In the transcribed excerpt below, Hawi suggests that through the close interactions he's had with members of the group who have different backgrounds and types of knowledges and expertise, he has noticed shifts in his own thinking. I follow that up to say that ideally I think all collaborative engagements should lead to changes in all participants' thinking... (I think this contrasts with many typical international development style projects which assume that one party (the one in the "global south") is the one that will become "educated" or build their "capacity" with the other (the one in the "global north") remaining unchanged...).
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Transcribed excerpt:
31:22
HR: “I think it’s quite interesting and I’m very happy because one of the fundamental built-up has been close collaboration which I’ve seen happening. Because one of the dialogues that we’ve had is to understand each other from a research perspective. Given that we also have different knowledges and levels of expertise. That has been a strength because when we talk about what our understanding cause… at times I am trying to see how I can fit my thinking, because I am in a different school of thought, into this new school of thought so I find that Wangari, or Wambui or Aurelia have different kind of scopes of thinking. So trying to figure out where is the mix and where do we meet together, that has been a very interesting shift in this process.”
32:26
AO: “That’s really nice to hear. Because I think that’s what we hope. I think all of us, myself included right?, through our interactions with each other and our working together, we hope that it also changes us and the way that we think. Our structures don’t have to be so rigid and our thinking also don’t have to be so rigid. We should be flexible.”
