Abstract
Interdisciplinary dialogues find researchers seeking better understandings of theories and concepts, such colonialism and capitalism, and the means through which these concepts impact both local and global cultures. The results of explorations such as these raise the question of how to translate the theories that are created by these dialogues into practice. Moreover, they ask where we can take these conversations, how can we focus them toward specific aims, and how can we effectively enact them as one collective group. This article introduces and proposes Joseph Cardinal Cardijn’s See–Judge–Act method as a possible framework to better enable these discussions to move from theory to praxis. It proposes that such a theory may also allow the theoretical portions of these interdisciplinary dialogues to happen without any discipline ceding or ‘shaving away’ the core principles that respectively identify each discipline. The article begins by exploring Cardinal Cardijn’s original articulation of the method. Then, it describes how the liberation theologians Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff employed the method in their development of a theological framework. Finally, this article explores how the See–Judge–Act method might be useful for other disciplines, such as African thought and philosophy, and critical theory.
Highlights
Interdisciplinary dialogues find researchers seeking better understandings of theories and concepts, such colonialism and capitalism, and the means through which these concepts impact both local and global cultures
The article begins by exploring Cardinal Cardijn’s original articulation of the method. It describes how the liberation theologians Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff employed the method in their development of a theological framework
Liberation theology, in turn, takes these critiques and analyses, and employs them through a praxis-based theology in pursuit of not just material liberation, but a spiritual one as well. The scope of this special issue is to bring these disciplines together to create an encounter from which future discussions may arise. This encounter was premised by the notion that each discipline focuses upon oppression and possible liberation: oppression resulting from a myriad of events that become conceptualized through colonialism, capitalism, and social hegemony
Summary
Born in Belgium in 1882, Joseph Cardijn was ordained as a priest in 1906, and actively worked in underground movements during World War I, which led to him being imprisoned for espionage in the latter stages of the war. In 1924, the Young Trade Unionists expanded and became an international network called the Jeunes Ouvrières Chrétiennes, or the Young Christian Workers (as mentioned above, often referred to as the JOC) This organization first attempted to mobilize the laborers for worker’s rights, and later mobilized young persons according to a broad range of social justice causes.. Cardinal Cardijn did not create his method just for social activism, nor did he create the JOC as just a worker’s party movement Rather, he saw both as means toward life formation. This is not necessarily always the case, obviously, and one can utilize this same methodology in one’s own community as a practice of self-reflection, evaluation, and discernment Some of those who use See–Judge–Act within liberation theology prefer the term, ‘listen’ over ‘see’ to emphasize how one should open oneself to the other and the other’s community. It takes place in life and through life”.11 What Cardinal Cardijn envisioned was a movement rooted in community, where outsiders become a part of that community, and where this solidarity informs and changes other global communities; a ‘bottom–up’ solidarity where local communities and the global world meet for social and spiritual liberation
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