What is an underlying question that gives form
to your work or interest in this field?
How can people work and act together as a group without
top-down leadership?
What is your personal experience of collective
wisdom in groups?
As I write these lines, I am sitting in a small farmhouse
overlooking the houses and barns of an organic farm north of Hamburg
in Germany. I am visiting my family for the summer. Five families live
and work together on this farm. Our two children have completely integrated
themselves into a group of 13 children age 3 to 17 that are living here.
Grandparents are right next door and provide a space for the children
to stop by and “recharge” if necessary.
What is it about the work in this field that excites
you and connects you to your own deepest self?
What excites me is the experience that collectively we
can create something larger and better than what we could accomplish
as individuals, and that this larger something is connected to who we
are and what we do. A precondition for doing this is experiencing and
understanding collectivity and social processes.
Please provide a brief storyline or snapshot of
what brought you to this work.
When I was a university student, one of my professors
described his dream of a global university. Its students would travel
to different universities and to problem areas around the world in order
to learn more about and work to understand the world they live in. Six
other students and I organized this journey, whose theme was “Peace
by peaceful means.” And one year later, 35 students with 7 nationalities
began a journey around the world to study peace and conflict resolution.
This journey to 16 universities in 9 months changed my
life. Through our study of major world religions and their relationship
to peace and conflict, and in our cross-cultural experiences, I started
to see my own cultural boundedness. Often the conflicts that we studied
were also reflected in our group. I began to understand how important
it is for groups to learn how to act wisely.
How would you like to be available to others in
this field?
Being a mother of two small children limits my ability
to travel. Currently, I see my main contribution in my research and
my writing, which I hope to further by talking to others, hearing their
stories and questions.
