OUR VALUES

Denniston Hill embraces a set of interdependent values that shape our organization and our programs.

HOSPITALITY

Ethical, caring treatment of strangers as a social art that contests xenophobia and emerges from a sense of intersubjective love: sharing, care, affection, and collective responsibility.

We aim to create a space of refuge and shelter from pursuit, danger, or harm.

COMMUNITY BUILDING
and STEWARDSHIP

Building, growing, and maintaining social relations that underscore interdependence, mutual aid, stewardship of the land, and belonging.

We emphasize care for the land and resources in a way that respects its ancestry and meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This approach underscores the mutual dependence of all living beings within a common world and the rights and responsibilities of humans to rural landscapes.

GENERATIVE PRACTICE

We engage in practice that produces new ideas, outcomes, capabilities and opportunities that build off of each other. We bring together those who work in different kinds of knowledge, media, and practice to develop collective intelligence.

We emphasize exploration of nonverbal, somatic, and holistic modes of socializing and a form of knowledge production that comes from lived experience. We recognize that improvisation, experimentation, and creativity require supportive structures and rigor. 

TRANSLOCALISM

We operate across national boundaries in connection with other communities around the globe, emphasizing the networks of solidarity and anti-colonial struggle that tie together the hyper local and the global.

Our practice seeks solutions that critique and move away from analyses and assumptions embedded in Western colonial hegemony. 

LIBERATION

We recognize that fairness and justice can only be achieved if we overcome the unequal starting places that disadvantage and create barriers for so many.

We strive to address these imbalances, deepen our impact, and achieve equal outcomes for all, regardless of one’s identity or experience.

Photos courtesy Maia Cruz Palileo (DH’19), Sojournor Truth Parsons (DH’21), and Paul Pfeiffer.