The year has finally come to an end and I am very thankful that I was given the opportunity to blog for the Arts Studies course. Three or four years from now, if I look back to my first-year, I would clearly remember writing a blogpost is something what I enjoyed (I know it sounds cheesy, but I gave some serious thought about this). The reason being that since I did not participate much in class, at least through blogging I was able to contribute my voice to the on-going discussion.

The importance of the blogging activity was something the professor wanted us to do at the beginning of the year (I remember myself not being happy about this). However, now that I realize how important it is to be consistent with keeping up with weekly topics and continuously reminding myself what we have learnt, it forces us to think  flexibly and naturally apply concepts learnt from an academic setting to the real world. We unconsciously find connections between themes/ concepts/ ideas from different courses, which will help us succeed in our later lives. In addition, reading my colleagues’ blogposts are a great learning tool as see different perspectives from multi-dimensional angles.

This blogosphere particularly worked very well in our CAP stream because we had the chance to share and hear voices of individuals whom we often don’t hear from either in class or in person. Hence, this space established a colorful tone of language and voice to share our thoughts and also re-think of what it is to be a “Global Citizen”.

As a student of the Global Citizens stream, in my future, I would still think about the three different perspectives (joint lecture): ASTU (social memory, collective memory), SOCI perspective (social inequality, institutions, structures, conflicts, symbolic interaction) and GEOG perspective (globalization, modernization) when thinking about a particular social issue.

Thank you to the professors and fellow colleagues for a wonderful CAP 2013-4 year!

We have come through a long journey, and finally completed of our first-year at university. It would have not ended better if it were not the CAP conference. It gave us the opportunity unify our knowledge that we have come across throughout this academic year and gave us the chance to reflect, connect and move on.

Evan and Mana has given their perspective on how the CAP conference on how it gave the flexibility to represent knowledge in  different approaches/ mediums such as art works, photographs, short films, and music. Some overlapping themes/ ideas were found amongst my colleagues.  “Connections”- Ashley and Emily saw a connection between their CAP courses and to the presentations in the conference. For example, Ashley was able to see a bridge between themes in her core courses as well as with other courses. Emily emphasizes the importance of concepts and scholarly knowledge taught in the Arts Studies course to which she was able to apply to the presentations from other CAP streams. They highlighted Colin Kulstad’s (our fellow Global Citizen stream colleague) presentation and related it to the four CAP stream courses.

Juliana and Niklas were intrigued by Helen Wagner’s presentation and had similar views on how concepts taught in the Arts Studies helped them to better understand the presentation. They question commodification of marginalized individuals (cover photographs of the Indigenous women) used in the front cover of the reputable, National Geographic magazine. Niklas further stresses upon concepts learnt in ASTU such as “language power”, “who is being represented by whom” and “being critical” in Wagner’s panel presentation.

Another concept that many spoke about was the act of “critical thinking. I recall that this concept was heavily emphasized by Dr. Gagnon during our first semester Political Science course. Amelia, Makoto, and Maria have applied this concept in while listening to the presentation have critically questioned their thoughts in their blogs.For instance, Amelia critically responds to Colin’s presentation on English as the dominant language by asking questions like “By disseminating English this way, are we broadening horizons or limiting modes of knowledge and understanding?” 

It was also interesting to see throughout each individuals’ blogs, vocabularies from our Arts Studies class were constantly used such as abstractions, research cite, so what… showing how much of a collective effort we have made in digesting this to our knowledge.

I want to conclude with an inspiring thought from Makoto’s “Revisiting Global Citizenship”. His definition of a global citizenship means “realizing where I stand in terms of privilege and social standing. And understanding the values I hold is not necessarily benefiting others… By comprehending your own standing in relative to others around…”. I have to agree with his humble statement of knowing oneself is crucial to make a step forward. This is something that I will value (and I hope most of you will) in the future as a student from the Global Citizen stream from the CAP stream. I honestly have learnt a lot and enjoyed from reading each blogposts from our ASTU course, a great learning tool. Thank you everyone and I wish you good luck in your next chapter of life!

This week’s scholarly reading, Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse by Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young and the documentary video, Through a Blue Lens produced by the National Film Board of Canada sparked new knowledge in learning about the lives of the locals residing Downtown Eastside, Vancouver. This topic about sex-work, drug addiction were things that I have always heard about from a far in health classes in middle school and through the news media mainly CNN and BBC. But imagining that now I am living in the same city and witnessing many homeless people in Vancouver, I felt actively engaged while reading this article. However, the reading left me with a sad and hopeless thought that the case of the missing women will always be left in the periphery. Myself, having no power in taking this into action, just nod my head and accepted the reality. After reading the article, I realized how the media is a powerful tool in manipulating information and how it can shift the main focus by using the “blaming the victim” (908) approach.

Visual media such as Through a Blue Lens, have done an excellent job in representing the marginalized by giving the chance to the people living in Downtown Eastside Vancouver that many have come from “good strong families” as one police officer explains. After watching the video and hearing from the victims, it was their choice and their decision of becoming who they are today. Typically, people would think they chose the wrong path to life, but on the other hand, if we take our “humanistic” lens, we can view that all human beings make mistakes, we all do. “We” are not like “them” because we have loving families and have all the available and necessary resources, like family love, unconditional support from friends and parents. Many of the victims in the documentary were often abused by their parents and just did not have enough and proper resources around them. Even though I was disguised by watching their lives in the streets wandering with no direction in life, one thing I realized was that they are human beings and “they” like “us” have a “sense of humanity” (903).

Throughout the article, Jiwani and Young argue that the problem lie on the misrepresentation of marginality in the News Media because sometimes without critical thinking we tend to believe what is said on the news and unconsciously through the representation of the media we get drawn to what they are saying. For example, as Zoonen and Young argues that  “crime-news norms” are considered the most “masculinist” example of media practices people. In the case of Robert Pickton, the media is manipulative in such a way that “shifts” its main focus (the Missing Women) to “Pickton, his family, and his property” (905). If the media continues this method, the public would automatically would be more curious of who caused the problem rather that than most important subject, the victim, who was accused and who is being marginalized.

I do strongly believe that there is still hope if female journalists like Lindsay Kines, Kim Bolan and Lori Culbert who portray the image of sex-workers in the News Media not just as “sex-workers” and “drug addicts” but representing from a humanistic perspective who were once just like us, coming “from caring families” (903) that they were “mothers, daughters and sisters” to create sympathy to the public, practicing social responsibility.

Today in class, Dr. McNeill brought up an interesting topic for us to think about “witnessing testimony” and “consumption testimony” and how there is an ethical issue attached to it. This caught my attention and we continued a brief conversation after class, which led me to write this blog post. I have to agree with the “consumption” part in testimony because to the events and art gallery that I have attended, the former students of the Indian Residential School (IRS) re-tell their traumatic and painful stories to the audiences. After our conversation, I began to think if that is the end of the story, I feel there is a “gap” or a “space” that needs to be filled. The organizers this Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) are accepting the past and seeking for the truth to reconcile, but I question if they have alternative motives through “stories” told by the Aboriginals as consumptions or are there other meanings attached to it?

Coming to Canada for the first time last year, I did not have any knowledge on the TRC, in fact, I was overwhelmed by it. Our CAP Sociology 100 course introduced me to this topic and I had the opportunity to attend a TRC hosted event at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) located in the East Hastings, Vancouver. In this particular event, after hearing the traumatic and painful stories told by the elderly First Nations who were forced to attend the IRS, I felt terribly bad and angry. But at the same time, touched by their hardships and the suffering of different types of abuse they received and the abolishment of their culture and assimilating to the dominant one. I feel there is a lack of action taken to further take steps to solve this “deep issue”. Maybe I have not put this sentence correctly but I feel there is the process of commodification and consumption involved in the national events hosted by TRC and also in the Belkin Art Gallery as well as the Museum of Anthropology.

The TRC organizers gathering and hosting various events to attract audiences to watch and listen to the former Residential School students shedding tears and bitterness to the audience… If their purpose of creating and hosting these national events in different parts of Canada is to establish understanding and creating awareness to the Canadians and non-Canadians about their colonial past. Is this the end of the story? This point ties back into Rachel’s comment in class that Residential Schools who are controlled by the Christian system have a forward-looking vision into solving this issue, the Aboriginals, on the other hand, want to acknowledge on their past and want to look back at what suffering they had to go through. This raises an ethical concern over who is getting marginalized again.

I have found an interesting article that might contribute to this discussion, it explores on these two questions, “Who does the TRC include in the process of reconciliation? And how might I, as someone who is not Indigenous (specifically, as someone who is “white”), be engaged by the TRC?” (Snyder).

Over the past week, in our ASTU class, working with archives in the Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) was a complete new experience. Reading my colleagues’ blogs especially those working with the Chung Collections seem to be fascinated working with old rusty historical documents. However, flipping through the Douglas Coupland Fonds was somewhat familiar to me as these archives are contemporary, meaning they include hotel receipts, name-cards, Christmas cards, birthday cards, invitation letter, his art pieces (which were unexpectedly heavy…). They were things that we see in our daily lives, not necessarily in the RBSC, rather, I felt I was organizing my collection of documents while organizing my bookshelf…

However, working with contemporary archives like Douglas Coupland’s led me to wonder about digital archives. Many questions rushed into my mind, such as, what are digital archives? How is it different from archives present in the library? What are some implications of digital archives? and finally, how do I feel about digital archiving?

According to this journal, digital archives AKA “online archives” are different from physical historical archives in that their contents are easily reproducible and may have been reproduced from elsewhere. Digital archives are known to be fragile as technology is continually changing and also having to maintain these resources require “conscious effort and continual investment”. Implications include:

• Loss of tradition of keeping archives in libraries
• Lack of the archival value because it is no longer “rare” or “special” as many people world-wide have access to it
• Ownership/ privacy is devalued

These are some of the many implications of digital archiving. Since the overarching purpose of archiving is to preserve unique documents and as Sarah Romkey, the UBC archivist defined archive as “documents created or received by a person or organization in the ordinary course of their work or life”, some archives must be kept online and some in the library archival collection. I am not trying to suggest solutions to digital archiving because I am not an expert in archiving; I am just writing out of interest that led me to digital archiving after flipping through Douglas Coupland’s archives.

Displaying archival materials on the Internet benefits in many ways, for example, giving accessibility to people who live in distanced areas. However, due to increasing “de-privatization” of information in the Internet world, some archival materials should be categorized separately from the rare archives to archives that are not put in high significance. Here comes into conflict of what to include and exclude among the archives, however, it depends on how the archivists arrange the archives.

A few classes ago, after watching the documentary video directed by Anne Marie Nakagawa left me with some impression of Vancouver. Having never lived in this city/ country, the only knowledge I had prior coming here was that it was ranked top three places to live in the world, a city known for its diversity in ethnicity and language.

However, the documentary set me with a new perspective that behind this multi-national/cultural Vancouver, the bi-racial people who are of a Caucasian origin and a “visible minority” face conflicts on their day to day basis such as being questioned and even interrogated, in extreme cases of their originality and not feeling that they are accepted to either side of their community.

I want to find more about Vancouver’s identity not only as a multi-diverse place to live in but the people who have lived in this particular place feel insecure of their identity as in not being completely accepted by this community.

After watching the video, one of the last comment was that even though they have one citizenship i.e. Canadian citizenship, they are not considered true Canadians as they are the hybrids, inter mixed of races.

I would further want to explore Vancouver’s identity through upcoming archives analysis.

Blogs have become a social phenomenon; I remember the first time I wrote a blog was during my grade eight humanities class, I did not get a gist of what I was writing. The second time encountering with blogs is during my first year at UBC. And I can sense the importance of working with blogs because it serves various purposes for example, we write about our experience, share, and learn. For example, we are writing blogs for our Arts Studies class, and we are constantly engaging ourselves with our own blogs, our colleagues’ blogs, commenting and gaining knowledge from other people’s blogs that contain different views and perspectives. In addition, writing comments in blogs build social relationships and eventually a community of shared opinions. I could sense that blogs being personal yet connecting to a wider audience where we learn and share through other bloggers and from public comments.

A few days ago, I encountered a Ted Talk given by Mena Trott of the revolution of blogs. Her message to the audience is that blogging gives power to ordinary people and keep a record of who you were and writing about things that interest to them through telling personal stories. She gives a heartfelt example of a blogger who is in her last stages of cancer saying to Mena that blogging has been the best moments of her lives.

As for me, I spent the most time looking and reading blogs in the past few months at UBC than any other time of my life. For example, prior coming to Vancouver, I have looked at <a href=”https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsquad/”>UBC blogsquad</a>, travelling blog, blogs about Vancouver, and blogs containing other various topics. Blogs have played a huge role in my decision-making process when I deciding which phone carrier to use in Vancouver. I have looked at blogs that give opinions about phone carriers such as Rogers, Bell and Telus. Looking at the blogger’s opinion and the comments made by the phone customers I was able to decide which to choose.

For Mena Trott, her blog is entirely on herself, she is the subject of the blog. She writes blogs because it keeps a life record of her and she points out that if her children or her grandchildren would want to know who she was, they could refer to her blog. From my personal experiences, blogging helps me to think in various dimensions and since someone else is going to read my blog I feel that I am playing a certain role in the society.

There are other kinds of blogs that give information or autobiographical just like Mena Trott’s, but a common ground is that they all relate to personal experiences. I can somehow able to connect to Miller and Shepherd’s blogging as social action.

What do the authors and publishers do in order to get a book on the shelf and have millions of copies sold in a short amount of time? What specific roles do they play in grabbing the attention of potential buyers of the book?

Peritext, as mentioned by Whitlock is the outer layer/cover of a book. It has three main functions, which are to protect, to decorate, and to promote. However, the third component of the peritext has the most attention and focused. According to Genette, this aspect has “brand positioning” in marketing the books.

Continuing with the thought-provoking discussion we had in class, the role of peritext in What is the What by Dave Eggers has little emphasis in Valentino Achack Deng, the storyteller of his autobiography, rather there is a heavier emphasis on the author’s name, Dave Eggers. Even though there is a huge portrait of Valentino, one of the Lost Sudanese Boys in the front cover, the audiences are not clear who that person is due to the vagueness and anonymity of the image. As for me, when I first saw the book by its cover, I had no idea that this story was about the Sudanese Lost Boys until I read the introduction.

Therefore, the third aspect of the peritext, “to promote” can be clearly seen in What is the What. The western publishing house thought rather than having the name of the Lost Sudanese Boy bolded on the front cover, bolding the western author’s name on the novel’s front cover would create a better brand-promoting factor, for potential readers to purchase the book.

In contrast, I am also going to look at Malala Yousafzai’s I am Malala: The Girl who stood up for education and what shot by the Taliban. Interestingly, the peritext in Malala’s book contains different features than that of What is the What. There is a clear photography portrait of Malala looking straight into the eyes of the readers. The veil creates an exotic image and the Western audiences are expecting stories beneath her veil. The font size of her name is larger, clear and visibly labeled as the author of her autobiographical book. Unlike the peritext technique used in What is the What, much focus on the Western author’s name, in I am Malala, there is less emphasis of the name of the western co-author, Christina Lamb.

Both are autobiographic novels, but one storyteller is has less status in the front cover and the other a larger emphasis. Now, you may think Malala Yousafazai has done something extraordinary that no ordinary fifteen-year-old can do. But, what about Valentino Achack Deng, one of the Lost Boys, he also has done something exceptional of sharing his traumatic past to the public.

The western publishing culture has used techniques that would best sell in the bookstore, using marketing strategies to “promote” and create “brand-imaging” for consumers to buy books to make novels successful.

As we are emerged into the social media culture, various new social media sites are coming into our hands, Pinterest being one of them. According to an American news channel, “Pinterest is a relatively new social sharing website that is sweeping the nation”. In May 2011, there were 418,000 Pinterst users and by December, users rose to 7.5 million.

When I heard about Pinterest during our ASTU class, it caught my attention instantly. I was caught by the fact that I am able to create my own personal pin board where I can select and collect things that interest me as a unique individual. The pinned down things range from health to fashion.

So this triggered me to look at other people’s pinterest site. Everything is in that one page, the layout in Pinterest is every effective and efficient. This helps for Pinterest audience not to be distracted because everything can be viewed at once. The structure of the Pinterst contains a mini-personal biography of the user and below the biography there are categorically organized themes that contain various photos relating to that particular theme. Everything in one single page, for example, themes include, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Crafts, Parties and Events and many more that interests the individual and are personal to their lives.

Just by looking at these websites created by unique individuals, I already feel addicted to Pinterest as I am inspired by some of the photos and also gain new ideas, for example, from Laura’s Pinterest page, there is section on “Christmas gifts to make”, I was wondering what I could purchase for my friends and family for their Christmas gifts, but looking at the photos from her Pinterest page, I am able to think creatively by making gifts by hand.

So the question is, Is Pinterest the new Facebook? From the American news channel, I linked above, an interviewee thinks Pinterest is the new Facebook because she’s grown tired of Facebook and that Pinterest has taken over. And I would have to agree with her because Pinterest shares photos, which are quick, easy and visually effective that can instantly grab attention instead of reading comments in Facebook. The power of photos makes us respond quickly and dynamically and this is what Pinterest does to us.

For some, Pinterest can be an online recipe book as people’s passions are increasingly growing on food and for other Pinterest could be a motivation to their lives.

Pinterest seems to be a contemporary personal diary that reflects who we are as I get to select what we like and what we prefer. Moreover, it is easily accessible wherever there is Internet via smartphone or computer. Therefore, it serves as an efficient way of collecting things of an individual’s interest and viewing them whenever we want to.

It is also efficient in ways that when we are able to “pin” things down at any moment of the day because technology are at the tip of our fingers. I also feel that if I make Pinterest, I would get the opportunity to look back or perhaps remember things I might have forgotten and by looking at the Pinterest board, a purpose served by an autobiography. It serves the purpose of a social action because we are representing ourselves not only through social interaction but having something personal and to our selves that we can rely on anytime and anywhere.

In late 2011, I was overwhelmed to see another new layout created by Facebook, the timeline. Sure, I had a moment of laughter when I saw some of posts I posted when I was in grade eight. But, something felt disturbingly uneasy; Facebook had been storing the complete summary of my entire life since birth.

I feel that increasingly as people post photos and their thoughts in Facebook, they are constantly advertising themselves in the realm of the social media. We are allowing strangers to see whom we are through personal profile including our display photos, what we like, which places we recently visited, what groups we are associated with…etc. All the things that meant to be kept personal.

Why is Facebook continually changing the layout of the website and trying to advertise individual Facebook users to the best ability they can? Facebook not only advertises us to unknown strangers, but is also a tool that could threaten and put some people in dangerous situations. Increasingly, I hear many tragic stories of teenagers because of Facebook and seeing it drastically grow, they scare me.

We are surrounded by “cyberculture” and its values and norms include the “culture of openness, knowledge sharing, and access” (Ritzer and Guppy, 2014, p.146). In an online environment such as Facebook, our lives are absorbed, as we are constantly in touch with the posts of photos, videos, the likes and comment. We are integrating our reality aspect of life into the social life through our constant engagement with social media.

I enjoy being on Facebook, I get to see photos of my high school friends who are now in different places around the world. Its always handy to see what our friends are uptp. But my point goes back to Allison’s post on Facebook (thanks Allison!), I will spend my time on Facebook and other social networking sites “intentionally”, not just for entertainment purposes but viewing information and questioning myself “how much of personal information that I trust be posted in an online public setting such as the Facebook?