One of the most exciting and provocative pieces of public theology I’ve ever come across, a masterful piece of work. Mark, learn and inwardly digest
Rev Luke Larner, Editor of Confounding the Mighty: Stories of Church, Social Class and Solidarity, (SCM Press 2023)
Real / Symbol is three part podcast that explores the real and symbolic questions of land and gentrification and displacement in urban contexts and how communities are responding with real and symbolic acts of defiance, resistance and hope.
Real / Symbol invites you into layers of conversation, storytelling, poetry and reflection with a variety of voices – local residents, activists, researchers, artists and theologians and reveals the surprising, beautiful and everyday stories of repair and healing in tumultous times . See below for information on each of the episodes, or subscribe to Real / Symbol wherever you get your podcasts.
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In our first episode we explore how rapid urban development and gentrification has deeply affected communities across the world. Through conversations with community members, we see the effects of development on residents’ everyday lives and sense of self and how these processes cause physical displacement, emotional and spiritual displacement and prevents certain communities from flourishing.
Contributors to this episode include Shieldfield residents Val, Sharon, Mahamat, Haley, Sheryl, John, Ronnie as well as contributions from Loretta Lees, Chris Jones, Willie James Jennings, Darren McGarvey, Alastair McIntosh, Julia Heslop, Hannah Marsden, Lydia Hiorns, Gemma Herries and Alison Wilkinson.
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In this episode we delve deeper into how our ideas of place and land profoundly shape what it means to begin the processes of repair and healing from the violence and poverty of displacement.
We explore how the value of land goes way beyond its financial or economic value but is central to our understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to relate to the non-human and how we might relate to God in the place in which we find ourselves.
We explore further the connections between displacement, land, gentrification and colonialism. Drawing on notions of commons from biblical theology to indigenous wisdom, we will begin to reconstruct a more hopeful vision of connection to land, place and community.
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In our final episode we look at how communities are cultivating a collective sense of right to the land through creative and symbolic practices of everyday life.
We will look at symbolic and real acts of defiance, survival and hope, particularly how working class communities practice what writer bell hooks describes as “rituals of regard”: digging, weeding, self building, walking, listening, brewing, seed saving, foraging and trespassing.
We particularly explore the work of two community organisations Shieldfield Art Works (a project of the Methodist Church) and Dwellbeing Shieldfield (a charitable cooperative led by Shieldfield residents)
REAL / SYMBOL 