September, 2015 Collab Salon: Stories that honor cultural integrity – marcela polanco

marcela polanco from Our Lady of the Lake University was our featured guest for the September Collab Salon. After overcoming some initial techno difficulties, we engaged in a discussion about a question Michael White raised in his work “How is it that people pull the materials of culture together to form an identity and a life, and of the processes by which these cultural knowledges and practices are reworked in people’s expressions of living?” (White, 2001). We focused on the complex ways in which culture shapes the oral traditions that support the fabrication of stories and the assembling of our lives in turn. Marcela’s  work emphasizes the importance of honoring the cultural integrity of stories by recognizing cultural difference between the person of the therapist and the consultant. She situated the discussion in a narrative therapy framework informed by traditions of her own cultural upbringing in Colombia, including the literary genre of magical realism; and her experiences with bilingualism as an immigrant in the U.S.