- I would love to hear about what you are learning in your other classes — particularly your CAP classes–that intersect with the topics in ASTU 100. Write about a connection that you can find between our material and something else you have learned this year.
Significantly, across the CAP classes at The University of British Columbia, there are a notable number of extensive connections between the main themes of the courses. When evaluating the various course content on a broader spectrum, there continues to be a distinct focus on an individual’s influence over society, and how the actions of a single person can create a ripple effect that affects an entire society (both in a positive and negative way).
To specify, I found a relevant connection between my CAP Geography, Modernity and Globalization class and our ASTU class, as both courses attempt to place an emphasis on the importance of narrative, in order to try and understand the life experiences (and potential struggles) of a person that comes from an unfamiliar background. In particular, one of our Geography course lessons focused on how the global commodity supply chain produces ideas of commodity fetishism (as coined by philosopher Karl Marx). This concept fails to acknowledge the hard work of foreign workers in the supply chain, as our own greed and addictive personalities value the acquisition of new products before securing the wellbeing of the labourers who manufactured them. To extrapolate, our inability to recognize the dedicated time and effort of various foreign workers, leads to an unrealistic interpretation of what truly goes into making the products that seemingly “show up” on our doorsteps. Our Geography professor made sure to stress the importance of acknowledging the ways in which our privileged lives interact with other groups of less privilege, in order to reconstruct narratives that have further expanded societal entitlement. He concentrated on the importance of self-evaluation, in hopes of regaining a newfound understanding regarding the primary impact that our misconstrued narratives have upon the lives of others.
Personally, I immediately connected this particular idea to the themes that have been explored in our ASTU class, and how our various readings such as “Redeployment” by Phil Klay, “Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese and “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui, all attempt to challenge our own personal narratives, in relation to the polarized groups of society whose struggles are often misunderstood. In the ASTU class, these texts have each given us a different story and narrative that we might not have previously engaged in. By learning about different narratives that are not similar to our own, I believe that we grow as scholars, since it confronts our previous biases and presumptions about others. This is where we see a special overlap between both classes, as the similar course content inspires students to empathize and engage in stories that are contrary to our own, forming a connection that brings together different groups of people.
I have enjoyed learning about the importance of understanding other narratives that are dissimilar to our own, as studying the contrasting experiences of others is principally consequential when it comes to deconstructing systems that favor specific narratives and/or groups of privilege.
Hi Callum! I agree with your point about literature and how it ties into defetishizing commodities. While reading about defetishizing commodities for geography, I remembered a documentary Dr. Greer mentioned in Sociology 102 about the life cycle of Mardis Gras beads called “Mardis Gras: Made in China”. That documentary (about the labour involved in making a product that has such a short life span) stuck with me in Geography 102. Just like you mentioned, the documentary about the women that work in factories to make these beads is a counternarrative and can serve to defetishize commodities. In that way, storytelling can be the first step toward change.
– Asina
Callum, great blog post! I love reading about how ASTU connects to other classes in CAP that we’re taking together, such as Geography. You drew a nice connection in your blog post about how Marx’s idea of commodity fetishization is connected to our understanding of different narratives and stories in ASTU. You can see even more parallels between Linguistics and even our classes from last term, Sociology and Political Science. I wonder if we’ll see these sort of connections between different classes once outside of CAP next year. The intersection is great and helps provide a solid foundation of the topics in multiple classes from various perspectives.