A REFLECTION OF MY EXPERIENCE ON A COURSE ON “DIALOGUE AND THE ART OF LISTENING”
Maura Ntow, PhD candidate
In this short piece, I reflect on my engagement with the course “Dialogue and the art of listening” organized at Aarhus University. I write about my cognitive process of the discussions, lectures and interaction and how I relate with it considering my own research project and preparation for my field work.
My original motivation for choosing to participate in a course on dialogue and the art of listening was in preparation for the ethnographic aspect of my PhD project. My project is part of a large body of research on “COVID-19 and global mental health: the importance of cultural context”. My desire is to do a great work with my fieldwork in Nigeria and Ghana. Myself being an African (Ghanaian) psychologist with many years of clinical engagement and significant involvement in the mental health aspect of COVID-19 management in Ghana, I am aware of the possible influences from my own perceptions, experiences, knowledge and cultural values and norms in conducting ethnographic research among a society I am familiar with. The need to engage in a fruitful dialogue to produce a rich discourse about the psychological impact of the pandemic to Ghanaians and Nigerians is of great essence in this project.
The course had recommended texts on dialogue from authors like Buber (1965) and Mendes-Flohr, (2015 & 2014), Nietzsche (2006), Feld (2015) among others. Lectures were from keynote speakers like Paul Mendes-Flohr of University of Chicago & Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Aslaug Kristiansen of Agder University, Kristiansand; Claudia Welz of Aarhus University; Salomé Voegelin of the University of the Arts London, LCC and Peter Szendy from Brown University, Providence. There were also presentations from a postdoctoral fellow, Essi Ikonen of University of Helsinki & Aarhus University and PhD fellows Hugo Boothby (Malmö University) and Marianne Træbing Secher (Roskilde University).
My take home message from the two-day seminar was dialogue may be described in two forms: dialoguing with the other and dialoguing with self. When we dialogue with the other, it opens us to either understand or acquire knowledge and basically lead to an unpredictable outcome. Dialoguing with the other may involve the attainment of a mutual dialogue which may be non-directional, frequently with high chances of having our own opinions changed. Dialoguing with the other implies there is a sense of the presence of the other. This presence encompasses a comprehensive and holistic approach which may involve the cultural, social and individual self of both sides – the researcher and the informant. These details of the other’s presence may or may not contribute to a harmonious dialogue which may result in a particular direction of outcome. The manifestations of these factors of the self (cultural, social and individual) may affect the ways we listen, the dialogical listening.
Dialogical listening is about being open, understanding self and understanding the self of the other, exposing self to an epistemology of existential truth without forfeiting the experiences of one’s own existential integrity. Dialogical listening may be difficult to attain in the absence of a dialogue with the self. Peter Szendy describes this as a dialogue between, through and across self. It is the ability to listen to self in the context of one’s own community, experiences, knowledge and understanding of the world. Being conscious of the dialogue within self will help to perform an active form of listening. Active listening entails the ability to listen for the verbal and non-verbal, to the spoken and unspoken (the silence) and being able to decipher between the sounds being heard as well as being aware of one’s own judgement, and consciousness. In the art of listening, according to Salomé Voegelin, there is the need to recognize and be aware of existing history, knowledge and experiences of the past. The openness to being challenged, being reoriented and allowing self to experience in a different way and even to come to a point of uncertainty about the actual knowledge, could be seen as a way to decolonize the self.
In relation to my project, I must be conscious of the dialogue within myself. Having practiced as a psychologist for many years in Ghana, worked with an existing paradigm of mental health service, using, and becoming familiar with the existing nosology of classification of mental disorders (ICD and DSM), I would need to be mindful of my own influences. In my view the most important ones would be the literature on universality of mental health, my own observations and mindset about some of the traditional forms of healing in Africa, the perceived mindset of the African regarding mental health and what global mental health has meant to me over the years.
I remain mindful that what I hear during interaction with participants of my research might not only challenge my own convictions now but may also make me seem different to my native people. As a result, as much as engaging in active listening is necessary, my recognition of what the other is also listening from my spoken and unspoken words is equally relevant. From these, Salomé’s description of the need to decolonize self comes to play. The need to allow myself to be challenged, to be reoriented and giving room for the existing norm to be stretched or disturbed, could not have made better sense here. Peter Szendy’s description of the third ear will also play a significant role in this context. Being mindful of the tendency to guess what the other speaks, or even of what is spoken from within by myself is also important. The tendency is frequently of mishearing, misunderstanding, and overhearing. I should not resist what emerges, rather allow myself to engage in the dialogue (however it unfolds) in a non-judgement way.
To conclude, I believe these ideologies are relevant in any ethnographical research, and especially in a field such as mental health, which has a definition, a classification and a description that is not straightforward across cultures. Within the paradigm of global mental health and the notion of common humanity, the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic was expected to result in a spiraling mental health crisis globally due to previous history of pandemics. But the story may not have unfolded as expected. One should then question whether all cultures experienced this odd moment in one single framework of suffering. Fostering dialogical listening and decolonising self is certainly the direction to go!
References
Buber, M. (1965). The word that is spoken in The knowledge of man: selected essays. Harper & Row
Feld, S. (2015) Acoustemology in Novak, D. & Sakakeeny, M. (eds,) Keywords in sound. Duke University Press.
Mendes-Flohr, P. (2015) Introduction in Mendes-Flohr, P. (ed.) Dialogue as a trans-disciplinary concept: Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and its contemporary reception. De Gruyter.
Mendes-Flohr, P. (2014) “Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger in Dialogue,” Journal of Religion 94(1), 2-25
Nietzsche, F. (2006). Conversation about music in Clark. M. and Leiter, B. (ed.) Daybreak: Thoughts on the prejudices of morality. Cambridge University Press