Setting, and respecting boundaries…

JJ

September 5, 2024 at 6:33 am #72018

As we set out to explore the city’s boundaries, we’re also exploring our own…

Where do we feel safe? what feels right? what feels wrong? For ourselves, and for others?

Walking and talking together, we might stumble across a border that we’ve drawn between “us” and “them” – maybe the person that we’re walking with has significant (religious/political/cultural/social) differences from us.

It can be easy to respond in one of two ordinary ways:

• Confronting, criticizing, attacking

OR

• Avoiding, withdrawing, disengaging

I don’t generally end up finding either of these default responses particularly helpful… but I’m really interested in the fine line in between, the third way where we find steady grounded curiosity… continuing to engage in conversation, asking questions that are compassionate rather than critical, learning how the other came to be the way that they are.

When we set out on our walk, we start to accept the whole immense complexity of the perimeter as it is (even if we like the pretty gardens more than the scrapyards & landfills) and we can learn from all of it… and similarly from each other.

We might start to ask open ended questions like… “It seems like you feel strongly about that… how did that come to be important to you?”

Sometimes, as we engage with each other, we have to work to voice our own boundaries, things like:

• Hey wait up! I’m not sure that I feel great about going this way… can we talk about our choices here?

or

• Thanks so much for the invitation, but I don’t always give my phone number to folks the first day that I’ve met them – if you’d like you can give me yours and I’ll reach out … or I’d be happy to give you my email address instead.

This can be challenging, but is rewarding too. And there are ways to do it in ways that honor both our own selves, and the folks that we’re working to express our boundaries to.

If you have any thoughts about interpersonal boundaries, or want to reflect on any experiences you’ve had along the way (without singling anyone else out) you can share ’em here…

Lily Alexander

September 5, 2024 at 6:33 am #72062

This discussion of borders reminds me of a book chapter by Black feminist scholar Suryia Nayak that I read recently.

In it, she talks about ‘border consciousness’ and how the goal isn’t to eliminate all borders (and thus create a ‘border-less’ world), but rather, for us to acknowledge the very real differences between us so that we can embrace the “emancipatory potential of crossing through, with, and over these borders in our everyday lives.” (which Nayak quotes from Mohanty’s book Feminism Without Borders)

To JJ’s point, I feel that cultivating grounded curiosity and visibilizing hidden borders can help us experience the emancipatory potential of confronting and traversing difference.

I also love this quote from Gina Valdés (in Spanish): “Hay tantísimas fronteras due dividen a la gente, pero por cada frontera existe también un puente.” (From Anzaldúa’s ‘Borderlands’).

The translation is: “There are so many borders that divide us, but for each border there is also a bridge.”

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Lily Alexander.
• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Walk Around Philadelphia Admin.

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