I. Fostering and Sustaining Relationships across Difference: Humbly Situating among and between Different Communities

Situating ourselves among and between diverse communities is one of the first strategies academics can learn from Jane Addams. She occupied a particularly unique position within her place and time. As a white, relatively wealthy, US citizen connected to spheres of power, her unearned privileges were many. As a woman living outside the bounds of many early twentieth century expectations, she also resisted pressures to live within narrow, discriminatory frameworks. She harnessed the power she did have in order to design a radically different life path, ultimately co-designing with an astoundingly diverse array of others.

According to Addams scholar Marilyn Fischer, Addams not only sought to learn from international reformers and academics, she also sought to learn from her neighbors (Fischer Reference Fischer2020). She believed that being together across diverse spaces was necessary not only for capturing the complexities of each situation, but also for prompting the urge and the wherewithal to organize in order to address social injustices (Addams Reference Addams1896b, 149). By situating across diverse spaces, we come to know others in an embodied and relational manner; when we move with them through time and space, we generate opportunities to listen carefully, gaining the chance to more fully understand their current realities and future goals (Addams Reference Addams and Elshtain2002). Fischer emphasizes that, for Addams, “the particular angle of vision gained through personal engagement in the situation is…essential to carrying out ethical deliberation” (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 48).

Seeing our isolation from one another as a core contributor to our problems, Addams devoted her energy to fostering democratic social relations “by forgings webs of affiliation” (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 65) with those who hold to “differing conceptions of the good” (111). She situated Hull House at a nexus between different communities and opened space for these communities to come together. In fact, her commitment to relationships across difference led her to believe that it is just as immoral to invite only those who live and think like we do to our social gatherings as is full-scale bribery. For instance, when confronting rampant political corruption in Chicago, Addams used this approach in order to shift the focus from blaming corrupt leaders and neighborhood residents for their willingness to give and receive bribes, toward recognizing how all are involved in this corruption. She points out how the privileges that critical reformers maintained—including their wealth and distance from the situations that neighborhood residents were confronting—enabled them to easily reject bribes and place blame on those who accepted them (and could not avoid the very serious consequences of refusing to do so) (110). We cannot, according to Addams, fulfill our responsibility to the community without consistent and sustained interactions.

However, situating oneself across diverse communities is not a strategy for coalition-building if it is not also accompanied by a strong dose of humility and a willingness to be transformed over time (Elshtain Reference Elshtain1998; Addams Reference Addams2007; Hamington Reference Hamington2009; Whipps Reference Whipps and Hamington2010). When we learn with diverse others, we open space for new understandings and creative, experimental transformation. It is both the starting point for self-critique and the means by which we cultivate social change. That is, being with and open to others over time can uncover implicit biases, reveal values in conflict, and foster relations of empathy (Whipps Reference Whipps and Fesmire2019). It can move us toward situated understandings of different people and enable shared visions of a world with one another that diverge from narrow frames and dominant tropes.Footnote ²

The strain and tension inherent to this work makes withdrawing from such spaces particularly tempting; and this temptation to retreat forecloses opportunities for genuine transformation. This is why it is especially critical to generate opportunities for sustained relationships across differences. Long-term commitments to be with diverse others create the space and time necessary for deconstructing various positionalities and together paving pathways toward creative and collaborative action. Addams uncovered, for example, that being-together-across had the power to catalyze collective and effective union-organizing among various constituencies. These workers held vastly different social identities and were in direct competition with one another for jobs (Addams Reference Addams2007, 142). To find a way forward together, they needed both shared space and time to see one another fully. In relationships we are more likely to endure the strain, the uncertainties, and the tensions long enough to cultivate pathways forward.

Addams worked alongside Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W. E. B. Du Bois, and others in order to advocate for change. Her willingness to walk within, but also between, diverse communities and to test out her convictions in relationships created space, networks, and strategies that supported activist scholarship across communities. For instance, when racism foreclosed his entry into formal academic structures, Du Bois found a network of support and a set of strategies for his work in part through his relationship with Addams and other Hull House residents. These collaborations provided inspiration for The Philadelphia Negro and helped to support the founding of the NAACP (Deegan Reference Deegan2002; Reference Deegan2008b).

Addams's efforts can inform and reform the way philosophers (and others) in the academy engage in teaching, research, and service. I suggest that her work can inspire far more inclusive and participatory as well as iterative and emergent teaching and scholarship. For instance, this approach could reframe service as a critical opportunity to situate oneself in an embodied and relational way across diverse communities. According to Eric Hartman and his colleagues, the resultant increase in diverse spaces alongside honest engagement within the tensions can spotlight “the problematic nature of many of our sector's entrenched practices, calling us to consider new ways of thinking and operating that are ultimately even more inclusive through deep engagement with questions of equity” (Hartman et al. Reference Hartman, Reynolds, Ferrarini, Messmore, Evans, Al-Ebrahim and Brown2020, 37). Sustained service, for Addams, is essential for understanding the context-bound specificities in our social systems. Insights from these burgeoning relationships could filter into course design, pedagogy, and research projects, encouraging academics to pursue a situated approach. Teachers could, for instance, shift the space within which they facilitate learning, finding opportunities to learn with and in our communities, thereby contributing to the transformation of what has historically counted as “knowledge” within university structures. Inviting interested stakeholders into the classroom along with a willingness to move the classroom into public spaces is an obvious first step (Lake Reference Lake2018).

These insights are filtering into calls for education to be less siloed and hierarchical and more relational and place-based (Daynes and Longo Reference Daynes and Longo2004; Bandy et al. Reference Bandy, Price, Clayton, Metzker, Nigro, Stanlick, Etheridge Woodson, Bartel and Gale2018). They also begin from an assumption that there is “no neutral, objective point from which to obtain this understanding.” They assume that we can deepen our understanding only from “inside the process, experiencing the confusions and perplexities” (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 121). Just as Addams sought to leverage “the full ecology” available to her to address shared problems, this form of learning “transcends the boundaries of the classroom” and the “teacher–learner dichotomy” in order to create space for co-transformative, active learning (Daynes and Longo Reference Daynes and Longo2004, 62). This form of learning also inherently transcends disciplines and departments, requiring a willingness to partner with an array of others. For instance, this might mean that syllabi, project descriptions, and learning outcomes are co-constructed with communities and students over time (Fauvel, Lake, and Sisson Reference Fauvel, Lake and Sisson2017). Explored next, this requires the willingness to situate oneself in space and time, to “map” the complexities of the present.

II. Mapping the Hidden Complexities: Beyond Service toward Systems Change

For Addams, sustaining relationships across difference and movement between diverse communities must be accompanied by a willingness to trace “the geographical and historical dimensions of social problems” (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 68). We cannot come to understand the present situation through simply “being within it.” We must also trace its historical and geographical axes. For example, in “Domestic Service and the Family Claim,” Addams maps the complexities of household service by listening to and working alongside those affected and by tracing their historical complexities (Addams Reference Addams and Sewall1894). She pursues this same approach to the complexities surrounding industrialization in a “Belated Industry” (Reference Addams1896a). In doing so she situated “the home within the larger frame of community life” and shifted the loci of the problem as one that belonged “to the community as a whole” (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 76).

Though many Addams scholars have failed to emphasize the centrality of this work, a number have highlighted this critical approach to her philosophical activism, including Marilyn Fischer, Jen Fenton, Regina Leffers, Charlene Seigfried, and Kathryn Sklar (Sklar Reference Sklar, Bulmer, Bales and Sklar1991; Leffers Reference Leffers1993; Seigfried Reference Seigfried2013; Fenton Reference Fenton2019; Fischer Reference Fischer2020). Leffers, for instance, notes that Addams traced the history of present conditions. She did not simply see the stranger passing by in the “nicely finished suit,” she also intentionally aimed to be cognizant of “the woman who must have finished that suit in a rank and dingy basement” (Leffers Reference Leffers1993, 69). Sklar highlights the efforts of Hull House to conduct geographical mapping. Addams and Hull House residents painstakingly documented the complexities of life in the surrounding neighborhoods. Their efforts led to the creation of social surveys designed to visualize the conditions across space and inform more responsive and timely social policy. In fact, Hull House's maps and papers are included in the early social-mapping work noted by Sklar (Sklar Reference Sklar, Bulmer, Bales and Sklar1991).

Addams believed that mapping out the terrain along these axes was essential for uncovering how we might move forward together. When we intentionally try to understand the context under which the situation has emerged (that is, when we trace the historical and geographical axes), we can start to uncover the root systems and thus potential pathways for addressing the situation (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 76). Although an exhausting and challenging endeavor to undertake, mapping the geographical and historical terrain is essential. From within our own limited frameworks we are often not consciously aware of these complex interdependencies. Studies show we are also highly susceptible to the “single story,” to incomplete and misleading narratives of people unlike ourselves (Calhoun Reference Calhoun2004; Scheman et al. Reference Scheman, Hilde Lindemann and Walker2008; Adichie Reference Adichie2009). A number of effective visioning techniques have been developed in response to the need for and challenges of such mapping. I detail two such methods next.

Collaborative mapping has been designed to help diverse groups visualize together what they see within a complex situation. Emerging from soft systems thinking (Checkland Reference Checkland1999), this approach requires groups to identify the people, places, institutions, and nonhuman life involved in complex challenges as well as the often hidden connections among them (Crosby, Fam, and Lopes Reference Crosby, Fam, Lopes, Fam, Neuhauser and Gibbs2018). It focuses especially on including the voices of those directly affected by the issue and fosters opportunities for co-learning (Voinov and Bousquet Reference Voinov and Bousquet2010). Collaborative mapping can help generate an awareness of blind spots and open space for the possibility of creating a more comprehensive visual. For instance, at the beginning of collaborative engagement projects, this process can be used to explore how various entities (for example, community, education, social, civic, media, business, and so on) are affecting—and being affected by—the current situation. Such maps also encourage the groups to examine the experiences, values, and skills various individuals and groups bring to the situation, what power they hold, and how they might be included in the reflective-action process. This process helps to make assumptions transparent and cue collaborators to the potential for exclusionary practices.

When used iteratively, such maps can encourage flexible adjustments in the process^. For instance, after committing to an action step, participants can document the intended and unintended effects of an intervention across all stakeholders. And, by triangulating insights, they can capture changes in activities, behavior, and relationships (Wilson-Grau and Britt Reference Wilson-Grau and Britt2013). Such practices help expose what may appear to be progress from one angle as a shifting of the problem and thereby encourage groups to loosen their reliance on singular interventions.Footnote ³

Whereas collaborative mapping is a tool for visualizing the geographical terrain of situations across diverse perspectives, the second method, service ecosystem design, is a process for designing and testing systemic interventions with others. Addams's methods also enact these practices. Service ecosystem design is an intentional shifting away from creating products and services for others, toward designing systems with others. The goal is to foster “the emergence of value-in-context” through intentionally and collectively shaping social structures and processes (Vink Reference Vink2019, 116). This form of design requires situating oneself within the larger systems in which one resides. Through reflexive feedback loops, it seeks to visualize hidden assumptions and then prompt an exploration of alternative options for redesigning internal and external systems in relationship with others.

For example, service ecosystem designers in Norway intentionally redesigned how primary-care professionals interacted with patients by prototyping in-home visits and thus shifting the ecosystem of their interactions. The goal was to shift providers from their own institutional settings into patients’ homes to learn more about the care that patients were receiving and their living conditions. Moving into patients’ spaces, seeing their lives in context, and listening to them more openly quickly shifted providers’ perceptions. As Vink writes, “seeing the set-up, smelling the smells, feeling what their furniture felt like, and hearing the patients’ stories, healthcare staff began to understand care and chronic illness from another perspective” (16). This experience not only disrupted providers’ assumptions, it also created a “groundswell of actors working to disrupt the existing role of the patient and change widespread norms concerning decision-making during care” (18). Some went on to initiate “a variety of large-scale processes of practice and policy change to help realize a new role for patients as healthcare partners” (18). The burgeoning relationships fostered by these interactions also shifted patients’ perspectives. Vink shows that patients' sense of agency increased via these interactions, shifting how patients interacted with their providers and their health-care plan. Patients felt they “had more influence over decision-making” within their care plan, and this sense of power shifted the ways they were engaging with providers (18). Over time, the provider and the patient together shifted “the entrenched rules around how patient and provider interactions should be carried out” (18). Situated and relational designing-with (service ecosystem design) can reveal the often hidden structures under which we are operating, help us confront (instead of avoid) conflicting perspectives, and encourage us to adjust through iterative prototyping (11).

Hull House created a critical space for supporting emergent and inclusive design of structures and processes that better support “all sides of the neighborhood life” (Addams Reference Addams and Elshtain2002, 32). Early failures at designing for others—like those focused on providing healthy foods and art—rapidly evolved into the creation and implementation of programs, advocacy efforts, and campaigns that emerged from the surrounding community and were designed in partnership. With regard to Hull House, it created critical opportunities for shared change-making by offering space for disparate city residents to meet; it was an essential bridge for generating the potential for more inclusive and responsive coaction. Indeed, Twenty Years at Hull House is full of examples of collaborative efforts among Hull House residents, their neighbors, various city organizations, and surrounding institutions (Addams Reference Addams1910/1990).

Again, philosophers interested in engaging more directly in and with public issues can leverage these insights into the service opportunities they choose, the way they approach the construction of curriculum, and in their approach to scholarship. The next strategy we can learn from Addams can leverage lessons learned from such mapping in order to spark public interest in collaboratively reimagining and recreating ecosystems.

III. Practicing Synthetic Imagination: Co-creating Transdisciplinary Narratives

Fischer diagnoses Addams's methodology as one of “synthetic imagination,” arguing that narrative enabled her to synthesize the interconnected complexities of the ecosystem around her. This work required both deep immersion and imagination (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 64). Immersion was (and is) necessary for seeing the complex interdependencies and evolving complexities; imagination is necessary for generating the narrative thread through such complexities. Thus, for Addams, narrative is a methodology for visualizing the physical, mental, and emotional experiences within complex social realities and for sparking opportunities that might lead to social change.

Addams's narratives are not simple stories; they are “literary creations” (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 45) intentionally crafted to encourage her readers to “shift” their “moral perceptions” (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 163). She hoped her readers would reconsider how they think, feel, and respond to these situations. Like María Lugones's world-traveling (Lugones Reference Lugones2003), Addams's writings sought to prompt a shift from states of denial, blame, or excuse-making toward relational accountability. For example, Addams used this approach to shift how those with privileged identities placed blame for rampant political corruption. Many conversations of the time centered blame on neighborhood residents for their willingness to receive bribes from officials, but Addams highlighted how the privileges that reformers enjoyed both isolated them from the need to accept bribes and made it all too easy to assign blame to others (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 110). In effect, Addams harnessed synthetic imagination in order to “reconceptualize and relocate” social problems (Fischer Reference Fischer2020, 111).

Addams's use of synthetic imagination can prompt academics to critically examine the processes by which we construct our work. As it stands, we have created sharp, artificial divides between academic and nonacademic products and activities. We have also pursued a one-way flow of knowledge-creation and application, from the instructor to the student and from the ivory tower into the community. How might we instead situate ourselves within and across diverse communities in order to uncover and co-create evocative narratives? When we reconsider what counts as a product of our teaching, service, and research, we open space for aligning these aspects of our work with student and public perspectives in mind. This moves teaching toward an emergent, relational act of co-creation with others (Hartlep et al. Reference Hartlep, Lake, Purcell, Bush, Perry, Fleck, Kliewer, Janke, Markham, Orphan and Saltmarsh2019; Lake Reference Lake2018). As others have shown, it can also shift student perceptions of themselves as individuals in relation with the community (Freire Reference Freire1970; Hernandez Reference Hernandez Castillo2020).

Taking inspiration from this model, philosophers could work with “constituency-led efforts” to “identify knowledge projects,” generate shared goals, and marshal “higher education resources that can support the projects” (Stoecker Reference Stoecker2016, 169 and 171). Philosophers might also support such efforts as facilitators and liaisons (Dewey Reference Dewey1981; Lake and Thompson Reference Lake and Thompson2018), project- and field-based negotiators or bureaucrats (Frodeman Reference Frodeman2014; Frodeman and Briggle Reference Frodeman and Briggle2016), and activists (Boggs Reference Boggs1998). Additional examples can be found through reviewing the work of the Society of Philosophers in America, the Engaged Philosophy Internship Program at Michigan State University, the Public Philosophy Journal, the Philosophy Bakes Bread podcast, and others.Footnote ⁴

This assumes that the university should be a space not simply to create knowledge, but to mobilize it in relationship with “outside” actors. It assumes the university can position itself more equitably and inclusively within an “eco-system of knowledge” (Lynton Reference Lynton1996, 10). Within this framing, knowledge ceases to “move from the locus of research to the place of application, from scholar to practitioner, teacher to student, expert to client” and begins to move through messy, iterative feedback loops that trigger “new explorations and new syntheses” (Saltmarsh Reference Saltmarsh and R2019, 42). We can point with hope to some current examples within higher education. Michigan State University's College of Arts and Letters, for example, has made some strides toward this approach, requiring faculty to consider how they are “sharing knowledge,” “expanding opportunity,” and “contributing to greater transparency and accelerating creativity.” They have created a visual model that emphasizes equity and reciprocity as well as mentorship (http://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:23681/), suggesting that we need to cease measuring teaching, research, and service as ends in themselves and begin measuring their broader impacts.