International Author Engages UKZN Communities on Generative Dialogue

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International author and speaker, Mr Steven Harrison, noted for his challenging books and talks that deconstruct accepted notions of relationship, identity and community, was a guest speaker and presenter at UKZN.

Harrison was hosted by the University Office of Teaching and Learning and the Dean of Teaching and Learning in the College of Law and Management Studies, Professor Kriben Pillay.

Harrison is also known for his invitation to look to generative dialogue to step out of habitual ways of thinking, feeling and doing.

Besides being a workshop presenter at the recent 9^th Higher Education Teaching and Learning Conference in Durban, Harrison also led a public dialogue on deep learning, and had many other formal and informal engagements with staff and students, including speaking to nursing students at Addington Hospital and visiting the Woza Moya AIDS Centre in Ixopo, a project he helped to fund in the past. His visit concluded with a stimulating dialogue with PhD students in the School of Social Sciences.

Harrison said one of the highlights of his visit was his meeting with Vice-Chancellor Dr Albert van Jaarsveld and the fact that a leader at the very top of the Institution was so deeply engaged with the question of building a truly creative learning environment with a strong underlying focus on our common humanity.

Pillay added that the process of dialogue, which has been developing a considerable body of research since it was first written about by the late Theoretical Physicist David Bohm, was an open-ended process that aimed to by-pass traditional power relations so that insights and solutions arose from the communal field of consciousness rather than from individual patterns of thinking.

‘It’s not about you or me, but rather about you and me; about we,’ said Pillay.

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