Speaking-in-Relation with Dr. Sam Leguizamon Grant
A How-To Training on Effective Public Speaking
Aug 11, 2023 — All day
This session is co-presented by the Climate Justice Organizing Hub, the SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation, Concordia's Social Justice Centre and University of Ottawa's Laboratory for Engaged Research.

About the event
"Effective Public Speaking" can be interpreted in numerous ways. What I have noticed is that we are "trained" to say what we want to convey, without necessarily learning how to communicate to an audience. Speaking-in-Relation is an exploratory, participatory dialogue in which we learn to notice ourselves in relation to our audience and consider the "fit", the "non-fit", and the "partial fit" that we may sense in terms of "who is in the room" we are speaking in. Speaking-in-Relation does not come from the ego, and it does not come from a script - although you may have a script as a reminder of what you want to cover to the extent it continues to make sense once you are immersed in the presence of an audience. To "communicate" is to "commune" about our boundaries, about our connections and about the space between boundaries and connections. It takes openness and perennial vulnerability and bravery to honor our own integrity and that of all in the spaces in which we speak. This means in part, that to speak is to listen, to ask questions, to consider letting go of what you thought you might say in order to 'speak-in-relation". You might think this sounds hard, but I suggest speaking any other way generates hardness in space. Speaking-in-Relation is the speaking in the language of deep democracy.
Dr. Leguizamon Grant is a lifelong organizer and introvert. If he comes out of his "shell" to speak-in-relation he wants it to "move an us" that pre-existed or is emergent in the space we share. Dr. Grant is the Executive Director of a national social justice-oriented research, evaluation and capacity building company on Turtle Island, an adjunct professor at Metropolitan State University, and a co-founder of Embody Deep Democracy, which seeks to nourish our shared skills of "being-in-relation" as we work for mutual liberation.
Montreal, QC H3G 1M8 (J.W. McConnell Building)
- Please send us an email if you will attend in person, so we can prepare accordingly.
- The space is accessible to people with diverse mobility needs. For wheelchair access, we’ll use the loading dock accessible from the courtyard. Call or text us when you arrive so we can help you use this alternative access (514-546-3924).