More recently in my research, I have focused on the systems that place Native Americans in prison and have been comparing them to the systems that placed them in the Carlisle Boarding schools from the mid nineteenth to the twentieth century. I have especially been examining the narratives of assimilation around the Carlisle Boarding schools, and the trauma that comes from this forced assimilation. Many parents supported their children being sent to the boarding schools for three reasons: 1) It would keep them safe and 2) They saw the (free) school as reparations from the US government for taking away their land and 3) They believed that assimilation was the key in succeeding in American society, and wanted their children to learn English.

I am having a little difficulty choosing a topic to delve into for this upcoming project on the contact zone, but I think I'd like to get a closer look at museums in the area. I think a museum functions as a contact zone in many instances. Over the summer, I went to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts for a day. On exhibit were some Inuit artifacts, most of which had ceremonial purposes. I wondered if the act of displaying such sacred objects had an adverse effect on the culture it was taken from, and if their exhibition could impair the cultural importance of the objects. I think I could turn this project into an examination of objectification, ownership, and respect in the museum setting.

I'd originally planned for us to spend the next two weeks reading some of the history of Quaker involvement in prison reform. Am realizing now that this time will be better spent on your pursuing your research projects and finding containers for presenting what you have learned. So here's a record of the reading I'd selected, for the archive and also because some of you may find it particularly useful for your individual-or-collective projects:

I am having some difficulty picking a topic, and even after writing this post I will probably still be unsure of what I would like to pursue for this project. As a starting point, I am fascinated by isabell.the.polyglot’s idea of working with the contact zones between animals and humans. I also think it might be interesting to research the contact zones in which works of art or ancient artifacts are possessed by multiple owners over time. 

I saw that there is already a post about the contact zone of buyingselling/giving items between students however I'm thinking an interesting idea would be the buying and selling of textbooks at Bryn Mawr. I know that the bookstore is now independent and has the buyback program, and am wondering how much that has changed how many students get textbooks directly from Bryn Mawr instead of online sellers such as Amazon or Chegg. Many students also sell textbooks on Facebook in a different group from the "For free or sale!" one. Living in a world where textbooks can be and usually are ridiculously expensive, it would be fascinating to see how different students at Bryn Mawr acquire theirs.

Every time I settle down to have a meal in a dining hall, I see the words “100-Mile Meal” on the plastic container for tissues, which has a list of all the events and dates that the dining halls hold for a year. I remember myself asking the customs people what “100-Mile Meal” was on my very first breakfast in Bryn Mawr. And I remember how they told me I would get to have the best meal on the campus on that day. And I did. The tastes of the food were just ineffably fantastic, but the fact that all the ingredients came from the nearby Philadelphia area gave me shivers. After reading “Take Back the Market”, I began to question how well and how much the dining halls in Bryn Mawr are interacting with the local community.

check out http://vectors.usc.edu/issues/4/publicsecrets/

       In our Thursday group’s classes, we leave a writing prompt as homework for the women each weak which is related to the topic covered in class discussion. I believe that writing can help them deeper explore in their minds, promoting critical thinking. Only reading in class is not enough, for them to understand the world, to reflect on the issues, and to better express themselves, especially as I notice that every time the class ends in a sense of unfinished conversation, some women unsatisfied with the limit of time and space for them to wholly express their insights. Therefore, I have started to be curious about the writing experiences of incarcerated people, and I want to find a way to express their writing experience in this 360 research project.

Although same-sex relations were punishable by imprisonment until starting in the 1970s, we learned that one of the biggest influences on early Bryn Mawr College, M. Carey Thomas, was herself involved with other women. Modern day Bryn Mawr has been described as a queer-bubble, becoming something of a LGBTQ+ safe haven. What I would like to look into for this next project is whether Bryn Mawr has always been a space for those whose romantic and sexual interests are underrepresented by traditional American society, or with recent decisions (such as admitting trans women starting with the class of 2020, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US) have brought an increase in the number of students that identify as queer. 

I am interested in the contacts that Bryn Mawr students face through their means of exchange, such as the free boxes in the dorms and the "for sale or free!" facebook change. These contacts can be analyzed through the lens of gift giving and reciprocal exchange, and the project can be expanded to where the items originated from and how they circulate through market and non market means of exchange between Bryn Mawr students. I am also interested in analyzing the effects of indirect contact and face to face contact. I am not sure what the goal or details of the project will be, but possibly something on how all of these factor into the Bryn Mawr community or non-community.