What I've learned in past years is that if there's an instinctual feeling in your gut that something is wrong, then 1) chances are more than likely something has caused you to compromise your personal politics 2) that by ignoring it till its reached its boiling point, you're just setting yourself up for some major spillage 3) and by addressing the issue from the start, you can at least be at a healthy pace when it comes to deconstructing the very matter.
Such is the case with these past two weeks that took the lot of us all the way to Loei and back again, locked in to a room no bigger than my own at home with three equally miserable people, and writing this thing called a "human rights report". Naturally, I should feel like Satan, right? Except I don't because the human rights framework is Eurocentric and is dominated by liberal democracy interests, so-called "free" market blah blah. Because consider our circumstances: We're American students who in some way, somehow have managed to pay to go halfway across the world... to study human rights violations happening in a "developing" country? Everywhere we go, villagers want to know, "What are you all doing here? What can you do to help us?" How do we answer? We can't, because even in the sincerest of hearts, we know there are multiple worlds which exist between us, social, economical, political, national, etc., and that whatever watered down framework we're working with, we can barely scratch the surface of what is happening. That's the beauty of educational tourism. You reinforce your "savior" role, and get to return home with a sense of having done your part in whatever meaning is left in "world social justice".
Because no one will ever say doing a human rights report is a bad thing.
Furthermore (I love that word further-more), when done "wrong" (yeah that's right I said it), you end up pandering an apolitical stance that pays lip service to social change that is more geared towards "fixing" a country deemed morally and structurally "wrong" (see what I did there) instead of working steadily with organized marginalized groups to develop a slowly building connection in order to have a better understanding of HOW exactly (if at all) the program's students can be a better ally.*
In terms of the amount of soul-flushing-down-the-toilet it took to get me to the final drafting point, I found myself negotiating my politics... once again. Except this time I don't feel bad about being Ms. Rabble-Rouser though I haven't really done any productive rousing (sp?) except passive aggressive behavior throughout. What do I have to lose if I were to argue for the group to step back and to really examine critiques of the human rights framework? Would we see a mirror staring back us? Furthermore, why have I been so inactive about voicing my dissent? To the latter, I think that the reasons are 1) I know that my participation in the project is crucial to my receiving the necessary credits, and that based on my family's financial situation, I can't afford to perform any dramatic boycott 2) Negotiating personal politics has become a survival tactic. I analyze the situation in pro and con fashion, and then conclude by asking myself if I think it is worth it for me to even suggest that changes be made. I realized at last that I'm calling to attention a whole structural order inherent in the program as well as externally... if that made any sense. I think if I were to get any more specific, I would hurt people's feelings... and we wouldn't want that right, because we wouldn't want to threaten consensus blah blah safe space.
When have I become such a jerk about safe space? I'm all about creating safe spaces. But the way we do it here is different from how we've managed it back at SLC where trust, even amongst people who share your political views are probably your harshest critics. But I would like to think that what that's taught me is that I have to take everything in stride, and that the action of "calling someone out" isn't an attack or confrontation. It's something you take in, ask the necessary questions, and say, "Thank you, you've brought me this much closer to critical consciousness". Then, we go outside, smoke cloves, and talk about the latest issue of Nylon. Just kidding. Sort of.
* Oh my god, this sentence is grammatically atrocious, and I have to copy-edit in less than ten hours gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
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2 comments:
yea! yes. k.
many questions.
your reflections are fun to read because theyre on a number of levels. there's the real physical report youre taking part in, side step and theres 'discourse', step in between and there's your personal process/politic. all of a sudden you have a constellation of layers youre thinking through.
so sure, the free market makes the beautiful world into a shitty bully and pathological liar. and those of us cultivating our critical consciousness-es can be like albinos under a blazing sun. oh gosh, that wasn't very critical consciousness, what a horrible metaphor. but i think this sensitivity or our foreboding feelings of anxiety or anger can be dealt with. with an umbrella or some spf15!!
i think youre in a really difficult space and because of it, you'll develop more of your personal methodology for interacting with the world (finding killer sunscreen!!). i can't wait to re-launch that process this summer /refigureout "world social justice".
shit. at the end of the day, the report is pretty inconsequential. know why? because policy activism on the level of human rights reports are pretty in "vogue" right now. as soon as its written it has a high probability of enriching the lives of everyone involved besides the subjects of the report. but don't be down in the dumps about that. this only means that you got to first-hand participate in a shitty (and thus far widley supported) method of development work. so when you go again into the field of development policy or world social justice like you said, you can advocate for the alternatives so much mroe convincingly.
this is experiecne, writing a collective hr report you don't believe in, that i certainly don't have. but as an insider, you can more effectively critique and destroy it for when the opportunity really presents itself.
i think what you're doing is cool. and what's more exciting is to envision the ALTERNATIVES that will surely surface the more you blog, participate and butt heads with the bully/pathalogical liar that is neoliberalism/aka THE WORLD.
(=
this is kate bedecarre.
i dont have a blog.
BUT i like yours a lot a lot
it's hilarious and brilliant
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