A Note from Our Founder
When I launched the Rethinking Development Podcast last year, I wanted to challenge many issues.
Two of those are the increasingly short attention spans and the culture of silence that individuals and organizations enable and foster.
As a podcast, we are dedicated to the art of conversation and facilitating long-form discussions on the problematic ethical issues that practitioners confront in their daily work. We promote the practice of passing the mic and taking the time to really listen to what others have to say.
We celebrate inquiry. We try to ask holistic, thorough and non-judgmental questions and make space for reflection.
Oftentimes, our guests and colleagues do not feel safe to speak honestly about the problematic and toxic systemic issues that they have been facing in their careers for decades out of a fear of reprisal. Speaking about it amongst trusted friends is different from calling it out publicly. I have felt that fear myself many times. In the face of it, I often have chosen to stay silent. I respect that we each have to make that decision for ourselves on a case by case basic.
In many cases, speaking the truth is a privilege. But I have learned the hard way that silence doesn’t always protect me and the communities I care about.
Many colleagues and peers that I speak with, both on the show and off the record, struggle with the decision to continue working in a sector that they have profound reservations about. Each has their own individual ideas about what they believe to be the best way to contribute to social justice and systematic social change. Each struggles to balance their values with their career aspirations and the need to make a living. For some, that looks like working at the grassroots level rather than with multilateral organizations. For others, it looks like demanding that management systematically change racist and sexist practices. For a few, it looks like walking away and changing career paths.
Whether you are for reform or revolution, your voice matters and we want to hear from you. Within this spectrum, there are countless personal reflections, lived experiences and lessons learnt that are important to listen to. To reflect on. To learn from. To support. To celebrate. And that is what we are dedicated to doing.
In a few weeks, we will be wrapping up our second season. But we will be back soon with season three. We have taken your feedback into consideration and plan on making some formatting changes. But we continue to commit ourselves to challenging the culture of silence and doing our part to promote thoughtful dialogue, critical thinking and connection.
As one of our great teachers and sheroes, Audre Lorde first said in 1977:
“ What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?
…. In the cause of silence, each of us draws the face of her own fear — fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation. But most of all I think, we fear the visibility without which we cannot truly live.
… We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.”
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