Perspectives from the Global Service and Justice Program
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Encounters with complexity: Perspectives from the Global Service and Justice Program Authors: Anna Robertson, Katharine Borah, Brenna Cass, Alex Gaynor, Alyssa Giammarella, Alex Moscovitz, Jessica Zuban, Stephanie Hardy-Tondreau, Lakeisha St Joy, Daiva Siliunas, Bridget Manning, Elizabeth A. Blesson, Ericka Cruz, Yanyi Weng, Erik Gore Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:105072 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Chestnut Hill, Mass.: Boston College, 2014 The work is licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc/4.0/). Encounters with Complexity Perspectives from the Global Service and Justice Program Encounters with Complexity Perspectives from the Global Service and Justice Program Edited by Anna Robertson Cover Photo by Jessica Zuban, “Fuera de la Ciudad,” in Santiago, Chile, 2012. This book was prepared by students in the Global Service and Justice Program senior seminar (Fall, 201 ) at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Copyright in each chapter of the4 collective work is retained by the individual author. The work is licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Table of Contents Introduction Anna Robertson . 1 - 11 Chapter 1 – Labor Migration in the Philippines: Impacts on Those Left Behind Katharine Borah . 12 - 30 Chapter 2 – Current Peruvian Immigrant and Chilean Relations: Problems and Possible Solutions Brenna Cass . 31 - 51 Chapter 3 – Community-Led Development of the Urban Poor Alex Gaynor . 52 - 75 Chapter 4 – The Fight against Human Trafficking Alyssa Giammarella . 76 - 95 Chapter 5 - Corn, Quinoa, and Tef: Weeding Out the Deep Rooted Flaws of Industrial Agricultural Development Alex Moscovitz . 96 - 118 Chapter 6 – Gassy Cows: Beef Production’s Effect on Climate and Health Jessica Zuban. .119 - 146 Student Photography on Encountering Complexity . 147 - 152 Chapter 7 - Social Outcomes of Neoliberal Economic Reforms in Chile, 1973-Present Stephanie Hardy-Tondreau . 153 - 168 Chapter 8 - Who Runs the World? An Analysis of the IMF and World Bank Lakeisha St Joy. .169 - 190 Chapter 9 – A Comparative Analysis of United States Foster Care and the Romanian Institutionalized Child Care Systems Daiva Siliunas and Bridget Manning . 191 - 212 Chapter 10 – Childcare and Early Education Across Cultural Contexts: Do Universal Standards Exist? Elizabeth A. Blesson . 213 - 227 Chapter 11 – Children in South African Townships Pursuing Higher Education Ericka Cruz. 228 - 246 Chapter 12 – From Zero Tolerance to Restorative Practice: Keeping Students in School Yanyi Weng. .247 - 263 Chapter 13 – Rehabilitation Success in Correlation to Recidivism Rates in the United States Prison Systems Erik Gore. 264 - 284 Introduction Anna Robertson Such is the world in all its complexity, with great global promises and countless tragic betrayal. Such is the world in which Jesuit institutions of higher education are called to serve faith and promote justice. - Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. In a now-famous address delivered at Santa Clara University in 2000, Superior General of the Society of Jesus Peter-Hans Kolvenbach spoke on the Jesuit university’s role in the service of faith and the promotion of justice.1 The focus on this intersection - of faith and justice, contemplation and action, orthodoxy and orthopraxis - fits into what theologian Matthew T. Eggemeier identifies as “one of the prominent turns in contemporary theology,” namely, “the call for a renewed relationship between Christian spirituality and sociopolitical concerns” (2012, 43). This renewal can be traced to the Second Vatican Council, where the Church famously committed itself to reading and responding to the “signs of the times” (Gaudium et Spes 1965, sec. 4, 11). In this shift, the Church moved from a “wholly negative judgment on modern history” (Ruggieri 1987, 95) to an “acknowledgement of history as an authentic ‘place’ wherein the imminent presence of the kingdom may be perceived” (Ruggieri 1987, 98). The importance of the Second Vatican Council for Catholic theology today cannot be overstated. Before the Council the Church found itself reeling in a modern, technological world in which religion was increasingly coming to be seen as irrelevant, even obsolete. We are reminded here of Nietzsche’s announcement of the death of God: “’Where is God?’ he cried; ‘I’ll tell you! We have killed him – you and I!” (2001, 119). The modern turn to the 1 Kolvenbach, Peter-Hans. 2000. “The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education.” Discourse given at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, October 6, 2000. http://www.scu.edu/ic/publications/upload/scl-0010-kolvenbach.pdf. 2 subject, which situated authority in the rational individual, largely divested the Church of its theretofore-unquestioned authority, while the modern will to progress vis-à-vis domination of the natural world stripped the cosmos of its mystery. Though of course exceptions to the generalization exist, the Second Vatican Council marked the Church’s shift from condemnation of modernity to an engagement with it. This shift, on the one hand, entailed an affirmation of the subjectivity of individuals and the dignity of personal conscience while, on the other, it upheld the authority of the Church in dialogue with the people of God as mature subjects. This turn to the subject was accompanied by a turn to the world, a commitment to read and respond to the “signs of the times” which led to an explosion of liberation-oriented theologies in the years following the Council. Edward Hahnenberg describes how the conciliar document Gaudium et Spes “sees the world caught up in profound transformations, deep shifts that have created imbalances among people” (2007, 61). It is within this reality marked by profound change that the Church sought to articulate “that Christ is the meaning of human life and the key to human history” (Hahnenberg 2007, 61). Ten years after the Second Vatican Council, the Society of Jesus convened its 32nd General Congregation,2 where they would discern the implications of the Second Vatican Council for the order. A major outcome of the 32nd General Congregation was the reimagining of the historical directive of the Society of Jesus, “the service of faith,” to integrally include “the promotion of justice” (Kolvenbach 2000, 2). The reverberations of this shift echoed through the halls of Jesuit universities around the world and can still be 2 December 2nd, 1974 - March 7th, 1975 3 heard today in the many opportunities for students at Jesuit universities to be involved in service and solidarity work. Jesuit education aims to educate the “whole person.” Because the whole person is necessarily embedded in a historical reality, the whole person’s education must take that historical reality into account. To harken back to Kolvenbach’s address, Jesuit education must prepare students to engage with courage and humility “the world in all its complexity, with great global promises and countless tragic betrayals” (2000, 9). Before his death, Dean Brackley, professor of moral theology at the Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas” (UCA) in San Salvador, would speak to North American delegations about la realidad mundial,3 leaning upon the work of Ignacio Ellacuría. In the context of an immersion trip in a place like El Salvador, the suffering and inequality which today mars la realidad mundial is stark, though one need not travel outside of the United States to perceive this particular sign of the time. An education of the whole person which responds to the signs of the times and attends to la realidad mundial, then, should send graduates into the world with an understanding of “the world’s suffering and the causes of that suffering, as well as possible solutions” (Brackley 2014). However, education of the whole person cannot stop with an understanding of the nature of suffering and injustice in the world, no matter how robust. This would leave students with a keen sense of what is wrong in the world with little ability to adequately respond. Brackley suggests that understanding alone is not enough; rather, it must be paired with a concomitant moral preparedness to effect change upon la realidad (2014). For Kolvenbach, this moral preparedness takes the form of “a well-educated solidarity” in 3 La realidad mundial translates as “the global reality.” 4 which contact with victims of suffering is key (2000, 10). Similarly, Brackley speaks of the “encounter with the victims” as foundational to the development of authentic solidarity (2014). According to Ellacuría, the university should order its priorities according to the needs of the poor majorities, determining “the order of research priorities, what should be taught, the size of the university and how many students should be accepted, what majors should be given priority and how they should be studied, what values and professional training should be imparted, and what the structure of the university itself should be” (Ellacuría 1991, 214). For a Jesuit university with a largely privileged student body, to put the poor majorities first involves facilitating encounters between students and those poor majorities. In these encounters, “the anonymous masses of the world’s poor emerge from their cardboard-cutout reality and take on the three-dimensional status of full-fledged human beings” (Brackley 2014). Encounter facilitates a process of conversion, of radical reorientation, which Brackley witnessed in students who would come to El Salvador and encounter the poor and their reality there: “Things fall apart,” as the poet says; the visitors’ world is coming unhinged as the poor welcome them without demanding that they clean up their act with their hosts and billions like them. The northerners’ disorientation is like the sweet shame and holy confusion of falling in love. In fact, that is what is happening, a kind of falling in love.