Dear Sambiase, dear Mayke I have been working in the development cooperation field in Africa for several years now and I agree fully with Maykes impression, that there is usually a collusion between northern "development experts" and southern participants, that the northerners should and do know the answers, whereas those from the south are happy to get them, without activating their own expertise.
But I disagree with Sambiase, that it is a good strategy, to start this way and then change to OS. Doing so shows you as the northerner as supporting both concepts and therefore producing confusion. My experience is, that african people without os experience start with such an expectation, of course. But northerners without os experience also: they expect the expert to bring answers and solutions. But after the introduction to OST, the collection of the themes and the market these expectations have dissipated, and I very rarely met the type of confusion you are relating. So I prefer doing OS right away from the beginning Bernd On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 08:45:01 -0300, Luiz Sambiase wrote: Hi Mayke Excellent. This strategy may be applicable to communities in my country as well. ( Brasil) Luiz ----- Original Message ----- From: Mayke Wagner, essence To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 5:47 AM Subject: sharing my first OS experience The first day of the conference was "traditional" with one expert in front and everyone else listening. So the people really experienced a change when the Open Space started and you could tell they were struggling with those 2 concepts. My impression was that in the field of developmental aid - certainly in the area I was working in - the people felt comfortable with the idea of an expert from the North (Europe) having the answer (and consequently the responsibility - ability to respond) for the problems in East Africa. Open Space questioned this assumption and invited them to acknowledge their own expertise and ability to find their own answers for their problems. After the first 4 sessions we had the evening news and in the discussion it became clear that the participants were torn between the "traditional" way and the Open Space way. I addressed this struggle on a meta-level with the participants the next day which was helpful to create some more discussion and insight... >>From a systemic point of view it was quite startling to see how this "imperialism" of the European expert having the answers for the problems of East Africa was supported by the behavior of the European participants as well as of the African participants. Both sides contribute their share to keep this pattern stable which in the long run does not support sustainable independence... * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
