Meet your Embodied Social Justice Certificate Co-Director - Dr Rae Johnson
The Embodied Lab’s 60-hour Embodied Social Justice Certificate Program starts April 1st! We recently caught up with our Co-Director, Dr Rae Johnson. Here’s what they had to say about the upcoming program and why they are so excited to bring it to life!
Hi, my name is Rae Johnson and I'm the director for curriculum and faculty engagement in the Embodied Social Justice Certificate program. I’m very much looking forward to being with you all and to bringing some fabulous instructors from all around the world who are going to share with us their expertise, their strategies and their insights and how we might more deeply connect the lived felt experience of the body with how we do our work in the world.
I'll give you a little bit of background on me, just so you have some context. At the moment I am the co-chair of the Community Liberation Indigenous and Eco Psychology's Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. And prior to that, I was the chair of the Somatic Studies Program, also at Pacifica. So just hearing a little bit about those job titles, perhaps gives you an idea of really where I center my work and where I have centered it for the past 30 years.
“If I am willing to begin undoing oppressive social systems from the ground up, at the level of the body, I must begin interrogating the ways in which I unconsciously and unintentionally reproduce oppressive body–centered patterns through my movement, my posture, my gesture, my use of space, the way I relate to other people. I must be willing to investigate and begin to change those patterns so I am not unwittingly injuring, dismissing and insulting other people”
I wrote a book called Embodied Social Justice about four years ago and it documented and and tried to propose strategies for how we might more deeply understand the embodied experience of oppression. But also how we might use that understanding to shift how we engage with one another and how we live in the systems, in which we find ourselves.
Really from this perspective that oppressive social systems take root in our muscles and tissues and nerves in our movement patterns, and that unless and until we understand some of the implications on a body level, our efforts to enact sustainable long lasting social transformation are going to be limited.
So this program for me is a perfect fit and I'm delighted both to be teaching in the program. I think it's going to be just a fabulous fabulous program and I hope that you will join us!
Hear more from our Co-Directors Rev angel Kyodo williams, Dr Sará King, and Dr Rae Johnson at our upcoming FREE Information Session, March 20th starting at 3.00 pm ET - 4.30 pm ET
