Climbing Together: Book Discussion with Author and Alum Anna Taft

Join the Center for Global Studies and O’Donnell Visiting Educator Anna Taft (Whitman ’02) for a discussion of Taft’s new book, Climbing Together: Relational Morality and Meaningful Action in Intercultural Community Engagement (Brill, October 2024). Attendees will have the chance to win a free advance copy. Autographed book plates and a discount code for future book purchases will also be available.

Scholars and commentators have noted the frequent inefficacy of “development,” and criticized the power relations it entrenches. Aware of these problems, some North Americans choose to disengage from transnational work. But the reality, Taft argues in her work, is that we cannot avoid participating in global networks that affect people in many countries, and there are vast inequalities in access to resources that need to be addressed. Through philosophical insights, narrative accounts, and testimony from community members, we can discover a path between development and disengagement, through which relational morality and meaningful action can enrich intercultural collaboration and yield many fruits.

Anna Taft is Founding Director of The Tandana Foundation. She has led the organization in its partnership with communities in Mali and Ecuador for over seventeen years. She holds a B.A. from Whitman College and a M.A.L.S. from Skidmore College.