Interdependence: Wrap-Up

Time Commitment: 40 minutes

We have covered key concepts of cosmopolitanism, civil society, and global governance, while considering several examples of local action to advance more just, inclusive, sustainable communities. As a reminder, this module included:

Acting for just, inclusive, sustainable communities: Global inquiry, thinking, and understanding
What does global citizenship have to do with local actions and community-building?
How is global citizenship enacted – how are these values advanced?
Does global citizenship inadvertently ignore an essential element of interdependence – our shared ecology?

Reflection Questions

How does your identity relate to interdependence, human or ecological?
As people work to enact values within interdependence, they do so by making choices in their own lives, as community members, voters, consumers, or friends. Where do you see opportunities to further advance an embrace of interdependence in your own life?
What civil society networks are you part of, and where might you further advance values and actions for justice, inclusivity, and sustainability?
We began with this definition of global citizenship: “a commitment to fundamental human dignity, couched in a critically reflective understanding of historic and contemporary systems of oppression, along with acknowledgment of positionality within those systems; it connects with values, reflection, and action. A critical global citizenship calls us all to humble, careful, and continuous effort to build a world that better acknowledges every individual’s basic human dignity.” Does this articulation work for you as an embrace of interdependence? What do you like about it? What might you add, subtract, or alter? Why?

To close out this session, we share three beautiful expressions of interdependence from around the world:

As South African singer Vusi Mahlasela introduces the song, “Say Africa,” he shares memories of home and the concept of Ubuntu – a person is a person through other persons.

Playing for Change, a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music, presents Chan Chan:

Finally, the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address: Greetings to the Natural World offers an extraordinary expression of thanks and interdependence. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer shares that she checked with members of the Haudenosaunee community about whether it was OK to share this thanksgiving with others, outside their community. She writes,

Over and over, I was told that these words are a gift of the Haudenosaunee to the world. When I asked Onondaga Faithkeeper Oren Lyons about it, he gave his signature slightly bemused smile and said, “Of course you should write about it. It’s supposed to be shared, otherwise, how can it work? We’ve been waiting five hundred years for people to listen. If they’d understood the Thanksgiving then, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

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Citation for this page: Hartman, E. (2020). Interdependence: Wrap-Up. In E. Hartman (Ed.). Interdependence: Global Solidarity and Local Actions. The Community-based Global Learning Collaborative. Retrieved from https://www.cbglcollab.org/interdependence-wrap-up

Interdependence: Wrap-Up

Reflection Questions

Further Reading