a few of my latest instagrams

tour d’davis

To me this course has been an introduction to a novel form of development that is by nature founded on a different way of thinking about the world. The readings have, in different ways, explored these modalities by telling a story that isn’t often told. It’s clear to me that for development to take the form envisioned by the authors, more people will need to hear and understand this story. This week’s reading discusses the true meaning of indigenous rights from the point of view of indigenous peoples themselves, and these ideas inform how development for indigenous rights ought to proceed. What makes me nervous is that, although there are plenty of people who advocate for indigenous rights, and more generally for the rights of the oppressed and marginalized, the majority of people continue to think about development within a capitalist framework. It is so crucial that people learn the origins and implications of the market economy and recognize the epistemologies that were borne and propagated by it, but at this point I feel that these ideas are still considered radical.

Regardless, I don’t see the fabric of society unraveling because of these ideas. The best we can hope for is the mobilization of a large and powerful enough base of development practitioners of this mindset that will carry out this novel form of development where possible. If the mindset spreads and monopolizes development practice, that would be a bonus. But until then, how does development founded on ideas of sovereignty and autonomy fit into a world almost entirely operating within the structures and epistemologies of neoliberalism? Are pockets and “islands,” if you will, of autonomous communities possible in this day in age? Can cultures operate autonomously within cultures?

I think this demands something that is simple but easier said than done — acceptance. People don’t have to understand one another to accept one another. It sounds like a cliche, but I really feel that this is the only way to get around the fact that epistemologies borne of capitalism are likely permanent and irreversible for most of the Western world. The mentality that the foreign should be changed into something more recognizable must become obsolete. The life projects of indigenous peoples may seem outrageous to members of the developed world, but that’s as it may be – live and let live is the essence of autonomy. I’m not saying progressive development practitioners should take to the streets preaching acceptance, I just think that this mentality is absolutely key for the success of a development for sovereignty and autonomy. Maybe tolerant co-existence isn’t ideal, but it may be the only option.

I love having paint on myself. And I love drinking wine and creating. In solitude, so I can leave everything else behind. All the sounds and smells become magnified. That’s when I’m the closest to myself, and the closest to being happy. Or at least, a happiness that is organic, that isn’t trailed by struggle.

It’s a kind of purity. It’s not bright, loud, or colorful. It’s just white, black and red.

(stay tuned for a T-SHIRT made from the above design)

]]> http://www.iwantmythunder.com/2013/05/05/6516/feed/ 0 http://www.iwantmythunder.com/2013/05/04/6488/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=6488 http://www.iwantmythunder.com/2013/05/04/6488/#comments Sun, 05 May 2013 02:47:50 +0000 iwantmythunder http://www.iwantmythunder.com/?p=6488

The reading I’ve been doing lately for my Development for Sovereignty and Autonomy class has turned my whole world completely upside down in the most wonderfully liberating way. This has been the most important and rewarding coursework of my grad school career, and maybe even of my entire life. Hungrily eating up the many intricacies of this discourse has made me excited to be a scholar like nothing else ever has. When I’m not farming this summer I plan to familiarize myself with as much of the related literature as I can. I hope that, by summer’s end, my scholarship will be richer than ever.

—

The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi

The Industrial Revolution has been defined in lots of ways, but what truly accounts for its damage is the establishment of a market economy: “Previous to our time no economy has ever existed that, even in principle, was controlled by markets.”

“As long as markets and money were merely accessories to an otherwise self-sufficient household, the principles of production for use [not trade, etc.] could operate.”

“Mercantilism, with all its tendency towards commercialization, never attacked the safeguards which protected these two basic elements of production – labor and land – from becoming the objects of commerce…But labor and land are no other than the human beings themselves of which every society consists and the natural surroundings in which it exists. To include them in the market mechanism means to subordinate the substance of society itself into the laws of the market…As the organization of labor is only another word for the forms of life of the common people, this means that the development of the market system would be accompanied by a change in the organization of society itself. All along the line, human society had become an accessory of the economic system.”

“Unbounded hope and limitless despair looking toward regions of human possibilities yet unexplored were the mind’s ambivalent response to these awful limitations. Hope – the vision of perfectibility - was distilled out of the nightmare of population and wage laws, and was embodied in a concept of progress so inspiring that it appeared to justify the vast and painful dislocations to come…Poverty was nature surviving in society; that the limitedness of food and unlimitedness of man had come to an issue just when the promise of a boundless increase of wealth burst in upon us made the irony only the more bitter…Harmony was inherent in economy, it was said, the interests of the individual and the community being ultimately identical – but such harmonious self-regulation required that the individual should respect economic law even if it happened to destroy him.”

—

The Development Dictionary, Wolfgang Sachs

“Establishing economic value requires the disvaluing of all other forms of social existence. Disvalue transmogrifies skills into lacks, commons into resources, men and women into commodified labour, tradition into burden, wisdom into ignorance, autonomy into dependency. It transmogrifies people’s autonomous activities embodying wants, skills, hopes and interactions with one another, and with the environment, into needs whose satisfaction requires the mediation of the market.”

“By equating education with diplomas, following the economic definitions of learning, they lacked teachers and schools…After equating health with dependence on medical services, they lacked doctors, health centres, hospitals, drugs…After equating eating with the technical activities of production and consumption, linked to the mediation of the market by the state, they lacked income and suffered scarcity of food…Rather than being the iron law of every human society, scarcity is an historical accident.”

—

Probably all intro anthropology courses include a discussion of the misguided notions of early anthropologists who believed that primitive cultures were less evolved versions of affluent (Western) cultures and that inevitably they would follow the same trajectory towards civilization. The anthropology of today teaches that human cultures do not follow trajectories and that “civilization” is not superior, nor “traditional” cultures inferior.

So I’m no stranger to the idea that it is unacceptable for members of one culture to attempt to bestow their ways of life on another. And where anthropology and development meet, the implication is that development ought to be carried out with cultural sensitivity. That is, that any efforts to improve quality of life must be contextual, adaptable, and non-disruptive. In particular, development workers should be wary not to impose Western beliefs and ideals on peoples of other cultures.

I’ve heard all of that before. But these readings took that idea and told a story about it that I had never really heard before. I had sort of a transcendent moment while reading – I was sitting in a cafe learning the origin story (myth) of development and suddenly I stopped and looked around at the people sitting near me. To my left was a group of students discussing Lincoln republicans and the Wigs Party and Jeffersonians. And I just couldn’t believe that anyone could spend any time talking about that when the reality of everything is mostly just a lie.

I know that sounds dramatic, but I really feel that after having read this volume there will be a great deal of discussion that I can no longer take seriously. Not only that, but how can I even have a conversation with anyone who hasn’t read this? Because my degree has the word development in the title, I feel that this theory is absolutely crucial for myself and my cohort to study and understand before entering the world of development. It’s frightening for me to think how many folks with wonderful intentions propagate this mistelling of history through development practice.

I can say that the alternatives to development that the authors discuss – green economies, earth democracies and the Andean Cosmovision – do not go undiscussed in the IAD curriculum. These are things that we are thinking about, talking about and working on and although I’m deeply pessimistic, I do feel so much hope that at least we’re headed in the right direction.

1. My fellow IADer on why big ideas matter

2. Ali’s Table of Contents

3. Jenny & Andy’s 100 Rules of Dinner

Patty’s three rules of thumb for iphone photography:

1. Never use the zoom. The resulting image will be fuzzy and pixely, so in the end that close-up thing will just look like crap. Which doesn’t make it all that worth it. Instead, crop that shit later when you’re editing. It will be smaller, but that’s life – things get smaller, and we just have to keep on keeping on.

2. Depth of field gives any photo integrity by making it seem skillfully executed and often adds a bit of drama. If you can pull this off by just messing around with focus, it will look more natural than applying a filter later. Just remember that generally you want the object in the foreground to be in focus and the background not, except in special cases of artful crafting. The filter is appropriate for macros of objects, photos with a uniform color/texture throughout, or food (as in food porn). The filter is not appropriate for people or landscapes. So cool it!

3. Speaking of filters. Filters are lovely, but you must use them wisely. I love when color- or light-enhancing filters make a photo feel like how it would actually feel to be there, but sometimes the unedited photo does this best. I’m also a sucker for vintagey looking photos (me and your uncle and his dog and everyone else) but you can’t use this for all your photos or you’ll ruin the effect. For EVERYONE. And basically I’m of the opinion that filters that do really weird shit, like make your photo completely red or add some sort of crazy texture, should be used pretty sparingly and only with specific intent.

Lastly I would just like to say that a bug flew into my ear today, and never came out. True story.

1. I need to have like five things at my disposal at all times that provide a temporary, superficial sense of safety and relief. Most of these things are weird but effective. Ever wonder why I sometimes randomly take a shower at 3pm? Now you know. Two other examples:

• Putting on the most comfortable warm shirt. I have been searching for this, but I have not yet found it. I think the problem is it needs to stand the test of time – the comfort that it provides cannot slowly ebb away, it must endure. This is hard because clothing becomes less soft the more you wash it and acquires interfering memories and associations the more you wear it.
• Every night for the last few months I’ve slept in a different orientation in my bed. I’ve repeated lots of positions, obviously, but not consecutively. Diagonal and upside-down is particularly cathartic. I can’t explain this one, it just makes me feel better.

2. I put a full cup of liquid detergent into the wash with my laundry no matter how much laundry I have. Because everyone always tells me how good I smell and when I ask what I smell like everyone kind of shrugs and says, “You smell like you.” So my secret to smelling as good as me, which is who I am and what I smell like, is to smell like the most gloriously fresh laundry. Don’t think you can get away with copying me, I’ll be able to smell it.

3. This, from my breathing fail a few weeks ago.

4. I make it a point to learn and use middle names (if I’m not already [ab]using some nickname) as much as possible. I like this. I think other people like this. I think it’s a reciprocity of intimacy. It’s a give-and-take of community. A collaboration of camaraderie. A synergy of spirit.

5. Since I’m going to spend my life blending in with the peasantry, I’ve decided I have to use the word “folks” and not “people” or “individuals” or whatever else people say. This new identity is sinking slowly into my skin. I like this. It makes me feel almost as good as when I have my hands in the soil.

I’ve done this a hundred times. I’m trying so desperately to find you. Everything is dark and when I talk no sound comes out and my legs crumble when I try to run, but I know how close you are. Every place I go is where you’ve just been, your footprints in the dust. But I’m never fast enough. There are only moments, seconds, before it’s too late but I can’t find your number, I can’t get the numbers right. And my desperation is my pounding heart and my throat tightening and my stomach sinking. It’s the ache in my entire body that starts at my chest and spreads to my fingertips and the ends of my toes. I’m running up and down stairs and trespassing on private property and knocking on the doors of strangers. I’m screaming, silently, in a sideways world with oblong buildings and it’s freezing and I’m so haunted by you. But you’re not here. You’re just out of reach except everything in the universe stands in the way. Invisible in the air between us.

And that has distorted my reality. What once was the kind of sad that makes you cry silently in a chair by a window is now dark and cold and wrought with fear. You’ve never felt further away, and I can’t escape this nightmare. I can’t unlive this nightmare, walking up your driveway and knocking on your door. The saddest thing in the entire world is this: who will love you?

Who will love you?

After I got the job I realized I don’t know anything about Kentucky. So I did some research. Here are some important findings:

• largest cave system in the world
• highest per capita number of deer and turkey
• known for its bourbon distilleries, tobacco and bluegrass
• 57% democratic, 12.7% German, 86.3% white, 52% christians
• Transylvania University
• Tater Day
• the signature cuisine is the Hot Brown, a dish normally layered in this order: toasted bread, turkey, bacon, tomatoes and topped with mornay sauce
• home of the Old Fashion cocktail
• official state beverage: milk