Community Agreements + Guidelines
Although we will take you to a variety of places and provide you with information about those places, Radici is not a traditional tour and its participants should not behave as “tourists”-- for example, we are not there to extract, to other, or exploit anyone— we come in deep honor and respect to the lands, communities and homes of Sicilian people.
Radici is a guided visit, an immersion, on the land, within someone else's “home” and it revolves around the local community, and we behave like guests. Because we are guests.
Radici is a time together to awaken our senses and connect, on many levels and layers.
Radici’s vision is community. And even more than that, the vision is re-villaging. We come together as a community, and remember what it looks like to be in and also form a village.
We have found that having agreements in place are helpful and really important in order to keep on path around this vision. It feels foundational, and supportive.
We also found that agreements are really necessary to keep protection in place for those putting in all the labor, creation, grunt work, those organizing Radici, both in Sicilia and in the US.
Please read through these agreements. If they don’t feel aligned for you, then please consider that Radici may not be the right experience for you.
By attending Radici, you agree to participate in the following community guidelines:
PHOTOGRAPHY
Radici is a place and space to be present with people and the land and yourself and to create distance from a world you are accustomed to. A camera between you and others creates distance, and it runs the risk of turning the objects of your gaze into commodities you are consuming rather than living beings with which you are relating.
Participants of Radici are expected to be discerning about their use of photographic and video recording and to keep their phones away in moments when you know, in your bones, it is better to just remember in the body, and not digitally. This may take a slowing down, to listen, but slowing down is a practice.
This does not mean you cannot take photos of your experience.
It is an invitation, a request, to be discerning and considerate about when you bring it out and when you put it away.
You are not here as a reporter, you are here as a guest. Greet your hosts, show them with your whole self that you are listening. Enjoy the experience of connecting deeply without watching your experience through a screen.
Take photos when it really feels aligned and right.
Put your phone away when you know it’s time to be really present with the spirit and people of place.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Radici is for your own, personal experience. You are not here to extract from the island and its people but to be in community with them.
Radici experiences and those we collaborate with should not be undertaken as a way to promote your own business or your brand, or build your own brand upon it.
Additionally, the people and places you will connect with (both other participants and local Sicilian community) may not necessarily want to be made public. That is their right. Once photos and other information are posted on-line, they become difficult or impossible to delete permanently. There are legal and ethical implications of posting that you must not ignore.
Furthermore, at Radici, we have worked hard to develop close and trusting relationships with the people and places we connect you with. We want to protect them as much as possible.
We ask you to reflect on what and why you are posting on social media, and consider keeping your posts of group shots (with consent of those in the group), shots of yourself, and reflections about your time with Radici Siciliane.
Participants of Radici agree not to geotag or provide other identifying information about the people and locations we visit on their social media accounts, whether public or private, without asking permission of said people and locations. Please get consent. Most local businesses are very fine with this. But an elder we work with may not be.
It is IMPERATIVE that if we visit reserves or preserved places in the wild, we all agree not to tag the location of these places in order to keep them protected and preserved. As fast tourism is on the rise in Sicily, we need to realize that when we make places public or locate them in public social media spaces, we risk those places being harmed by those who don’t respect the wildness and pristine. When we visit these places, we take exquisite care of them, connect with the land, and we are there to tend to, not exploit.
HOSPITALITY + FOOD
You may find the way you are fed, the amount of food you are fed, and the kind of food you are fed, much different in Sicily.
This is one of the reasons why we are here!
You may be overfed. You don’t have to eat everything on your plate, but making sure whoever cooked for you knows you are full, and that you are grateful, is the right action to take.
We also agree to be respectful around food. This means, many times, being discreet about something you may not like, that you are served. This means being grateful even if you don’t like it.
You agree to allow for the discomfort. In the discomfort we learn more about ourselves and our ancestors and the cultural body and people we are visiting.
We know most of this is common sense and that most of you already understand these things. But it’s helpful to see them written down. You’ll be asked to initial similar agreements to these when you sign up and register for Radici. They are not legally binding agreements, but they are agreements we make within the community, a much more powerful, and lasting, bond.
