A lesson in Methods

I had a meeting today with a Wijkpastor concerning a tool that he and his staff uses when serving the community. 'Exposure', as it is called, is a method by which people working within the local community can become better aquainted with their surroundings. There are two types of exposure one can have. First, one can take an active approach, which is walking around and looking for things in the area that are of particular interest to oneself and one's work. Second, to passively take-in what the neighbourhood has to offer. This means that you'd find yourself a nice place to sit or stand and wait for the life of the neighbourhood to come to you. These approaches are best done together as the active approach has more your own agenda involved and the passive approach allows for others' agendas to come into play.

There are some further steps to think about when doing an exposure. You must absolutely, as part of a process, keep your eyes and ears open. You should take notice of the smells and sounds around you and the feelings that you feel due to any and all activity. Another necessary step in this process is to write down everything that you've seen and felt during your outing. It's upon this reflection that you'll be able to better explain why certain things affected you and why you find them interesting or not.

In our meeting today, the Wijkpastor mentioned that he’d received an account concerning one man's exposure experience. As this man walked through the neighbourhood he saw two instances of graffiti written on a wall. One said "F*ck the Moroccans" and the other said "Seks is lekker" (sex is delicious). The man who was writing the exposure turned in his report and wrote an exert on the first case of graffiti, which had made him extremely upset as he thought there was an unfortunate increase in racism against Moroccans. However, he did not reflect on the second comment that seks is lekker. The pastor asked the man to reflect on this graffiti and also on why it was that he mentioned but did not reflect on it. In doing so, the man was also asked to question his own position as a person in this space and in this society, e.g. what does he think of such words as a man/father/citizen in public space?

The pastor told me that exposure, for himself and those he works with, is a necessary step in order to help and interact better with the community.

For myself, this discussion also made me think about how little passive time I put into viewing the neighbourhood. I am always off to a meeting or activity somewhere. In order to get there, I always take my bike and typically leave at a time when I have to hurry in order to make it. Starting tomorrow however, I'm going to dedicate some time to walking around the neighbourhood, as well as sitting and spending time just ‘in’ the neighbourhood. It’s brilliant! Let others come to me!! It sounds wonderfully relaxing and truthfully, I can't think of a better way to spend my time in this wonderful weather we're having!