Meaning Making and Post Colonial Theory

Meaning Making and Post Colonial Theory

• What does it mean to create meaning and identity within hegemonic narratives and post colonial technologies? Assimilation, migratory patterns, changing economic and political polices create the space within which identities are created. Participation within communal and non-communal spaces allows us to develop and express belonging within perspective cultural identities.
• What can organizations do to change the way meaning is made in order to give permission for the voices of the subaltern to speak? Exposing the forces of nation, gender, economic ties, and ethnicity helps to make the technologies of colonization apparent so that they can be overcome. 
• Dialogue and practice around polarized views and intercultural sensitivity can enhance and promote an understanding of the workings of colonizing forces. See Milton J. Bennett's The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity
• From within an organization, much can be done to bring the voices of cultural diaspora into the decision making process through the use of an elicitive model. With Lederach's elicitive model, a people's own cultural metaphors and meanings can help to broaden the understanding of an organizational structure so that all voices can be understood and valued.