Gail Hochachka

Gail Hochachka works in international development and humanitarian aid in Africa and Latin America using integral principles with two Canadian non-profit organizations. Having witnessed first-hand how a comprehensive philosophy like Integral theory is achingly needed to address global issues, as well as having felt the compassionate impact of its application in the world, she is simply and deeply committed to integral practice for the planet. She is adjunct faculty at JFKU in the online Master of Arts in Integral Theory, a published author, and is a practitioner of Yoga, Tantra, and Zen as part of an integral spirituality. She lives with her husband in northern BC.

Gail’s first book publication, Developing Sustainability, Developing the Self, was an extension of her Master’s thesis looking at an integral approach to international and community development in El Salvador. It was in El Salvador in the late 1990s—a country infamously known for civil war and the worst environmental degradation after Haiti in Latin America—that she realized we have to evolve our way out of this one… And, that the post/modern disciplines available in the field of development were not sufficient to be effective in engaging this type of evolutionary social change. Questions like, “Why do humans suffer and what are the tried-and-true pathways out of suffering?” and, “How do people and cultures really evolve?” initiated an integral action inquiry that continues to this day and has taken her to far-flung parts of the world such as the Amazon rainforests of Peru, the Niger Delta of Nigeria, and the communities of El Salvador. This is reflected in four articles is in the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, in her teaching at JFKU (two online courses on Integral Theory Applications and Integral Spirituality, and a bi-annual Integral Field Course in the developing south), as well as in on going projects with the non-profit organizations Drishti and One Sky.

Sunday, 14 October 2012 07:15