Final leg of the tour | Buttes, Beaches, & Wide Open Spaces
The co-live tour has continued with stops in the Western United States to take in the expansive landscapes. This stop was a week in Sedona, complete with some March Madness basketball viewing, sound bathing, and awe inspiring views of dessert buttes.
Where did the beginnings of my cultural curiosity begin to reveal itself? As my mom tells it, there was an Asian child in my Preschool class who I was intrigued with, which she took that as a sign, and then enrolled me in a kids program at University of Kentucky focused on exploring cultures around the world. Most of what I remember about that course is the excitement of getting my fake passport stamped and eating a lot of strange foods that I was not so sure about. Don’t think I absorbed much in terms of cultural complexities as a 4 year-old, but the spark was definitely ignited.
You might think a small town in the middle of Kentucky has little to no diversity, but somehow it was an interesting microcosm due to a variety of factors. Our small town of 16,000 was successful at attracting a number of manufacturing companies when that was a viable economic development strategy (did you know that in June 1979, manufacturing employment reached an all-time peak of 19.6 million in the US?), including a Japanese manufacturing plant. We also had a small college, which attracted the intellectually curious, socially progressive, and often well-traveled community. And our church became a sponsor of a number of refugee families, in which my mom became actively involved in hosting, including a family from Bosnia as well as a family from Liberia. Naturally I was recruited to serve as an English tutor to play my part in supporting their transition, which as a teenager I did begrudgingly.
My curiosity shifted to conviction as I grew older and started to realize the inequities associated with culture and race. Two experiences in high school shaped my views and added new color to my world. One was the experience of dating a black gentleman and confronting deeply ingrained racism and bias within my family system. The other was a trip to Ecuador where we tagged along with a foreign study trip run by my friends’ mom, who was an anthropology professor at the local college. Included in the trip was a visit to a women's prison, where I became aware of the lack of rights and legal protection provided in other parts of the world. This would prove to be excellent material for my college admissions essay as well as inspiration to become a foreign diplomat and right the wrongs of the world. Between these experiences and the evangelical church culture I became deeply embedded in during my teens and 20s, of which missionary trips overseas was common practice, the white savior complex started its course.
That's a wrap! Our pilot mastermind coaching crew had our final session on Monday, March 20th, a bittersweet end to our 6-week practice round. So grateful for aligned souls to learn with and from as I shape my different offerings!
Fast forward, I felt very “on mission” when I ended up landing a job in Seattle that was focused on supporting underrepresented groups to accelerate their skills in software development, creating economic opportunity for these individuals, while also supplying the tech industry with a more diverse talent pool. It was my first experience in “for profit” education, and I knew the reputation of this field for being predatory, but had hope that this company was in it for the right reasons, based upon endorsements they had received from well respected organizations in the area. What I did not realize is that I would end up landing in a lot of communities and conversations about diversity, inclusion, and equity that would support my own unlearning journey around the role I thought I was meant to play in this space.
So now I am looking at this topic from a new lens, as I start my Transformational Travel Design course, and getting the chance to reflect on how my own experiences with travel have continued to shape my ability to take on new perspectives and challenge my own stereotypes. I think about my trip to Vietnam and learning about how Ho Chi Minh traveled the world studying politics and philosophies to select the right form of government for their country, which he determined should be communism, in order to lift their people out of poverty. And the ways it challenged my cultural programming and propaganda I had been raised with around the superiority of democracy and the dangers of communism. Or living in Rwanda during COVID where their authoritarian form of leadership blended with commitment to the community over individual freedoms was such a contrast to the mess the United States found itself in, as it tore itself apart over the question of vaccine and mask mandates. Or discussions I had in Morocco about how women are viewed in their society, after observing prayer aligned with the Islam tradition, and coming to see that perhaps they actually had more reverence for the power and majesty women carry than we do in the “West.”
And now I get to receive guidance on techniques for how to design travel experiences that facilitate these connections and insights, and don’t perpetuate further harm and disconnection. We have the chance to work on a capstone project which will end up being a travel service or product. I am still in the exploratory phase of determining what exactly I want to focus on creating, but I do know that I would love for there to be an emphasis on cross-cultural exchange, innovation, and shared support.
Last stop on the co-work/co-live tour has been San Diego, complete with puppy training, coastal strolls, and swapping notes and support on tackling challenging conversations.
Therefore one of the frameworks that I am marinating on the most is the intergroup contact hypothesis from Gordon Allport (1954), who suggested that positive effects of intergroup contact occur in contact situations characterized by four key conditions: equal status, intergroup cooperation, common goals, and support by social and institutional authorities. Grateful to have a community of travel professionals to wrestle with these questions and learn (or unlearn) from as we start this journey.
What is a travel experience that you have had which altered your worldviews, created unexpected connections, or facilitated a meaningful shift in your life?
Kindred Spirit Connection: Katja Wallisch is carving her own unique path through life, leaving behind corporate life to become a transformational experience designer, and finding ways to integrate her business background with spirituality. We recently had a thought partner session on our shared passions for community and convening, daydreaming about co-living concepts.
Suggested Peak Experience: Tom Fels and I met through our involvement with the Transformational Travel Council. He too is blending work on leadership development, innovation, and consulting purpose-driven businesses with a travel angle, partnering with game reserves in South Africa. He is accepting reservations for his next retreat offering in November 2023.
Thought Provoking Read: Through our coursework we have discussed the power of the “hero’s journey” as a framework for considering experience design, but also challenged this literary staple as well, given it’s overemphasis on the power of one individual’s heroic acts vs. the power of collective action.
