“... a third space, where the transformational value of change lies in the re-articulation, or translation, of elements that are neither One ... nor the Other ... but something else besides.” (Homi Bhabha, The Location of... [ view full abstract ]
“... a third space, where the transformational value of change lies in the re-articulation, or translation, of elements that are neither One ... nor the Other ... but something else besides.” (Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 1994)
Straddling formal community-development contexts and the cultural realm, The Third Space works with refugee women to create platforms to speak and be heard. Not only is story work in The Third Space about engaging women to connect, express, learn and heal in empowering and nurturing ways, it is also about fostering creativity in all its diversity to facilitate critical dialogue among and between disparate groups. As complex and exacting as this work is, women share their insights, experiences and knowledge in their own language and on their own terms, and grow feminist solidarity across networks and community. Women’s story-telling in The Third Space requires a critical, feminist and postcolonial praxis that upholds the core values of mutual respect, reciprocity, dignity, trust, and reflexivity. These values are underpinned by a participatory worldview founded on cooperation, collaboration and democracy rather than competition (Ledwith Community Development: A Critical Approach, 2006). Free market politics and competition in community sector has left limited space for critical education and critical consciousness, a process at the heart of community development with refugee communities. Practical story-work projects support refugee women to engage in critical dialogue to learn about their everyday reality and act together to bring about change for themselves, their families and communities: “Personal issues become local projects, projects become causes, and causes become movements for change” (Sivanandan cited in Cooke, Radical Community Work, 1996). Women’s Story Telling in The Third Space is therefore a vital means for true empowerment, and a model for transformative practice.
