From right to left, back row: Mengxi Wang, Kaymi Yoon-Maxwell, Ghada Dbouba, front row: Rashmi Abeysekera, Alison Watts-Grant
Photo credit: Leanna Favaro
1. How did the the 2016 F-Word incorporate decolonization? In what ways could this be improved?
Kaymi: We did a good job of speaking about it in our planning meetings, I feel like we talked about how we were going to be attentive to decolonization at every stage of our planning, as well as acknowledging where we were falling short. I don’t necessarily think that it shone through at every point in the final product and I definitely think there was more we could have done. We made an effort to have Indigenous led organizations come to do some of the community workshops and to have the dinner catered by an Indigenous owned and run business. But ultimately, there was no Indigenous presence in our organizing team and Indigenous voices were not centered in the presentations or keynotes; we have a long way to go to continue organizing with decolonization at the forefront.
Ghada: For example, we made the active decision not to have it in the First Nations Longhouse. We also discussed why we didn’t want to have an Indigenous person come and do the land acknowledgment with regards to tokenizing Indigenous people and not properly including them further. We wanted to take on the work of engaging with the land and talking about what it means for us to be holding a feminist conference on unceded territories. The way we approached the land acknowledgment was collaborative, realising that we all had different positionalities and relationships with this land and we tried our best to incorporate all of them into it. We invited Indigenous organizations to come and give workshops, and chose to support an Indigenous catering business for one of our meals. However, there still could, and should have been more Indigenous voices present in the rest of our panels and workshop slots. Most importantly, Indigenous voices were missing from the planning committee and GRSJUSA at large. More work needs to be done for the proper inclusion of Indigenous Peoples not just for the conference, but for our club as a whole.
Rashmi: Throughout our organising, we did our best to apply decolonization to our decision making process and support indigenous resistance. For example, we ensured that during our morning workshop sessions, each workshop would address decolonization/Indigenous resistance/colonization so that attendees would engage these topics regardless of the workshop they chose. We also made an effort to support a Musqueam run catering service (Salishan Catering). Despite our efforts, there is always room for improvement and the fact that we, as a group, operate on the stolen and unceded lands of the Musqueam people at an institution like UBC is often contradictory to decolonization, and difficult to navigate. This year, we are working on leveraging our privilege as UBC students to support Indigenous communities and resistance.
Alison: We decided not to have the conference take place at the longhouse, because we didn’t want to take up space meant for indigenous people. We decided to do the land acknowledgment ourselves, and situate ourselves as settlers, as opposed to have a “token” indigenous person do the land acknowledgement, this was a decision we came to as a group after much discussion.
Mengxi: Everything came to my mind has pretty much been said. Recently I have been thinking about the difference between inviting (hopefully not appropriating) Indigenous peoples and their voices to a conference, and, co-organizing the conference with them; and that is a big difference. So i think in terms of improvement, I would suggest co-weaving and co-creating if possible. Btw, i thought the longhouse wasn’t available when we wanted to book it?
2. How do you, as a student organizer, navigate your privilege and complicity within systems of oppression that are inherently present in the university institution?
Alison: I constantly try to be very mindful of my positionality and the privileges that I inhabit, especially my white privilege. I try to be very mindful that university is very very white and holds up white supremacy, I try to challenge this.
Mengxi: i tried as much as i could to be responsible, wise and careful with my power, resources, knowledge, energy. For instance, when i had the f-word money in my hands for getting catering restaurants, how and where should i spend it, that mattered a lot. I simply cannot just opt out of the capitalist, colonial, neoliberal blablabla system in which the uni was embedded, so i have to work with it and work within it, be aware of where i invest my resources.
Rashmi: It’s honestly very difficult. I often find myself feeling very hypocritical or counter-productive to my social justice goals within the university system. One thing I’ve done is try my best to leverage the privilege I have on the university campus to further my goals and support communities in need. For example, we decided to start asking for donations at our GRSJUSA events in order to compile a donation to the Annual March for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada. I also try to take advantage of the many resources we have on campus for social justice purposes.
Ghada: One of the ways in which I try to navigate my privilege and complicity is by doing social justice work like organising the F-Word conference, while acknowledging that this doesn’t absolve me of them. One of the privileges that I have is that I am settler on these lands, and any organizing or work that I do is taking place on Indigenous peoples’ lands. In short, by me being here, I’m taking up space from other people. Trying to figure out how to do social justice work that is decolonial is something that i think about, and struggle with a lot. With the F-Word conference, myself and other GRSJUSA members have tried to leverage our privilege as settler as mentioned in the previous questions, but I also know that there is so so much more to be done. It is always important to remember that the people doing the frontline work of decolonizing is Indigenous people themselves, so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to be of best use to them in terms of allyship and work that I do. Accessibility is another big thing I think about; organizing at a university means that a lot people might not be able to access work that is done here. Again, GRSJUSA and I have tried to navigate this by making the conference free, as well as open to non-UBC students as well.
Kaymi: I think one of the most essential sites of privilege I need to interrogate as a student in university is the realm of class. While I work 2 jobs to put myself through school and to pay for life expenses, I still come from a (mostly) middle class family and I receive support from them when I need it. Also, the fact that I’m getting a university degree is a class privilege that further solidifies that class privilege through education and access to better paying jobs in the future. In this way, I recognize my complicity in the institution and its entanglement with capitalism. Another place of privilege I am working on acknowledging is my complicity with settler colonialism at an institution on the stolen land of Indigenous peoples. What does it mean to be learning the language/theory to talk about structures of oppression while maintaining the ability to keep these conversations accessible to those who are marginalized by these systems and therefore often not able to access this type of education? As student organizers, how do we bridge the gaps between academia and community? How do we ensure these are not mutually exclusive categories? As marginalized students/activists, does our existence here inherently accomplish this goal?
- 2. a) What are some barriers to doing this type of activist work on a university campus?
Alison: I feel like there is a lot of apathy on campus, and that if you act up and speak out about issues you care about there is a chance of being labeled as a SJW (which I don’t care about). But what I mean to say, is that activism is sometimes looked at as a bad thing. So a barrier is actually getting people to come out and join activist work. Another barrier is funding, doing this kind of work is very expensive, grants are hard to apply for and this can be very time consuming. Another barrier I see is that the group of people on campus doing activist work is relatively small, and a lot of us are dealing with burnout and work overload, so it becomes very difficult to support multiple causes.
Mengxi: i have to say I wasn’t very involved in on-campus activism, so i don’t feel confident answering this question.
Rashmi: There are quite a few barriers. Alison already spoke to a lot of the financial barriers we face. The bureaucracy of the university system also poses barriers to activism. For example, even if a student group wants to dismantle hierarchical power structures within their own organization, they have to adhere to rules that require presidents and treasurers in order to be considered an official club (and gain the resources that official clubs have). Furthermore, at our school, the Alma Mater Society (AMS) has the power to approve or disapprove clubs as official AMS clubs. This means that they decide who has access to resources like club rooms, lockers, and free bookings in AMS buildings. I know that in the past social justice oriented groups, like the Feminist Club, have been rejected by the AMS for official club status.
Kaymi: Echoing what has already been said, there are many barriers. Barriers to student organizing on campus include having to balance school work, working one or more jobs, social justice work, emotional labour… Navigating the ways all of these forms of work are entangled with one another makes volunteer work (work that is uncompensated and often under valued), hard to sustain alongside all the other forms of work students (particularly students involved in social justice work/studies) are required to do. Naturally, this requires a conversation about accessibility and capitalist notions of productivity. Barriers surrounding physical/mental ability and physical/mental health exist for so many students which not only creates barriers within academia, but within student activism as well.
Ghada: I also echo much of what has been said already. Being a student of color I know that UBC campus has not been the most inviting place for racialized student activism in the past (for example the hostile backlash pro-Palestinian BDS campaigns have faced, the apathy towards students protesting international student fees etc). This makes me feel like doing work like this is being up against this huge monster, but at the same time I know that it’s so important. This doesn’t erase the emotional labour that has to be put it to doing this work, which can in turn have effects on organizer’s mental and physical health. Another barrier is time. We are all volunteers doing this work, we are not getting paid and we do this work alongside all of our other academic and personal commitments. This work means a lot to me and I want it to reflect what I believe in but I simply do not have the time to put in all the work needed for that to happen – which sucks!!
- 2. b) Who does the work of activism on campuses fall upon?
Alison: This work often falls in the backs of marginalized groups, particularly students of colour.
Mengxi: i often saw familiar faces in those social justice events, many of them are from GRSJ, but also maybe it was because that was my circle? idk…
Rashmi: A lot of the time activism work falls upon marginalized groups who experience the brunt of social oppression.
Kaymi: In general, I see the work often falling upon those who need to do the work to survive; that is to say, those who are marginalized by the systems that create this work. Campuses are no exception.
Ghada: The work of activism falls on those whose lives and realities are most affected by the injustices of our world. It is people who have to fight in order to make the world a better and safer place for them.
3. How do you manage your time between school and volunteer passions, like organizing the F Word, and other commitments to survive within capitalism?
Alison: It’s hard, I’m not going to deny that. But lately, I’ve been trying to be more gentle with myself in terms of my school work. I’ve been prioritizing my work with GRSJUA, and that feels really really good. I care about that more right now than I do about school. I’ve been still working hard at school, but I’ve been more genuine with my professors to let them know where I’m at and to ask for extensions when I need them.
Mengxi: my parents supported me well enough that I didn’t spend much time struggling with money during my BA, although letting my parents paying an unreasonably large amount of tuition fee often made me felt guilty and indebted to my parents. Volunteer works actually made me do better in schools, I guess because making friends and doing stuff that I find meaningful made me more efficient and energized when it comes to school work? Not hesitate to let instructors know when I can’t finish assignments on time, most of the time, instructors are very understanding. Tell myself it is ok if I can’t make it to a social justice event because school work or stress is the priority at that given moment; tell myself it is ok if i need to hand in a paper late or hand in a low-quality paper because a social justice event is the priority at that given moment.
Rashmi: Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know how so many of the folks who organize and participate in activism keep up with their work, school, and personal lives. We just do. I guess part of our ability to juggle all of these things is due to the feeling that all of them are necessary to our survival and well-being in the long run.
Kaymi: I think Rashmi just said it well, that “we just do.” Particularly as GRSJ students, as students of colour, as queer students, living within the capitalist white supremacist ableist settler colonial cisheteropartriarchy (ahhhhh), we don’t have a choice but to navigate all of these kinds of work that we’ve been speaking to. However, sometimes “just doing it” means that I don’t take care of my mental and physical health which makes it even harder to do this work.
Ghada: I don’t really know if I do ‘manage’ my time because it becomes pretty much impossible to sometimes. A lot of the time the work I put in the most amount of time and energy into is one which is volunteer and non-paid. That work makes me really happy but it’s hard to juggle along with school and paid work. I over commit pretty much all of the time and it’s been a learning process to remind myself to check in with myself and body and know when I’m taking on too much. I think a lot about self-reliance and individualism that have been ingrained in me by the capitalist world that we live in, and remind that I am a part of a community. I’ve been learning how to ask for help when I need it, how to be vocal about any needs that I have that aren’t being met, how to ask for extensions from my professors if I need them, and just being ok with telling people if I’m not feeling ok.
4. Do you have healthy ways of dealing with burnout? What are some of your self-care methods?
Alison: I’m trying to develop this. Lately my burn out has been much more related to academics. So while I still work hard at school and put effort in, I don’t work nearly as hard as I have in previous years. I’m spending more time with friends and family, and this is giving me energy. In terms of self care methods, cooking is one of my favourite things to do.
Mengxi: Girls’ night out, drinking and dancing. Spend time talking and talking to friends. Buy good food, and cook, and eat well. Play badminton. Drink wine. Eat sushi. Indulge myself in japanese animations. Eat ramen. Pet a cat when there is one. Eat more sushi. Drink tea. Read books that aren’t required by school. Hot tub. Use some incenses. The fight is long, and I need a sustainable mind-body-spirit-heart for it. Self-care is one of the most radical things a feminist could do, I remind myself of that when I hesitate to take care of myself.
Rashmi: This is always a learning process because ‘self-care’ can transform and mean different things at different times. Sometimes I need to have some time to myself, just to do whatever. Other times, I need to be surrounded by loved ones and laughter. In times of stress and burnout, I usually dance. Allowing myself to focus solely on perfecting the moves and choreography of dance really helps. Allowing myself to be fully focused on something like this gives me peace of mind. Also, the physical movement gets my blood pumping, and helps me regain focus and passion in other aspects of my life.
Kaymi: I’m not sure I’ve developed very healthy ways of dealing with burnout yet… I cry a lot, which helps sometimes haha. I really enjoy cooking, but I think that might be because it’s easy to justify because eating is essential… I need to make more time to enjoy things with friends and family. I need to work on not feeling bad or guilty when doing things to take care of myself and learn to enjoy things when I’m taking a break from work.
Ghada: self-care is a really tricky thing for me. My methods of self-care aren’t always the best, and sometimes self-care can include some of your vices. I find it hard to go for alone time, and sometimes actually being alone with nothing to do makes me stressed. With that being said, my self-care usually involves unwinding at the end of the day with my housemates, going for solo walks, reading for pleasure, dancing, cooking and watching funny YouTube videos. My most preferred, fool-proof method of self-care is definitely sleeping, though.