Stories offered by youth gang members describe lived experiences of inclusion and exclusion; they suggest how personal and social experience shape perceptions of reality, the ways those perceptions shape identity, and how identity is embedded in experiences of participation and non-participation. The stories underscore the importance of building diverse, inclusive, hospitable spaces that encourage reintegration of people experiencing trauma into larger communities, and the power of critical reflection in creating these spaces. This session has the potential to surface several issues central to campus/community engagement: our understandings of authentic power; what it means to co-create knowledge; and how liberatory pedagogy can be embodied as a rich alternative to the verb of “helping”.

 

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