The exploring difference workshop: group relations methodology to deepen anti-racist education in Toronto, Canada

Abstract

Though the Tavistock group relations paradigm is now more than seventy years old, its unique conceptualisation of unconscious group processes remains nonetheless essential for understanding and affecting this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous time. An adapted Tavistock group relations event called the Exploring Difference Workshop (EDW) takes place in the context of: 1) increasing attention to endemic racism within Canadian society; and 2) increasingly obvious limitations of dominant modes of anti-racism training framed within discourses of equity and multiculturalism. This article discusses new contributions group relations methodology can provide through the EDW to engage with the intractable and painful aspects of talking about racism in "the here and now". The article offers an analysis of key themes emerging from the workshops and the consultations supporting participants' learning about "difference" and self–other relationships. It proposes that the EDW enables deeper understanding of, and dialogue about, the (un)conscious processes affecting racism and anti-racism education, and offers a means for enhancing collaboration across difference in these times.