are critically aware of a lot of injustices and suffering in the world and that may somehow makes you cynical. And I feel like I was constantly being told to choose which role I was going to play. Are you this person or this person? You can't be both. And when I found critical hope and started exploring it and building out, building it out in ways I wanted to build it out. I think I discovered this space. I describe it as like the meadow where two seekers meet and become one. And, and for me, there was, there was a little bit of peacefulness in the ten- in allowing the tension between these two different characters to play out. But then to recognize that it's not just about two characters, it’s about like once they are, you know, wrestling or grappling with one another or making love. They form all of these new possibilities and these new understandings of how we can view the world. And it was like for me, I don't have to listen to what other people have, you know, in academia that you have to be this one thing or elsewhere that you have to be another. It was like this lets me be who I am. This allows me to hold my multiple beings in the same framework. So, for me, that's what critical hope is.  

Rachel: Hmm… I think it's a message that we need right now with everything that is transforming in the world, like these are critically transformative, auspicious, desperate times, you know, we’re holding all of that complexity. And I think that the message that you bring in the book helps people move through that difficult space and to even acknowledge that it's difficult. Like throughout the book, you acknowledge the marriage or the coming together of those lovers, right of critical and hope so it doesn't erase. And so, what would you say is the opposite of critical hope because as you just said, like people think of hope is sunny-side up and it has to be either or and so how would you frame the opposite of critical hope? What would that be?  

Kari: I don't know the answer to that fully, my mind immediately went to toxic positivity. [Rachel: Uh-huh. Say more.] Well, you know, I think of, I think of some of these Instagram influencers that I have seen online, and they say, I just manifested the life I wanted to live and here it is. And you know, there is this idea that if you just dream it, it will become. And I think that's a, I do agree that imagining an amazing outcome is a really important part of achieving that reality, and I don't think you can deny that, but often what toxic positivity or naive forms of hope don't take up is how you can't untether the ability to manifest something. A positive outcome for example. You can’t untether that from systemic inequality. You can't untether it from the society in which a person lives or the body that they inhabit, and how society values or doesn't value that body. So I do think that critical hope is a little bit of a of a talk back to toxic positivity and I think it actually holds space for not only the, Paulo Freire would call it the politicity of hopefulness, but the fact that it has the characteristic of being political but also it holds space for grief and anger at injustices, and, you know, some of the you know guilt that some people might feel as they walk through the world. I think there's space. There's space, you and I were talking before we started tonight about the feeling of spaciousness and that's how I imagine critical hope as well.  

Rachel: Yeah, at some point in the book. I have a note here that you also said that critical hope can be put down and returned to again. And what did you mean by that? I thought that was really powerful.  

Kari: Well. I think that it's necessary, you know, for each individual to understand that critical hope doesn't ask you to be hopeful all the time. [Rachel: Mhm.] Critical hope doesn't demand this consistent perpetual relationship because it is just that, it's a relationship that moves that changes depending on what's happening in your life and what's happening in the society around you, the world around you. So, I think in that way, it's a practice and it is something that we are allowed, you know, if hope is not, if hopefulness is not something that serves us in that moment. And I've been through, you know, moments of despair. And I've been alongside people who have as well, and you can't tell them to just be hopeful. That's, that's completely, its tone deaf, and it is not realistic sometimes. When people are tired or they've experienced incredible loss, you know, and so I think that critical hope really does. There is a sturdiness and it because it's all there for you to pick back up when you're ready.  

Rachel: Thank you. And I, you know, there were times of this book, just took my breath away, Kari. I had to put it down and I had to just let the power of some of the stories that you tell including your own sink in and I could feel it working on me. Right? I can feel myself examining myself, examining the conditions that I'm in and I really want the heart of this conversation to be about your journey as a young woman in Africa, and examining how you're experiencing experiences there, inspired parts of this book where you examined your power and privilege. And then you bring this other story in of a colleague named Aisha. A Somali activist in Canada with you and just the contrast of those two were so profound for me.  

So, let's start with you, right, you're this 20-year-old and you decide that you're going to save your nickels from waitressing. And you are going to go. Did you go to Uganda first? [Kari: No, I started in Ghana, Ghana is where I got my first introduction to. Yeah.] Right. So, you decide, I'm going to save my nickels and I'm going to pack my bag and I'm going to go to Ghana and what? What was your vision as a 20-year-old?  

Kari: So as a 20-year-old and I went, I was working with another server, we worked at this pub with like cheap wing night, and we saved our money for months and months and I just remember thinking I'm going to, I am a kind person and I am going to go do a kind thing, which is to volunteer in Africa. And in my mind at that time, Africa was one big place, you know, I had, I had read these very romanticized versions of what that place of Africa was. And, you know, it doesn't. I think you can speak to a lot of people who go with these intentions that are quite naive and I think many people will tell you something similar, but I'll tell you how, I felt, which was I arrived in this rural village in, in Ghana called Adura and I was there to volunteer in an elementary school, and I don't know if I had thought about it, but I did not speak the language when I arrived, shocking I know. [Rachel: Kind of important right?] Yeah, right. And if you're going to be teaching children, so, you know, I'm there and, there are local teachers, who speak the language, who know the children and their families who are experts in the curriculum. And you know, I have since then thought how the heck and why the heck would anybody let me, 20 year old me, show up and think that I had anything to offer in this space and it was an important moment for me to start, it was a bit of a slap to figure out like I have to do some unpacking of my own and it wasn't just the unpacking that happened in that moment. It's been decades, you know, in the- of that reflection of what it means to be a white person and the privilege that that carries in those spaces, but also to have a Canadian passport to have the socioeconomic status to be able to leave if things get hard. There's so much to that. Yeah. 

Rachel: Yes, there is, you know, this story unfolds and I like the detail that you gave that even before you left Canada, as you were sharing with your community that you were going to Africa, that people were giving you donations and money for your trip and you really go deep into your condition, your conditioning, rather as a female bodied person like, to be this nice girl, and a do-gooder and all of that and that part of your conditioning that you later reflected on, and grew and release some of that. So, how did it go for you when you started working with these children?  

Kari: Well, I very quickly realized that I was just going to defer to the local teachers because I was really just on the sidelines as it should have been. But in that section you're referring to, I think I called it “Complexifying Kindness.” But so much of what I had come to expect of that experience came from just the social accolades of being the person- and now it is a lot more common for people to go, do volunteer work abroad, but at the time, I knew very few people who were going to East or West Africa to do this type of thing. And boy, did I get, I got a lot of extra tips for it when I was serving, I got just lots of pats on the back. It was, it was very affirming.  

And I think that, you know, in the time since then, the part, the complexifying kindness thing. It is examining, am I doing this for them, or am I doing this for me? Because in hindsight, I was very much doing it for me. I was doing it to feel good about myself to feel like I was worthy to feel like I had something to offer. Because if I didn't have anything to offer really at the time in Canada, then understandably, I also don't have anything to offer in a Ghanain context, right? So, I think sometimes we, we really, and when I say we, I think, I just mean, privileged westerners. We overshoot what we think we have. And I think a lot now, I educate students, you know, run courses and pre-service sessions on unpacking your privilege before you go on these types of excursions and really thinking about, how are you going to be led by the people who live there? How are you going to really all the way through even when you're being treated with tremendous privilege, how are you going to consistently return and interrogate that every night even when, for example, white supremacy is living through the people that you're encountering in that space? So yeah, it's an ongoing journey and it's something that needs to be consistently returned to over and over.  

Rachel: And you describe some of the impact that first visit when you didn't have the right mindset and you brought gifts and the issues that caused in the community like the kids fought over the toys, the toys ended up at the market because what they really need maybe was food or some other good versus a toy and just say more about like the impact that that has in communities, when you aren't really coming in, working alongside the leaders in the community and clear about what you're bringing to the table.  

Kari: There are so many examples of, I think, one of the really important parts that, I did my PhD dissertation on something similar to this topic, but one of the important parts is the fabric of a community change, when outsiders come in, regardless of who those outsiders are, the fabric of the community, it shifts and moves. And then there are all sorts of impacts that you might not even recognize so you can, you know, I use the example of that My Little Pony that someone had given me, like, oh, will you give this to someone on your trip? Like someone in the community where you're going, it was like, sure. And I gave it to this little girl. Well, that, you know, it created this fight amongst the children, the little girl ran away crying because someone else took it. And then, you know, who knows what else happened after that moment for me to be able to see it at the market, the next day, right? For sale. Because that wasn't, it was something that was coveted, but it was not something that has value. It was coveted, but it didn't have value. And here, I was an outsider, bringing this thing and I think the material, like the symbol of that pony. I think we can look at ourselves when we place ourselves as people into a community. We can have those same impacts without realizing it. And so, thoughtfulness is a, thoughtfulness about what the long-term impacts could be of our presence somewhere is so important. But also, I can't stress enough how vital it is in these excursions to just have local community leaders who are the ones who lead it and also who decide they are the gatekeepers of their own community. If they want you there, they ought to have the right to say yes, and no.  

And one of the things I do in the engaged research work is we talk about the ethics of working in and with community and sometimes community has in place certain communities actually put in place their own paperwork, that outsiders need to go through before they can work with them or their own ethics checklist of what others need to be doing before they encounter them in a, in a stage of research or for learning purposes. And I just think all of that is so important to consider when we, when we are at that, really, what can be a beautiful juncture between cultures, between different levels of privilege and socioeconomic status. It can be beautiful, and it can be very harmful and I think there's, to discount either of those would be to not take up the complexity of it.  

Rachel: There's just this natural curiosity between people and there is value with that if you have the right heart and mind. And you kept going back to Africa. So, tell us about like all of the countries that you visited. And I think this was part of your dissertation research, and then we'll get to the big ending in Africa, but you didn't stop there as a twenty-year-old. You kept going back.  

Kari: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I kept going back. I think I've gone about six times for, you know, times between one month to six months at a time. [Rachel: And different countries.] Yeah, I was going to say Africa is a big place and I spent more of my, even though that first time was in Ghana I also backpacked on a very shoestring budget, through I think it was like 9 or 10 Countries in East Africa. And I won't name them all, because I think the important part is that what I got from returning over and over what I started to develop a sense of community, particularly in the area of Rwanda and Uganda, and that's where I did, my master's, and my PhD research, but I sometimes feel uncomfortable with like, framing my story in relation to Africa. Because I just think it's like this overused trope of, [Rachel: Right.]  Of like what nice Western white girls do in order to feel good about themselves, and I hate to sound like cynical when I say that. But I think that it's like one part of the story. But if anything, my experiences in East Africa have been the educator of me, they have educated me through those processes and I believe in ways that have made me a lot more humble and a lot more focused on the work that I can do here in Canada where I do know the language, where I do- [Rachel: Yes] where I have something I can, I feel that I can offer, to the community around me.  

Rachel: Right and we don't, we don't have to look far right, for that, for places to do work in our communities. [Kari: Exactly.] However, I would like to fast forward now to your Coyolxauhqui Imperative moment. And that's a term coined by Anzaldua and maybe we should start by just explaining to folks who don't know the story of Coyolxauhqui. Would you like to tell it, or would you like…?  

Kari: Sure. Yeah, no I am- So, in the book I talk, I have a section called “Fracture” and [Rachel: Yes.] I won't go into explaining like the broader context of that. But so, Gloria Anzaldua was a queer Chicana feminist who was prolific and wrote about the Coyolxauhqui imperative and Coyolxauhqui was, in the Aztec religion, was the goddess of the moon and the stars, and the way that she became that, that goddess I suppose, it was she was violently dismembered and chopped up and thrown up into the night sky. And her head became the moon, and the parts of her body became the stars. And I think Gloria Anzaldua unpacks the violence that that she endured but also the healing that, so the Coyolxauhqui imperative is the healing that happens as we remember ourselves and start to try to pull the pieces, the broken and shattered pieces of ourselves back together, but I think what really strikes me about that story, certainly in the context of my own experience, was that you don't pull yourself back together by making it the same thing again, you can never be the same small thing that you were. And the way that you pull yourself together again is to step back and expand your purview of the entire picture. And suddenly all those spaces between the darkness and the spaces between the broken pieces of ourselves become such an important part of what makes us big and what makes us expansive. And I was just so inspired by Gloria Anzaldua’s work and I kind of built it out or built it into this concept within the fracture section.  

Rachel: Yeah, you mentioned her throughout the book, actually, and I really [Kari: Yeah.] appreciated that, a lot of people are familiar with her work. In that section “Fracture” you also say that fracture is the fastest catalyst, you know, event to hope or the Coyolxauhqui imperative, right? And you had one of those moments while you were on a trip to Africa and that was one of the parts of the books that just took my breath away. One that your story is so powerful, but two, that you told it the way that you did, you could tell that you had really sat with and had that embodied inquiry. Something else that you talk about in the book through your experience, and it transformed itself into something bigger and eventually this book that we're talking about today. So, can you talk about your personal fracture that was a huge catalyst [Kari: Sure, yeah.] for more embodied wisdom, for more critical hope in your life?  

Kari: Yeah. Absolutely. I am. So I was, I had finished quite a few months of fieldwork in the village where I had been doing, conducting my doctoral research and this is in 2017. And I was on the home stretch. My flight out of Uganda was about three days later and I felt a familiar something in my body, some kind of an aching, and I had had malaria a couple of times already on previous trips. So, I knew what it felt like. I went to the doctor that day and it was confirmed that I did have malaria, but I also had an E.coli infection. And so, I came back to the hostel where I was staying and I was in the restaurant, just trying to eat a little bit of food and I felt, I just felt my chest, like, my, my heart just stopped beating. And I just remember, looking down at my chest and thinking why is this happening? And it turned into just sheer panic. And I genuinely felt like I was dying all of a sudden and my very first thought was I have to get out of this. It was like just an outdoor restaurant of the hostel where I was staying and my thought was, I have to get out of here and away from people.  

And that was the last thing I remember was that intention and what happened in that moment according to others who saw it was that I stood up very quickly to try to run out of the restaurant, but I lost consciousness once I stood up and I fell, I fainted on a tile floor and I on the way down. I hit my chin on a bench and then on the tile floor and I ended up breaking my jaw in multiple places. I split it right in half here and the skin that had opened up all the way down to the bone. And then I broke here and here, and I broke a bunch of my teeth when they smashed together and somehow, I managed to break my hands in multiple places because I fell on top of my hands. But you know, I don't remember that particular fall because I was having this intensely [Rachel: Yes.] just spiritual experience where I was being welcomed home. It just, I sometimes am reluctant to get into this conversation because it was, it's just my experience. And what I felt was a complete and utter euphoria, and it was beautiful and it was, there was sounds of whispering like excited whispering and it was just like I was sinking into this whirlpool of love. There’s no other way to describe it. I was in a whirlpool of love and everyone I had ever known, there weren't people but there was the feeling of everyone I've ever loved.  

And then something changed, like the floating feeling shifted. And I was just pushed up and then I just remember feeling like I came into my body and there I was. aI was, I was on the floor in a hostel and Uganda, and there were, you know, dozens of people gathered around me, looking very worried and I just remember my mouth was full of blood, and I thought I had rocks in my teeth. Like, but they were my broken teeth that were in my mouth, and people are yelling and saying she's been sick. And, yeah, I mean, I mean, imprinted itself on me, you know, the longer-term reflection on this has been that, you know, you can't expect to go places and without being imprinted upon and I think in many ways that there was something to learn from this. And I had the, you know, I was in a position where the university I was attending gave me, you know, was sending funds so that I could be supported to get out of the country. I knew a doctor in the country who was willing to fly home with me. There were so many levels of privilege that came into being so that I could get to safety and it's something that I have unpacked a lot.  

But at the same time, my Ugandan community partner, Danahimasibwe, he came from the village immediately and he was at my bedside immediately in the hospital in Uganda. And it gave him, I think, an opportunity to truly care for me and take care of me in such a way where I was very vulnerable and broken. And I think that that dynamic really created a closeness with us as well. There's a lot I could say about it.  

Rachel: Yeah. Are you still in contact with him?  

Kari: Yeah, I actually just sent a copy of the book to him. He got the first one.  

Rachel: Oh, wow. Yeah, you know, then you go on to talk about Kari, your healing journey, right? And I think that's where the book really begins and that's where critical hope and this idea that fracture like births new possibilities that it was your doctor. I really appreciated the brief chapter or just section about how your doctor, this trained surgeon who was very matter-of-fact about it, right? [Kari: Yeah.] That putting you back together and you endured a lot. A lot of surgeries, a lot of suffering to be put back together and he was the one I think that sort of planted that idea that the expectation is not to go back to whatever it was before. And in that moment, I or in that experience that's when you had your Coyolxauhqui moment, right? When you became the moon and the stars and new possibilities opened for you, in your life. And that part of the book was so powerful. [Kari: Thank you.] Yeah, I want to shift it a little bit though. Yeah, go ahead and finish, you had a closing remark just about that moment for you.  

Kari: I think it was just a really important part of my PhD research, you know, like, I remember thinking this is somehow data that I needed to learn and integrate into my dissertation because this didn't happen for no reason. It happened during like when I was collecting fieldwork data about global engagement and education and inequality. So, what do I have to learn about those things from this experience? And it did become part of my data set.  

Rachel: You also have talked about the body being a data set. Like our lived experiences, our embodiment is a data set and certainly you became part of your own research, which is powerful in that way. And then not everyone has the same experiences though, with hopefulness, right? This turned into the moon and stars for you, and you went on, you’re a professor, your career launch, you've written a book. And a turning point is when you start talking about the way that not everyone experiences hope in the same way and you tell the story of Aisha Dahir, a Somali Canadian activist who really talks about the enormous amount of grief and anger that she holds and it's not exactly hopelessness. But it's like I can't even get to that because I'm so busy surviving. I'm so busy taking care of my community, like really doing the critical work there in Canada, with immigrant communities who are having all sorts of challenges and also returning home to Somalia after many years and seeing how it had changed. And so, I want you to talk about that some more through Aisha’s story. Like how not everyone has access or the privilege to have an… [Kari: An outcome.] Yes, an outcome, an outcome from their Coyolxauhqui imperative. Some people live for long periods dismembered traumatized. Right?  

Kari: Right, yeah. When I was thinking about the people in my life who inspired me and inspired the work of this book, Aisha is someone who came to mind, and I reached out to her and she said, Kari, I will, I will absolutely talk to you for this book, but I have to tell you, I don't really feel very hopeful and I don't know if you want to hear what I have to say about how I feel about hope. And I thought absolutely that like that is the not feeling hopefulness is part of critical hope. Because what Aisha brought to the forefront was that, you know, she's at the intersection of so many different identity markers that she really felt made her just one thing after another, you know, being a Somali Canadian, being a woman, being a visible Muslim.  

So, she just talked about, she kept returning to feeling tired. And just so tired, that if there is a hopefulness for her. It is not a hopefulness that things will get better for everyone like her. It's just that maybe I can improve a little bit of my life and it would just be for me and myself and I can leverage some of the privilege I have being in Canada and make my life a little bit better, but it doesn't carry through, she said, to everyone in her community. So, there's a hopelessness in that when she feels like she can't make things better for all of her people.  

And I think another thing she talked about in our conversations was just, you know, she also brought up the experience of going to and in her case, Somalia, with these naive intentions, or as she described them like these intentions that she didn't realize had been socialized into her. About being a Western savior character, even for her as a Somali woman. It had been quite a while since she had been back, but she did unpack, you know how those ideas that she was so good at critiquing, that she didn't even realize that she had started to embody that like savior mentality as well. So, I think it provides a really interesting juxtaposition to some of the other narratives in the book.  

Rachel: Mhm. Hmm. Those two stories were really the ones that I think and for any reader and I hope all of you get the book and read it. It is very timely for the world we're living in today. I began. That's why I had to put it down. I began to think about the ways that I maybe have had a savior complex working in community mental health, being exhausted, much like Aisha. How do you say her name? Aisha? Is it Aisha? [Kari: Aisha] Aisha, Aisha. Much like Aisha, I really identify with Aisha, and this idea that you could have a little bit of hope for yourself, but when you know that your community and the world is suffering in the way that it is like, it's just like a candlelight versus the stars and the moon, right?  

So, in the times we're living, we're in a pandemic. We have a war raging and they're always wars, you know, people are still dying from police violence. There's Asian hate, we could go on and on about all the reasons to be hopeless, right? How can we use, and you outlined some of the steps, in how we can use critical hope as a practice? And you delineate that from being a praxis and being a practice and so, I would like for you to talk a little bit about how we practice critical hope not just for ourselves, but for the world that we're living in right now, and why it's so important to hold it the way that Besta does. That's why I'm glad we started with your grandma. Right? All of that wisdom that life has given us through our experiences and still having hope, and staying fresh for the future that we're co-creating.  

Kari: Yeah. Well, I think the number one thing I would say is that it's different for everybody. If I learned anything through talking to all these inspiring people in my book. It's that everyone holds fast to something different. You know, I was just talking today to the Vaughn family, Jared and Ashley, who have a daughter who has a lot of severe disabilities and much of their life has been doing advocacy work for her and for other children with disabilities. And for them, that comes, you know, the strength and the critical hope that they practice comes from their faith, from their Christian faith and their faith in God to hold them and carry them through a lot of that. And that's just one story. I, you know, my friend Sheila talks about, you know, she's a Muslim woman and she talks about raising children and these intentional ways and the idea of Vicegerency, and really being stewards of the Earth. And teaching her small children about caring for the planet from such a young age. And she's a stay-at-home mom who has such an important job of planting these seeds of care in our youngest generation, you know, and I suppose one of the messages that came through to me through writing this book was that everybody has a role to play. You just have to look around at how are you a leader in your life? Everybody's a leader in their own life in some way. Somebody looks up to you. Whether it's in a workplace, in your family, in your friend group. And so how can you leverage that and cultivate and practice critical hope in ways that are genuine to who you are? And I know that I talk about, we had promised to talk about the seven principles of critical hope and we're almost at a full hour and we haven't talked about the principles, but they're- [Rachel: Well, we can outline them.] Yeah, I'm happy to outline them.  

So, the first principle is that hope is necessary but alone, it's not enough. And that just really comes from Paulo Freire’s original conception of critical hope, but also critical hope isn't something you have to have. It’s something you practice. And the inspiration from this actually came from Ashley Vaughn who I was talking to, and she said you know I couldn't do this without, it's not something I have because you can lose it, if you have it. It's something you do. It's something you wake up and choose to do every day and some days. You don't choose to do it. Some days you come back to it later.  

So, the third one is that critical hope is messy, uncomfortable, and full of contradictions. [Rachel: Yes! That's the one I hope you rest on a little bit here and talk more about] Well, for me, it's it. It is not a comfortable space to live in this place of tension all the time. Of constantly thinking about the possibilities of what could be in the same space, as the realities of what is, what are, what is actually happening and what is likely to continue happening. If we're honest with ourselves, but it's kind of like this, this discomfort of potentially all our efforts might not amount to anything, but it doesn't mean you can stop trying and the messy part, and the full of contradictions. I remember being asked during my graduate work to identify my theoretical framework. And I remember thinking what the heck is a theoretical framework? And I was supposed to choose, like, one way of looking at the world and I thought, well, I can't just choose one. There's so many beautiful things but oh, but you have to choose because this contradicts with that and I think that maybe part of the reason I love critical hope is because it holds that things are complex. And there are multiple truths that coexist in the same space, and it is not comfortable to accept that, but it's what it is. So, I think that that contradictory understanding of critical hope is pretty important.  

Rachel: It is, and you bring it together so beautifully in the book. You do. [Kari: Thank you.] So, then number four, critical hope is intimately entangled with the body and the land.  

Kari: Yeah. Yeah. I want to, speaking of the land, you did a beautiful land acknowledgement before we started. And I want to mention that I'm coming to you from the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam Squamish and Tsleil-waututh peoples. And I know Cinco de Mayo is a day of celebration for many folks, and May 5th is also a really important Day in Canada because we are, it's called Red Dress Day. And we today think about and memorialize all of them missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. So, for me, this is like something I have continuously thought about throughout this book is how am I always paying attention not only to the land, but to the connections that land has to people and communities and what it means to steal land from people and the impacts, the multi-generational impact that that can have. And so, I'm wearing a red dress today in honor of Red Dress Day for that reason, so, I'm glad that you asked me about that one.  

Rachel: And thank you for sharing that I think I have some homework to do about Red Dress Day. And certainly, we could all educate ourselves more and support the movement to stop the violence against Indigenous women who are missing and murdered at incredible rates in the United States, and I'm learning from you, also in Canada. And I think that's a place that all of us can put some critical hope energy toward. [Kari: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you.] Yeah. If we just go down the line here, I don't know that we need to go through all of them. We sort of touched on anger and grief have a seat at the table. People are angry and grieving right now. So how as a society can we grapple with critical hope when, like Aisha, like there is so much despair?  

Kari: Mhm. Well, first off, I don't have an answer to any of this. I want to make it clear that I am not an expert here. But yeah, you know, anger and grief have a seat at the table. I worded it that way because it is the spirit of hospitality. It's not just tolerating the existence of, you know, this concept of tolerance is, it's not good enough. Because instead, there needs to be some understanding that if we treat things like anger and grief with a sense of hospitality, we stand to learn so much more from them. If we sit at the table with them, if we treat them as equals, if we really stopped to consider what they're teaching us in that moment.  

And I think, you know, I talked about Rumi's poetry. I opened the book with a quote from Rumi. But also, he has this poem called Love as a Guest House. And he talks about how, you know, emotions move through our move through our house and, and, and you leave the, you know, you leave the door open, and you invite them in and you spend time with them and they will eventually leave, it's this idea of impermanence. But, you know, also to acknowledge that some people have those visitors a lot more often and I think, you can't detract from that as well.  

Rachel: Mhm, listening to you made me think of the metaphor of the Billie Holiday song, you know, good morning heartache, sit down right? [Kari: Yeah.] And I think there's a lot of power in that and certainly healing comes to being able to name and have your feelings, right? So, this invitation, like I see you, I see you depression. I suffer from depression sometimes, I can see it coming around the corner, I can see it, I can say, okay, sit down at the table, but you can't stay, right? I see you're here now, but you can't stay. Don't make yourself at home. And that's when the work begins. The healing work begins to recover. [Kari: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.] Yeah. 

Well, how do you end the book? I know that you touch on a chapter with neurobiology, which is very interesting. And you, in the conclusion, I love that you start with this line, beautiful writing, “there's mysticism in the future…” and so, you said “the past and present leave material evidence, signs that cultivate a sense of knowing about the world, but the future is lacking any sort of evidence in the way that the Western ways of knowing like to know things.” Can you expand upon that?  

Kari: Well, I think that one of the reasons I've been so drawn to thinking about or studying hope, is that it is a future-oriented, whether you want to call it an emotion or feeling like it's so future-oriented. So, we have so much evidence of the past in, you know, in the form of fossils in the form of books that people have left, in the form of oral histories. We have so much evidence of the past, and we have a lot of evidence of the present. We, you know, I talk in the book about like tongue kisses and having you know and having your toes in the mud and like we have constant reminders of what it is to be like the evidence of being alive right now. I can put my finger here and feel my heartbeat.  

But what, you know, what do we have? What evidence do we have of the future? I can't think of any evidence that we have other than our own imaginations. And other than what we actively construct and project that will happen in the future. And so, I think that's part of the reason critical hope is so important, both for people's, Paulo Freire calls it, the ontological need that people have. So, it's part of our being that we need hopefulness to be in the world, but also from a material perspective to be able to change systems that cause suffering to be able to change systemic inequality. We have to have a vision, an affirmative vision. Critique is important, and we have to understand what's not working. But we have to have that affirmative vision of what we do now. How do we change it? And what makes it better? So, yeah, I know. I see that we're out of time, but I wanted to just close with that.  

Rachel: Thank you. Well, Kari, your book is a gift. A gift to all of us. And something I will return to again and again. And I think that- if there are any other educators online, I think it’s very appropriate for the classroom, I think there's a lot here to have critical dialogue with your students and a lot of learning. And I want to read it again already, there’s just these- I want to quote you actually. There were things that I underlined, and I’m like I just want to put that on my email like…at the end of my email, I don’t do that kind of thing! [Kari laughs] But some of the ways, some of your words were so beautifully written and inspiring and I wish you all the success with this book. I hope that people get a copy right away and find your joy in it. Is there anything else you’d like to say to our audience today? 
 
Kari: No, I just so appreciate this opportunity to talk with you and this really, this is my first time talking publicly about something that I put a couple of years of heart and soul into so, it’s a gift for me as much as it’s a gift for you, you as you mentioned, but I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you.  
 
Rachel: Thank you so much.  
 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Jason McArthur, and Patty Pforte. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.  

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