Our learning spaces nourish our creative thinking, feeling, sensing - finding vocabularies to express the inner Self in relationship with the wider world.
For personal search and growth.
Learning spaces for personal growth and interest. The seminars are for participants who have personally experienced that module’s topic. We invite you warmly to the 2-month seminars on Zoom.
The focus is on the journey of one’s self. They are designed to be self-explorative and not lecture-based. The advantage of the Zoom format is the possibility of meeting participants from all over the world, allowing a broader spectrum of interpersonal learning.
Each seminar entails short introductions and guiding questions for intimate sharing based on life experiences and recommended readings and discussions.
Seminars are offered in English.
For professional continued education
Learning spaces for professional growth. These are for professionals and practitioners working in the field of social welfare and migration (i.e. NGOs, think tanks, mental health, clinics, schools etc.) who work with people facing these challenges described in the four modules.
We recommend the weekend seminars on Zoom or in-person weekend seminars in Zurich, offered in both English and German.
Each weekend seminar offers some content-based lectures, followed by small group break-outs for discussion and sharing.
There is space to discuss questions raised in the four modules around space-specific locations and experiences of life in Switzerland from the vantage points of the margins.
The focus is on the topics and working with people who are facing daily structural problems and challenges.
In-person weekend seminars are offered in English and German and open to all.
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A Learning Space as a safe space means: you and I and we and they belong. There is no dominant, neutral norm, standard, or convention. We celebrate being in the margins - our center - being different, estranged, and unique. We allow being authentically one Self. We value, respect, and are sensitive. We learn to listen and speak with attentiveness.
We are against any kind of othering, without being colour-blind, and supremacy (white supremacy, privilege, entitlement feeling, ignorance - nationalist superiority) and against any kind of discrimination (structural racism, friendly racism, racist jokes, anti-black, Islamophobia, Sinophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-religious attitudes, misogyny). We are aware of colonial labels and actively work against the reproduction of them.
The space we create is a safe space for people who experience these challenges outlined in the 4 modules.
If you are a person without any experience of the 4 module topics but are sensitive and self-aware of conversations on race, you are welcome to join the weekend seminar for professional growth and to honour the learning spaces as an ally.
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Our seminars are designed especially for adult learners who want to advance their personal or professional growth (please note the personal vs professional growth).
No previous knowledge is required and all courses are suitable for students who are new or old to the subject.
It is especially suitable for all lifetime learners, interested in the topics and questions, healing practitioners, community-building facilitators, mediators, educators, diversity and equality workers, activists, academics, seekers, artists, and creatives.
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You can choose from the different formats:
Seminars on Zoom
weekend seminars on Zoom
weekend seminars in person
Modules are independent seminars, you don’t need to follow a sequence.
No pre-requisites. No time commitment - though learners benefit if they study the material beforehand.
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All seminars are taught by social anthropologist, Dr Tse Lee-Shan, who has expertise in both their subjects and in teaching students of all ages and experiences.
More info: here
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Yes, a Certificate of Participation will be awarded to participants upon completion of the seminars.
The seminar is a non-accredited seminar.
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Fees:
Seminars: 450 CHF
The fee includes 6 sessions, access to the seminar recordings (for Zoom only), personal feedback on your work (if applicable), a Certification of Participation (if you attend minimum 5/6 sessions, if you complete work and take part in discussions), and access to the seminar resources (recommended reading list, learning material produced by the instructor).
Weekend Seminar on Zoom: 300 CHF
Weekend Seminar in person: 350 CHF
Offline seminar: 200 CHF for the 6 sessions (these are recordings of my introductions for each seminar, without the content of seminar participations).
Concession fees, and sliding scales are available
Four Modules
The seminars are on migration, homes, belonging and digital space. Our learning spaces are created to make use of our personal paths, selves, and questions as valuable realms and sources of knowledge and inquiry.
We explore academic or non-academic learning materials and make them relevant to our lives through active discussion and engaged listening, building a learning circle.
We offer four modules on interconnected topics with open-guided questions. These modules are timely and discussed within a safe space.
Module 1: On Authentic Learning and Expressions
In this module, we shift from outside learning to inside learning to find your authentic learning and voice that may have been suppressed over time or shuffled aside.
We learn about knowledge production, and different ways of knowing and learning.
We learn to trust the Self - not the ego, but our inner intuitions, gut feelings, senses, woundings and healings, from early memories, and life events, as sources of inner knowing.
What is authentic learning and knowing as opposed to what has been taught (in schools, universities, media)?
How can we cultivate learning without limitations, breaking the confines of convention to set ourselves free?
How can I draw from my Self as a source of knowledge and gain confidence in the Self?
How do we develop a vocabulary and framework about our life experiences and make sense of the meaning of our lived experiences?
How do we find creative ways of expressing?
Module 2: On Migration and Shifting Homes
In this module, we explore the meanings and the effects of migration on the self and extended self. We explore the multigenerational histories, paths, and (missed) communications. We learn what it means ‘to see as a child’ again and are invited to explore one’s own migration path, what the effects of migration are, and how to acknowledge these inner, sometimes buried knowings and lived experiences as a source of strength.
What does it mean to be a child of a migrant family?
How are the interconnected paths of one’s self and the extended families shaping our languages, visions and lives today?
How do we make mobility, movements, and being different or estranged to become strong vantage points?
How do we understand and document the shifts of multiple homes, migrations paths, and interwoven histories?
Module 3: On Belonging - and the Myth of ‘Diversity’ and Equality
Diversity has often been misappropriated by institutions workspace and states that claim they are open, tolerant and embracing of diversity. For people who belong to the category of ‘diverse’, the lived experiences of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ may have been experienced very differently. In this seminar, we learn about so-called cultural diversity and multiculturalism, the critique of borders, and citizenship. We learn from constructive critique of black and brown public thinkers and writers how to know for oneself and to create ways forward to learn, to identify social structures and to navigate that world beyond limitations.
What is belonging and unbelonging?
What is the myth of diversity?
What are the narratives of equality and unequality?
How do we move away from myths to conscious living?
And how do we find our own voices from within ourselves to belong as strangers in this world?
Module 4: Intersectional Digital Space (internet, data, social media)
We live in a time and space where offline and online communication are merged; the digital space is part of our everyday life. These spaces come with their own problems and limitations. How do we understand the internet as not neutral in shaping digital culture and society at large?
Through an intersectional, decolonial lens, we examine what and how new technologies function, for us to explore the algorithm, codes, grammar, inter-faces, and images that produce an ‘Other’ and reproduce structural racism through descriptions, images, figures, and profiles.
How do we understand the grammar of the internet, algorithm, data?
How does media make images of ‘us’ and the ‘other’?
How do social media and new digital spaces function and influence the way we see ourselves and each other?
As users of the internet, social media and digital spaces in everyday communication, how can we safely and consciously navigate that digital space?
How can we re-appropriate digital spaces for ourselves, for transformative purposes and liberative expressions? Is it possible?
Why this learning space?
The learning space offers learning opportunities through seminars and weekend seminars to explore social topics, such as migration, home, selves, and making spaces for continuous learning, facilitated by the social anthropologist, Dr Tse Lee-Shan.
We draw insights from readings and discussions from lived experiences, develop strategies and practices, and learn from each other and express through participation, speech, writing, and art forms.
Universities unfortunately are spaces of high pressure with the need to perform. They cannot hold spaces for personal experiences and growth, possibly even aggravating mental well-being.
Therapy sessions are places you can speak; therapists are there to listen and ask questions. They cannot always respond and help provide you with insightful social and political analysis and build vocabularies addressing social circumstances of the past and present.
Institutions and governments do not give attention and funding to provide learning spaces for groups of the population affected by migration and everyday challenges caused by systems and structures, often unequal by design. It is assumed that integration, citizenship, belonging, and mental health are personal concerns, completely missing the bigger nuanced picture.
These learning spaces present no structural obstacles to your inner growth, address these gaps and needs, and are attentive to important social topics in our community.
We take up the in-between spaces, perhaps invisible to a wider public but visible and tangible to ourselves. We look at the intersection of different life topics, such as home, migration, belonging, growing up, inter-generational communication and trauma, and creating safe spaces for free expression and learning. We attend to all the different aspects and experiences that shape us.
Formats of Learning Spaces
Seminar
for personal growth and quests
Seminars are 6 x 90-minute sessions with meetings on Saturdays.
The seminar includes an introduction and an optional presentation by the participants in the 6th session.
Location: Zoom
Languages: English and German
Fees: 450CHF
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E-course (offline) available after the live-sessions:
These are recordings containing six lectures with guiding questions for self-learners.
200 CHF/e-course
Weekend Seminar
for professional growth
Throughout the year, we offer these four modules as an intensive weekend seminar.
The weekend seminar is a one-day seminar either on a Saturday or Sunday. The learning content is adapted to an all-day seminar.
You can choose between the Zoom or in-person formats.
Languages: English and German
Fees:
On Zoom: 300CHF
In-person: 350CHF
Concession & Scholarship
Anyone has the possibility to access these offerings.
We offer concession fees by giving a 20 per cent discount. Concessions are given to participants with financial needs, for example who are unemployed, have low incomes, single parents, people with disabilities, and self-funded full-time students.
If the concession fees still prevent you from joining, we provide a sliding-scale payment scheme; please contact us.
For refugees, members living in or escaping from a war zone; and recent migrant families who arrived in a new country, the learning space offers free learning material, including e-courses and reading material.
There is a possibility to offer a course tailored to the needs of people on the move and newly settled. If you are an community organiser with ideas, funding or venues, please contact us.
Donations are collected to offer such scholarship opportunities.
