Part 1: Promoting awareness without lived experience? The first step you should take
Written by Jon Jon moore
Lived experience refers to the everyday events in our lives over time, and the knowledge about the world we accumulate as we move through it — in our unique bodies, families, neighborhoods, nations…the list goes on.
As communicators, we’re often asked to help people with different lived experiences consider, even a little bit, the lives of others whose identities are different than theirs.
But how do we communicate about issues that we, and our audiences, don’t have lived experiences in?
For example, how do we communicate about death row, when we ourselves (and our audiences) have never been sentenced? How about communicating about child care, when we don’t have children of our own?
We’re so happy you asked! This week and next week, we’re sharing three things for communicators and leaders to remember.
Lived experience is a kind of expertise, but not analysis
I’m a Black person, I’m a Detroiter, and I’m a first-generation college grad. I have and continue to experience the world as these things, and that won’t change (even if I move out of the country, or burn up my college degree). The knowledge I’ve gained in the process is part of who I am. All these lessons inform how I think about myself and the world.
But, let’s now say a college readiness program hired me to create a curriculum for Black Detroit high school seniors. Does my lived experience make me the best person for the job? Not necessarily!
That’s because our lived experience is individual expertise in how the world encounters us.
While my experiences do come with certain shared knowledge, they are not substitutes for a larger analysis of what those individual students might need or want, let alone all Black high school seniors in Detroit.
The educator and organizer Mariame Kaba reminds us all that having lived experience does not mean “you have an analysis of your experience. It’s not inherent.”
And this is really important to remember when helping audiences understand other people’s lived experiences, even if it raises the stakes for your team to show your work.
So what does this all mean for us?
Sign up for our email newsletter to receive all of our best ideas, straight to your inbox
Next steps: When you, your audiences (or both) lack lived experience when it comes to an issue, rely equally on the voices of those who've lived it and the analysis/expertise you bring to the work.
For example, a housing justice organization’s annual report might feature interviews with folks who are living without permanent shelter. BUT their words should not bear the burden of translation for people who’ve never faced housing insecurity. The organization should include supporting information, such as research and data, in the annual report to paint a picture of the challenges that person is facing, and how they relate to their audiences’ lives.
As advocates and communicators, we should strive to incorporate both lived experiences AND analysis into our work.
We know this topic is too big for just one blog – so we’re serving you a two-fer! Stay tuned for next week’s blog, during which we’ll explore good and bad empathy, along with the role we play in the systems we’re fighting against.
