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A struggle:

I think I started off on the server by going off exploring on my own, and so whatever I created and mined was way off from where the rest of the class was, and so when they started collaborating I really wanted to work together but I couldn't find where they were. I would have really liked to play together with the rest of the class mostly because I only played for about an hour at a time and wanted to get the most out of it, and couldn't do that with the resources I had. Creative mode was better for me in that regard, but took away from the social aspect of it.

An accomplishment:

I tried to refer to the wiki as little as possible and really just explore on my own. When it came to the actual crafting I did need to see instructions but I liked the aspect of being able to go off and break or kill things and collecting different materials and thinking of the possibilities I had with those.

An observation:

I saw a lot of the access problems in terms of access to supplies, since resources are limited on the server. The lone warrior approach vs collaboration was a dilemma for me, because I had wandered off way out and had built a small isolated house and got a lot of chicken and sheep, but I now wanted to mine further for other minerals like gold and diamond which might have been easier if I were in a team.

Hartmann, Heidi, Ellen Bravo, Charlotte Bunch, Nancy Harsock, Roberta Spalter-Roth, Linda Williams and Maria Blanco.  “Bringing Together Feminist Theory and Practice: A Collective Interview.”  Signs 21.4 (1996): 917-951.  Web.

This transcription of an interview hosted by Hartmann and conducted among a selection of prominent feminist academics and activists initiated a dialogue regarding the current nature of the so-called women’s movement, and how academic feminist theory was being and could be used to inform feminist practice.  Consideration of these themes ranged across a number of questions and topics, such as diversity and commonalities within the women’s movement – with most participants agreeing that there was no single women’s movement that could be, or even should be, identified – defining feminist theory, and examinations of feminist organizing.  Finally, the group offered some proposals for moving forward toward a goal of approaching and engaging feminist theory in such a way that makes it actually useful for feminist practice and activism.

Of the readings I have done so far this semester, this one most clearly appeals to what I am attempting to explore through this Praxis project.  In addition, there were parts of the reading that I found myself able to relate to very strongly, both in the context of considering my organization but also on the more personal level of how I think about and engage with feminist theory.  It is important to note that this interview is from 1996 – and as such potentially very much outdated in a variety of respects – but nonetheless it raises some salient points that are still relevant; and what it reveals of how the movement has changed is also worth considering. 

In discussing the women’s movement, many of the participants expressed concern that while the movement may not be dead, it is potentially detrimentally fragmented, and also that it runs the risk of becoming less politically meaningful if it follows the trend of becoming so integrated into social life – and no longer concertedly in the political arena – that it becomes unnoticed and as such unable to prompt greater change.  From what I have observed of the practice of my particular organization, it seems that women’s organizations are to a large degree conscious of the divisions among themselves and the communities they serve.  Furthermore, this is acknowledged in the targeting of specific groups that may need certain support than others – for instance, the lecture I attended at the Harrisburg conference on working with immigrants, lower-class, and minority women as particularly vulnerable populations – while also convening coalitions of organizations in order to work toward goals that will benefit all women while allowing individual organizations to serve the needs of their particular communities.  There will always be work to be done regarding managing our differences while also working as a common group – much as Arendt talked about regarding agonism – but my experience with my own organization has demonstrated a contemporary awareness of that need. 

I found the comment regarding the risk of depoliticization due to pervasive social awareness interesting, though.  On a personal level I can see how that may be the case; I make a concerted personal choice to be informed largely by feminist news, circles, and discourse that it almost becomes unremarkable, and as a result potentially less mobilizing as it forms a backdrop to my daily life.  As a counter thought, though, it seems in keeping with feminist theory to allow that kind of integration to inform a more feminist life and, as such, ultimately actions.

Organizationally, this can be seen as feminist organizations being included in mainstream institutions out of obligation– such that their inclusion suffices for addressing women’s issues, without considering the wider structural changes that feminism calls for.  This is a positive step for inclusion, but a negative one insofar as it demonstrates cooption instead of continued transformation.           

The somewhat related danger of professionalization was also brought up, which is a danger for any advocate community.  To some degree it is a necessary evil: advocacy in such a large, complex world requires significant time commitment and resources (though this is not to devalue grassroots advocacy that may have little to no experience or resources), and so professionalization is somewhat inevitable.  If we accept that, though, advocates must be even more vigilant in ensuring that they are honest to the communities they are seeking to assist.  The risk of isolation from the community as an isolated bubble of well-intentioned advocates is a theme I have touched on multiple times this semester.

Especially exciting to read, though, was one speaker’s account of

“a student who has been immersed in this theory comes to work in our office where we are organizing women to utilize and confront global policy systems like the UN.  She immediately starts to question how anybody can speak for women, but the question totally immobilizes her.  The theory has conditioned the student to feel that she cannot have a voice.  She is afraid that if she speaks, she will be accused of speaking for or ignoring somebody else.  The theory has important truth in it, but it has become immobilizing because it has not been done in conjunction with practice.” (932-933)

This story so accurately describes how I have felt reading and feminist theory and attempting to practice it, and is in large part the motivation for structuring my Praxis the way I have.  The group sees a variety of solutions for this dilemma, including increased dialogue between academics and activists, acknowledging the diversity of theory while also constructing a baseline goal for the women’s movement, and revisiting the notion of “being a one-woman coalition: any woman who speaks ought to incorporate in herself as many parts of women’s experience as she has been able to understand, so that when she does have the space to speak, she can speak to issues that go beyond just her own experience” (935-936).

Taken all together, Hartmann’s group interview isolated, deconstructed, and proposed solutions for many of the issues I have stumbled across both before and during my Praxis experience.  Relating so clearly to the material addressed in this reading was both incredibly comforting and hopeful, as it offered some measure of tangible solutions to the challenges I have come up against.  And given that this conversation happened in 1996, there is also the hope that this dialogue has been continued over the years, and further developed and expanded upon.

I think it could be from having such a strong hormone in your vagina. Also to anyone. Being pregnant even if just for a few months causes your hormones and body to change. I was pregnant and miscarried and my body was out of each got a few years. I had a baby and i had constant pain in my vagina , abs joints. Doc said its normal even though sex is now painful most of the time. Having a baby or terminating pregnancy is not easy. That's why sex should really be with a partner you love, trust and can be ready for these type of life decisions.

1. The photo of Elaine’s four friends, with the caption:  some of my best friends forever, particularly during summertime… and Darlese Reid.

2. Now I was flying away, abandoning what I had sworn to die for, leaving comrades and friends and so much work undone.  Yet…I could not be so mad as to sacrifice myself to a dream that was dying.  The pain was intertwined in the complexity, for I loved the Black Panther Party. 

My child was sleeping.  I looked at her brown face, so inordinately innocent.  I was abandoning something, but I was saving something.  It was the hope that had been my hope, and my mother’s hope, and her mother’s hope, and the hope of each of my people—mothers, aunts, brothers, fathers, children.  If my life had any meaning left, this hope in one black child would live.

(p. 450)

3. Gwen always came beautifully dressed for dinner…  Her face showed no worry or weariness, despite the hardships of her life with Huey.  I thought about the stone floors she washed by hand…  She had learned to pluck the feathers from chickens to make their dinner…

Watching Huey appraising both of us as I spoke, I began to feel dizzy.  If she was his woman, I was thinking, she was not mine.  Whatever the relationship between him and her, or him and me, there was another deep relationship among us I had never acknowledged.  It was between her and me.  Gwen was my Sister.

(pp. 390-391)

Well I'll agree with that only because I believe the majority of news stations are mostly garbage but Fox is the worst. I like what Jon Stewart calls it.

Hi, there;
i have a problem with my MA Thesis. I want to apply the feminist theory to my topic. I need your help. If you please reply to my e-mail. May i get help from you for my topic to apply feminist theories. Pls send me some ideas to my mail id.
Yours sincerely,
Zozg

let's talk about "reactive"--which I think in social work is a negative term (vs....what? what's the alternative?)

this posting puts me in mind of another, made by a student of mine when Judy Butler was here, citing Arendt:
Diffracting butler and Arendt through Incan Astronomy suggests that "we appear to others in ways that we do not know, and are politically constituted by perspectives unbeknownst to us." I'd like to explore further with you the political and activist implications of this notion of unknowability...

Arendt, Hannah.  The Human Condition.  2nd ed.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.  175-212.  Print. 

Motivated by my readings from earlier in the semester, this week I chose to read Hannah Arendt as a primary source.  The piece of Chapter V that I read from The Human Condition primarily addressed Arendt’s conceptualization of “aleritas” and the crucial intersection of speech and action as ways of engaging in society and creating power.  By her definition, “aleritas” is the quality of otherness possessed by all persons (176).  In following with that, Arendt argues that speaking and acting allow individuals to distinguish themselves in the world, as members of the common human community but also as individual and unique.  This becomes especially key as individuals are always in relation to each other – they cannot act in isolation, and any given individual is always both a “doer” [of actions] and a “sufferer” [of others’ actions] (190).  Furthermore, given the relational aspect of individuals’ actions, actions are only real and meaningful insofar as they are undertaken as with  a community, as opposed to simply for or against another group (188).

Arendt’s work is, unsurprisingly, less clearly and immediately applicable to my work – especially compared to the previous week’s readings.  However, her message regarding the reality of individuality balanced with the equal reality of relationality is very much reminiscent of feminist thought, and her arguments regarding operating with a group as opposed to for or against one are striking.  Just as I have commented previously on the importance of advocating with a group for the purpose of maintaining both that group’s agency and honesty and legitimacy of mission, Arendt’s comments about working with a group are an important reminder of how simply positioning oneself on the side of an issue makes action lose meaning.  Instead, for actions to gain real power and legitimacy, they must be situated in group action and communication.  This is something I see very much embodied by my organization, as it attempts to engage with the communities it serves while still advocating for specific outcomes. 

This is further reinforced by Arendt’s observation that tyranny is the political system that emerges from a ruler’s isolation from their subjects and the subjects isolation from each other.  I worry about the degree to which we as Americans can be isolated from our government – government bureaucracy and institutional pathologies can be difficult to penetrate, and true representation of the populations’ needs is extremely difficult to capture in a structurally unequal system – but at least as advocacy organizations we can take specific steps to ensure that we as citizens connect with each other.  And this allows us to work together as a community – something addressed by both Naples and Howe – and further to rectify what barriers exist between ourselves and our governing institutions. 

Naples, Nancy.  "Women's Community Activism: Exploring the Dynamics of Politicization and Diversity."  Community Activism and Feminist Politics: Organizing Across Race, Class and Gender.  Ed. Nancy A. Naples.  New York: Routledge, 1998.  327-349.  Print.

Nancy Naples’ essay offers an analysis of how power dynamics and institutional practices reproduce gender, race, and class inequalities, and how the dynamics of community facilitate action in response.  By Naples’ account, community activism is generally prompted by one or more of three contexts: struggles against violence and for social justice and economic security, casual interactions with people who share experience, and external pressures (337).  This is part of the state’s reproduction of inequality in that the state plays out the interests of dominant social groups, and the actions or inactions of government agencies and officials that this leads to tend to be the starting point for community action/reaction.  In so far as these actions or inactions by the state perpetuate inequalities, the community responses they prompt provide avenues for challenging these reproductions (343).  Furthermore, the development of community organizations as part of this process facilitates the emergence of activists and legitimates community demands; at the same time, though, ideological and material barriers discourage women from getting involved as activists (344-345).

Naples’ essay is concerned with grassroots communities; and while my organization is certainly concerned with those communities, it’s interesting to note its applications to my organization as a community of advocates, which is in turn part of an even larger community of the same.  And while my organization did originally grow out of organizations that were themselves formed in ways similar to that which Naples describes – communities motivated into advocacy for a variety of pressing reasons – my organization particularly has grown out of a distinct community of regional activists, all motivated and responding to the pressures Naples describes. 

In some ways I don’t think this is significant, in that in all events my organization is responding to government actions and inactions that necessitate a reaction, and as such acts in such a way that is consistent with the needs and desires of the local communities it serves.  At the same time, because at times we exist in such a distinct community of advocates, I wonder if we ever isolate ourselves within that bubble and in some ways lose touch with the variety of ways issues can be handled.  This is especially so given Naples’ focus on how community-based advocacy opens space to challenge the inequalities that government policies perpetuate.  By distancing ourselves in some ways from the community (not always, but certainly to a degree), do we risk losing those opportunities for innovation of the system, versus simply solving problems while maintaining the system.  A similar question is brought up by the other reading I did for this week, addressed in the next post.

this chemical change in the body can easily be avoided. i realized it when one day i allowed this thought ( in the beginning of the end my own struggle with porn addiction) and how i felt it's effect in the body and i realized how this is what had been happening all these years of my struggle with porn. in case of porn addiction things move from mind to body and in case of alcoholic and other addictions ( although i cant be sure about drug addiction thing, as i never even seen any kind of drug or taken it) it's the brain or nervous system that forces the mind to think of taking drugs. anyway, all these things are very difficult in the beginning but as you begin to understand with practice and application, you can in the middle stage get to a point where you can even will the urge to move far away from you.
and let me tell you that the very thought that you should not look at the woman with sexual desire is completely a thing called suppression and no religious teaching of the nature of morality can ever help.the solution is to get beyond both good and bad thought, to get beyond mind. i visited almost every temple and spent time in so many spiritual organisations in india, studied their literature and did yoga and tantrik spiritual practice, i prayed to god, loved god. and this one day i moved to this ashram in dehradun, one city in india, where this lady saint that i was staying with, asked me just forget god, giving me such a shock. but i knew she was a saint. so whatever she said has to be what i have to do. and i started a different practice and when i progressed i understood the truth of what is mind and what is a spiritual practice. ah! how gigantic is the task of christ to get us to this particular stage where we can see what is what. before that we are fighting with the instruments of ignorance to fight and get out of ignorance.
anyway, i am not able to say what i wanna say coz that will require me to write a lot. but my prayers are with all those strugglingwith this or any kind of addiction. may Devine Mother bless us with her mercy.

Hi Theresa,

Please could I have the name of the neurologist you saw, my mom is in the same situation as you in South Arica. Thanks so much.

looking...

or: notes from our planning conversation

lesson plan WAS to offer gallery of reading notes to start,
and ask everyone to write on/about them
Jody had concerns about this:
* people come in w/ energy to talk—and we silence them?!?
* is this a way  to reflect, before they speak,
a way to focus on the quotes/make connections?
* Sara: writing in silence would  build my energy to talk--
slowing it down can be good…on stopping to listen…
* this is Hayley’s role in every class: there are people who are not eager to talk…
people not feeling comfortable writing in front of each other…

we discussed how to observe Marcell's birthday;
she said, last time, that "you need to keep in mind that my b-day is the 7th”--
Jody experienced this as challenging/threatening…
a sense of being pushed up against the wall of the carceral institution
Sasha/Sarah/Hayley want to sing happy birthday, and
cautioned Anne and Jody against the danger of thinking like the institution!
Sara suggested we think in terms of needs
(stories from earlier visits: staff complain that inmates are always asking for med'l help;
inmates complain that staff don't listen:
“if they don’t come get us for class, we don’t say anything…they won’t believe us…”
Sasha compared this to a more privileged woman voicing "needs"
Jody recalling her note from Michelle Fine: “It is very delicate w/ the CO in the room….”
"I am a lot more aware of those walls myself now"
Sara: something said w/ openness is experienced here as confrontational
does the staff want to know what we are bringing in?  (are they approving the books?)
we aren’t monitored as much as we were in the Cannery
--is this because the institution itself is more monitored? they don’t have to be as careful?

we didn’t talk about the power in the prison last week:
"It wasn’t on anyone’s mind!" How can that be?
to be radical teachers, would we have to bring this up?
would we have to ask, "so: where do you taste the power in this room?"

when asked, "where do you see power in your life?" you might not notice it--for example,
BMC is "a total institution": we are "so institutionalized" that we don’t notice it here/It becomes “natural”--
from the Radical Teacher article: “every pedagogical setting demands close attention
to power dynamics and prejudices for radical teaching and learning to take place”

by asking this question, are we forcing them to identify as prisoners?
Sara: it doesn’t feel very radical, to have so much fear,
worrying about how people are going to react/being sure we are fair in our structuring…
"I don’t want to close us off from what could happen…"
being afraid of a messy conversation is limiting…
Sasha: what is it that we want them to think about? Prison as home?
working w/ the system that puts them there?
I want them to think about the system, asking, "is it really your fault that you are in here?"
Sara: do we want them to think about this as their home?

In this context, not asking the question is not being radical/
letting them be passive/not giving the space to be angry…

can we discuss this w/ the warden/social worker:
can we bring in cards/remember birthdays, etc?