Welcome (Bienvenidos) to the International Journal of Collaborative Practices. The Journal brings together members of a growing international community of practitioners, scholars, educators, researchers, and consultants from diverse disciplines who are interested in collaborative-dialogical practice based in postmodern-social construction-dialogue assumptions. This community responds to important questions in social and human sciences such as:
How can our practices have relevance for the people we meet in our fast changing world?
What will this relevance accomplish? And, who determines it?
Globalization and technology have influenced a rhizomatic spawning of social, cultural, political, and economic transformations. Concomitantly they have influenced a shrinking interdependent world and one in which segmentation of peoples, ideologies, and values prevail. Yet, though for different reasons, people increasingly want to participate, contribute, and share ownership in decisions about their daily lives and their futures. Our traditional perspectives and mainstream practices of producing knowledge, solving problems and creating change no longer meet the unavoidable contemporary complexities inherent in these rapid changes and the challenges they present. We are compelled by these challenges and people’s voices to continually reassess how we understand the world we live in, how we respond to the people we meet, the relevancy of our practice tools, and our way of being with others.
The International Journal of Collaborative Practices is designed as one part of a timely and valuable response to these challenges. It aims to spotlight interconnected issues such as: 1) the juxtaposition of democracy, social justice, and human rights; 2) the importance of people’s voices locally and globally; and 3) the fundamental need for collaboration. Toward this aim, the Journal publishes articles on a variety of practices from various disciplines and contexts and across cultures, and it encourages the inclusion of well-published authors and those who are just beginning to write about their work.
We welcome comments, questions and submissions. Please let us hear from you and please share news about the Journal with your colleagues and students.
Mission
The International Journal of Collaborative Practices provides a bilingual forum for the exchange of ideas and practices from diverse practitioners and scholars around the world. This forum aims to help produce and promote relationally responsive-dialogical processes which generate new opportunities and new futures in our working and living together locally and globally. The Journal is peer reviewed and seeks to feature known published and newly writing authors.
This Issue
Articles
This issue features contributions from practitioners and scholars in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Mexico and Taiwan. We were pleased to include our first article in Chinese in Issue 4 – “The Practice of Collaborative Dialogue in Education – The Case of Kai-Ping Culinary School” – and equally so to open this issue with the English and Spanish translations of the article in this issue. This is a story of the remarkable Taipei Kai-Ping Culinary School in Taipei, Taiwan and its founder who was, and is, courageous and forward thinking in his challenge to the universal foundations of Western and Eastern dominant education systems.
This issue also includes Alexis Ibarra Martínez’s detailing of a collaborative supervision methodology; therapists from the Czech Republic and Brazil join to share an innovative approach to working with people with substance abuse; and Brazilian colleagues Osvaldo de Freitas, Leonardo Régis Leira Pereira and Thais Rodrigues Penaforte discuss “pharmaceutical care” in therapeutic practice.
Essay and Conference Reflection
This issue’s essay is the second part of a polyphonic musing on an innovative collaborative experience across the ocean from voices in the Czech Republic and Mexico. Each author shares his or her unique application of working collaboratively and approaching their work from a relational-dialogical perspective, and how they faced the challenges of the electronic-across-the-ocean format.
We welcome Karen Taverniers’ “Reflections on the First Latin American Congress of International Certification for Collaborative Practices” that was held in Sao Paulo, November 2013 where scholars and practitioners from South America and around the world gathered to share and explore collaborative-dialogue practices. Please check the “Bookshelf” section for announcement of the Second Congress in 2015.
Frequently Asked Questions
From the Bookshelf
A special welcome to Daniel Wulff our new From the Bookshelf editor. We are delighted to have his tenure being with a contribution to the section. Wulff’s reflective essay on Thomas King’s The Truth about Stories is a sharing of his creative inner dialogue as he read Thomas King’s The Truth about Stories.
Poetry and Art: “Syllables of Wind”
We are delighted to have our second contribution from writer and poet Xánath Caraza de Holland and to introduce you to the art of Adriana Manuela: a truly collaborative creation and dialogic expression between two artists: one paints images on canvas, one writes words on pages.
Caraza de Holland writes poetry, short stories and fiction. Her poetry collection Corazón Pintado was selected as a 2012 Top Latino Book. Her more recent Conjuro was named by Latino Stories 2013 as the # 1 Top Ten “New” Latino Authors to Watch (and Read). Originally from Xalapa Veracruz, Mexico, she currently lives and teaches Spanish, Conversation and Composition at the University of Missouri Kansas City. Adriana Manuela is a Mexican artist who resides in Puente Genil, Andalusia, Spain. In Caraza de Holland’s words it was “the strength of her art” that inspired the collaboration. Please take a look at “Both Sides / Tale of an artist and a poet in Puente Genil” to learn how their fascinating collaboration began.
I invite you to step back, pause and reflect on your own practice as you engage with the authors in this issue. We welcome your comments, contributions to our blog, and article submissions. Our authors, readers and editors would love to hear from you.
Acknowledgements
The Journal is collaboratively published by the Houston Galveston Institute, the Taos Institute and the Psychology Department of Our Lady of the Lake University. It relies on volunteers for all aspects of its production. This issue was made possible by the help of volunteers including translators René Emir Buenfil Viera, Josep Suguí Dolz, Maureen St. George, Monica Sesma Vazquez and Fabiola Latisnere and line – editor assistant Gina Wilson . I especially thank my Journal Team—Fabiola Latisnere and Kris Harmat–for their assistance in formatting and producing this issue.
The Banner
We are grateful to Sara London, a Mexico City artist now living in Florida, for contributing her artwork for the Journal banner. The banner is a fragment of a painting titled in Spanish “Red EnRedando.” The title reflects the richness of language and the complexity of translation. Loosely translated the title refers to “net, netting, networking.” “En Redando” speaks to the process of entangling and “red” means net. Sara describes the painting: “Conversations and relationships provide the threads that create a net that holds the members of the community and allows them to connect, exchange, and venture beyond the familiar and explore new possibilities.”
General Information
Language
The Journal is published in English and Spanish.
Publication Schedule:
2 issues per year (spring and fall)
To Subscribe:
Email: journal@talkhgi.com
Subscription Cost:
The Journal is an open-access on-line publication that is offered in the spirit of promoting community and collaboration across cultures, contexts and disciplines.
This page has the following sub pages.
