The article “Creative Activism and Art Against Urban Renaissance and Social Exclusion,” by Eva Youkhana, first introduced to me the concept of claiming space through public art. Youkhana explains that the rise of graffiti during the 1970s among young African American men could be seen as an effort by a marginalized population to not only claim, but feel a sense of belonging in a space because they played a role in creating the character of said place.
As someone who wants to be a writer, I have always been fascinated by the way literature functions as a form of social change. I looked to “Berlin as a Migratory Setting” by Yasemin Yildiz to further understand how literature, like street art, can allow an individual to establish a sense of belonging in a specific place. Berlin’s literary scene is steeped in the work of migrants. This pervasiveness of migrant authors in Berlin has, by connecting voice to space, established Berlin as an international city. I hope to focus my studies on how individuals claim a role in a space through art, and particularly through writing. This is only the beginning of my exploration, but I look forward to learning more.
0 Comments
A Key Point Taken from “What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Service” by Adam Davis
This piece works primarily to emphasize how power dynamics are present in service work and how, if unnoticed, these dynamics hold the potential to perpetuate inequality. Davis identifies the primary difference between the server and the served in the case of service to be the role of freedom. Simply put, the individual doing the service has chosen to serve while the individual being served is so served because they need said service. The fact that the service dynamic requires one player to “live in the realm of freedom” while the other lives “in the realm of necessity” means that it requires inequality to function. Furthermore, Davis asks if perhaps the server enjoys this state of inequality in which they take on the position of the superior. Service ideally stands as a means to lessen inequality, but Davis argues that, if service is used to affirm one’s superiority, it likely will never achieve its idealistic goal. A Key Point Taken from “Educating the ‘Good’ Citizen: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals” by Wetheimer and Kahne In their piece identifying how different forms of citizenship fit into a society, Wetheimer and Kahne first note three types of “good” citizens: the personally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and the justice-oriented citizen. The personally responsible citizen is defined as an individual who follows the rules, donates to causes and volunteers, simply put, an individual who does all and more than what is expected of them, all on a largely individualistic scale. The participatory citizen is an individual who is active in civic affairs, organizing events for those in need and encouraging voting. The final definition is that of the justice-oriented citizen. The justice-oriented citizen observes matters of injustice in society and calls for “collective strategies for change” to challenge said matters of injustice. While it is the least commonly pursued, the justice-oriented citizen, the authors argue, is most crucial in certifying democracy because it is the only citizen which can identify and challenge institutions of power. Reflecting on “Identity and Social Action: The Role of Self-Examination in Systemic Change” by Tania D. Mitchell As the child of a professor who teaches primarily about race and gender, a good portion of my life was spent being lectured on the importance of recognizing my privilege. While acutely aware of my many privileges (especially those granted to me as a middle class white person), I often found myself exasperated, wondering what I, as so privileged an individual, could do without heightening my privilege. I was ashamed to think that whatever successes I achieved my life would be in some ways the product of my privilege and was terrified that any way of pursuing my interest (I sought to understand how people react to cultural difference and work to promote peaceful cross-cultural interaction), would only serve as some form of colonialism through “helping.” It was with poorly concealed frustration that I confronted my mother with these concerns, asking her how I would ever be able to work beyond my identity to make the change I wanted to see in the world. She told me first that no, I would never be able to escape my identity. Noting my displeasure, she added that this didn’t mean I would be unable to do meaningful work in my fields of interest, and that the fact that I was so aware of my identity was a crucial element in my ability to do said work. She spoke of humility, how I would need to allow myself to follow, the listen, to learn. She then reminded me that whatever role I would play in the huge effort of establishing a better world, I would discover through listening to others and knowing myself. This conversation many years ago rushed to the surface as I read Mitchell’s article. Mitchell explains how she has found that students, when responding to injustice, could far better make sense of their roles within the system when faced with their own identity. In understanding one’s identity and learning of others’ identities, Mitchell explains, “we move from assuming to understanding.” In this place of understanding we can understand not only what change must be made, but our own roles in making said change. In “Three Myths of Migrant Literature,” immigrant to Germany and author, Sasa Stanisic argues that the way in which literature written by immigrants has been grouped into the single genre, “migrant literature,” undermines the diversity of said literature and denigrates the perceived legitimacy of these individuals as writers.
First Myth: Immigrant literature is in itself a distinct category of literature and cannot belong to any other literary field. Second Myth: Immigrant literature deals exclusively with migration and multiculturalism. Third Myth: An immigrant author, if they write in a language besides their mother tongue, they use it in a unique way, adding something “exotic” to the lexicon. It’s funny to think that I had never consciously linked gentrification to colonialism. In many ways, the process of gentrification perfectly mirrors colonialism: a more endowed (endowed in weapons regarding colonialism and money regarding gentrification) population enters an area and wields its endowed powers to take over the resources of said area, taking those resources from the population initially inhabiting it, and in many cases forces that population to leave; the “invading” population justifies their imperial acts in various ways (in the case of colonialism, arguing that they are colonizing so as to “civilize the natives,” and in the case of gentrification, arguing that they are “ridding the neighborhood of crime”).
While the comparisons between gentrification and classic colonialism are not difficult to draw, it is more difficult to compare gentrification to “colonialism via ‘development,’” a process outlined by Ivan Illich in his speech, “To Hell with Good Intentions.” In his 1968 speech, Illich identified “development” and “service” trips of Americans to impoverished regions of foreign countries as a means of spreading American ideals and “colonizing” the mode of thought in these locations. This style of “colonialism via ‘development’” does hold similarities to gentrification and classic colonialism in that the relationships in all three fields are unequal and rooted in power dynamics (the dynamics in foreign development being in fact rooted in classic colonialism), and involves the more “powerful” population generally silencing the other population in a way which the dominating group see as well intentioned, but it also holds a distinct difference. The main difference I see between foreign volunteering and gentrification is that those who participate in the foreign volunteer work receive no, or very few physical benefits in their actions. While a traditional colonist attains land and wealth (at least hypothetically) through conquest and the gentrifier attains space through inexpensive purchase, the volunteer attains nothing besides experience, a potentially boosted ego, and maybe an increased level of respect among their peers. No individual does anything for purely altruistic purposes and thus even the volunteer will only volunteer as long as they are finding self-benefit in their actions. The difference between foreign volunteerism and gentrification/classic colonialism, in my opinion, is that, while the field of foreign volunteerism is typically expressed in ways confirming colonial mentalities (we must help these lost souls by introducing to them our superior ways), it doesn’t have to be this way. Since volunteers in these fields largely are participating because they genuinely like helping people and are seeking new cross-cultural experiences, the foreign volunteer field could be radically changed so that it is more controlled by the populations in which the work is taking place and thus less perpetuates a savior mentality so much as that of the volunteer as the humble helper, and people will still volunteer. Maybe fewer will volunteer once they see that a program will not allow them to assume an air of superiority through altruism, but if I am right in understanding why most individuals seek to volunteer abroad, I believe that there will remain a workforce, ready to exchange labor for experience and learning. Questions for Panelists:
|
AuthorStudent at the University of Washington, Sophie Aanerud, will be studying abroad in Berlin, Germany. Here are some of her thoughts . . . Archives
August 2017
Categories |