The cycle of embodied critical learning and transformation

This chapter describes a model of transformative learning that privileges the knowledge of the body in exploring issues of social power, privilege, and difference. The first phase of the cycle of embodied critical learning and transformation focuses specifically on recalled experiences of privilege, discrimination, or marginalization, and deliberately includes somatic data and nonverbal behavior. For individuals who experience monetary, time or bandwidth poverty, reflection is a luxury good. Reflection is perhaps one of the most important aspects of the embodied critical learning process. One of the remarkable features of embodied reflection is that many of these elements, and the multiple perspectives people are seeking, are palpable within the body. After identifying, critically examining, and gathering together all the elements of an experience, the next step in the cycle asks participants to distill these various aspects and perspectives into a more cohesive and meaningful whole.