Not a Pilgrimage: A “Visit” to the Capilla Real

by | Jul 13, 2025 | ASKing the World, Hagiography, Language, Mapping, Political Geography, Spain

Granada, Spain — July 12, 2025

On July 12, I visited the Capilla Real in Granada—the final resting place of Isabel and Ferdinand, the so-called Catholic Monarchs. As someone from the Americas (having lived extensively in both the north and south), I arrived not as a passive tourist but as a participant in a longer, more complicated performance of memory and power. The encounter felt layered, conflicted, and deeply political.

To think through this space, I turn to the work of Mike Pearson and Michael Shanks, whose concept of “theatre/archaeology” invites us to consider how sites are not just static remnants of the past, but staged events, constructed through layers of material, narrative, and embodied experience. The Capilla Real is not just a crypt; it is a scripted space—a performative apparatus where empire, religion, and heritage rehearse themselves daily.

I wanted to ask: What is being remembered here? And what is being made to disappear?

What is being memorialized—and what is being forgotten?

The Capilla Real monumentalizes the Catholic Monarchs as founders of modern Spain—unifiers of kingdoms and “champions” of Christianity. Yet what is absent from this narrative? The expelled Jewish communities, the forcibly converted Muslims, the erased plurality of late medieval Granada.

What does the architecture tell us? Its late Gothic grandeur stands in symbolic contrast to the nearby Alhambra. The site doesn’t just remember a royal couple—it stages a victory of Christendom.

Ask the site: Who gets to be buried with marble and gold? Who was exiled in silence?

What does it mean to come from the Americas to this tomb?

To stand here, as someone from the Americas, is to feel the afterlives of 1492 humming in the walls. Colonization, extraction, forced conversion, genocide. These are not footnotes; they are structural echoes.

But I visited not on October 12—the official “discovery” date—but July 12: my own day of encounter. This reframes the act. It refuses the commemorative choreography and inserts presence in place of celebration.

Ask yourself: What is my role in this story? Observer? Descendant? Witness? Disruptor?

How is the site performing itself to me?

The Capilla Real is deeply choreographed. Light filters carefully across stone. The tombs are elevated, silent, inaccessible. Reverence is built into the room.

Where are visitors positioned? What are we allowed to see, and how? What narrative are we meant to accept?

Ask the architecture: Who choreographed your gestures? Who wrote your script?

What traces and residues resist the dominant story?

What if we look beyond the polished surfaces? Cracks in stone. Uneven wear on the floor. The proximity of Moorish Granada just outside. Are these material residues that refuse to perform the official memory?

What might be uncovered if we listened for unofficial histories—graffiti, whispered anecdotes, contested memories?

Ask the material: What are you hiding beneath your polish?

What would a counter-monument look like here?

If we were to build a counter-monument in this space, what form would it take? Would it honor the Indigenous peoples of the Americas? The forcibly silenced voices of Sephardic Jews or Andalusian Muslims?

Would it be performative? Ephemeral? Sonic? Could we interrupt this royal narrative with something more plural, contested, and alive?

Ask history: Who else demands to be remembered here?

A Presence That Interrupts

Standing in the Capilla Real, I did not come to venerate. I came to witness. To mark presence. To speak into a silence that has lasted too long.

I stood before the crypt of Isabel and Ferdinand—the monarchs who set in motion the Reconquista and the conquest of the so-called “New World.” Their bodies rest beneath carved stone, sealed in royal dignity. But outside those tombs, across oceans and centuries, the legacies of their decisions are unburied, unfinished, and still resisted.

And so I said, quietly—perhaps to them, perhaps to myself:

Do you know that peoples in the Americas have resisted your conquest and colonization for over 500 years?

That resistance is not metaphor. It is not memory. It is alive.

Pearson and Shanks remind us that archaeology is not merely about ruins, but about performance, disruption, and presence. In that spirit, I offer these questions—not to find answers, but to refuse silence.

To Isabel and Ferdinand: 

  • When you cast your crowns toward heaven, did you see what fell to earth in your name?
  • What prayers passed your lips as you signed the expulsions—were they for mercy, or for dominion?
  • Did you dream of gold or of glory—or did you simply fear a world not shaped in your image?
  • When you imagined the Indies, did you imagine us—the ones who would inherit both wound and wonder?
  • Did you know your empire would splinter—yet still echo in our languages, our borders, our gods?
  • What does empire sound like when it speaks back to you—not in Latin, but in Nahuatl, Aymara, K’iche’, Guaraní, Garífuna?
  • Can you hear the music now? The fusion of drums and strings, tongues and prayers, born of resistance and necessity?
  • Did you know that seeds carried in your ships would take root in every kitchen, every story, every body? What about the diseases?
  • Did you build a world, or did you scatter one?
  • And when I stand here—an inheritor of what you set in motion—do you see a subject, a stranger, or a question?

This visit was not a pilgrimage.
It was an intervention.
And the performance isn’t over.

Or, in the Guarani…..

Ko jevy ndaha’éi peteĩ ñemomba’e rehegua guata.
Ha’e kuri peteĩ jehasaha.
Ha pe ñoha’ãguasu ndopevéi gueteri.

Mapping Global Competence: A Journey Through Difference, Dialogue, and Action

by | Jun 6, 2025 | ASKing the World, Geo Storytelling, Geographical Imaginations, Language, Mapping, Pedagogy

 

Education must move beyond content delivery and toward cultivating globally competent learners. The Global Competence Certificate program offers a path not only toward deeper understanding of others, but also of oneself. This course is a carefully structured encounter with difference that challenges assumptions, encourages perspective-taking, and builds capacity for action.

Structured around reflective modules and live facilitated dialogues, the course maps a journey that begins with self-awareness and ends with a commitment to transformation. Along the way, participants explore cultural frameworks, value dimensions, conflict styles, inequality, and sustainability, all the while asking essential questions: Who am I in relation to others? How do systems shape interactions? What is my responsibility as an educator and citizen?

Keywords

Cultural Dimensions: Frameworks that place cultural values along continuums (e.g., hierarchy vs. egalitarianism, individualism vs. collectivism) and help explain how different societies prioritize relationships, time, authority, and communication.

Conflict Styles: Based on Dr. Mitchell Hammer’s framework, these styles identify communication as either direct or indirect and emotional expression as either expressive or restrained, giving insight into how cultural differences shape conflict resolution.

Microaggressions: Subtle, often unconscious behaviors or comments that communicate derogatory or dismissive messages to people based on marginalized identities, reinforcing systemic bias and exclusion.

Mainstream and Margin: Social positioning concepts that explore how power and privilege function in institutions and communities, often revealing how certain identities and voices are centered while others are silenced or overlooked.

Stretch Collaboration: A method of working across differences that calls for curiosity, humility, experimentation, and the recognition that we are part of the very problems we seek to solve (Kahane).

Global Goals (SDGs): The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals that form an action-oriented framework for tackling interconnected global challenges like poverty, climate change, gender equality, and education.

WOOP: A research-backed self-regulation strategy (by Gabriele Oettingen) that helps people achieve goals by mentally contrasting their wishes with likely obstacles and developing implementation intentions.

Globally Competent Teaching: A pedagogical stance integrating intercultural sensitivity, inquiry, systems thinking, and action-based learning to prepare students to thrive in and improve a diverse, interconnected world.

Polarization: The sharpening of divisions within society that leads to entrenched “us vs. them” dynamics, often fueled by confirmation bias and zero-sum thinking.

Pluralism: The philosophical and practical commitment to engaging multiple perspectives and values in decision-making, rather than assimilating or eliminating difference.

From Reflection to Action

What distinguishes this course is its recursive rhythm: reflect, discuss, apply. The early modules ask participants to situate themselves along cultural continuums. Are you more high-context or low-context in your communication? Do you navigate conflict with a preference for accommodation or discussion? These inquiries are not merely academic; they serve as mirrors and windows—allowing one to better understand self and others, recognize implicit bias, and shift behavior toward inclusivity.

As the course moves into themes of inequality and marginalization, it invites educators to name the ways power operates within their communities. Through exercises around spiritual diversity, microaggressions, and mainstream vs. margin, participants confront both privilege and exclusion. It is a journey of discomfort, empathy, and eventually, solidarity. This segment feels particularly critical today, as educational spaces must contend with their own roles in perpetuating systemic inequities.

The Power of Dialogue 

Live sessions form the emotional and intellectual core of the program. With expert facilitation, these dialogues move beyond “sharing” and into the realm of co-construction of meaning. They allow for vulnerability, cultural exchange, and collective problem-solving. In these spaces, the ethos of educational theorists like Paulo Freire—learning as dialogue, as praxis—feels very much alive.

These conversations are not tidy. They mirror real-world complexity. But through guided inquiry and storytelling, participants engage difference with openness, building the skills to do the same in their own classrooms. These moments are reminders that inclusion is not only about curriculum design—it’s about human interaction.

Linking to Theory

While the course avoids academic jargon, its foundation aligns with thinkers like Martha Nussbaum, whose concept of “narrative imagination” calls us to see the world through others’ eyes as an ethical imperative. Similarly, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s work on cosmopolitanism—valuing universal dignity while respecting local diversity—animates much of the program’s spirit.

In modules addressing polarization and conflict, participants indirectly wrestle with insights from social psychology and intercultural communication theory. Yet the learning remains grounded in practice, helping educators make theory tangible in the classroom.

Big Questions That Linger

  • What does it mean to “know” another culture? What are the ethical limits of such knowing?
  • How can we foster global understanding without lapsing into tokenism or reinforcing savior narratives?
  • In an age of disinformation and polarization, what role does education play in cultivating epistemic humility and discernment?
  • How do educators sustain inclusive practices when faced with resistance from institutions or communities?
  • What does civic responsibility look like in a world of overlapping crises—climate, migration, inequality?

A Personal Cartography

By the end of the course, participants are not handed a map—they are asked to draw their own. From initial self-assessment to final action planning using tools like WOOP, the program scaffolds a transformation in awareness, pedagogy, and presence.

The course is not a checklist. It is a compass. It fosters dispositions—curiosity, humility, resilience—that are essential for teaching and leading in a global age. Through sustained reflection, brave conversation, and inspired action, participants emerge with more than insight—they leave with intention.

For educators committed to justice, inclusion, and global citizenship, this course offers both a challenge and a gift. It reminds us that global competence is not a final destination. It is a way of being—with others, for others, and always becoming.

Kevin of the Valley, Kevin of the Birds

by | Jun 3, 2025 | Geographical Imaginations, Hagiography, Language, Mapping

 

Today (June 3) is St. Kevin’s Day. My name saint. St. Kevin of Glendalough.  Not a figure from obscure Irish hagiography, but a presence who has, over time, shaped how I imagine attention, how I hold questions, how I understand stillness.

There’s no grand sermon in Kevin’s story. No fiery conversions. Just a man in a stone cell, one arm outstretched through the threshold, and a blackbird that comes to nest in his palm. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t shake her off. He stays—long enough for the eggs to hatch and the young to fly.

What kind of listening does that require? What kind of patience?

Seamus Heaney turns this moment into something more than legend. In his poem St Kevin and the Blackbird, he wonders whether Kevin is “self-forgetful or in agony all the time.” Whether he still feels his knees. Whether he’s praying—or simply becoming the prayer itself.

“To labour and not to seek reward,” Heaney writes,
“he prays, a prayer his body makes entirely…”

That line gets me. Not because I think it’s something to achieve, but because it names something so few of us are taught: that attentiveness—costly, embodied, quiet attentiveness—might be the most necessary thing. To let something land. To let it stay. To not flee discomfort or mystery. To become hospitable, even to the wild.

The miracle, if there is one, is not in the bird. It’s in the stillness. In a form of presence that does not insist or interpret, but holds. Not grasping. Not passive. Just utterly available.

I think that’s why I walk(ed) as a pilgrim to Glendalough. To Kevin. Not as a seeker of escape or sanctity, but to be in the presence of a witness—one who stood for a way of being: the long patience of love, the unshaken hand, the refusal to close.

Today, I say his name with quiet reverence. Kevin of the valley. Kevin of the birds. Not a figure to admire, but a silence to be met. A name to carry. A story to return to.

Perhaps I shall walk the valley of the two lakes again—with a bird in hand.  Again.  And again.  

Sabbatical

by | May 23, 2025 | Alto Aragon, Geographical Imaginations, Mapping, Public Geography, Spain

This image functions as a whimsical and quietly profound visual metaphor for a sabbatical year. The juxtaposition of me reclining in a bathtub—an object synonymous with rest and cleansing—against the backdrop of overgrown grass, rusted farm equipment, and the wild encroachment of nature, immediately invites interpretation.

The choice of setting, far removed from domestic comfort, adds depth. The bathtub, now dislocated from its traditional role, becomes a throne of introspection in the wilderness. The lush, untamed grass cradles the scene, suggesting growth, freedom, and the slow but inevitable reclaiming power of nature. Meanwhile, the rusting machinery, remnants of labor and utility, speaks to the pause from productivity that a sabbatical often implies. It is both a literal and metaphorical “letting things go to seed.”

What makes the image compelling is its stillness—I don’t look at the camera. My gaze is directed off-frame, my body relaxed, as though meditating or simply existing. The pose, casual yet deliberate, embodies the spirit of disengagement from haste. However, this retreat isn’t escapism; rather, it’s a confrontation with stillness and solitude. There’s an edge of humor too—bathing in grass next to a plow feels absurd yet liberating. 

Photo by Sonia Ibáñez Pérez

From Consumers to Citizens: The Role of Question Formulation in Democratic Education

by | May 3, 2025 | ASKing the World, Geo Storytelling, Geographical Imaginations, Pedagogy

In November 2019, I began my formal study of the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) through the Right Question Institute and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). I had long believed that student voice and inquiry were central to meaningful learning, but the QFT offered something I hadn’t yet found: a clear, intentional structure to support all learners—regardless of age or background—in generating and improving their own questions. It was a framework that not only aligned with my values but gave me a concrete way to practice them in the classroom. What began as a deep interest quickly became an ongoing thread through my professional development and a defining lens for how I think about pedagogy, equity, and democratic education.

The QFT is more than just a structure for generating questions—it’s a powerful lever for shifting the culture of learning from compliance to inquiry, from answer-seeking to meaning-making. And over the years, as I’ve returned to the QFT through different programs and settings, I’ve come to see that question formulation is not a strategy I use—it’s a stance I take as an educator.

In spring 2022, I continued this journey through the National Geographic program Teaching Students to ASK Their Own Geo-Inquiry Questions. That course further expanded my lens. It pushed me to think about how student questions shape not just classroom discussions but real-world investigations. Framing and refining geo-inquiry questions gave students agency not only over their learning, but over the issues they choose to explore in their communities and across the globe. In this context, questions became tools of both understanding and action.

Most recently, in April 2025, I returned to the Right Question Institute and HGSE for Questions at the Core: Extending the Question Formulation Technique to Sustain an Inquiry-based Culture in Schools. This course took me beyond individual lessons and toward the systemic implications of question-driven learning. It challenged me to consider how the QFT could function not just as a classroom practice but as a shared cultural norm—across grade levels, content areas, and professional learning spaces. What would it mean for teachers, too, to center their own inquiry? What would it look like to build a school where questioning is not only taught, but expected, modeled, and protected?

Across these experiences, my commitment has deepened to an idea that feels more urgent than ever: If we want to cultivate democratic learning communities, we must begin by ensuring that every learner—student and adult alike—has the skill, confidence, and opportunity to ask questions that matter. We cannot expect young people to participate meaningfully in the world if they’ve only been trained to answer. We must give them practice in framing problems, interrogating assumptions, and following their questions wherever they lead.

In many schools, the default model treats students as consumers of information, preparing them to perform, comply, and compete. But in a world that needs more critical thinkers, collaborators, and change-makers, we need something different. Question formulation is one pathway toward that difference. It shifts the posture of learning from passive to active, from isolated to communal, from transactional to transformational.

The Question Formulation Technique reminds us that democracy begins with a question—and that education, at its best, prepares us not just to answer, but to ask.