3/7/17

Reflections on International Day for Women and Trans People Day Event

This event was a collaboration across a variety of smaller groups in our cohort. I was so impressed that our cohort pulled together a cohesive event, performed, and marketed it is the course of meeting only several times. I saw the multimedia performance group draw from a prior project from 500 and expand on it to tailor it to go with Sister Spit's spoken word performance. I saw another group quickly determine basic necessities for a fun DIY photobooth and bring all the materials at event setup. Beyond the organizational tasks to be done, I saw the cohort collaborating in collective care: folks would take turns holding baby Nonnah while Portia engaged in an activity, Yvonne continued to cook us snacks, and several of us texted each other check-ins and status updates outside of classtime.

For my own poster contribution, I relied on having prior knowledge of catchy poster designers to whip up a custom design over a weekend. Unfortunately, there was some confusion about the actual deliverables and what could get printed, so Maggy and my decision to create 2 posters (1 with the setlist and 1 without) meant that my designs never got printed or disseminated. This definitely felt frustrating, but I felt OK about letting this one go, since we were working on such a tight deadline and figuring everything out as we went along. I totally trusted Maggy in her ability to deliver a poster and implement the requested design updates, which she did.

I have a perfectionist streak, so throughout the entire collaboration process, I noticed a desire for more time, more control, and more decision-making power. In the end, we all made the event happen, and were able to collectively collaborate with Sister Spit.

2/21/17

Reflections on International Day for Women and Trans People Day Planning

I spent some of the 3-day weekend designing a promotional poster for the collaborative 2017 International Day for Women and Trans People event at NWFF. I chose a design template that featured a central photo, and then the challenge was finding a free, uncopyrighted photo that could somehow represent women and/or trans people of any race, ability, class, etc. The photo I selected is from unsplash.com, and its subject's identity and pose meaning are not immediately legible. The color scheme of the poster was taken from two different tonal ranges from the photo (which has also been overlaid with a greenish-blue filter).

Maggy and I are collaborating on the marketing piece, and even the poster design(s). I've never worked with another designer on the same design before, and I am skeptical that this process will proceed smoothly, as we are being given full creative license, and no artist's creative ideas perfectly align with another. Critiquing or even giving feedback on another person's creative work can be a precarious process. I absolutely do not want to damage or strain my warm relationship with Maggy, and I am willing to let go of my design decisions to ensure a harmonious working relationship.

So far this event is coming into being rather organically, and I am trying out calmly accept all the unknown factors (what are the other UWB undergrad classes planning? do we get to meet with them? don't we need to be working more closely with NWFF and get their approval on our decisions? will this event feel seamless or like a juttering mishmash? what are the deadlines for promo materials? what logo for NWFF and UWB should I be using in my designs? what would be a definition of success for this event? is it folly to try and aim for "success"?) and continue to "fly by the seat of my pants," as is commonly said. I hold a great deal of respect and trust for my colleagues who are organizing panels and performances, so even if the other parts of the day do not go as expected (even if there is no expectation), I am looking forward to our cohort collaborating in a community artistic event that aligns with many of our personal values. I'm also pretty excited to meet Sister Spit in person, as I am friends with one of the new members, and she doesn't know of our collaboration yet.

2/14/17

Valentine's Day

I'm sitting here in the POClab before class wondering why we have to have class on Valentine's Day, for those of us with partners/persons/sweeties. But I think it is right to prioritize the group/community over the couple/romance, so I am happy to spend this evening with my amazing cohort. Plus, we are going to surprise Yvonne with a collaborative gift basket and thank you card for all her labor in cooking and bringing us delicious eats at the beginning of each class. In planning this gesture of gratitude, it has been challenging to avoid simplifying our response as one that is transactional, fitting of an exchange. I am interested in methods and attitudes we can adopt for caring for one another and giving freely that are not based in capitalism or productivity.

Sadly I've been so busy this quarter that I haven't done any actual collaboration with Au Collective, even though my friend Lorraine informed everyone I would be seen more often in their spaces. I hope to remedy that this week (tomorrow).

This week, I've been observing my skepticisms about the projects and commitments I am most engaged in.

Parisol Retreat

Last Sunday was a full day retreat for Parisol, the anti-capitalist Chinese/Chinese American organizing group I'm a part of. It was great to re-examine the mission statement, do visioning work, and offer up ideas on how to sharpen the way we present to the community. We also had a drawn out discussion on how we could have the most impact on the issues we are care about, and be realistic about our commitments. Immigration and gentrification in Seattle were the two issues the group decided to hone in on in 2017, as a response to the new administration's skyrocketing deportations. Folks expressed interest in doing/taking trainings on grassroots organizing skills, so that is in the works. Even as I am deeply comforted to find a group of politically likeminded Chinese nationals and Chinese Americans to eat dumplings, bao and other Chinese delicacies with, I am not sure I have a place carved out there. I do not have a history of activism and organizing, and those are skills that are new or weak for me. I am wondering if it is worth my time and energy to start as a beginner in grassroots organizing, or if I should focus on my existing work in the academy.

Continuing in the Academy?

I've had a few conversations with my other professor, Jade, about what it's like to get a PhD and to work as a professor. I have so many reservations about going this route, mostly because I don't want to cloister myself in an institution and lose touch of my non-academic interests, and also due to imposter syndrome- not feeling like I have the "authority" to teach or guide anyone. I am super interested in continuing to be interdisciplinary and draw from a variety of fields in my work. I feel like I am at a very curious, transitory point in my life where I have just left an industry (tech) and entered academia, so my existing tech and design skills are rather fresh and play well with my academic interests and community interventions. I am wondering if I need to go back into other fields every few years or so to get reacquainted with the culture and technologies. Another part of me wishes to get an MFA, because the art part of MACS was largely what drew me to this program, but we haven't had the opportunity to do much artmaking. A graduate education in art also feels like a very selfish pursuit to me, and I'm interested in figuring out how to be a technically adept artist who has important things to say that are grounded in theory, creativity and lived experience.

Urban League Class

(This was already posted in this week's discussion board on Canvas)

Last week I took on a temporary 20 hour/week job teaching formerly incarcerated adults Microsoft Office and other tech skills. This was part of a 6 week long program called CareerBridge, which is funded by the City of Seattle to get residents reintegrated back into society. I had never really interacted with this population before, and I held a great deal of anxiety over not being able to effectively teach them concepts. In the end, it was a both a rewarding and exhausting experience. The class was largely made up of black men and women, a few Asian folks, and a handful of white folks. Many of them weren't interested in learning how to do "computer work," as they already had offers for construction labor jobs after the completion of the program. There were a few moments when my extreme privilege was revealed, like the class where I walked through setting up Gmail on people's smartphones, and when I asked if anyone had an iPhone, the class was silent until someone piped up, "nobody has an iPhone, they're too expensive!" As I taught them, I thought about the combination of racism, poverty, personal choices, and institutional pathways that took them through the prison industrial complex. I had them start journal documents and update them at the beginning of class. I also had them write poetry, an autobiography, and a list of their goals. I didn't get to read any of these documents, but I was hoping that giving them a space to write themselves on paper (electronically) would be a helpful exercise. I am going to refrain from trying to apply the theories I've learned about the PIC and New Jim Crow and Wars on Drugs onto these students. I'll just say that this study has informed the way I come into the classroom, but I stay open to adjusting narratives as they arise through the personal connections we've built together.

2/6/17

Rethinking Social Justice Reading Group

This month I started a community intellectual reading group that I named "Rethinking Social Justice." It was an idea that emerged near the end of last quarter (my 1st quarter in MACS). I was getting so much out of my readings and class discussions and I wondered why they had to be trapped in the university. I imagined that there were other people in the community asking the same questions I was: How do I be in the world? How do I be in community? How do I love people who disagree with me? Here's a list of topics I brainstormed for the group:

• Reclaiming our Right to Theorize
• Performativity of Activism
• Class Shame as a Barrier
• What is Intersectionality
• What is Neoliberalism
• Beyond Marginalization
• Decolonizing Queerness
• Against Individualism
• Utopian Performative

When I shared my idea across social media, I was hoping one or two people would step up and offer to facilitate with me. While I received several notes of interest, nobody had the time or interest to collaborate on this project. So, I went forward with it on my own, collecting readings for the first few topics, finding a free space to meet, and sending out planning and reminder emails. Yesterday was the inaugural meeting. Here were the readings:

1. "Theory as Liberatory Practice" - bell hooks
2. “Elena Ferrante and the Politics of Deference” - Fredrik deBoer
3. "The Anti-Intellectualism of the Social Justice Community is Killing Us All” - Scot Nakagawa

A whopping 17 people showed up! Including a few of my dear MACS colleagues. I was skeptical that anyone would appear on a rainy/snowy Sunday afternoon, and embarrassingly, I was even a few minutes late. As I am not accustomed to facilitating groups of that size, I looked to group members to offer feedback on how to structure our time. One person suggested breaking out into small groups, but that idea was countered by the someone else's desire to hear everyone speak. My partner EBB sat next to me, and became my unofficial support person, suggesting that we start with coming up with group ground rules, and then after I asked the first discussion question ("What is bell hooks trying to do in this piece? Why did she write it?"), she asked that we go around in a circle offering our answers and reflections. In that way, the collaboration was unplanned and organic. I had to trust that people would provide direction and structure if they felt that it was needed.

In the Schensul piece "Challenging Hegemonies," the authors argue that it is the responsibility of the social scientist/scholar to share their technical tools with community to create new openings and expand conversations with more voices. I am not sure what "technical tools" I bring to the project- I am a beginner facilitator and teacher. The main thing I think I bring is access to resources and knowledges. I see myself as more of a catalyst than a leader in this space. Which is why it pleased me that the dialogue moved along during the entire 2 hours, and people asked the kinds of questions with no easy answers and simply sat with the question marks hanging in the air. One of the questions of importance to me is: How do we be intellectual while increasing access to ideas? Surrounding this question was a discussion on academic elitism, jargon, and gatekeeping. Is it elitist to use academic language to describe a phenomenon? What if there are no known words to talk about something? Then it's really difficult to do anything about it. Nothing exists outside of discourse - Foucault.

In my Performance Studies Intro class, all we talk about is embodied forms of knowing, and how that is a valid epistemology (despite having limited acceptance within the university). Is sitting around an L-shaped table reinforcing the mind/body dichotomy? Should we incorporate more movement work into this space, or is this a good start? There's also the option of rituals and how they are the repeated acts, understandings and transmissions that create community. What kinds of rituals could be introduced in a reading group?

1/31/17

Au Collective Reflections

I wasn't able to meet up with the Au Collective or attend any of their events over the past week. Funnily, I was at Cafe Solstice for my Black Radical Feminists reading group on Friday morning, where the entire Au Collective was having a financial meeting at the next table. Following the events of this past week (executive order banning travel from 7 "Muslim" countries and the reactionary SEATAC and Westlake protests), the work that I am doing in this program and in my jobs have come under a scrutinizing light. What is the work that dance does in this dystopian present? How does my role as a scholar and knowledge producer fit into the movement of resistance? WHY? These questions have been hovering over my work and studies this past week, trying to find reasons to renew my motivation in the daily churn. I'm hoping that we can discuss this in class today.

1/24/17

Au Collective Updates

I met with Lorraine (Au Collective member) in person for tea last week. She introduced me to the new schedule of events the collective was involved in this year. What was most interesting to me was the Vibes dance class they hold at Yesler Terrace every Wednesday evening. Yesler Terrace is a low-income housing site with a community center that is frequently regularly by youth, neighbors, parents, and other folks who live in the area. The class is led by two members, Cheryl, who has a traditional background in dance, and Angel, who learned dance in informal communal settings. The focus of the space for each kid to share a piece of their movement language and teach it to the other people in the room. During class, each move is woven together into a choreographed dance that is performed at the end. The culture they are attempting to foster is no-teacher, generative, anti-disciplinary. They want all kids to be affirmed in their bodies and the movements they generate for fun and pleasure. Contrary to the tenets of ballet and modern dance, this event serves to acknowledge the different knowledges that people bring into the space, and that everyone's contributions are valuable.

I'm fascinated by this direction towards community and youth engagement. It is a common understanding that dancers, and artists of all disciplines, must spend all of their energy either producing work or promoting it. I am interested to find out how this community work informs their performance and supplements it.

Post-Theater of the Oppressed

In last week's class with our guest facilitator, the exercise went awry over the course of the class. During the image theater portion, I heard several of my black and brown colleagues comment about how it was pretty fucked up to make us re-perform anti-blackness in an academic setting. Who was this performance for? For whose growth and learning? Why was a white (passing?) woman directing people of color to embody receiving racism? What to make of Susan's final comment that discomfort =/= trauma?

I grew increasingly uncomfortable doing the exercises, especially as it became clear that there wasn't thought put behind how it would affect us differently or warnings given about what we were going to do together. Based on my limited knowledge of Theater of the Oppressed, it is supposed to empower the disempowered, not make them/us feel more helpless and upset and end the exercise in this state. In this regard, I believe that the facilitation failed.

Personally, I feel very unsettled about what happened, and felt like my black and brown colleagues' legitimate concerns were not addressed in real-time, either by the facilitator or by our professors. I also didn't know how to interpret the white silence in the large group setting. It felt like there was no space to intervene in this hurtful experience, even as the exercise was purportedly about physically intervening in oppressive situations. I'm not interested in blaming anyone for this situation; instead, I'd like to give every participant to share their experiences and offer constructive feedback to our professors on how it could've been facilitated more effectively/safely.

Sadly, I feel like Theater of the Oppressed has been ruined for people for whom this is their first time. I'd like to be careful to separate this practice from its implementation. Reflecting on Jade's teachings in "Approaches To Performance-Based Research Methods", theater and performance can be a powerful tool for marginalized groups to claim agency and be changemakers in everyday life. I'm interested in healing and learning from last week and hopefully reclaiming performance for all of us.

1/17/17

Research Collaboration

Some questions that are guiding my research on Au Collective:

• What does it mean for white bodies to gaze upon bodies of color performing?
• What does it mean for bodies of color to gaze upon other bodies of color performing?
• Who can be considered a dancer?
• What does it mean to sexualize or sensualize dancing bodies of color?
• How is gender re-enacted or challenged through dance?
• What does it look like for dancers to lead anti-oppression workshops?
• What role does dance, movement, agility and fitness play in social justice work?

I am meeting with collective member Lorraine Lau tomorrow to discuss studying/collaborating with Au Collective as part of 501.

Roles of Engagement Exercise

The below photo is an image of the roles of engagement exercise conducted in class on 1/10/17. At center of my commitments are creativity and wellbeing. All of my actions stem from these goals. The roles I have named and circled as priority are Partner, Writer, Designer, Community Organizer, and Thought Leader. The last two of these roles I have reluctantly begun to inhabit, because I am noting missing spaces and have stepped in, while being careful to not position myself as an expert. The roles that bring me the most joy are Partner, Writer, and Designer. Performing those roles and getting better at those skills affirms me in a way that I can keep outputting to my community. They meet a deep need for exercising creativity and care on a daily basis.

1/10/17

Identify Collaboration

I would like to study the Au Collective. The Au Collective is a dance collaboration of women, people of color and queer/trans people. My good friend Lorraine is a collective member, and through her I've been introduced to the modern and contemporary dance landscape in Seattle. It is saturated with white, thin, tall bodies. Dance performances Many of the members studied dance at the UW and at various art schools in the country. As they started their dance careers, they were blasted with the culture of whiteness in their chosen field, and rarely saw anyone who looked like them performing on stage. In solidarity with one another, they started the Au Collective. Their mission:

"By bringing empowered people of color and allies on stage, we create multi-racial dance art that is accessible to all audiences regardless of age, race, or class. In doing so, we support our dancers’ holistic development while making dance accessible to marginalized communities, our families, and our friends through interactive workshops, open rehearsals, and performances."

I'm choosing to study the Au Collective because I believe they are doing groundbreaking, grassroots work in the Seattle dance community and beyond. There appear to be no other models of this collaboration in the local area. They are working with a host of constraints, including limited funding and limited visibility, and they are making it work. What's interesting to me is that there are white members in the collective, but they are never at the front and center of their marketing or performances. Through Lorraine, I have heard that interpersonal communication and conflict is always being worked through, and I'd like to observe the ways they continue to collaborate and uphold their mission.

Collaboration of Mine

I am currently involved in a community collaboration to create the 2017 King County Trans Resource and Referral Guide. By May 2017, we must produce a print version (English and Spanish) and web version of the Guide. Even though I am paid to be a part-time coordinator of the project, it is a collaboration between myself and the various trans communities members I have recruited to provide direction and content.

Up until now, I have largely felt like a failure at this collaboration. Coming into it with little community organizing experience, I thought collaboration would be relatively straightforward. I also thought I would be able to utilize my design and coding skills. However, I find myself spending the majority of my work hours following up on people to do the tasks they said they would do and sorting out the details for scheduling monthly meetings. The challenge has been in how to communicate most effectively with a group of wildly busy people without harassing them, and how to get people to take ownership of this project as volunteers. It has been an exceedingly frustrating experience for me, mostly because I have extremely specific standards and timelines and have not done a good job communicating those to others.

As this project is ongoing, what I have done to make this a better collaboration is completely shift tactics. I have set clear deadlines about the project stages and communicated this broadly, I have stopped sending group emails and am now directly talking to individuals about their tasks, and I am doing a lot of the work (writing content) myself. Alongside this shift in my facilitation role is a letting go of certain expectations and control. I have identified the bare minimum of what needs to be done by myself in a reasonable timeline and am prepared to do all those things if nobody else follows through on their commitments. Instead of stressing out over other people's actions (or inactions), I am embracing a spirit of invitation for their involvement, while not depending the project success on that. As this is a job for me, it may not reflect the realities of other kinds of collaborations.

1/8/17

Notes on "Affirmative Character of Cultural Studies"

Feeling so pleased that the Director of my graduate program is asking these very important questions. I think it’s clear that all of us in the cohort are not interested in being disciplined by the university and stamped out as minted graduates. We are here on our own accord with our big questions and desire for expansion, better questions and tools for dealing with the anxiety of not knowing.

And and, the job marketability is a real concern during my time here. Capitalism is still largely here. Even though I subscribe to the attitude that a multitude of economies exist, the ones most readily available to me and my past professional experiences are capitalist. It means that I can’t embark on the wildest most utopian community art project as my capstone, because I need stable and immediate employment after graduation. So even though Cultural Studies is by definition not a traditional job training program, this reality is ever present during my education. I agree with the authors that the majority knowledge production happens outside of the academy especially in the realm of the online. This article appears to solely address the role of Cultural Studies for those inside the academy, which is useful for current students and professional scholars. But, how do I engage in cultural studies/production work when my time at UWB is over? What can I take away from my work done in the academy and expand it throughout my “career”, and maintain access to intellectual resources?

Through the critical discourse and thinking I’ve engaged in during the last/first quarter of this program, I’ve come into a focus: rethinking the social justice activist communities I’m a part of, and inviting community members into intellectual conversation and theorizing about our political work. This has resulted in me organizing a community discussion on post-capitalism, and attracting participants for a longer-term reading group that involves some of the texts encountered in MACS thus far (JK Gibson Graham, Moten and Harney, Robin D. G. Kelley). This is me experimenting on creating small, local-level change. Burgett et al assert that this "cannot rely simply on developing and deploying the types of post-positivist critical thinking skills that enable students, activists, and policy-makers to open new questions and formulate better problems. These skills are essential, but they need to be supplemented by competences oriented toward practices and collaborations that are appropriate for forms of culture work across diverse sectors” (424).

As I am in the very beginning of this exploratory process, they’ve already pointed out that developing these critical thinking skills more broadly is not enough. This feels disappointing to read right now. And yet, why can’t it be enough for this project? In observing my high levels of stress of nailing down dozens of details needed to make a community discussion happen (location, accessibility, outreach, marketing, informal facilitators, childcare, weather, agenda, conflict management, participant feedback, guidance for organizational co-presenters, etc), I can’t help but think that keeping this an informal event is better than formalizing it with more structure, rules, hierarchy.

Burgett, B., & Kochhar-Lindgren, K., & Krabill, R., & Thomas, E. (2011). International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(4), 419-439. doi: 10.1177/1367877911422293

—

Notes on “Cultural Studies as Praxis”

Has Cultural Studies risen up to this challenge?

“To avoid this cooptation, Cultural Studies must emphasize cultural practice. It must focus on the creation of culture, not just the criticism of culture.”

Appreciated the mini-summary on the history of the makings of Cultural Studies as a discipline. Choice quotes from foundation thinkers, like "To be truly radical, is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing” - Raymond Williams (source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Raymond_Williams)

Murphy, P. F. (1992). Cultural Studies as Praxis: A Working Paper. College Literature, 19(2), 31-43. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25111965 .

—

Notes on “The Trajectory of the Public Scholar”

This has got me thinking about a graduate education as a tool and skills-building time to help me reach my larger goals as a public scholar, artist, writer, technologist, and community member. The reasons I am loathe to consider any more graduate education is because I don’t want to become trapped in the ivory tower, disciplined to become an academic, professionalized into social obscurity. But maybe… this is changing? Or, I can be a part of the move away from this hierarchical path?

I like the framing of public scholarship as “an ongoing and dynamic multiplicity” (323). That is more reflective of who we are as complex, shifting persons.

This is a brave statement in this essay that requires some sitting-with: "It is possible to work in a stimu­lating intellectual context and also to make things happen” (318). Sounds too good to be true. Whatever I do, it has to be intellectually stimulating for me to continue to be engaged and produce. At this point, it looks like my career options are either technology or academia. I have intense misgivings about both: self-congratulatory and highly consumeristic, or inaccessible and expensive. In an effort to stay true to the teens of Cultural Studies, I accept my tensions on these and stay open to revision (and new connections).

Gale, S. (2012). Arcs, Checklists, and Charts: The Trajectory of a Public Scholar? In A. Gilvin, G.M. Roberts, & C. Martin (Eds.) Collaborative Futures: Critical Reflections on Publicly Active Graduate Education (pp. 315-327). Syracuse, New York: The Graduate School Press.

—

Notes on “The Art of Free Cooperation” introduction

This is an overwhelming read.

There are also a myriad of assumptions propping up this introduction. It appears to be for an anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, media literate, techy, and ultimately jaded audience. It sounds like it is written by two white men, which doesn’t mean that I won’t read or learn from it, but that the tone and vocabulary of the piece articulates this culture.

Lovink, G., & Scholz, T. (2007). Collaboration on the Fence. In G. Lovink & T. Scholz (Eds.) The Art of Free Cooperation (pp. 9-25). New York, NY: Autonomedia.