Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
grappling with a set of ideas that, I have to
be honest, I found a little unsettling when I
first read through them. They are unsettling,
aren't they? It's one of those topics where,
you know, once you see the pattern, you can't
unsee it. It changes how you watch the news,
how you read a fundraising email, everything.
And it starts with a premise that just feels
completely backward to my intuition. Usually,
if I see a problem like a social injustice, my
gut says, OK, I need to prove how bad it is.
Right. Bring the receipts. Exactly. I need to
document the pain, the trauma to get people to
care enough to actually fix it. That just feels
like the logical first step. And that is the
standard operating procedure for almost all social
change work. The logic is, you know, pretty simple.
If I can show you the damage, you'll be morally
compelled to intervene. But today's deep dive
suggests that this very instinct, this obsession
with documenting brokenness, might actually be
a trap. We're unpacking a really seminal open
letter from 2009 by a scholar named Eve Tuck.
It's titled, Suspending Damage, A Letter to Communities.
And this is a foundational text in Indigenous
studies. Eve Tuck is an Angus, and she was writing
specifically to Indigenous communities and researchers.
But we're talking about it today because we're
cross -referencing her work with a new analysis
on interfaith peacebuilding. Which seems like
a big jump at first, but the connection is actually
really, really tight. We're looking at how her
warning applies to religious conflict and polarization
today. Exactly. The mission is to figure out
why defining a community by its pain is so dangerous
and to understand what on earth Tuck means by
a desire -based framework. And look, just clear
the air before we start because I know what some
listeners might be thinking. This isn't toxic
positivity, is it? We're not saying just ignore
the suffering. Not at all. And that is the hardest
part of this to grasp. This isn't about pretending
everything is fine. It's about refusing to let
the not fine parts be the only definition of
who you are. Okay, so let's get into the gears
of this. Tuck coins this term, damage -centered
research. Can you break that down for us? It's
a bit more specific than just any research that
talks about bad things. Tuck defines it as research
that operates, even with the best intentions,
from a specific theory of change. Okay. The idea
is that you intentionally document pain and brokenness
specifically to hold power accountable. You establish
harm to get reparation. Which, to be fair, sounds
like a solid strategy. It sounds like a lawsuit.
Oof. You hurt me. Here's the proof. Now pay up.
That's exactly what it is. The source material
calls this the litigation model. Think about
it. If you're in a personal injury case, you
don't walk into court talking about how great
your life is. No, you bring the medical bills.
You show the jury the cast on your leg. You have
to perform your brokenness to get paid. Right.
And history shows this works. To a point. The
sources mention Brown v. Board of Education.
That's the holy grail of civil rights litigation.
For sure. And they bring up the famous clock
doll test used in that case. Yeah. From the 1940s,
researchers showed black children a white doll
and a black doll and asked which one was nice
or bad. I've seen footage of that. It is absolutely
heartbreaking. It's get wrenching. And Thurgood
Marshall used that data to argue that segregation
wasn't just unfair. It was psychologically damaging
these children. He proved the injury and he won.
So I'm going to play skeptic here for a second.
Yeah. If it worked for Thurgood Marshall, if
it ended legal segregation. Why is Eve Tuck saying
we need to suspend it? Why fix what isn't broken?
Because the courtroom is a very specific place.
And when you take that litigation logic out of
the courtroom and apply it to an entire community's
identity, for decades, things start to get toxic.
How so? Because it pathologizes them. That's
the key word she uses. Pathologizing, like from
pathology. It sounds medical. It is. It treats
the community like a chronic disease case. If
the only time you hear about a community is in
the context of their suffering or their poverty
or their trauma, you stop seeing them as people
and start seeing them as patients, as permanently
broken. I see. It's the difference between saying,
I have a broken leg and I have a broken person.
Exactly that. And in the interfaith and peace
building world, which is the other half of our
source material, this is just rampant. Think
about how we talk about conflict zones. Oh, I've
seen the grant proposals. They always start with
the casualty counts. They start with hate crime
statistics. It's just pages and pages of, look
how much everyone hates each other. Precisely.
It's a catalog of despair. And the assumption
is, if I show the donor how awful it is, they'll
give us money to fix it. But the source argues
that when we do this, we strip these communities
of their complexity. Can you give an example
of what that stripping away looks like? Well,
just look at how major religions get discussed
in the media during conflicts. We risk reducing
Judaism solely to the Holocaust or the events
of October 7th. Right. Or reducing Islam solely
to post 9 -11 security threats or Christianity
in the global south just to the wounds of colonization.
And those things are so real. You can't just
pretend the Holocaust or colonization didn't
happen. No, and Tuck is very clear about this.
This is not amnesia. But she asks a crucial question.
If that is the only story we tell, is that history?
Or is that an act of aggression? An act of aggression.
That's strong language. It is, but think about
it. If I introduce you to someone and I say,
this is so -and -so, they were the victim of
a terrible crime, and that's all I say, I've
just defined you by the worst thing that ever
happened to you. You've robbed me of my agency.
You've made me a character in someone else's
tragedy, not the protagonist of my own life.
Exactly. OK, that clicks. So if we fall into
this damage trap, what's the alternative? This
is where she brings in the desire based framework.
Right. And we have to be really careful with
that word desire, because in English we usually
think of, you know, wanting a slice of pizza
or something. Yeah. I desire a vacation right
now. Me too. Yeah. But Tuck is drawing on some
heavier philosophy here, Deleuze and Guattari.
And in this framework, desire isn't about lack.
It's not. I want what I don't have. It's what
she calls an assemblage. Okay, you're going to
have to translate assemblage for us. That sounds
a little like art school jargon. It does a bit.
Think of it as a generative accumulation, a mosaic.
It's the sum total of your wisdom, your hope,
your contradictions, your heritage, and your
pain. The source has this great quote. desire
accounts for the loss and despair but also the
visions and the wisdom of lived lives so damage
is a snapshot of the wound but desire is the
whole movie that's a perfect way to put it to
make this concrete tuck describes a photography
exhibit at the schomburg center in new york stereotypes
versus human types i love this part of the reading
walk us through it because i think it really
helps land the plane so imagine you walk into
the first room the damage room It's filled with
these grotesque historical caricatures of African
-Americans, alligator bait images, Uncle Tom
posters. Just flat, one -dimensional images of
mockery or pity. Exactly. But then you walk into
the second room, the desire room. These are the
human types. They were old photographs, the Gary
types of African -Americans from the Victorian
era. And what's the shift in feeling there? It's
profound. These people were posed. They chose
their clothes. They chose how to be seen. They
look back at the camera with dignity, with complexity.
They weren't just reacting to a system of oppression.
They were just being. They were subjects of their
own lives. They were subjects of desire. They
had a past and a future that belonged to them.
And that is the shift Tuck wants us to make.
Stop looking at the stereotype of the victim
and start looking at the complex human. Okay,
emotionally, I completely buy that. But I can
hear the pragmatist in my head saying, if I'm
working in a conflict zone, isn't focusing on
desire a little bit? Soft. Aren't you just glossing
over the fact that the house is on fire? And
that is the number one criticism. Aren't you
just in denial? But Tuck tackles this with her
storm analogy. She says a desire -based framework
is not the song about looking for a silver lining.
It is the song about walking through the storm.
I highlighted that line, walking through the
storm. It acknowledges the storm is real. You
might get wet, you might get hurt, but it refuses
to let the storm be the only interesting thing
about the person walking. It says the storm is
happening, but I am still here and I am still
creating and I am still me. So it's the difference
between look at this poor victim in the rain.
And look at this person navigating the rain.
Precisely. And in the interfaith world, this
just changes the entire conversation. Right now,
so many dialogues get stuck in what scholars
call competitive victimhood. Oh, I've been in
those rooms. My tragedy is bigger than your tragedy.
It's a race to the bottom. It is. And it's a
dead end. Because if your only currency is your
pain, you can never let it go or you go bankrupt.
A desire -based framework flips that. It allows
communities to show up as bearers of wisdom.
They bring their theology, their humor, their
traditions. They show up as what Avery Gordon
calls complex personhood. Complex personhood.
Okay, another term we need to pin down. What
does that look like in the real world? It means
acknowledging that people are messy and full
of contradictions, and that's okay. Tuck shares
this story from her colleague, Monique Gouchard,
that is just perfect. The sneaker line paradox.
Yes. This story really stuck with me. So Monique
is working with these youth researchers in the
Bronx. Right. And they spend the whole day doing
this incredibly high level critical work. They're
critiquing corporate capitalism, breaking down
globalization, analyzing how these systems exploit
their communities. They're sharp, socially conscious
critics of the system. And then the sun goes
down. And then the sun goes down. And where do
these anti -capitalist warriors go? They go stand
in line for hours to buy the new Air Jordan sneakers.
Which are the ultimate symbol of the corporate
machine they just spent all day tearing apart.
Exactly. Now, a damage -centered researcher looks
at those kids and says, hypocrites or, you know,
false consciousness. You judge them. You think
they failed the test. Right. But a desire -based
framework looked at that and sees. The kids knew
it was a contradiction. They were at ease with
it. They can critique the system and still want
the shoes because in their world, those shoes
represent status, style, joy. It's allowing them
to be human, not just a political talking point.
And this sneaker logic, this ability to hold
contradictions is actually life or death in peace
building. OK, connect those dots for me. How
do we get from Air Jordans to peace? Because
people in conflict zones are living the ultimate
contradiction. This framework allows us to understand,
for instance, a Palestinian imam who is deeply
mourning the destruction of his village, but
who is also studying Hebrew to read Jewish philosophy
in the original. Which would seem impossible
if you only view him as a victim. Right. Or an
Israeli rabbi who is grieving a terror attack,
but who is also building a local coalition with
his Muslim neighbors. It breaks the binary of
victim versus aggressor. Or broken versus whole.
We are addicted to those binaries, aren't we?
Totally. A spoiler named Edward Soja calls the
alternative thirding. It's moving beyond either
to a third space where multiple truths can exist
at once. So this leads us to the final big concept
in the stack. If we aren't just surviving the
damage, what are we doing? The term used is survivance.
Is that just a fancy word for survival? No, and
this is crucial. It comes from Gerald Vezinor,
an Anishinaabe scholar. Survival is just staying
alive. It's defensive. It's a reflex. You survive
a car crash. You just hold on tight enough. Exactly.
But survivance is active. Vezinor defines it
as a creative, generative, sovereign presence.
It means you are creating new ways of being while
you stay alive. You aren't just reacting to the
oppressor. You are out creating them. Gives an
example of that. The source material mentions
these communities in South Florida, Jewish and
Muslim communities who, you know, have plenty
of reasons to be at odds given global events.
For sure. The tension must be incredibly high.
A survival mode would be them just issuing press
releases, condemning violence, and then going
back to their separate corners. That's damage
control. But they did survivance instead. They
did. They came together to co -author new theological
frameworks for coexistence. They were analyzing
their scriptures together to find a path forward.
They weren't rehearsing their grief. They were
generating new wisdom. That is a sovereign act.
So given all of this, Tuck ends her letter with
a really radical demand. She calls for a moratorium.
A moratorium on damage -centered research. It's
a bold move. She's essentially saying stop the
presses. Does she mean we just stop doing research?
Just stop asking questions and go home? No, it's
not anti -intellectual. It's a call for a time
out, a freeze on the kind of research that just
extracts pain for academic tenure or for funding.
She wants us to rethink our theories of change.
Are we just collecting pain stories or are we
helping a community thrive? There's a story at
the very end of the material that I think sums
all this up better than any theory could. The
story from the Australian Parliament in 2008.
Yes. So it was this historic day. Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd was offering a formal national apology
to indigenous peoples for the stolen generations.
A massive moment of acknowledging damage. But
then the opposition leader, Rendon Nelson, stood
up and he gave this. this hollow counter narrative
he started minimizing the impact making excuses
classic yes but response mistakes were made but
let's not get carried away exactly and the gallery
is packed with indigenous elders and allies and
instead of shouting him down they did something
else one by one they stood up and they turned
their backs they just turned around They turned
their backs on him and then they started a slow
clap, a rhythmic slow clap. And the sound grew
until it literally drowned out the voice of the
man speaking at the podium. Wow. That gives me
chills. Tuck calls this a sovereign act. It wasn't
a riot. It was a rejection. They essentially
said, we are done listening to a story that defines
us by your terms. We are done. That image, turning
your back on a narrative that doesn't serve you.
That really is the core of this entire deep dive.
It is. It's the refusal to be a victim, the refusal
to be a statistic. And for anyone listening,
that is the lesson. So let's bring this home.
What's the final takeaway? How do we apply this
tomorrow morning? I think it's this. We have
to stop thinking that the only way to get people
to care is to show them the blood. We need to
look for the desire. We need to look for the
human type, not the stereotype. Because you can
pity a victim, but you can only partner with
a person. Beautifully said. You can't build a
future on pity. You can only build it on shared
hope. I think that leads us to a really provocative
thought to leave our listeners with today. I've
been thinking about this, about that silence
that Tuck talks about, the silence when you stop
listing your grievances. So here's the question
for you. If you stop telling the story of your
life or your community through the list of things
that have hurt you, what story would be left
to tell? That's a scary question. Because for
some of us, that list is our armor. It is terrifying.
If you take away the damage, is there anything
left? Is that silence just empty? Or is that
silence exactly where the real work begins? A
question worth sitting with. Thank you for diving
deep with us today. Always a pleasure. See you
next time.