A Statement from the Care Bears, Conflict Mediators of Queeristan 2011
The Care Bears of Queeristan 2011 believe in “doing no harm” when called upon to offer support and or intervene on behalf of individuals seeking to positively experience and or contribute to a space dedicated to the elimination of xenophobia, commercialization, racism, homo-normativity, trans-phobia, sexism, and oppression. By focusing on doing no harm, the Care Bears of Queeristan 2011 believe in generating responses that will not undermine the principles of having a space where people reject the prejudices and socialization of ‘mainstream’ societal values. Therefore, the Care Bears of Queeristan 2011 seek to encourage the expression of radically different opinions, choices and tactics at the Queer Festival, as well as strive to protect the collective interest of harvesting spoken-voices. This includes engaging with others outside of a “radical clique” and approaching people in an honest, radical, and non-discriminatory manner. It means communicating with care and respect and always considering the context in which everyone is speaking. Thus, the focus is to. ASK, LISTEN and RESPECT what is being heard. Analyze why you ask some people and don’t ask others. Most importantly, the Care Bears of Queeristan 2011 believe in fostering a ‘Safe Space’,where people take care of one another, and which emphasizes welcoming, engaging, and supporting.
How to cultivate a safer space:
• Respecting for people’s physical and emotional boundaries
• Always getting explicit verbal consent before touching someone or crossing personal boundaries
• Observing and valuing people’s opinions, beliefs, differing states of being, and differing points of view
• Being responsible for one’s own actions by being aware actions effect others
• Taking responsibility for your one’s safety and getting help when it is needed
Please note any individual and or group engaging in violence (including sexual violence and harassment) within the space will automatically be excluding themselves and Care Bears will ask them to leave the space.
Conflict Resolution and Process
Ultimately, conflict is something that can arise when individual come together to learn and grow; however, it has the potential to be valuable when managed in a constructive manner. Thus, inspired by other Queer Festival organizations, the Care Bears of Queeristan 2011 have put forth this basic overview above for dealing with conflict. Our belief is that that a resolution deemed positive to all parties engaged should always be sought first , but, most importantly, any conflict arising in a shared space, which at least one party feels cannot be resolved without some help, should always seek the assistance of a Care Bear.
Copenhagen queer festival has decided not to practice a safer space policy this year. There’s a link here.
http://www.queerfestival.org/index.php/news-reader/items/no-safer-spaces-this-year.html
The SSP was a long text encouraging everyone to confront their phobias and ‘isms before entering the QF, and also a summery of all the things we don’t accept at the festival. It was centered around the idea of a space that is ‘survivor-centric.
The text in its self is very good, and is covering some very important issues. The reason why we don’t want to use it as a backbone for the festival this year, is that the text it self became a set of rules or guide lines, around which we structured the festival. It became an important tool in conflict resolution, something you could always refer back to when solving a problem. Which is all good except for the fact that the policy at the same time became a promise of a fictional “safe space”. A sort of contract that automatically guarantied a safe space when you entered the festival.
The organizing group alone can not promise or be in charge of general safety at the festival, it is something that everyone participating is expected to take part in. We feel that having a set of rules like the SSP has taken some of the individual reflection and responsibility away, and we would like to bring that back.
Everyone approaches the Queerfestival with different backgrounds, and we would like to try to remember this, so that we don’t force academic terms or PC queer language upon each other. We don’t want to end up agreeing on words or terms without actually knowing their meaning, as might have been the case with the SSP.
When all this is said, we still wish for the festival to be a space where we fight structural oppression, where we take it seriously that no one falls victim to it, and no one performs it. We still wish for the festival to be a space where we spend time and energy realizing and challenging our own positions and privileges.
Therefore we are not sure that everyone should feel safe at all times. Not every position is safe, while feeling safe as a queer is important at the festival, feeling safe as a white person might not be an exclusively good thing. We have to remember that every time we interact with each other we represent different positions. Sometimes our privileges are limiting other peoples freedom some times our freedom is limited by other peoples privileges. And so, to really challenge or positions we might have to give up on the idea of personal safety from time to time to be able to make a safe space for others.
And this very process in it self is not safe. It is scary and challenging and even painful at times.
Because let’s face it, entering the QF doesn’t mean that you enter a safe zone where all the struggles and troubles of everyday life is stripped away. A safe space is not something we can just claim to have, it is something we continually need to work very hard to create.
In doing so, we should assume that everyone who takes out a week of their life to attend the QF does so, because they want to spend a week with other queers, learning and developing both as individuals and as a group. And because we want to destroy heteronormativity, fight capitalism and build alliances between queers all over the world.
Unfortunately we experienced that having a set of strictly defined rules (the SSP) actually created a bit of paranoia. It generated a very strong fear of fucking up and a constant expectancy that someone else would.
One goal for the festival can be to make it a bubble-like space, where no borders are crossed and no toes are stepped on, a refuge from all the hierarchical shit that we deal with every where else. Somehow this might have been what we tried to create by having an SSP the previous years. But unfortunately we can not set our selfs above hierarchy and structural oppression just by having a policy that forbids it. So we talked about trying – at least for this year – to burst that bubble. Because even though the bubble might feel really good to be in – at least for some, it might also be a space with very little place to grow, learn and develop.
We will be working the racist structures at the festival – continuing some of the discussions that started last year. And for this we all need to be brave enough, not just to pretend that we automatically generate a safe space by being “The Queer Festival”. We will all need to dare to challenge our selfs and each other. To face our privileges, our oppressors, and our positions. And we would like for this to be a integrated part of the festival.
We would like to stretch the idea of safety – so that safety also means a space where fucking up isn’t something so painful and shameful that no one dares to even really try to change their ways. We would like for the festival to be a space where we are not afraid to challenge our selfs and each other. Where we can develop our politics, theory and social behavior together, where we can fight our ism’s and phobias together. We have spend a lot of time and energy talking about the goals for the festival and how to best realize them. And we are looking forward to continuing this discussion with you all during the festival.
We are working on finding a different way of integrating the notion of safer spaces in the festival. Workshops, discussions, actions and so on. As we have already pointed out this is a job for everyone at the festival, so we very much encourage you to discuss it in your groups at home, before coming to QF.
We are looking forward to see you all
The pre-organizing group
Copenhagen Queerfestival 2011
Nice – thanks sharing QF’s insight on the notion of safe space and the discussions behind it. Q2011 organizers also felt the idea of a “safe space” in a conference/festival of this scale to be potentially problematic, which is why we emphsis the idea of “cultivating a saf(er) space” and ways to resolve conflict independently. I’m sure the organizers for the Care Bears will have more to say on this, but I thought I’d just chime in since all of us have also read Copenhagen’s QF2011 statement referenced above (btw- EXCELLENT work!).
Looking forward to CQF2011 this year!
Cheers,
Boots
I don’t think meals have any business being deductible. I’m for separation of calories and corporations.
All lasting customers are built on friendship.
what are you talking about?