In Holding Space Aminata Cairo presents her own, unique vision in the promotion of inclusion that far surpasses the standard diversity & inclusion approach. She grounds her work in indigenous knowledge, the blues aesthetics, holy hip hop, and Caribbean and black feminist theories. She engages her audience utilizing storytelling, with the ultimate goal of creating a new story, collectively. Hailing from her Surinamese roots, her Native American nurturing, and academic training she uses personal stories to explore the themes and steps on a way to a more inclusive community. She challenges the audience to take a closer look at themselves and each other, raising the question what it really takes to collectively create an environment of equality and validation. It is about us, all of us, is her message, as she forces us to feel, hear, and own that. This book is not a reading, it is an experience.
Table of Content
19 Introduction
21 Kri Kra, Kri Kra
25 Holding Space
28 From Theory to Lived Story
33 Foundation
35 Ma Po Clearing the Space
38 The Path Between My Mother and Me
43 The Quiet Path of My Second Mother
47 Love-Working the Space
51 Singing the Space
55 Holding the Space in Spite Of
59 Bouncing Down the Path
63 Beginning
65 About the ‘D’ word
70 The Other ‘D’ Word
79 Positions We Cannot Escape
85 Consumption Junction
91 To Be or Not to Be Sustainability
99 Appropriation as Colonization
107 To Speak the Unspoken
112 About Community and Support
117 Seven Directions
127 Middle
129 Tokenism Stepping Stone
135 Fortress of Information
143 Power Language
150 ‘Gezelligheid’
159 Insidious Domesticity
167 Power of Silence
173 Gentrimiwah?
181 Validation
191 End
193 Aho Metakuye Oyasin
197 Safe Enough to Be Brave
203 Care
209 Courage
216 Humility
225 Listening and Connecting
232 Speaking
240 Seeing
245 Embodiment
251 Environment
256 Patience
263 Neutral
268 Cracking
274 Transforming
279 Allyship
285 The Assist
291 Honoring and Celebrating
296 Ceremony
301 Holding Space
305 Index
313 Sources of inspiration
323 Image credits
About the author
Aminata Cairo is an anthropologist, psychologist, educator, storyteller, and ‘love-worker’. She is an independent consultant ‘who works with people’. She is the former lector of Inclusive Education at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. She was the first and only research professor of African descent in the Netherlands. Born in the Netherlands to Surinamese parents she left for the US at age 18 where she pursued her academic career. She returned to the Netherlands after 30 years and obtaining two Master’s degrees and a Ph.D. In the Netherlands she utilizes her academic, community activist and artist skills to make a difference and has a special affinity for the stories that are overlooked, silenced or marginalized.
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