Monthly Archives: March 2018

Coming back from the Reading Break at the end of February, our group launched into our interview phase; the hands-on community engagement piece many of us had been longing to start. What we were not prepared for, however; was the month-long debacle of tracking down business owners and securing interview times. While we had collaboratively written a template email to send out to businesses, we found positive responses few and far in between. Despite persisting with follow-up emails and cold calls, by the 2nd week of the month we had only managed to secure half our intended number of interviews. With mild panic settling in with the lack of responses from the businesses we had contacted, we reached out to our community partner for help.

Throughout this process, Kevin was able to connect us to businesses through his personal connections. Interviews seemed to magically fall into our lap after Kevin reached into his network. With his aid, we were able to get three additional interviews to the ones we managed to secure. While our personal efforts felt like pulling teeth, we were amazed by the time and energy Kevin’s contacts were willing to take to participate in our research project.

Our experiences engaging with community members in Chinatown revealed the importance of a liaison in asset-based community development. Not only was Kevin able to secure interviews for us, but his personal connections with our interviewees made for enriching conversations that provided key information. We found his presence, as well as Christina’s, reassuring and instructive. It was fascinating to watch how easily Kevin’s personal contacts would open up, sharing key information that our individual group members would have much more difficulty capturing on our own.

The title of our “Flexible Learning” days resonated more and more as we realized the importance of embodying flexible learning. While we had created a tidy timeline for how we imagined our project would unfold, few if any of the deadlines we had previously set were met in reality. We found ourselves feeling uncomfortable with the uncertain future as the days went by with what seemed to be little to no progress. The lack of security about the future of our project was challenging to deal with, but somewhere along the way, it became inherent that embracing this factor was the pathway to our success.

Becoming “flexible learners” for us meant being nervous during our first interviews, but improving from our mistakes. It meant going out of our way to reschedule our activities for a last minute interview. It meant going off-script during the interviews to ask bold questions. It meant challenging our ideas of what was the “right” or “proper” way to do things and finding alternatives. As Shulman highlights: “without a certain amount of anxiety and risk, there’s a limit to how much learning occurs” (2005, p. 18). This became apparent as we embarked on our interviews since most of us held little to no experience conducting interviews prior to this project. As we observed Kevin and Christina’s ways of engaging with interviewees, we found ourselves learning important interview skills and applying them when we had the chance. While we had moments of anxiety and regret, (i.e. not having the boldness to probe deeper with certain interviewees), we were able to take our experience in stride and improve upon in consequent opportunities. We found that our collective confidence grew through the interview process.

The interviews were also an excellent opportunity to apply the concept of “asset-based community learning” which has been an ongoing theme throughout our course and project. Community projects, while well-intentioned can veer towards a “needs-based approach” where outside experts “play up the severity of problems” and “[present] a one-sided negative view” in order to extract results that are needed for the purpose of the study (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003, p. 476). Going into the interviews, we kept this in mind and maintained an open-minded approach, remembering that our role as outsiders was to listen and learn from the members of the community – the true experts in this scenario. Ultimately, this approach paid off well as we not only learned about inter-business relations which was the focus of our interviews, but we also gained invaluable insight into the personal growth stories of each business, and the ideals each business owner had for their community. This not only made the interviews more interesting but also gave us more insight into opportunities that utilize the community’s assets and benefit its members as a whole; something to consider as we make suggestions in our final report.  

         Infographic of our study’s findings.

Lastly, our experiences have allowed us to reflect on our own learning. Shulman (2005) asks, “are there signature pedagogies in undergraduate liberal education?”. (Signature pedagogies being distinctive teaching practices) He argues that lecture-style courses often foster environments where students are “disengaged, invisible, unaccountable, and emotionally disconnected”. However, we were able to see how the LFS 350 course and community projects reflect features of certain “signature pedagogies”. For example, Shulman (2005) notes that a universal feature of signature pedagogies is that they make students feel deeply engaged, highly visible and potentially even vulnerable. According to the article, learning requires that students feel visible and accountable – signature pedagogies tend to be interactive, so students feel accountable to instructors, as well as to fellow students. Shulman’s observations resonated with our group – we felt that the LFS 350 learning environment exemplified these aspects of the signature pedagogies through the smaller tutorial discussions, group work, and interactions with our community partners.

In our collaboration with the hua foundation, we felt connected and engaged with the work we were doing because it was a real-life application of the topics we have been learning in class. Working with the organization and conducting interviews also put us out of our comfort zones (as Shulman noted, making us feel “vulnerable”) and challenged us to develop new skills. This course made us feel visible in comparison to a typical lecture-style course – we felt more deeply involved in the course and the learning materials because of the class structure and community partner project. 

In preparing for the final report, we know that there will likely be roadblocks along the way. The questions our research project asks do not have simple answers and will require wrestling with complex ideas and concepts. Especially as the end of the term increases in workload for all of us, we will need to continue to be “flexible learners” and embrace the uncertainty of what this project entails.

We will be able to take the skills we gained throughout the interview process and apply them to future interviews and similar situations. While Kevin and Christina’s expertise helped us probe deeper during our research phase, it also introduced a certain amount of bias to the answers through leading questions, which will be acknowledged in our final report. Additionally, of the seven interviews we conducted, many had prior connections to the hua foundation or a personal connection to Kevin. As a result, the data collected may not be representative of all new Chinatown businesses and may be biased towards values of the hua foundation.

As highlighted in the “Writing Up Science-Based Practical Reports” (Harper Adams University, n.d.) guide, we must write objectively, removing bias, emotions and subjective writing.  In future interviews, we will not have the luxury of having someone with a wealth of knowledge present. However, this highlights the need for having an in-depth understanding of the local history and context of wherever our projects may take place. Furthermore, the essence of asset-based community development involves the mobilization of community members and their assets (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003), and it will be our duty to empower community members and aid them in building on their current strengths. It will be a lengthy and potentially unsmooth process, as cooperation requires mutual trust, and trust requires time, commitment and mutual understanding. Hopefully, in future situations, we will have more time to gain this understanding by connecting with local stakeholders and community members.

Where we were this week and where we will go next week

References: 

Harper Adams University. (n.d.). Guide to Essay Writing 2017/18. Retrieved March 30, 2018, from https://cdn.harper-adams.ac.uk/document/page/127_Guide-to-Essay-Writing.pdf

Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based Community Development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), 474–486

Shulman, L. S. (2005). Pedagogies of uncertainty. Liberal Education, 91(2), 18–25. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ697350.pdf

Overview

For the past few weeks, we have become a lot more engaged in our project. We’ve started conducting interviews and working on our analysis and final project report. The interviews in particular, have been a great achievement for us as they have pushed us out of our comfort zones, allowing us to be more actively involved in the project and community, as well as helping us work on our communication skills!   

Recently, we were given the opportunity to reflect on our project progress using “Moments of Significant Change” graphs. These provided insight into how our group felt, both individually and collectively, at varying times throughout the project. Graph 1 described whether we were feeling more positive or negative, while Graph 2 described how we felt our knowledge and skill levels were changing. These will be discussed in more detail below!

We’ve set an updated timeline of objectives for the remainder of the project and identified strategies  to complete the rest of our objectives. We have also divided up the remaining work to be completed, including interview analyses and final report sections. To hold each other accountable, we have also set deadlines after figuring out what timing and sections work best for everyone.

Weekly Objectives and Achievements

Dates	Objectives
March 5-11	Conduct interviews Begin interview analysis Begin final project report Post Blog post 3
March 12-18	Finish interviews Analyze interview results Work on report Begin infographic
March 19-25	Work on report + infographic Prepare for final project presentation
March 26 – April 1	Post Blog post 4 Presentation
April 2- April 9	Copy edit final project report

Reflection

 

 

The “Moments of Significant Change” graphs were useful tools that provided an opportunity to reflect and share our initial project goals and expectations (Dring, Lim, & Mendes, 2018). We were able to map out a collective story based on the experiences of each group member using graphs describing our emotions and skills/knowledge gained over the duration of our project. For our two graphs, the significant events we chose include:“finding out our project”, “first meeting with Kevin”, “writing blog post 1”, “2nd meeting with Kevin”, “contacting businesses for interviews”, and “blog post 2”. Upon completion, we were able to compare and contrast how different moments affected us individually and as a group.   

 

Graph 1: Emotions graph. “Moments of Significant Change” on the the y-axis, positive emotions above the x-axis, and negative emotions below the x-axis.

 

On the first graph, we had “emotions” on the y-axis and “Moments of Significant Change” on the x-axis. Emotions above the x-axis were considered positive while emotions below the x-axis were deemed negative. For example, all group members noted that they felt negative emotions such as stress or disappointment during the process of writing and submitting our project proposal. During our group conversation, we found that this stemmed from individuals holding different ideas of how to navigate the process, due to lack of communication between members. Some project updates could not get everyone in the loop in time. We felt it challenging to write cohesively and in a coherent manner. Moreover, the slope steepness and direction also indicated overall group feeling. Generally, we all followed a similar upward or downward trend, however some members emotions plummeted depending on their role or how they perceived the situation.

On the other hand, both meetings with Kevin and the hua foundation were positive events for group members because he was able to provide personal insight on the dynamics of businesses in Chinatown as a community member. The interview recruitment process proved to be more challenging than anticipated: at first, the lack of responses from the businesses we contacted made us feel somewhat helpless, and made us question the plausibility of our entire project. However, we strategized by using more direct ways of contact such as phone-calls and in-person visits, and even enlisted the help of our community partner Kevin Huang and his connections with local businesses. Eventually, we secured interviews with seven businesses, exceeding our proposed goal and giving us a renewed sense of hope and optimism. Overall, our group felt most positive when we initially found out about our project and after both meetings with Kevin. Morale decreased but was still positive during the writing of our first blog post, but then further dropped into the negative emotions zone as we worked on the project proposal. The group also felt positive during the first few interviews and writing of our second blog post.

 

Graph 2: Knowledge and skills graph. “Moments of Significant Change” on the the y-axis and level of skills and knowledge on the y-axis.

 

For the second graph, we had “levels of skills and knowledge” on the y-axis and “moments of significant change” on the x-axis. Overall our group showed a general pattern of increasing knowledge and skill levels over the duration of our project. We discussed how we felt our communication and listening skills improved throughout our conversations with the hua foundation and the interviews with local businesses. Additionally, our knowledge base on the connections between race, ethnicity, and food broadened substantially since starting the project. Both the hua foundation and the Session 8 lecture (Dring, C., Lim, S. & Mendes, 2018) challenged us to think critically about inequalities in the food system. We expect our collective knowledge to continue increasing as we conduct interviews with businesses. We hope to also improve our analytical and information synthesis skills after gathering data from the interviews. 

 

 

We found the exercise insightful as it provided a way to visually display our growth, both as individuals and as a team. The “moment of significant change graphs” activity was an important process and will continue contributing more towards them throughout the rest of our project. Referring back to the graphs provides insight as to how our group experiences and functions during different stages of our project – this will help us learn from our mistakes and better manage the project in future.

Graph 1 indicated that the project proposal was a low point for our team, partly due to the disappointment we felt in the feedback we received despite the time and energy we put into it. However, learning often requires that we experience feelings of anxiety and take risks in order to grow from our challenges (Shulman, 2005). In response to the feedback on the proposal, we will take steps to improve the “Introduction” and “Methods” section of our final report. By embracing the messy problems we encounter, we can find creative solutions and grow from places of discomfort (Harford, 2016). Rather than avoiding conflict and struggle, and stigmatizing failure, we can use it to our benefit to understand our weaknesses and areas of improvement (Cohn, 2015).

We noticed that we had a more positive outlook on our project after our meetings with Kevin and other members of the hua foundation. During these moments we also found that our knowledge and skill sets increased. Our discussions with Kevin were particularly valuable as he provided us with in-depth information about the Chinatown food systems – including background and historical information, factors involved in the changing foodscape, and contact information for business. This indicates that some of our most positive and valued interactions were those where we strengthened our knowledge base of the Chinatown food system and racialized food issues.

The course material during Session 8 complemented the issues we are discussing in our project (Dring, C., Lim, S. & Mendes, 2018). Diving into the intersections between food, race and justice, Session 8 solidified our understanding of cultural food assets (Dring, C., Lim, S. & Mendes, 2018). It was noted that the piece by Gibb & Wittman (2013) which we read in our first week (when we were assigned hua foundation as our community partner) is a rather seminal work linking race and food systems. While important, the point that this paper is one of the few of its kind tackling food systems inequalities is indicative of the lack of concerning the importance of cultivating a just food system, where academia should work towards exposing the injustices within our present food system.

 

 

As the University of Memphis Module on Capacity Building for Sustained Change taught us, being sensitive to the differences between group members allows us cooperate and work together in an effective manner (University of Memphis, 2018). Facilitating an activity such as the “Moments of Significant Change” at multiple times throughout a project provides an opportunity for group members to check-in and revise goals and expectations if needed. As many of us are in organizations, student clubs and other community groups, we will take this activity with us to facilitate in other team settings in the future.

Many of us were caught off guard by Session 8 (Dring, C., Lim, S. & Mendes, 2018). We learned much about the racialized structures that can occur in food systems, as well as how race and ethnicity are linked to food. As Malik Yakini noted in his TED Talk (2014), people of colour are often burdened by internalized racial oppression that suggest their history, culture, and bodies have less value. This is a challenge for collective problem solving of community issues, as individuals face a diminished view of the self (TED, 2014). Moving forward, we will also consider how we can better support marginalized communities and provide individuals with the “agency to change the conditions in their communities, rather than be subjects who are acted upon by others” (TED, 2014). This relates to our asset-based community development approach where our role as student researchers from an institution such as UBC is to serve the communities in which we operate (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003). 

The Graceful Dismount

 

 

Deadlines

Our Strategy for Successful Project Completion

• Conduct interviews and finish write ups (re-listening to the interview recordings and noting the most important/relevant points)
• Analyze the interview data, focusing on presenting key points that are relevant to our project
• Ensure pre-established deadlines are met and follow the calendar for meetings
• Use our interview data, data from the hua foundation Chinatown Food Security Report, and other academic sources to complete our infographic
• Write a rough draft of the paper in time for copy-editing
• Check in with Kevin as interviews are conducted and as the infographic/report are completed
• Reflect on the limitations of our project and consider how our project will move forward (seeing as the hua foundation will be doing a large-scale version of our project, so we will be able to provide some of our findings and give feedback/recommendations) 

With less than four weeks left in the term, we are reaching a critical point for our project, which is conducting the interviews and analyzing the responses we receive. We are also looking forward to compiling our data into an infographic and resource for new businesses as we wrap up this rewarding project.

References:

Cohn, G. (Producer) (2015, May 20). Failure Is Your Friend: A Freakonomics Radio Rebroadcast. [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://freakonomics.com/podcast/failure-is-your-friend-a-freakonomics-radio-rebroadcast/

Dring, C., Lim, S. & Mendes, W. (2018, February). Session 8: Race and food systems. Lecture presented in LFS350, UBC, Vancouver BC.

Gibb, N., & Wittman, H. (2013). Parallel alternatives: Chinese-Canadian Farmers and the Metro Vancouver Local Food Movement. Local Environment. 18(1), 1-19

Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based Community Development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), 474–486.

TED. (2016) Tim Harford: How messy problems can inspire creativity. Retrieved from https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd_j_kw_jZQ&time_continue=331

TED. (2014, December). Malik Yankini: Food, race, and justice. Retrieved from from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miukaKDL-Cs

The University of Memphis. (2018). Module 5 – Engaged Scholarship. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from http://www.memphis.edu/ess/module5/index.php

Shulman, L. S. (2005). Pedagogies of uncertainty. Liberal Education, 91(2), 18–25. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ697350.pdf