Precarious and Performative Play Web Paper 4

This is an extension of my third webpaper: /exchange/node/11451

I have changed the names of the interviewees to First letter of first name (or initials) [dot] Initial (or hypen) noting gender [dot] abbreviation of school. So if I converted Kaye's information into this format, it would be K.F.HC. Anne would be A.F.BMC.

I also acknowledge that this project will be a work in progress and is not anywhere near finished, seeing as it's just barely started.

For my final project, I chose to expand upon my third web event, which explored the idea of forming a right relationship between the Boy Scouts of American and the LGBTQ community. A restatement of my original introduction is useful in understanding the issue at hand: 

“The Boy Scouts of America’s website is covered in testaments to the organization’s commitment to the betterment of America’s male youth. Its mission statement professes dedication to building active and conscientious citizens, its parent portal promises that it is the best organization to reinforce ethical standards and promote self-confidence, and its timeline gleams with the success of past service projects and awards from numerous presidents. What the website neglects to publicize, however, is perhaps the most telling statement of all about BSA’s moral and ethical belief system: the Boy Scouts do not allow openly gay members to join their ranks.”

    The difference that Humbach makes between rights and right relationships can be teased out within the debate on food security/sovereignty. Food security, as an ideal, is the right for all people and communities to have enough culturally appropriate food. Food sovereignty builds upon this by accentuating the importance of process in food acquisition. It places importance on community food systems, non-exploitation, and health.
    The issues of food justice and food security have always been important to me. On the surface, they are merely about food: having enough, access and availability. And on the surface, these are simple problems to fix, right? To fix hunger, farmers should plant more. Grocery chains should build stores in neighborhoods that lack them. But relationships always prove to be more complicated than their surface implications.

In Culture as a Disability, McDermott and Varenne) present the argument that the system in which the conventions of our culture is set up disallows each all individuals to be perceived as ‘able’. (McDermott and Varenne, 1995) Varenne then, in a later article entitled “Extra burdens in the search for new openings”, claims that our culture is “simultaneously enabling and disabling”. (Varenne, 2003)  Whatever act is taken to enable a certain group will invariably disable another.  To ‘disable’ is not limited to the literal definition and I will expand on this later. An extrapolation of this claim would indicate that there is no possibility for a collective Utopia; culture does not work as an interconnected whole. Rather, it is a system that separates, disables and causes injustice.

“Rights

And

Pride

Equal

Resistance

Ability

Power

Equality”

Source: Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape

Haverford College is a small liberal arts college that prides itself on its community, Quaker roots, and commitment to social justice. Upon matriculation in 2008, however, I was dismayed by what I perceived to be a lack of resources for survivors of sexual assault* on campus as well as the broader absence of conversation about these issues. In the winter of 2009, two other Haverford women and I started a student-run support group called Survivors of Assault and Rape (SOAR). Since then, a small group of committed Haverford students has embarked on a quest to instigate rape and sexual assault policy reform. Although we have faced frustrating bureaucratic barriers, what has at times been perceived as resistance and a lack of support on the part of the campus administration, Haverford has substantially altered its rape and sexual assault policies in the last three years. This paper is the continuation of a number of pieces that I have written about rape and sexual assault in colleges (see “Consent is Sexy at Haverford? Not Yet”). I hope that this paper may serve as a resource for other college students hoping to change the rape and sexual assault policies on their campuses.

Reflections on the Consent is Sexy Campaign: Moving Forward, Looking Back

“To grieve, and to make grief itself into a resource for politics, is not to be resigned to inaction, but it may be understood as the slow process by which we develop a point of identification with suffering itself.  The disorientation of grief—“Who have I become?” or indeed, “What is left of me?”  “What is it in the Other that I have lost?”—posits the “I” in the mode of unknowingness.” (30)

 –Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence

The Consent is Sexy campaign I co-organized for my Final Web Event has definitely been an emotionally, physically, and academically exhausting venture.  The above quote speaks greatly to my feelings about the campaign. The project was a political endeavor inspired by my experience of violence, trauma, and grief.  However, it was also an exploration and coming to terms with the new person that came out of the survival of that trauma. For me, the campaign was just as much a form of mourning as it was inspired by mourning.  The emotional nature of this form of politics was inspiring and empowering at the same time that it was frustrating and problematic.  These experiences have made me wonder if restorative justice can truly be achieved for survivors when their community is willing to look forward, but not back. 

I wanted to separate my thoughts from the consent is sexy campaign from the actual pictures and materials I gathered while working on the campaign.  Below is a photo montage of the postering and chalk we put up around campus.

Postering Thursday, December 1st.  Let's get organized!

Alliances are best vuilt over tea and donuts!

The only people we targeted... the Deans (Chase).

...well, I guess we targeted the Interim President too (Founders).

Let's get chalkin', so people get talkin'...