Thinking about difference

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From the course by University of Cape Town

Becoming a changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation

257 ratings

University of Cape Town

Becoming a changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation

257 ratings

This free 6 week course is for anyone who wants to make a difference. Whether you are already familiar with the field of social innovation or social entrepreneurship, working for an organization that wants to increase its social impact, or just starting out, this course will take you on a journey of exploring the complex problems that surround us and how to start thinking about solutions. We will debunk common assumptions around what resources are needed to begin acting as a social innovator. We will learn from the numerous examples of social innovations happening all over the world. You will be challenged to get out of your comfort zone and start engaging with the diverse spaces around you. By the end of the course, you will have formed your own approach to social innovation, and you will have begun to develop the concepts, mindset, skills, and relationships that will enable you to start and evolve as a changemaker. You will be able to purchase a Verified Certificate if you wish to show evidence of your achievements, but this is optional, and you may apply for Financial Aid if you are unable to pay the certificate fee. The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship co-created this course with RLabs, a social movement ‘born-and-bred’ in Bridgetown, Cape Town that is now active in 22 countries. The movement empowers youth through innovative and disruptive technology by teaching them vital skills and providing much needed support and a sense of community. Advocating and supporting initiatives such as RLabs forms part of the Bertha Centre’s mandate. The Centre is a specialised unit at University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, and is the first academic centre in Africa dedicated to advancing social innovation and entrepreneurship. You can view the course trailer at www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcWYG64WO20 Tweet about this course using the hashtag #socinnMOOC

From the lesson

Getting out of your comfort zone

By nature the world of social innovation is made of crossing boundaries, bringing together different actors, resources, spaces, but it can be overwhelming. Part of our challenge on the journey to becoming changemakers is to learn how to become comfortable with discomfort and how in the social innovation space where you take yourself into spaces and you surround yourself with people that you normally do not engage with. Understanding how we define differences using cultural, sociological, psychological and spiritual lenses and what the nature of the differences is helps to develop tools for getting out of your comfort zone. It takes a little bit of courage because it makes you uncomfortable, but that’s how you build the competencies, the personal resilience to engage with difference when we do go and drive for innovations or we look to make differences in communities that are unlike us or operate in a different way.

RLabs: Journey of Hope Part 36:31

Bricolage: recombining ideas and people3:52

Thinking about difference7:08

Engaging difference3:41

Negotiating difference8:51

Reflecting with RLabs: comfort zones12:17

Meet the Instructors

François Bonnici
Director
Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Warren Nilsson
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Marlon Parker
Founder
RLabs

[MUSIC]

So earlier you heard about bricolage and

the coming together with difference, difference of skill sets,

difference of discipline, difference of ideas and perspectives.

Bricolage is typically thinking about boundaries that are being crossed by

people who are comfortable spanning boundaries through some personal courage.

Now, the way we traditionally think about

spanning boundaries is normally through a cultural lens.

We all have cultural markers which differ.

The most obvious ones are around, for instance, the way in which we converse.

Some conversations are quite open, typically, one sees that in Latin America.

Some conversations are quite convoluted, one sees that in China,

the UK, and some conversations are quite direct,

one sees that typically in Denmark, Holland, Germany.

Those are the ones well-understood, but

there are other dimensions of boundaries which are culturally based.

For instance, space is very different and

thought about differently and practiced differently around the world.

Some people's personal space are quite narrow.

For instance, the English,

one cannot get too close to someone without getting into their personal space.

When one travels, for instance, to Latin America,

one might see much closer space levels.

You probably see someone hugging someone else or holding their arm around their

neck while being 10 or 20 centimeters from the other person's mouth.

One sees the holding of hands, typically in Africa and

all the way through Middle East, mainly by men holding other men's hands.

So the notion of space differs, and when one deals with difference,

you gotta be quiet cognizant of these different spaces.

There's also the notion of time, for instance.

In a typical western Anglo-Saxon view of time, we think of time as present

moving forward towards the future, and there's nothing we can do about the past.

However, when working with Japanese, one notices that they often take time out

to consult the ancestors, much like what is done in Central and Southern Africa.

There, they're looking for insights that can assist the future going forward.

In India and part of Central Asia,

one hears of circular time when people don't think of time as in one continuum,

but that actually, we would be coming back for more and more takes of time.

So when working across these boundaries,

one is being cognizant of these various approaches.

Whether it's time, whether it's the way we converse,

whether it's other social norms like the way in which we write, we think,

these are all differences, and they are typical of a cultural lens.

However, difference is thought about a lot more broadly through the theoretical lens.

There are three main pillars for thinking about difference.

The first is through a sociological lens.

This particular view, punted by sociologists,

looks at difference as a problem.

A problem in the sense that most of us spend most of our life

spending our time differentiating ourselves from other people

by doing things that brings us both social and economic power.

For instance, if I get more qualifications than someone else,

I expect an accrual of greater social and

economic benefits, the way in which I dress, the car I drive,

where I live, the location in which I find myself, the friends I hang out with.

Sociologists argue that we spend all of our life creating these differences so

as to gain an economic and social benefit.

However, if we are to engage difference on an equal footing,

one almost has to go against the very notions of this differentiated difference,

because I have to see you as an equal, someone with a credible view,

someone with a credible perspective.

Therefore, sociologists argue that we will not do this naturally.

So you have to use law, processes, rules to engage that.

In countries like South Africa, we see affirmative action which is

a copy of what has happened in Malaysia, Ireland, New Zealand,

Canada, and in the 50s, the US who used similar sociological rules to try and

drive equality in the engagement of difference.

Psychologists though, the second pillar, have a very different view of difference.

They see difference as something deeply personal.

The argument is that we, through our lifetimes, have suppressed or

oppressed parts of ourselves in order to be more socially acceptable.

There are part of ourselves which are not okay in certain social settings.

The argument they put forward is that

those bits of ourself don't go away when we suppress or oppress it.

It goes into our subconscious or our unconscious, and

it becomes a part of what is known as our shadow self.

Therefore, to engage difference, we need to bring forward in a constructive way

some of these differences in order to make ourselves a lot more whole as human beings

so that we can display mature vulnerability when engaging difference.

Therefore, psychologists argue that our differences,

our engagement of those come from deep, personal work, self-awareness,

understanding projection and transference, reflection on our part and so on.

The third lens for thinking about difference and

diversity is one rooted in spiritual traditions.

Here, we think of a greater being, God, the One.

In this particular lens on diversity, the arguments are that

the focus should be away from the law, should be away from processes,

equally away from personal psychological change, and

that the focus should be on something or someone greater than ourselves.

So the opportunity to do stuff with difference is so

that we can seek out the common good, we can strive for higher purposes.

We can serve our values in congruent ways that serve something,

a cause, a community, a God that is much greater than ourselves.

These are the three main theoretical lenses through which to look at

difference.

[MUSIC]

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