Promoting Transborder Dialogue During Times of Uncertainty

Book excerpt: Promoting Border Dialogue During Times of Uncertainty: A Time for Third Spaces is the product of years of investigations and publications focusing on the importance of dialogic processes in the fields of education, cultural work, economics, and politics. Recent, pivotal events reinforce the need for reimagining, reconceptualizing, redesigning, and reconstructing educational and governmental institutions. Hope for the amelioration of racial-, ethnic-, class-, religion- and gender-based conflicts resides in the implementation of effective dialogue. Dialogue must cross borders, internally and externally. Border crossings, not limited to geographic or political, are requisite for understandings of the current local, regional, national, transnational, and global conditions. Recent events make necessary a critical border praxis, which includes the creation of third spaces. Current conditions in the US and worldwide add to the urgency of addressing and responding to existential issues confronting educational institutions, societies, economies, and governments at all levels.