Reflections on Collective Healing at the Community of El Juego

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting manuscript on a very interesting topic.  The use of shared autoethnography is commendable and it is well written, in clear and engaging language.

However, for this manuscript to be published, it requires a stronger theoretical foundation and connections to the academic literature in order to demonstrate the ways it contribute to knowledge. There is most notably a lack of a theoretical framework, which seems like it could be linked to anarchist praxis but there is no attempt to do so in the manuscript (or to link it to any kind of framework).

 

Moreover,  the one sentence explaining away the lack of references to the academic literature in this manuscript is unconvincing.  Is there no reference to the literature because the author no longer has institutional access to firewalled literature? If so, this should be detailed and an argument should be made in relation to community contribution to the academic literature from outside of academia. There may be a convincing argument there but it needs to be detailed.  Otherwise, the manuscript needs to reference the academic literature and demonstrate the ways in which it is contributing to those discussions and debates.

 

There is one reference to Elis et al, 2011.  Presumably this is supposed to be Ellis et al? There is no reference list to check.

 

More work needs to be done to situate the authors' and the community members' background.  It is not clear who they are, which should be described in detail in an autoethnography if the research gaze really is on the researchers.  Are they white middle class kids on an adventure, seeing what it is like to live rough (or, on the 'wild' land they purchased)? If not, a full description is needed beyond what is detailed in the discussion section (section 4). Also, an anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and critical race analysis is being begged for within this discussion.  This needs to be done, along with reference to the literature.

 

More information is needed about the source of the Four Dimensions. Where was this derived from? Is this appropriation of Indigenous knowledge? If not, where does it come from? All this needs to be detailed and elaborated on in order for the manuscript to be publishable. 

 

Author Response

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. I have addressed your feedback as follows:

1. For this manuscript to be published, it requires a stronger theoretical foundation and connections to the academic literature in order to demonstrate the ways it contribute to knowledge. There is most notably a lack of a theoretical framework, which seems like it could be linked to anarchist praxis but there is no attempt to do so in the manuscript (or to link it to any kind of framework). 

Moreover,  the one sentence explaining away the lack of references to the academic literature in this manuscript is unconvincing.  Is there no reference to the literature because the author no longer has institutional access to firewalled literature? If so, this should be detailed and an argument should be made in relation to community contribution to the academic literature from outside of academia. There may be a convincing argument there but it needs to be detailed.  Otherwise, the manuscript needs to reference the academic literature and demonstrate the ways in which it is contributing to those discussions and debates. There is one reference to Elis et al, 2011.  Presumably this is supposed to be Ellis et al? There is no reference list to check.

I re-wrote the discussion to place our experiences more explicitly in conversation with relevant literature. I made a connection between our practices and approaches at the community and how  they link to decolonial literature, degrowth, indigenous ways of knowing, and eco-anarchism.

I added the appropriate reference list and included more references both in the methods section and in the discussion section.

2. More work needs to be done to situate the authors' and the community members' background.  It is not clear who they are, which should be described in detail in an autoethnography if the research gaze really is on the researchers.  Are they white middle class kids on an adventure, seeing what it is like to live rough (or, on the 'wild' land they purchased)? If not, a full description is needed beyond what is detailed in the discussion section (section 4). 

I introduced more explicitly mine and Luis’s backgrounds as well as the community’s history and influences - this is now in the introduction so to clarify positionality. I also rewrote the method session to be more explicit about the process of writing the paper. 

3. More information is needed about the source of the Four Dimensions. Where was this derived from? Is this appropriation of Indigenous knowledge? If not, where does it come from? All this needs to be detailed and elaborated on in order for the manuscript to be publishable. 

In the discussion, I now reframed the way the four dimensions are referenced and I included, when appropriate, some of the influences of the tool.

I hope you will enjoy reading the article in this new version.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for writing about your experience, and for sharing them to a wider reading public. Surely, we (as your readers) will have many things to learn from your experience.

There are, however, a few things that I hope get clarified further before the text is published:

o   ‘collective healing:’ How is this concept understood by El Juego, and how is the approach of the four dimensions carried out in the community? The last item of the discussion, 4.3., provides a description of the four dimensions as an approach, but it has not really provided a description that allows the readers to see how the four dimensions are actually carried out in the community.

o   Methods, techniques, and approach. The four dimensions are labeled in the abstract as an approach. On p. 6 (section 4.1), there was also a mention of the encounter as a technique. The mention provided a short description of how the encounter is done, but it did not really explore the processes that had to be done in order to illustrate the relevance of the encounter in conflict resolution. Then, on p. 7 (section 4.2), there was a mention of the methods the community is developing. Are these methods the same as the techniques previously mentioned? There was also a mention of the ‘Door.’ How does this concept of the ‘Door’ relate to the methods, techniques, or approach referred to in this article? It might help if these are clarified further.

o    The paper’s abstract suggested that the ‘ethnography’ centered on Camelia is central to this essay. It, however, appears that the experience with Camelia is no longer visible in the Discussion (section 4). I initially thought that the Camelia experience would serve as the essay’s paradigm in discussing the four dimensions. Did I have a mistaken impression?

Since not everyone will have the opportunity to live in a community like El Juego, what would be the important lessons we could gather from your El Juego experience that would be helpful for us (outsiders of the El Juego community) to initiate or undergo healing? Will the four dimensions also be helpful for us? 

Author Response

Thank you so much for your caring and thoughtful feedback. I now edited the paper quite substantially and included your feedback as follows:

o   ‘collective healing:’ How is this concept understood by El Juego, and how is the approach of the four dimensions carried out in the community? The last item of the discussion, 4.3., provides a description of the four dimensions as an approach, but it has not really provided a description that allows the readers to see how the four dimensions are actually carried out in the community.

In this version of the paper, I embedded the four dimensions within the discussion and made reference to how we use it (as a tool to guide meditations, cicles, and as a framework of self-observation when we accompany each others).

o   Methods, techniques, and approach. The four dimensions are labeled in the abstract as an approach. On p. 6 (section 4.1), there was also a mention of the encounter as a technique. The mention provided a short description of how the encounter is done, but it did not really explore the processes that had to be done in order to illustrate the relevance of the encounter in conflict resolution. Then, on p. 7 (section 4.2), there was a mention of the methods the community is developing. Are these methods the same as the techniques previously mentioned? There was also a mention of the ‘Door.’ How does this concept of the ‘Door’ relate to the methods, techniques, or approach referred to in this article? It might help if these are clarified further.

In this edited version of the paper, the four dimensions are not given so much importance in the abstract, but rather used as a way to support a broader exploration of how we relate and heal with nature in the community. When I discuss the encounter, I added a short description of how it is used for conflict resolution. I clarify that we called the methods we develop ‘doors’ and used the term consistently afterwards. I also provided more background on where our methods come from.

o    The paper’s abstract suggested that the ‘ethnography’ centered on Camelia is central to this essay. It, however, appears that the experience with Camelia is no longer visible in the Discussion (section 4). I initially thought that the Camelia experience would serve as the essay’s paradigm in discussing the four dimensions. Did I have a mistaken impression?

Since not everyone will have the opportunity to live in a community like El Juego, what would be the important lessons we could gather from your El Juego experience that would be helpful for us (outsiders of the El Juego community) to initiate or undergo healing? Will the four dimensions also be helpful for us? 

I now made more explicit links between the story of Camelia and the discussion that follows. I re-wrote the discussion to place the paper more explicitly within academic literature. I discussed how we engage with collective healing, inviting to an idea of healing that goes beyond engaging with the world rationally, but rather engaging with our whole self. I also stressed the value of grieving together and rituals to accompany cicles of life and death.

I hope you will enjoy reading the article in this new version.

 

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This revised version is much improved and has responded to all of my previous questions and concerns about the manuscript. I recommend acceptance for publication, after checking for typos and grammatical errors (please double check dates, always capitalize 'Indigenous', line 51 should be 'that' instead of 'which').

Author Response

Thank you very much for your feedback. I now made edits and re-uploaded the paper. 

Warmly,

 

Gioel