#163 Generative Cultural Renewal (with Sousan Abadian and Ariana Abadian-Heifetz)

The Wonder Dome

In this special, inter-generational episode we welcome Dr. Sousan Abadian and her daughter, Ariana Abadian-Heifetz. Ariana is an experiential educator with expertise in social-emotional learning and gender-based violence. Sousan has an independent practice, teaching, speaking, and consulting internationally on leadership, innovation, and culture change. She’s the author of Generative Cultural Renewal, a pioneering work that examines the limits to cultural relativism, using female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) as a case study and providing a framework for positive cultural change.

Generative Cultural Renewal serves as a cornerstone of this conversation, where mother and daughter share the miraculous ways that answers to important questions Ariana grew to have about women, culture, and identity could be found in some of the preliminary notes that would later become Sousan’s groundbreaking work; reducing our “trauma footprint”; and humanity’s need to refresh our culture and consciousness as we evolve towards a healthier collective wellbeing.

"First Fall" by Maggie Smith I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark morning streets, I point and name. Look, the sycamores, their mottled, paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves rusting and crisping at the edges. I walk through Schiller Park with you on my chest. Stars smolder well into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks, the dogs paddling after their prized sticks. Fall is when the only things you know because I’ve named them begin to end. Soon I’ll have another season to offer you: frost soft on the window and a porthole sighed there, ice sleeving the bare gray branches. The first time you see something die, you won’t know it might come back. I’m desperate for you to love the world because I brought you here.

Show Notes:

* www.sousanabadian.com

* Generative Cultural Renewal: An Effective Resource in Ending Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting & Other Harmful Practices by Sousan Abadian, PhD

* www.konu.org/ariana-abadianheifetz

* Spreading Your Wings: A Health Infocomic for Girls of All Ages by Ariana Abadian-Heifetz

Connect with Andy:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

* Instagram: https://instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

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