00;00;00;00 – 00;00;39;15
Cindy Holmes
Welcome. I’m Cindy Holmes, and this is Around the Table, a podcast where we bring forward conversations about shared meals, dialogue, spirituality, and social justice. Around the table is a research project and a podcast. In this podcast series, we share our conversations with community leaders from across Turtle Island who have organized intentional dinner dialogues to support community well-being and advance social justice, anti-racism and decolonization.
00;00;39;17 – 00;00;53;18
Cindy Holmes
Today’s episode is being recorded on the Unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Peoples.
00;00;53;21 – 00;01;25;12
Cindy Holmes
In today’s episode of Around the Table, my collaborator Leslie Williams and I are in conversation with Jennifer Hawkins, a community health organizer and researcher who was part of a dinner dialogue project called New Matrix Meals. This was a partnership with Chilliwack Pacific Community Resources Society in 2017 that focused on reducing stigma about substance use through meal sharing in people’s homes.
00;01;25;14 – 00;02;03;15
Cindy Holmes
It was part of a series of dialogue projects led by the Center for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Jennifer Hawkins loves to dig her hands and mind in spaces and places where research intersects with community development. In her current role as senior project manager for community-based research at UBC’s Center for Advancing Health Outcomes, she works alongside Multisectoral Collaboratives forwarding transformative work, particularly on issues surrounding substance use.
00;02;03;18 – 00;02;32;01
Cindy Holmes
Jen is blessed to live in Ts’elxwéyeqw, also known as Chilliwack, British Columbia, and whenever she can, she’ll be outdoors with the family dog and her human family and friends. Welcome, Jennifer. Thank you for speaking with us today. I’m joined with my colleague Leslie Williams from the Sharing Farm. And we’re really excited to learn more about the work you’ve been doing in your communities with dinner dialogues.
00;02;32;02 – 00;02;37;22
Cindy Holmes
I wonder if you could start by introducing yourself and telling us where you’re joining us from.
00;02;37;25 – 00;03;00;10
Jennifer Hawkins
My name is Jennifer and I am joining from the Unceded and traditional territories of the Stó:lō people in what’s known as in Halq’eméylem as Ts’elxwéyeqw or Chilliwack. I work at the intersection between research and community development is where and I’ve worked for different entities, both as a contractor health authority research center so.
00;03;00;13 – 00;03;17;09
Cindy Holmes
It is great to hear just how you’re bringing those different pieces together, which I think we’re going to talk more about through this conversation. We’d love to hear if you were open to sharing about a time when you shared food with others around the table and you felt a sense of belonging.
00;03;17;12 – 00;03;36;08
Jennifer Hawkins
Yeah, I think in general, I think of times of laughter when you’re laughing so hard that your stomach aches and tears come down your face. I think that for me, those times generate the deepest sense of belonging. Somehow. For me.
00;03;36;11 – 00;03;37;06
Cindy Holmes
That’s beautiful.
00;03;37;09 – 00;03;59;23
Jennifer Hawkins
Made, I think, because in the project and the meals that I facilitate dialogue, often I’m in a different headspace. You’re sort of part of your job. You’re there to make sure everything goes okay, and it’s harder to enter into that heart space sometimes. Or, you know, you’re just in a different part of your brain then, unlike maybe a participant who would be showing up.
00;03;59;26 – 00;04;20;16
Cindy Holmes
So, yeah, times of laughter around the table are really special. And that laughter, I can just imagine, as you’re describing it times in my own life when I’ve had that. And yeah, you do feel a sense of connection and belonging. So thank you for sharing that. Again.
00;04;20;18 – 00;04;24;27
Leslie Williams
Jennifer, can you tell us about the dinner dialogue project that you are a part of?
00;04;24;29 – 00;04;54;18
Jennifer Hawkins
Yeah, of course. We call it the new Matrix Meals, which sounds weird if you think of the film The Matrix, or you get this really angular sort of graph paper type of image in your mind. And yet when you look at the Oxford Dictionary definition of the word matrix, it’s actually an environment or material in which something develops, which is almost womb imagery or at least a lot more versatile than what I would typically think of when I hear the word matrix.
00;04;54;18 – 00;05;25;06
Jennifer Hawkins
And so in this environment or material and developing something, we’re looking at really developing a new way of being neighbors, a new way of having social spaces, a new way of connecting. So in that sense, there’s some network imagery going on there. So our project is called the New Matrix Meals, and it was originally designed to respond to contentious social issues, particularly involving illicit substance use and homelessness in the Fraser Valley, in particular in Chilliwack.
00;05;25;13 – 00;05;55;29
Jennifer Hawkins
There was at the time quite a lot of controversy around a camp that was in the downtown area, even to the point where a vigilante group came in violently attacking the camp. And there was also businesses that were fatigued – the downtown was a really substance impacted neighborhood and a lot of business owners were simply fatigued at a lot of components of homelessness and substance use.
00;05;56;02 – 00;06;26;11
Jennifer Hawkins
And so this also sort of took place right at the time where the– what we now call the fentanyl poisoning crisis was declared April 2016. The University of Victoria had received funding from the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions to release dialogue funds to communities to talk about drugs and communities and the impact on society and to sort of alleviate some of that tension that was building up in many, many communities in the province.
00;06;26;11 – 00;06;52;18
Jennifer Hawkins
And so, long story short, a collaborative group applied for funding and ended up applying for more funding and more funding. And so in the end, at least I think three or four different nonprofits and health service organizations held funding for these new matrix meals. But the concept was kind of developed and tested in a multisectoral environment with various local stakeholders.
00;06;52;20 – 00;07;25;24
Jennifer Hawkins
One was Pacific Community Resources Society. They hold a lot of health authority contracts for substance use and addiction, and they also have housing projects. One was Stó:lō service agency. Health care through the Stó:lō nation. Another was the Wilma’s transition society or Xolhemet Society, their women’s services organization. They held some funding as well – and the Cyrus Center, which is a youth nonprofit that works with youth experiencing homelessness.
00;07;26;00 – 00;07;47;10
Jennifer Hawkins
They run shelters and they have some supportive housing. So I think those were the four. But we worked with the school district, we worked with the municipal government of Chilliwack was really, really supportive. In fact, at the time, Mayor Sharon Gates in 2017 hosted the first one in her backyard. We had a municipal staff that were on our planning committee.
00;07;47;12 – 00;07;51;26
Jennifer Hawkins
Social development Coordinator, I think health authority staff.
00;07;51;28 – 00;07;54;08
Leslie Williams
There was – so many players, so many people.
00;07;54;10 – 00;08;16;10
Jennifer Hawkins
Yeah, it really needs to be said that the principles we developed, our methods were heavily influenced by Dan Reist and a lot of the material that he developed through the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. They have phenomenal resources on dialogue on their website and we did look a lot at that.
00;08;16;12 – 00;08;25;04
Cindy Holmes
And that’s great and we could link to that on our website for the podcast so people can find those resources. They’re still available.
00;08;25;06 – 00;08;28;24
Leslie Williams
And I think you were also going to say something about setting the table.
00;08;28;26 – 00;08;45;22
Jennifer Hawkins
As well as we’re using the meal based dialogue approach in participatory research settings. We’re having to be a lot more intentional about how we cultivate the meal. Well, we always were intentional how we cultivated meals, but how we set the table for dialogue.
00;08;45;24 – 00;08;54;21
Leslie Williams
At what point did the idea of it being around a meal and around food and sharing food, was that early on or was that something that the group came to?
00;08;54;24 – 00;09;16;16
Jennifer Hawkins
Yeah, I suppose when you asked me to explain what it was, I never really talked about that part. That is a good question. This was many years ago. Now, I don’t know at what point we wrote a letter and gotten invited to submit a full proposal and the people that were helping went on vacation and it was due the next day.
00;09;16;16 – 00;09;51;18
Jennifer Hawkins
And I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and just was like, I have to get this done. The words new matrix meals came to my head and we just I don’t know, I bounced it off a couple of people and we just submitted it. Okay. So just a quick background. This I think, came as part of the development to the meal concept was because we had this addictions task team in Chilliwack that was really trying to break down stigma and we’d had Gabor Maté come out, we’d have these forums, these information sessions, but it felt like we were just preaching to the choir and the coordinator of the groups said, How do we reach
00;09;51;18 – 00;10;13;21
Jennifer Hawkins
the average person and how can we engage in conversation? And that broadens community understanding about these issues like addiction. And it was really an answer to that question because where do you connect with people who aren’t going to come out on a Thursday night to hear Gabor Mate talk? You know, you don’t want to engage them on social media.
00;10;13;23 – 00;10;27;21
Jennifer Hawkins
And so we just thought, you know, where are people– well they’re eating meals in their homes? Right. How do you get to people in the proverbial going to people where they’re at sort of thing? Right. There was an answer to that conundrum.
00;10;27;24 – 00;10;49;29
Leslie Williams
Thank you for approaching that question in a lot of different directions. Another question is how at the dinner dialogues or the new matrix meals affected people individually and within the broader community? And can you share some examples with us from your experience? And also maybe think about why do people attend the meals, what is their motivation or people’s intentions?
00;10;50;01 – 00;11;15;25
Jennifer Hawkins
I think that our approach is to identify a potential host and then to cultivate the meal with that host. So if we have someone who’s heard about them, who’s willing or we’ve approached faith communities and so really it’s the people’s relationship with that host. So the host might say, I kind of want to do this with my work colleagues, or Hey, I want to invite a lot of my family members or my neighborhood.
00;11;16;00 – 00;11;46;15
Jennifer Hawkins
I want to do one of my own physical community. So it’s really I would say the primary motive is that they’ve been hand-selected by the host as either contributing an alternative perspective or because they’re already interested in the issues or not in the same way that we encountered with our addictions task team. But I would say really it comes down to their relationship with the host and that hospitality and response to hospitality, an invitation.
00;11;46;18 – 00;12;09;01
Jennifer Hawkins
One of the most common responses that we get is someone stepping back and kind of observing and saying, Wow, we need more of these. That’s a really common response. So the basic recipe is the host, and that host will invite their social networks. Usually 8 to 10 people is the ideal size. Sometimes we go larger and it splits into two groups.
00;12;09;01 – 00;12;39;20
Jennifer Hawkins
Or we have a giant one with smaller table discussions like 60 people or something. Mostly, though, there are between eight and ten people at someone’s home because we can do them in restaurants or other venues. We’ve done poker nights, we’ve done backyard barbecues. So there’s a host and their chosen venue and their social networks. And then we bring in a dialogue facilitator from our team, plus 1 to 2 people with lived and living experience of the issue under discussion.
00;12;39;22 – 00;13;03;20
Jennifer Hawkins
And we do have parameters around that. The people that we bring in are there as content experts. There’s no expectation of what they will or will not share. They can just sit there the whole time and contribute. They assess their own comfort level of what of their expertise or their personal stories they want to share. They’re paid for their expertise and their time to be there just because they’re viewed as content experts.
00;13;03;23 – 00;13;28;19
Jennifer Hawkins
And they also have to have a trusting relationship with a person there at the meal, mostly the dialogue facilitator. And then if in the cultivation of the meal, we’re not quite sure that the space would be like a safe space for someone –we can substitute someone with lived and living experience with someone who really can represent that perspective, like an outreach worker or someone like that.
00;13;28;19 – 00;14;08;07
Jennifer Hawkins
Right? So when I talk about the impact on people, often it’s from both perspectives. It’s the people that attend as guests and the people that are there as peers or content experts as well. So both of those types of attendees have said, we need more of these. Wow. Looking around these need to happen more in our community. Another impact would be people coming up and saying it changed the dynamic for me to sit down with somebody who had experience of homelessness, who had experience of drug addiction.
00;14;08;07 – 00;14;51;04
Jennifer Hawkins
I have never actually sat down at the table with somebody from that demographic before who went through the foster care system or that kind of thing. Just humanizing. That’s a big impact for people is humanizing the other that we look at with outlier populations or more marginalized people and that’s a big impact. Another impact that I’ve come across that’s really common, though, too, is that people with lived experience that express I want to go to more of these like, I can’t believe I found how many people actually really care or I felt so included at the table.
00;14;51;06 – 00;15;18;01
Jennifer Hawkins
I had no idea that Normies could feel this way or those people could feel this way or talk this way. Yeah, that’s been really positive, I think. So for example, one person just after the dinner, he belonged to a strata and there was a woman in his strata who had her son living in the basement in contravention to this charter regulations.
00;15;18;04 – 00;15;44;23
Jennifer Hawkins
And she was quite persecuted by her neighbors, both because of the stigma of having a son who has an addiction, but also because she was breaking the rules. And now the judgments that we have towards each other too often. And the attendee said, after tonight, I’m no longer going to treat this woman in the same way– I have a whole other perspective of what she’s going through and what her son is going through.
00;15;44;26 – 00;16;14;01
Jennifer Hawkins
I want to support her. I don’t want to be the one who’s looking down on her, judging her, or getting so concerned about the rules. Another participant had came to the table with very fixed ideas about deserving and undeserving poor as he sat in the backyard on the deck with both the dialogue facilitator and someone who had actually been a drug dealer, let alone homeless and experiencing addiction.
00;16;14;03 – 00;16;44;00
Jennifer Hawkins
Just talking and having his assumptions gently challenged, but also hearing people’s stories. He came up to me after and he just said, I feel like I’m a different person and I never thought about the things I thought about tonight before, and we need to have more of these in community. So that was a win. You look for the wins. Some of the meals tend to stay at an intellectual level or people just want to discuss opinions.
00;16;44;00 – 00;16;59;13
Jennifer Hawkins
Then sometimes the magic happens and you hear and you see people’s hearts being open and touched at a really deep level. And so there’s all kinds of wins, even if it’s completely stays at an intellectual discussion. But those are the magic moments, those kinds of moments.
00;16;59;15 – 00;17;15;05
Leslie Williams
I’m going to go a little off script here and just ask, have you had some times where things have really felt like they’re going off the rails? Have you had any direct conflict between people at any of these meals or.
00;17;15;08 – 00;17;42;15
Jennifer Hawkins
Once we came close. So it was one of the few times we did a bigger one and we were really looking at having one downtown. And we solicited the Chamber of Commerce and business owners and municipal elected officials and the community policing. And so it was kind of a loaded one for lack of a better word. And we wanted to make sure we had peers at every table.
00;17;42;18 – 00;18;03;27
Jennifer Hawkins
And so I talked to some homeless outreach workers and said, Hey, can you come? Can you bring people that you trust? But I also wanted to establish connection and rapport with people. So I made several trips out to one of the camps with the outreach workers and explained what we were doing and why, I explained that the outreach workers would be there.
00;18;04;00 – 00;18;31;21
Jennifer Hawkins
And we had about four people who were all in – yeah I’ll go, that sounds great. I’ll go to a meal and talk about my experiences. And, but the night of there was a security company that also had really good relationships with people who were living precariously in the camps. And somehow one of the staff just decided to go drive by and just invite people off the cuff.
00;18;31;21 – 00;18;50;08
Jennifer Hawkins
And so he showed up with about six people who I had never met, hadn’t established connection with, which was completely kind of breaking all of our protocols. And so I was kind of like, I don’t know how this is going to work. But it was amazing. Again, just people feeling included, people feeling heard and listened to.
00;18;50;11 – 00;19;28;22
Jennifer Hawkins
And for months after any time I encountered one of the people who had showed up that night that I hadn’t met, I would see them around town and they’d say, When are you doing more of those? Can I come? You know? So that was the one that could have gone off the rails but didn’t. And then more recently, what I’ve discovered is as we’ve looked at the issue more from a perspective of carers and close supporters of people who are at risk of fentanyl poisoning, we’ve realized that there have been a couple times when someone whose lost someone to overdose, attends and we think and they think that they’re ready, but it is still
00;19;28;22 – 00;19;53;08
Jennifer Hawkins
pretty raw. This has only happened a couple of times if they encounter anyone who even has a slightly different or oppositional position, it’s just too much. And so another one of our practices with these is we always debrief after with all the dialogue facilitators, the hosts and the people with lived experience that have attended. We do a face to face or at least a phone call debriefing with them to see how it went.
00;19;53;08 – 00;20;11;11
Jennifer Hawkins
And that’s how it’s nothing actually happened at the meal that was really off the rails. But afterwards they expressed how that was difficult for them. Yeah, so we’re learning to really ahead of time get people to really assess their vulnerability.
00;20;11;14 – 00;20;19;12
Leslie Williams
That was a very interesting example. How does the act of sharing food, shape or influence the dialogue?
00;20;19;15 – 00;20;52;04
Jennifer Hawkins
For me, that’s where the hospitality comes in. I mean, food obviously connects people. It’s something pleasurable that you’re sharing and doing together, presumably pleasurable. But for us it’s the inviting the people into your space that creates like an ancient space of hospitality. Because people always ask me like, Aren’t you afraid of what’s going to happen? Or there’s just so much risk that people are going to get hurt or things are going to go crazy.
00;20;52;07 – 00;21;18;02
Jennifer Hawkins
But I feel that when that hospitality is extended, people have a respect for that, especially because hospitality can be kind of countercultural in our society, inviting people into your own space where it’s not, I don’t know, a dinner party of all your like-minded friends, you know, it’s something that’s a bit risky. And when you do it, people respect that.
00;21;18;05 – 00;21;21;08
Jennifer Hawkins
Those customs, I guess, those ancient customs.
00;21;21;11 – 00;21;24;02
Leslie Williams
And some deep level of trust.
00;21;24;04 – 00;21;55;18
Jennifer Hawkins
Yeah. Sometimes I think I don’t know if trust is always automatic. That’s something we’re working on cultivating spaces where people can share– that doesn’t come automatically if they’re sharing something deeply personal. For sure, that doesn’t come automatically. I find that the meals can really have a lot of invigorating and fascinating and eye opening intellectual or headspace conversations where people can challenge each other or learn new things.
00;21;55;18 – 00;22;17;02
Jennifer Hawkins
And that seems to be an easier space to reach for most people. But there are also the moments where it goes from the head to the heart and you can just see people open up inside or, you know, there have been tears at meals. There have been a lot of really transformative encounters. But it’s hard to find a formula of how to get there.
00;22;17;04 – 00;22;22;21
Jennifer Hawkins
Honestly, there’s some things that we pay attention to, but we can’t always force it for sure.
00;22;22;25 – 00;22;54;03
Cindy Holmes
I think this kind of leads into this next question about the role of dialogue, and you were talking about how you can’t force it and trust needs to be cultivated. So I guess I’m interested in just hearing you say a little bit more about the role of dialogue because I’m thinking about how this project emerged out of an initiative that was calling for projects to be centered around dialogue.
00;22;54;06 – 00;23;10;14
Cindy Holmes
These grants were specifically to support community dialogue and a recognition that that was needed. So can you say any more about the role of dialogue in– across different communities, new matrix meals?
00;23;10;17 – 00;23;43;18
Jennifer Hawkins
I mean, obviously belonging is a component of dialogue, but really it’s a one time or sometimes we do follow up ones with the same people, it’s more deepened understanding that dialogue can generate. We’re not looking to impose a correct orthodoxy on people’s views regarding substance use or other social issues. When we look at the desired results of dialogue and what we feel that dialogue can achieve, it’s really an increased capacity to experience a genuine human connection.
00;23;43;18 – 00;24;24;11
Jennifer Hawkins
Despite differing opinions, cultures, perspectives or experiences. It’s an increased capacity to listen to and engage with others regarding different viewpoints or experiences around contentious social issues. Ultimately, we hope that there will be decreased stigma around these issues. There’s some information exchange we do. There’s an educational component sometimes. Oh, I didn’t know that that policy happened when someone’s trying to get into detox or I didn’t know that that’s what happens when someone ages out of government care, you know, So there’s some information, but we’re definitely not trying to impose our version of orthodoxy on this.
00;24;24;13 – 00;24;31;04
Jennifer Hawkins
It’s more of a deeper understanding and a genuine human connection that we’re after, right?
00;24;31;06 – 00;25;02;04
Cindy Holmes
Yeah. This piece about that goal of connecting with others around a shared humanity, I’m wondering how you might talk about the way power inequities shape the dialogue or the gathering. And you’ve spoken about how people are coming together with different assumptions and different lived experiences and wondering if you can say more about the power relations or power inequities.
00;25;02;06 – 00;25;32;19
Jennifer Hawkins
Well, one way we try to mitigate the obvious power inequities. If we have people that have living experience of the issues under discussion, the fact that they would have a trusting relationship with at least one person, that’s one way that we have to mitigate that. But another way is we always do a question at the beginning that is a more of an equalizing question, because sometimes people will want to show up just as a role, which, yes, your role contributes to your experiences and perspectives
00;25;32;19 – 00;25;53;15
Jennifer Hawkins
and those are a valued component of the dialogue. But you’re not just there as, say, the medical health officer or the city councillor or the captain of a high school football team. You’re not just there as those roles. You’re there as a human that has something in common, whether you know it or not, with probably every other human at that dialogue space.
00;25;53;15 – 00;26;22;10
Jennifer Hawkins
So generally we ask a question like, what’s your favorite thing about, you know, the place where you live right now, like the city of, say, of Chilliwack. And we find that people have amazingly similar answers, even though they’re very different people. Like, I just love looking at Mount Cheam. Ah, me too! And so in a sense it’s very positive because if you’re talking about issues of, say, homelessness and how it’s impacting the downtown core, that’s kind of –it can be a negative issue, right?
00;26;22;10 – 00;26;43;00
Jennifer Hawkins
But if you’re starting off on a positive note about what do we love about our community, even someone who’s living in a camp or something like that can say, you know, I always love walking along Vedder River. And then someone else who might be a physician somewhere says, Me too. And it can be really equalizing. And it’s amazing how people– then everyone’s kind of stiff at the beginning, right?
00;26;43;00 – 00;27;08;01
Jennifer Hawkins
But after that questions asked, a lot of people just start laughing at each other’s answers. It’s a way to be humorous. They relax, their body language relaxes, they lean in and it really starts it off really well. We found sometimes we’ll ask a question like if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? You know, those kinds of things, because they’re equalizing questions and they’re fun and positive questions as well.
00;27;08;04 – 00;27;19;05
Jennifer Hawkins
And definitely they make the conversation less, almost extraction of like, I’m extracting information from you and you’re, you know, that kind of thing.
00;27;19;07 – 00;27;50;29
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, I can see how those questions would really help bring people in rather than just going straight into the topics or the topics that might elicit conflict or tension or disagreement. We talked earlier about potential conflict that has happened or that can come up and you talked about some of the strategies you use. One of them being also that folks who are there with lived experience, who are content experts, have a trusting relationship with one other person.
00;27;51;07 – 00;28;11;15
Cindy Holmes
That’s one strategy. And I wonder if there’s other strategies you’ve used to address challenges that emerge, or conflict. I know in some community groups that are organizing dinner dialogues, they have some guidelines or ground rules. I’m just curious what kinds of things you’ve done.
00;28;11;17 – 00;28;31;25
Jennifer Hawkins
At the very beginning, when we started the first couple, we had a little code of conduct. We didn’t call it that, but it’s kind of a contract that people signed but kind of killed the environment. We were advised by a very trusted community consultant who works on trauma informed practice. She was like, No, you need to kill that, that’s just not how you want to start your dialogues.
00;28;31;28 – 00;28;59;02
Jennifer Hawkins
So we generally will say something at the beginning, just a little piece on confidentiality or respect, but honestly, generally we– it hasn’t been an issue. And again, I think that goes back to the hospitality component. People are really mindful of being on their best behavior. I guess, you know, in fact, sometimes I really have to work to make sure that people will be feeling comfortable that they can express questions.
00;28;59;04 – 00;29;19;23
Jennifer Hawkins
We’re still working on that, to be honest, cultivating trust and also putting parameters up and how to be explicit about that. We’re still working on that actually, even after hosting between three and 400 people at these all together over the last few years, we’re still working on that.
00;29;19;26 – 00;29;42;00
Cindy Holmes
I think that’s great and I appreciate you sharing that because I think that speaks to the ongoing learning and process that we all go through in organizing groups of people through dialogue. I think it’s great to hear you even say that. Yeah, we’re still learning and we’re thinking about that because we’re going to learn new things each time.
00;29;42;03 – 00;29;59;20
Cindy Holmes
I’m curious if there’s anything else you would want to say about what helps people have a meaningful dialogue or feel comfortable enough or safe enough to come. Is there anything else about the organizing or things that you’ve considered that help?
00;29;59;22 – 00;30;15;26
Jennifer Hawkins
I wish I knew honestly more of when it works, why it works, and we’re still doing a lot of thinking around that because it just seems to work and we actually don’t always know why. And then sometimes it doesn’t work. And we don’t always
00;30;16;28 – 00;30;42;07
Jennifer Hawkins
Know why it doesn’t work either. So I do think a lot of it is they’re very cultivated these dinners. It’s not just like we’re handing out fliers. Right. And it’s not that I just call a host and be like, You want to do this? Let’s pick a date. You can make lasagna or I’ll order pizza, and then we’ll fill the room–it involves coffee conversations with the host and making sure they have an understanding of what that is.
00;30;42;09 – 00;30;59;04
Jennifer Hawkins
And then the messaging to the people who are in attendance. There’s that, too, that we try our best to make sure that people really understand why they’re there. That doesn’t always get communicated. And I’m sure there’ve been some people who’ve left that have been like, What was that all about? All we did was sit down and talk.
00;30;59;04 – 00;31;28;29
Jennifer Hawkins
You asked about what makes people comfortable sharing, I can share a story. For me, that was pretty transformative. That was a win. But to this day, I’m not entirely sure how it happened. So quick back story. I have dual citizenship. I’m American, and I was really profoundly dismayed at the Trump presidency in the lead up to the Trump presidency and didn’t realize how strong my feelings were until it was right before the election in 2016, actually.
00;31;29;01 – 00;31;36;08
Jennifer Hawkins
And I was traveling to California for a research conference. And on my way back there was this sweet looking elderly couple.
00;31;37;00 – 00;32;02;15
Jennifer Hawkins
That had “we voted for Trump” like it was pre vote. And I just remember this profound sense of alienation that actually scared me because I’m like, these are not my values to be judgmental and alienate people and I can’t even put it into words. But there was just this profound sense of otherness that I almost felt that they must have been on another planet.
00;32;02;18 – 00;32;32;01
Jennifer Hawkins
They felt so alien. And that feeling really scared me because it was just this sweet, older, seemingly sort of so harmless couple and how could I be having those feelings? And so fast forward to a new matrix meal where there was a young man there and he just was there and had expressed some definitely some ideas about the causes of homelessness or drug addiction that I didn’t agree with.
00;32;32;01 – 00;32;52;24
Jennifer Hawkins
But somehow in the course of the conversation, he felt that it was safe for him to express some of those views and he wasn’t being harmful and hurtful and how he was saying and there was a person at the table who was currently using drugs and having difficulty finding housing and it was great. We actually worked to get him housing after that.
00;32;52;24 – 00;33;15;12
Jennifer Hawkins
But he was a gentleman I worked with for many months. But this young man at the end of the meal, he took off his sweater and there was a Trump T-shirt that he was wearing and he said, I didn’t think I could take this sweater off. But by the end of the meal, I feel like I can. And I know we don’t agree, but I feel that I can disclose that.
00;33;15;12 – 00;33;39;18
Jennifer Hawkins
I’m a Trump supporter and to me that was a personal win. You don’t have to include this story in your podcast, obviously. But for me that was one of the transformative moments that I had in me is that it was such a profound issue for me, and yet I had this genuine sense of connection with this young man and he felt it, and he felt like he could be himself pretty much.
00;33;39;21 – 00;34;00;11
Cindy Holmes
Wow, that’s a really interesting story. And I think that it’s getting at this point of how can people be themselves but also not harming, which is something that you talked about, like people were expressing their views, but it was not in a way that was harming. And I think this is the challenge across these differences that we find.
00;34;00;13 – 00;34;11;21
Cindy Holmes
For me at least, this is one of the challenges is how can people express different views or identities if they feel that those actually do cause harm? That seems so hard.
00;34;11;21 – 00;34;48;15
Jennifer Hawkins
What I’m learning about that too, is really getting people to think about their own sense of vulnerability before sharing stories or before even attending. Really wanting to empower people to feel that, one, there’s no expectation on them to be a certain way or say certain things, but just to be mindful of where they’re at and feel welcome without having to perform in any way.
00;34;48;17 – 00;35;13;05
Cindy Holmes
As you said, it’s complex. And just that learning of how to do that in the dialogues and how to create those spaces. Yeah, there’s –I’m thinking of lots of different things. I’m wondering, I’m looking at our time, so I’m just going to maybe move us into related, but slightly different topic. I’m wondering, can you talk a bit about the significance of the meal?
00;35;13;09 – 00;35;40;24
Cindy Holmes
We are noticing that the shared meal as a sacred space and a site of healing has been a theme that repeats across many of the different dinner dialogue initiatives that we’ve read about or heard about. Some people have suggested that this gathering to share food and dialogue and community can be a spiritual experience, including for folks who may not necessarily have a connection to a religion or a faith.
00;35;40;26 – 00;35;49;24
Cindy Holmes
And I’m wondering if spirituality holds a place for you in the work of organizing dinner dialogues or anything you might say about that.
00;35;49;27 – 00;36;13;28
Jennifer Hawkins
I wouldn’t have used the word healing except when I started talking about the people that are there with the experiences that they’ve carried that are close to the issue, how much those particular participants have fallen in love with the meals and have said we need more. When can I sign up for the next one? I have to think why.
00;36;13;28 – 00;36;58;14
Jennifer Hawkins
And perhaps healing is part of the answer of that, of getting a sense of belonging and inclusion that is healing. But I wouldn’t have actually really described it in those terms or even in terms of spirituality, except that there have been moments where people connect to the deepest part of themselves, which I suppose could be considered spirit. One man spoke of hearing of a person he didn’t even know but was connected to another person he knew– dying of fentanyl poisoning in an outhouse on the top of a skyscraper in Vancouver.
00;36;58;17 – 00;37;34;03
Jennifer Hawkins
And he just teared up. This man completely teared up, and you could tell that he was experiencing a profoundly deep connection to the tragedy of it, that he may not have had space in his life to do before. And I feel that that was probably what could be described as a spiritual experience. I think the transformative encounters that people have at these meals could be described as spiritual experiences, an awakening.
00;37;34;05 – 00;38;04;26
Jennifer Hawkins
Sometimes, or like when it does. Again, when I mentioned going past that head level to the heart level, those things are transformative. They shape how we view the world, they shape how we understand other people in ourselves. Other than that, I guess I before this interview and the questions that you’d sent, I hadn’t really thought of it in terms of spiritual, although part of the culture of the Fraser Valley is very religious, there’s a very large Sikh population.
00;38;04;26 – 00;38;32;08
Jennifer Hawkins
There’s also a heavy Christian influence. It’s often called the Bible Belt of Canada. And at first the biggest uptake came from the faith community and is specifically from churches. And they were really interested in this. And we conducted a lot with people that were affiliated from particular churches and but I don’t know how deeply the issues connected explicitly, at least, with various components of their faith.
00;38;32;08 – 00;38;41;23
Jennifer Hawkins
Right. So It’s something to think about. I think it’s a really relevant question, but I don’t know if we’ve made those connections entirely. So.
00;38;41;25 – 00;39;20;14
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, thank you. I think the things you’ve spoken about around hospitality for me, I think about connect to spirit and spirituality, but they may not for everyone, but the act of hospitality or cultivating hospitality seems to me to be in some ways spiritual practice, but that might just be my own take on that. I know that you do have a background of studying in religious studies, and I’m curious if there’s any connection for you around your commitment, both in terms of social justice, hospitality and in terms of that?
00;39;20;16 – 00;39;48;17
Jennifer Hawkins
Absolutely. For me personally, I think welcoming people at the table is extending hospitality for me, coming from a Christian tradition, just as replete in Scripture of welcome, caring for people in that way, either through their needs or not even on a need based, just breaking bread and the acts of Christ like it’s all throughout and threaded throughout my personal faith.
00;39;48;20 – 00;40;22;06
Jennifer Hawkins
And I’ve often thought in some ways I feel that hospitality can be countercultural, and I don’t know if I have the words to describe it right now. We can just be so comfortable now in our own homes and just saturated with entertainment, which can be, not always, but it can be a really self pleasing exercise. We work so hard and we just tunnel in and we just spend hours sometimes distracting ourselves from real human connection.
00;40;22;06 – 00;40;48;26
Jennifer Hawkins
What I would think of as real human connection that comes at a cost and hospitality comes at a cost. You’re being vulnerable. You’re allowing people into your home where your smells are around and your furniture and your knickknacks and your photos. There’s a vulnerability there that it’s not a falsified self. I mean, I suppose it could be, but in general I think it’s countercultural.
00;40;48;29 – 00;40;53;01
Jennifer Hawkins
I don’t feel that I’m expressing it in the way it deserves to be expressed.
00;40;53;04 – 00;41;13;26
Cindy Holmes
Thank you. I think you have offered a lot of really rich insights into both from your own lived experiences and how it connects with your own faith tradition. And thanks for sharing that part because I think it is interesting and just curious about that for folks who are taking up the work.
00;41;13;29 – 00;41;14;26
Jennifer Hawkins
Right.
00;41;14;28 – 00;41;28;05
Leslie Williams
I wanted to just go back quickly to something you said earlier about cultivating trust, but also putting up parameters. And I just wondered if you could speak to the parameter part of that.
00;41;28;08 – 00;42;03;12
Jennifer Hawkins
We are still working that out because I think I mentioned that we had this sort of code of conduct which got nixed. And then, you know, we’re thinking, okay, well we give a little blurb about dialogue and usually talk about respect, but more the parameters are around people that might be experiencing more vulnerability stepping into that situation if they have used drugs or if they have experienced homelessness, making sure that they feel supported by telling them in advance, you know, you’re there because you’re valued and you have the lived experience, but you don’t have to share anything.
00;42;03;12 – 00;42;24;09
Jennifer Hawkins
You don’t want to share, your valued just showing up. And so giving them the freedom to have no expectations and then to jump in or participate as they feel that they can, and then also making sure that they have a backup, that there’s someone there who’s got their back that they know, that they trust. So those are I think the parameters that I mostly mentioned.
00;42;24;09 – 00;42;49;09
Jennifer Hawkins
We don’t have rules to say like, you can say this kind of thing or you can’t, but it’s possible that we could develop, again, more pithy kinds of group expectations in setting the table or setting the tone of the table, but again, it’s just something under development because it hasn’t really been an issue. And again, I think it just comes to that hospitality.
00;42;49;09 – 00;43;07;15
Jennifer Hawkins
And when you’re entering someone’s space, people are just mindful of those customs right. It’s not like, you know, Christmas dinner with all your uncles where you can get drunk and say whatever you want. Someone has invited you into their space and you’re going to respect that. I think that’s mostly how it’s been so far.
00;43;07;18 – 00;43;17;11
Leslie Williams
If you just speak a little bit more to you said you had those sets of guidelines or rules at the beginning and then you nixed them. Can you just speak to that a little bit?
00;43;17;13 – 00;43;34;05
Jennifer Hawkins
It just kind of over formalized things? And then again, the consultant we talked with said, yeah, it just that sets a tone that’s a bit too rigid or makes people too hyper aware, I suppose, in policing themselves when they don’t necessarily need that.
00;43;34;07 – 00;43;46;10
Leslie Williams
So if you could speak a bit about what lessons you’ve learned from this work that you think could be helpful for other folks trying to do these kinds of meals, to do dinner dialogues.
00;43;46;12 – 00;44;24;06
Jennifer Hawkins
They really need to be cultivated. They’re not put together by a formula. You really need to pay attention to the situation, preferences, opinions, world view of the host. And so there’s a lot of pre-work, there’s a lot of communication that needs to happen. And listening to where the host is coming from, what they’re comfortable with, what they’re not, and then communicating about who’s going to be there and what their expectations would be being there, and why they’re on the guest list.
00;44;24;10 – 00;44;46;29
Jennifer Hawkins
For the most part, we don’t micromanage, but there’s definitely communication. So again, just that cultivation, it’s not just, there’s not a formula that we slap down for people and that we try not to leave a ton of things to chance. There’s just a lot of communication. It’s not that the flow of the evening is dictated, it’s more setting it up and who’s going to be there and that kind of thing.
00;44;47;01 – 00;45;05;21
Jennifer Hawkins
The second thing is just be creative. We’ve had so much fun, so communication and creativity, it can be so much fun meeting people where they’re at. I mean, what if there was a hiking club? You could do a hike and then have a picnic at the top of a mountain. So we really try to incorporate creativity in these.
00;45;05;21 – 00;45;27;25
Jennifer Hawkins
Like again, I mentioned the poker night. There’s a guy who heard about these and said, everyone in my poker group, from lawyers to plumbers and all kinds of different people, but their commonality is poker. So and sometimes they say things that as a social worker, I can’t get behind in terms of social issues. So they had pizza and beer and played poker and somehow integrated the dialogue.
00;45;27;25 – 00;45;43;08
Jennifer Hawkins
I wasn’t at that one, but they integrated the dialogue questions and two of their poker players were people with lived experience of addiction and they just had a poker night. So the creativity can be a real asset, I think, and the communication and cultivation of it.
00;45;43;11 – 00;45;54;24
Leslie Williams
Thank you. Those are some great examples. If you could talk about if you’re imagining any projects like this in the future, are you interested in exploring these themes in other areas or–
00;45;54;26 – 00;46;22;05
Jennifer Hawkins
I would love to develop further skills on dialogue. I think that increasingly we need it and increasingly we’re not prepared for it as a society and I would love to develop further in having a lot more oppositional viewpoints at the table. Definitely. I would love to see what other people are doing and other ways that dialogue shows up in our culture.
00;46;22;06 – 00;46;23;17
Jennifer Hawkins
Yeah.
00;46;23;19 – 00;46;52;02
Cindy Holmes
I know Leslie had asked you about exploring many future projects and I’m wondering if there’s anything you could say about your interest in research on this topic. I know that from our conversation before you indicated that you are interested in the impact and possibly research in this, which I am interested in as well. So if there’s anything you wanted to say about your interest in that?
00;46;52;04 – 00;47;29;17
Jennifer Hawkins
Yeah, I’ve been involved in a number of research projects, mostly participatory action research in community on issues having to do with the foster care system or illicit substance use, fentanyl poisoning crisis, homelessness. And there’s been a lot of interest lately and one project that I’m involved in that looks at supporters and carers of people who are close to someone at risk of fentanyl poisoning and when we decided to bring on the new Matrix meals as part of our research proposal, at first I was thinking to myself, What in the world is this doing in this setting?
00;47;29;17 – 00;47;47;17
Jennifer Hawkins
What would the point be of these? And there’s a lot of potential uses for it. One is not the knowledge mobilization process and engaging communities in a way that’s relaxed and formal, breaks down barriers and people’s guards are down and you can really present some relevant
00;47;48;13 – 00;48;22;12
Jennifer Hawkins
Local research in a way that where people are already feeling a sense of togetherness and that kind of thing. And it can be an effective knowledge mobilization sort of tool can be, again, engagement. But then also we’re looking at it as so much of what keeps people hidden and in this really deadly crisis is shame and stigma, and shame is an inner thing, but stigma is external.
00;48;22;15 – 00;48;48;08
Jennifer Hawkins
And it goes back to the original question our addictions task team asked ourselves, How do we reach people who aren’t going to show up to a famous speaker or label themselves as interested in this issue? You know how– and recreating those social spaces and places where we can be neighbors together is a huge piece of breaking down stigma and creating conversations.
00;48;48;10 – 00;48;59;29
Jennifer Hawkins
I saw a guy with a T-shirt that said, Don’t talk about addiction and the Don’t was X’d out. And I don’t know, it just stuck with me. It was a really powerful t shirt.
00;49;00;03 – 00;49;24;03
Cindy Holmes
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, to participate, to share the stories– we’re inspired by the work that you’ve done and that you’re doing. And I think there’s a lot that you’ve talked about today that will help others who are interested in similar issues and also folks who are interested in hosting a dinner dialogue around other issues.
00;49;24;08 – 00;49;37;25
Cindy Holmes
I think you’ve got so much experience that will help folks who want to take up that work in their community. So yeah, thank you so much.
00;49;37;28 – 00;50;03;01
Cindy Holmes
That’s it for this week and I look forward to seeing you next time. If you’re enjoying this, you can subscribe at Spotify, iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and follow us at our website around the table dialogues dot ca. Around the table is produced by Cindy Holmes, Fionna Chong, and Leslie Williams on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Peoples.
00;50;03;03 – 00;50;48;04
Cindy Holmes
Support for Around the Table comes from the University of Victoria, Vancouver Community College and the Sharing Farm Society. Podcast editing is provided by New Leonard Media and music is by Oleksii Kaplunskyi.
Around the Table 