Artur-- I have a friend, Dr. G. Clotaire Rappaille, a French psychotherapist who is a naturalized citizen of the United States, who currently does marketing research designed to discover the archetypal meaning of various things in different countries.
What he finds is that some meaning is cultural, and will vary from country to country. Some meaning is at the level of being human, the traits and feelings we share with other people regardless of culture. Some meaning is biological, common not only to humans but perhaps to mammals and other living things. My guess from this is that to the extent that OST is truly cross-cultural, it calls on the traits that we share as human beings or that we share with other living systems. And of course there is research demonstrating that self-organizing is a characteristic of living systems of many kinds and on many scales. My other guess, responding to John's comments, is that the sponsors and facilitators of OST need to be sensitive to and respectful of cultural dif ferences that may be in the room. I can imagine (and have occasionally observed) that a participant who felt that their culture or person was not valued might find it more difficult to join wholeheartedly in the self-organizing of Open Space. My two cents' worth Joelle * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
