The word reciprocity is starting to lose its meaning, and I think it’s because we’ve said it so often and delivered it so rarely. Somewhere along the way, talking about reciprocity as a value became the same thing as practicing it, and being tested on what it actually looks like, for you, in your body, in your budget, in your project proposals and evaluation, in your calendar, turned out to be a completely different thing. There’s an assumption that if one party says they want reciprocity, the other party should want it too, and should be grateful to even be asked, and that assumption gets heavier the more uneven the relationship is when considering all the intersectional aspects; socially, economically, positionally, racially.

I can’t remember when I first started hearing about reciprocity as a practice in the work that we do, but I know it showed up most often in conversations between settlers and Indigenous Peoples, and then travelled outward into other uneven relationships: teachers and students, organizations and residents, funders and fundees. Initially introduced, asked for as a way to name that shifts in power, relationships and systems happens when we practice reciprocity. And yet I’ve noticed that while reciprocity is meant to benefit both parties, it often ends up relieving one of them of guilt about extraction or exploitation. It gets extended as a peace offering in places where past harm hasn’t been acknowledged and promises have already been broken, and I’m skeptical that anything can be truly reciprocal when that’s where we’re starting from.

I don’t want to sound like I don’t believe in it, because I do. Like most liberation practices, I believe reciprocity could genuinely shift how we think about and engage with power and capital. But what it requires is more than talking about trust, generosity, kindness, compassion, and meeting people where they’re at. It requires showing up as all the versions of you. It requires having the humility to know when you have caused harm and being accountable for your actions. It requires repairing relationships and learning from mistakes. It requires asking for help and being able to accept it. It requires tending to a relationship when no one has anything specific to offer or receive, offering care without assuming it has to come back in the same form, leaning into generative conflict, checking in just to check in, and choosing presence over perfectionism and performance. We keep looking for blueprints for something that actually asks for constant practice, especially, maybe most importantly, when it’s hard. And lately I’ve noticed there’s a lot of talk about practices in our gathering spaces and very few opportunities to actually practice in them, unless an individual takes it up on their own.

I was recently at a conference where non-funders were allowed to join funders in their professional development for the first time. It came with a rule: no uninvited solicitation. The boundary was set so the invitation could be extended, and I understand why, but it seemed to sharpen the power dynamics in the room rather than soften them. In theory, two people meeting at a conference are peers. We were in the same space, hearing the same messages, doing work that is interconnected in all kinds of ways. And still, intersecting power dynamics don’t disappear because the context has shifted for a few hours or days. As a non-funder, I carried a looming possibility that I could be found breaking the rules and could potentially lose my access to the room. That didn’t feel reciprocal. It felt lopsided. Whatever the intentions behind opening the space, the power differential had become a threat to reciprocity, and it was a reminder that this is a practice in how we show up together, not in the words we use to describe it.

A note: I’m deliberately not naming the conference. Those who were there will know, and honestly, it doesn’t matter which one, because this is a pattern that plays out in many rooms, not just this one.

So here is one of my own practices.

For me, a practice can be one act repeated over and over to strengthen a single muscle, or a range of different activities that stretch and confuse the same muscles, and both can teach us something and change over time. In 2023, shortly after we named abundance as a core value at DIA, I started a practice I’ve been returning to ever since. We’ve always thought of our core values not as the ones that come easiest, but as the ones we have to keep coming back to, and abundance is a hard one for me. It asks me to think about what I have, what I need, and what I have to offer. It asks me to think about my relationship with the person I’ve decided to share with, and whether I expect something in return or can be satisfied with having given what I had to give. It always catches me wondering whether I’ve given enough, what the act of giving will unexpectedly stir up in the person receiving it, and whether it will be remembered or forgotten. And with all of that uncertainty, can I practice abundance anyway?

The practice began during the pandemic, when I returned to the crafts that brought me joy as a child, partly to stop myself from working endlessly. I have a habit of hyper focusing on new obsessions, so our home quickly filled with far more earrings and pins than I could ever wear, and it turned out that the best part for me was the act of making, which left me wondering what to do with everything I’d made. I started giving it away, and sending care packages to people who had shaped my life and work from a distance. Around the same time, I was reconsidering whether I was actually the extrovert I thought I was. I had believed I gained energy from big crowds, that the goal of a conference was to collect as many business cards as possible to improve my odds of finding a few gems, that it was a numbers game. It took me a while to admit that I don’t like multiple short, shallow conversations at all. What I crave are deep, memorable ones that might spark quickly and ideally lead to something lasting. I had been choosing quantity over quality, to my own detriment, and once I decided I didn’t need to keep recreating scripts that didn’t serve me, I could build my own practice.

When we started returning to larger gatherings, I decided to bring gifts with me, and a ritual was born.

It has changed a lot. At first I’d show up with a bag full of small gift bags, and I was honestly hoping they would help people remember me, as though my being memorable depended on what I handed over. Looking back, I was undervaluing my own ability to be memorable and staking a lot on how others were judging me. In another iteration, I kept insisting that receiving the gift was a gift to me, that I had too many craft supplies at home and they were doing me a favour by taking things off my hands, and it felt like I was betraying my own generosity. These days I try to offer a gift as gratitude for a conversation and an exchange, and then release it, so it doesn’t have to do more labour than saying thank you. I’m more intentional about who gets one, and I remind myself that not every exchange needs to be honoured with a gift and that I’m not deciding who is worthy. I can just follow my feeling in the moment.

At that same conference, I handed someone a gift bag after a really good conversation, and they said, “Oh, but I don’t have anything for you.” I told them the conversation was the gift, so please accept this. And it dawned on me how much of this practice is about rewriting scripts, about letting other patterns emerge around what reciprocity looks and feels like, instead of defaulting to the one where every gift creates a debt.

I’ll admit it’s still nice when something comes back: a message, a photo of someone wearing the earrings, a story about how the gift was passed along beyond its first recipient. I no longer put pressure on myself to see a return, but I’m not going to pretend I don’t love it, which might be its own small lesson about reciprocity.

I also need to name that this has been hard to write. I’m better at this in conversation with people I trust. I’m known for speaking my mind, even poking fun at dynamics I assume are obvious to everyone, and I’ve later found out that I was naming something people already sensed but didn’t truly know until someone else said it out loud. There is a risk in naming power dynamics when you’re the one holding less obvious power, and there is also a risk in holding it in and betraying your own observations. I don’t have a way out of that tension, and I’m not sure reciprocity is meant to resolve it. Maybe the practice is staying in it anyway, offering what I have, letting the gift go, and seeing what the other person does with the script.

Questions I’m asking myself

These aren’t a blueprint. They’re the questions I’m carrying into the next room, and the one after that.

• When I say I want reciprocity, what am I actually offering, and what am I hoping to receive, or to be relieved of?
• Where do I hold power, including the less obvious kinds, and who in those relationships feels they should be grateful just to be asked?
• Who made the rules of this room, who bears the cost of breaking them, and what am I doing about that?
• Can I tend to a relationship when neither of us has anything to give or get?
• Can I ask for help, and can I accept a gift without rushing to even the score?
• Am I asking my gift to do more labour than saying thank you?
• Which scripts am I repeating out of habit, and what else could emerge if I let them go?
• Where am I talking about practice instead of making room to practice?
• What am I holding in right now that I haven’t yet said out loud?

For those of you who have been in this practice with me, thank you!