The Most Important Thing
By Brian Sokol
Since 2012 Brian Sokol has focused on telling the stories of refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and stateless people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The Most Important Thing—his ongoing, long-term portraiture project—seeks to humanize and convey the dignity of individuals who have been dehumanized by conflict, government policies and the media.
A Pocket Full of Stones
...my home bordered the ‘other neighborhood,’ the one where the Fenians, the Papists, the Catholics lived. The ones I was afraid of. I had stones in my pocket to throw at them if ‘they’ came up ‘my’ street. So I sat on the curb with my friends, waiting for ‘them’ to come.
Caring for the Soul of Humanity
I was 25 years old when I witnessed human misery for the first time. It was 2008, and I had moved to a remote city in the underprivileged state of Maranhão, in Northeast Brazil. Despite moving with the illusion of building a new life, the harsh realities of extreme poverty and structural violence expanded my worldview in ways I couldn’t imagine.
Global Citizenship | An Emerging Agenda in Education
Introduced at an early stage of child development, global citizenship education enhances mutual respect and understanding, tolerance, and cultural literacy, while substantially weakening the power of radicalized messages.
Globalism-Nationalism, the New Left-Right
The Information Revolution is shifting the axis of our contemporary political system. While the old Left-Right divide will remain for the foreseeable future, a new schism is arising to form the crux of our political beliefs—the Globalism-Nationalism divide.
The Economics of Solidarity, Spirit, and Soul
Economics is a scary word. It has this way of making basic, critical questions of life—How shall we spend our time? Who gets access to which resources?—seem impenetrable, none of our business and, of all things, boring.
On Elevating the Human Narrative
Judy Rodgers | ...I think decisions about things like governance or institutions source from our awareness. We can’t build something if it’s outside the scope of our awareness. We can’t design a true commons if we’re in a very limited consciousness.
For Love of Place | Reflections of an Agrarian Sage
By Wendell Berry and Allen White
Conversation Values
For Love of Place | Reflections of an Agrarian Sage
By Allen White
Published in Volume 18 Issue 3 | Comments 0
How do we cultivate a sense of place in an industrialized, globalizing world? Writer and farmer Wendell Berry discusses the role of agrarian values in nurturing communitarian consciousness…
FILM | LIFEBOAT, Refugees Adrift at Sea
Kosmos Journal | In 2015, your team produced 50 Feet from Syria, a film focused on the civilian impact of the Syrian conflict. Your new film, Lifeboat, bears witness to refugees desperate enough to risk their lives in rubber boats leaving Libya. What was different for you personally about making those two films?
The Insurgent Power of the Commons in the War Against the Imagination
I believe the commons paradigm can help us develop a new social and cultural vision, and new strategies for practical change. Paradoxically enough, redirecting our attention away from conventional politics and policy may offer the most promising possibilities for developing a transformational vision.