The poster I made for the CAPC Conference at Frog Hollow

This past Saturday I volunteered at the Community Action Program for Children (CAPC) conference.  This year the conference focused on health education and activities for parents.  The annual conference welcomes members, staff, and volunteers from other neighborhood houses, giving participants an opportunity to meet and mingle with people from both in and outside their own communities.  Coordinator of family programs at Frog Hollow, Lea Laberge explains how the day is a rare opportunity for parents to have “adult time” as child minding is provided for the duration of the conference.

As UBC volunteers, it was our job to prepare and present posters and information on different health issues faced by parents and their children.  Stations ranging from car safety to healthy eating formed a path through the room.  Participants were divided into three groups and the conference was divided into three parts.  In the largest room, one group was to walk around, visiting displays promoting health.  As they would visit, we (UBC volunteers) would talk with them about the different issues.  In another room the second group watched a video presentation and had a discussion about ovarian cancer awareness and prevention.  In the kitchen, the third group watched a cooking demonstration.  Once each group had participated in each of the activities, they split into two groups:  one doing yoga and one doing arts and crafts.  It was at this point in the long day, nearing the end that I really felt and saw the impact of the day.  The arts and crafts workshop was a the perfect relaxing ending to an informative and interactive day.   Everyone had a great time creating their works of art and parents seemed to fully enjoy their day of learning and relaxation.

Although my final project is not directly related to my neighborhood house placement, my time spent there has definitely helped me to understand similar themes in my mother’s story of immigrating to Canada.  In 1967, after fleeing to Canada in hopes of a better life for an interracial couple, and as an act of opposition to the Vietnam war, my parents became immigrants in Canada.  After my parents divorced, my mother, who was raising six children on her own, decided to go back to school.  During this time of readjustment, my mother relied a great deal on community and community programs.  Many of these programs were available to new immigrant families.  It was at these events and programs that my siblings and I met many of our friends.  It was also at these events that my mother built strong friendships and networks, and where her passion and commitment for social justice re-emerged.  As an African American woman, my mother was used to adversity and although her experiences of hardship and discrimination were harsher in the place she emigrated from, as a visible minority in Canada, my mother shared many similar experiences with other immigrant women and families.

In their article Neighbourhood Houses and Bridging Social Ties, S.R. Lauer and M.C. Yan explain how voluntary associations and programs “are important creations for tie creation.  These organizations bring people together to form new non-kin ties and therefore offer the possibility for creating diverse personal networks.”  As my final project will show, and as the CAPC conference proved to me, these programs are not only important in providing access to information and resources, they are as, if not more important in providing spaces where people can meet, make friends, and build new communities.

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Lauer. S.R. & Yan, M.C.  2007.  Neighbourhood Houses and Social Ties.  Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Diversity: Working Paper Series.  pp. 5-34.

The Etic and Emic volunteer

This past Saturday, I helped out at the CAPC Conference – an annual conference for parents about health and wellbeing, which was hosted at Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House (FHNH) this year.  As part of my placement, I created two displays: one about healthy breakfast and reading nutrition labels, and the other about farmers’ markets in Vancouver.  During a portion of the conference, parents would visit different displays and talk to volunteers such as myself about the topics our displays covered.

One of my displays for the CAPC Conference

In Chapter 4 of my Fieldworking textbook, the authors discuss the different perspectives a fieldworker my hold: as an insider or an outsider (referred to as the emic and etic perspectives, respectively).  When I arrived at FHNH, I was experiencing the environment with an etic perspective:  I was following directives about where to move different objects to prepare for the conference, and about who to process registration.  Without the directives, I would have had no idea what to do.  When parents visited the displays, I initially felt like an outsider, speaking to them as an objective, detached person with a scripted idea of what to say about breakfast, nutrition, and farmers’ markets.

As the day went on, and I started to recognize similar themes in parents’ questions and comments (for example “is ____ safe to feed my child?” or “I prefer to serve my child ____ because it is healthier”), I started to experience the conference from a more emic perspective.  As parents visited my displays, I felt more comfortable about and aware of the types of concerns that they had, which I think enabled me to be a more effective volunteer.

For example, at my display, I had samples of healthy, dry cereal that could be served to children for breakfast.  Many of the parents commented about how they liked the taste and thought it was appropriate to serve to their children, but those with younger children often expressed concern about the cereal being too crunchy and hard to eat. I don’t have children and spend very little time around them, so these comments were really useful in giving me an insider’s perspective about nutrition.

This experience helped inform my final research project which on the topic of breakfast.  What I have been learning from most parents is that the biggest influence over what will be eaten for breakfast is efficiency. In addition to cooking, [arents with young children also have to do things like dress their children, pack their children’s bags, make their lunches, drive them to school or wait with them for the school bus.

By contrast, when I get up in the morning to go to school, I just need to get dressed, have breakfast, and then run out the door!  If I sleep in and don’t have time for breakfast, I can still always grab an overpriced muffin at UBC on my way to class.

After helping out at the CAPC Conference this weekend, I better appreciate the hard work that goes into parenting, and I hope my contributions were helpful to those who attended!

References: FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research, by Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater (2007)

Introduction

My work as a UBC Farm volunteer (with both the Urban Farmers and the Maya Garden) has led me to wonder about connections between the Farm as a small-scale organic food producer and large, industrialized, factory-farmed food systems (perhaps represented by the nearby Save-On Foods supermarket).  More specifically, what are the lines of connection between the Farm and the industrialized food systems around us?  I am also interested in differing notions about food amongst Farm staff, volunteers, and the Maya-Guatemalan (my term) garden caretakers.  How do UBC Farm workers/volunteers conceive of and relate to food?  How might the Maya-Guatemalans conceive of and relate to food differently?

Research Process

My research partner Victor, and I currently volunteer six hours per week with the Farm. Thursday afternoons are spent with the Urban Farmers (usually six of us in addition to the work leader) performing a variety of farm-related tasks such as weeding, mulching, and eventually, harvesting produce, while Saturday mornings are spent working at the Maya Garden under the supervision of the Maya-Guatemalans.  At the Maya Garden, Victor and I engage in hard, manual labour with tasks such as weeding (using a long-handled cultivator tool, much like a hoe but with a fork on the end) and the unearthing and removal of the multitudinous rocks in the planting fields.

During our shifts, there is not much time to do research, but there is usually time to chat while we work, and in this way, we are able to acquire meaningful information about the farm, other volunteers, and the Maya-Guatemalans.  We have gotten into the habit of spending time writing, straightaway after our shifts, so that we can record important information while it is still fresh on our minds.  Before I began work at the Farm, I was certain my research project would be related to food, but I was unclear as to how.  After starting work at the Farm and having the chance to chat with Farm staff, volunteers, and some of the Maya-Guatemalans, I realize I am most interested in natural food systems as contrasted with industrialized food systems.  Applying this to my work, I have conjectured that there must be various meaningful connections between the Farm and the nearby industrial food systems and I want to discover just what those are, what they mean to people, and how they tie/bring people together.

Conclusion

After every volunteer shift, my research seems to unfold and come together a little more concretely.  It also evolves as I discover more about the Farm and about how people relate to it.  The Farm comprises very different narratives; I must find a way to relate them to each other as I seek to discover the connections between these natural food narratives and the nearby industrialized food systems.

Recently, myself and the two other students placed at South Vancouver Neighbourhood House had planned on facilitating a discussion to gain input for our final project. Although this didn’t go as planned, we discovered vital information that has helped narrow the focus for our group project. One question that I was interested in answering was what the participants hoped to gain from their time there. One member explained that she had joined not to achieve a specific end result, but instead to engage in the process of being part of the group; it was the journey, not the destination. She also mentioned that she wanted to connect to and communicate with other women in the community. I would like to find out if this is a common view. Since the women’s group is not a registered program, most participants don’t attend regularly, so embarking on a specific project together would be difficult. From this, we began to think about a final project to promote the women’s group, in order to encourage more immigrant women in the community to come together.

We would our final project to be something that can be left with the women in the group and will benefit them, which has led us to the idea of designing a brochure to attract new members. The brochure would list basic information, but would also explore the group’s role in building community, from the perspectives of the members and the group leader. In this way, we would be able to incorporate into the final project the valuable information found in our interviews. I would also complete an individual paper as part of my project, and as part of this I will be able to reflect on the tensions in the different ways that this group is imagined and defined.

Bonnie Stone Sunstein & Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater point to the identification of unity and tension within sources of data collected during fieldwork as important to the research process. Through my research process, I hope to uncover this unity and tension within the women’s group and within the SVNH. One example of unity is evident in how the words of the above mentioned group member parallel the themes in a particular piece of artwork located in the lobby of the SVNH (see below). In this piece, the road seems to be a metaphor for the emphasis on the journey rather than the destination. In fact, the end of the road does not lead to a specific destination. This echoes how the group member talked about her purpose for being there. Also, in this piece of art, the SVNH appears as the focal point of the neighbourhood, which gives the context of how SVNH positions itself/sees its role within the community. I would like to explore whether there are tensions between how SVNH envisions itself and how the community sees it.  I hope that the exploration of the tensions and unity will ultimately result in a more comprehensive project, with attention paid to the details that, while vital to group functioning, are often hidden from the view of outsiders.

Works Cited

Chiseri-Strater, Elizabeth & Sunstein, Bonnie Stone. 2007. FieldWorking: Reading

 and Writing Research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Where to Draw Lines? Othering and Immigrants

Somewhere between reading through the color lines, that criss-cross through time and nations, described by Foner[i], and the folkloric “cultural problems” described by Li[ii] that prevent immigrants “successful” integration into Canadian society, I realized that the research project I was about to embark on at Gordon Neighbourhood House would involve laying down similar “lines” of some variety.

In part, this stems from my hypothesis that the basis of the Senior Needs Assessment Survey that I am helping coordinate and conduct are based on assumptions specific to a culturally specific demographic. One main objective of the Needs Assessment Survey (NAS) is to identify the extent and variety of housing issues affecting seniors in the West End of Vancouver. The original draft of this quantitative survey involved questions about seniors’ abilities to “age in place,” meaning aspects of their lives that aid or prevent them from living happy healthy lives in a permanent residence. This phrase was not familiar to me, but understood by the three members of the NAS panel working in or studying gerontology (the study of aging), as well as the West End Seniors Community Planning Table, who identified the need for the survey.

This is an excerpt of the initial outline of my research idea that I sent to my fellow NAS panel members a week ago:

Through interviews with immigrant seniors, I hope to determine whether such terms are understood and valued to the same extent, and to gain a clearer picture of housing issues as experienced by immigrant seniors. The data that comes out of quantitative reports is often interpreted according to the reader’s own values. Definitions of “home” or “aging in place” may have different values attached to them. My intention would be to complement the data collected through the surveys by adding snapshots of the diverse experiences and perspectives of seniors relating to this issue.

While the “immigrant” in IVEFS can apply to a wide array of those individuals I have come into contact with during my time at Gordon House, in the formative stages of my research design process I have assumed those worthy of being interviewed to be coming from a society at least somewhat different from “mainstream” Canadian, American, or English speaking European societies, and in many cases racially different from the main “white” populations described by Foner. The probable result of such criteria would not be a biased selection of “foreign-looking” immigrant seniors like those in the folkloric immigrant definition outlined by Li, but “foreign sounding” immigrant seniors.

My original assumptions and rationales for selecting “foreign sounding” immigrant seniors are as follows:

1. Immigrant seniors from England, Ireland etc. would have similar values surrounding home and social policies, due to a circulation of ideas and sharing of cultural origins within the English language (it would not surprise me if this were false)
2. Non-native English speakers might be more likely to have trouble dealing with landlords and may not be familiar with avenues of legal recourse
3. Those coming from different cultural backgrounds are more likely to have different ideas, experiences, and values surrounding home and housing

My worry is that my criteria for selecting interviewees depends, to a large extent, on measures of “otherness.” Before finalizing my project proposal I will need to decide whether or not my approach will help by identifying assumptions in the NAS or simply survey to overwrite “foreign looking” immigrant seniors with “foreign sounding” experiences.

Having identified the “everyday world as our problematic”, Dorothy Smith, in her book, provides a solid basis for understanding how sociological explorers must learn to scrutinize all social events as a result of their position inside and outside the situation. Central to Smith’s argument is the notion that these positionalities must create a balance between making objective observation and engaging in inquiry. I have realized, over the course of my fieldwork at the Kitsilano Neighbourhood House office, that it is extremely important to maintain my role as an external observer and an internal discerner of culture.

Firstly, as an observer and outsider, I have tried to survey the dynamics of the space with intention and purpose. In order to do this, I have had to reconfigure my mind to constantly remain alert to the new environment I’m in. This has involved developing a sensory consciousness of the space around me: what new images am I seeing; what new sounds am I perceiving; what new smells am I detecting; and most importantly, what new emotions am I feeling? Remaining sensitive to each unfamiliar detail has therefore been an effective way of making and maintaining useful observations of my surroundings.

Secondly, as an inquirer and insider, I have found it necessary to engage myself with the “daily practices of (the) actual individuals” that I am working with (as Smith describes).  So far, I have been able to carry this out by taking the time to converse with my supervisors and other staff members, asking them informally about their backgrounds as well as their roles in Kits House activities. I have also participated in several meetings and events to understand the dynamics of my work environment and the relationship between Kits House and other community partners. My engagement with youth in the Citizen U program that I am involved in has given me a chance to learn about their perspectives on discrimination and racism in a high school environment. Thus, I have used my opportunities within the Kits office to develop rapport with the staff and program participants.

While I have easily been able to identify this insider-outsider dualism, I have not found it an easy task to actually separate the two perspectives while at work. The staff at the Kits House office have been extremely friendly and inclusive – in fact, I feel like I’ve worked with them for a longer period than just three weeks! This has made it easier for me to position myself as an insider and to genuinely enjoy making connections with those around me, while learning about their work ethic. Taking the role of an outsider has been more challenging as it has involved me constantly reminding myself about being sensitive to small details that I otherwise would not pay much attention to.

The staff of Kitsilano Neighbourhood House, having recently encountered a transition in terms of the physical relocation of their work, has had to adjust and re- adapt to their new environment. This change has, to some degree, impacted the means by which programs are organized and community members participate. I have found myself, time and time again, viewing the whole process of relocation as a metaphor for migration, whereby newcomers and immigrants move to a foreign environment and must make use of the resources around them, however limited, to remain productive and successful in society. I have found this metaphor of movement and change a useful and appealing lens through which to examine the internal-external dynamic of positionality in my work place.

Smith, Dorothy E. 1988 The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

One of the major inquiries within the social sciences revolves around the question of identity. This idea of what makes us and how we perceive this is constantly at the nexus of the individual and their greater society, as demonstrated by the increasing use of hyphens (ie Chinese- Canadian). This process of becoming ‘Canadian’ for new immigrants is not necessarily an adoption of a single cultural identity, but a multitude of new identities related to the greater perceptions of immigrants within Canada. I have been struggling with some of these labels in my time volunteering at the Culture and Communication Exchange dinner at Little Mountain Neighbourhood house. The dinner itself is aimed at the Spanish speaking population in Vancouver, facilitating English lessons for those of a Latino background. Yet while this linguistic targeting is practical in order to facilitate lessons, I started to question the overarching label of ‘Latino’. While in their original countries, the immigrants and temporary workers at this dinner were categorized by nation (Peruvian, Mexican, Puerto Rican ect). Upon entering Canada, the individuals at this dinner have taken on more than a Canadian identity, but two other loaded labels – those of Latino and immigrant.

Immigrant by itself is a term nestled in a tumultuous web of politics, public opinion, and stereotype. It seems to state: “ Welcome to Canada! Now don’t steal our jobs, learn our language, don’t build massive houses for your entire family, don’t bring over your entire family, feel blessed we brought you here, and ‘integrate’ as quickly as possible. Also don’t cost us any money. Welcome to Canada!”. That has been my biased interpretation in any case. As scholars have pointed out, the term immigrant is often a coded term for ‘person of colour’ and associated with coming from poverty for a ‘better life’ in Canada. That loaded label is a bit much for anyone to take on, especially when you are new to a place. The immigrant label is not the only term being imposed upon newcomers to the country. Regional labels also become apparent, as if by crossing the border in to Canada the individual borders of their ‘countries of origin’ are lost to greater global regional identities (ie Middle Eastern or Latino). These regional identities are a part of the immigrant experience to Canada as it flavours their interaction with Canadians. By putting many nationalities to this greater regional identity, like in the flag above, it seems to erase the tensions and strife between nations and national identities in the region.

It seems strange to say that the woman to my left from Oaxaca (Mexico) is part of the same cultural experience as those from Argentina, Puerto Rico or from Peru. Each of these national identities are taken in to the ‘Latino’ label, much the same way my Irish heritage would be mixed in to the same pan national ‘white’ identity as someone from Texas or Germany. While many embrace these new parts of their identity (becoming Latino Canadian and proud!), it is an additional identity that seems normal in to ask of immigrants in Canadian culture. No one asks Canadians to give up their national identity, yet why is it normal to ask this of immigrants? This multiplication of identity labels for immigrants is something I continue to question at Little Mountain Neighbourhood house, as I get to know these increasingly hyphenated (Latino-Immigrant -Canadian) individuals.

In her book, The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Methodology[1], Dorothy Smith asserts that the social analyst is always part of the social scene they study.  Within these scenes Smith goes on to say that there are numerous dynamics at play which create relations between objects and people.  These relations influence our behaviours by imposing instructions and protocols upon and between objects and individuals that we interact with in our everyday settings.  For instance, at one layer of relations a field is deemed to be a soccer field by a series of relations that bestow meaning onto the field.  Without these relations the field is merely a large rectangular surface covered by some sort of green bladed plant: it has no meaning and no function.  However, by connecting a relation to the green rectangle, declaring it to be a soccer field, the area takes on a series of meanings, giving it a place and a purpose within our everyday setting.

At my field site, I am an assistant coach for a group of Bhutanese boys who grew up in refugee camps in Eastern Nepal.  When I think about Smith and her methodology of looking at a place and recognizing the relations that are projected onto the settings we are positioned in, I wonder about the relations that exist on the field we practice on and where on that field I am in relation to these boys.

Our practices are held at a school, close to where the boys now live.  Although the field is even and the grass is cut regularly, there are no lines to mark the boundaries of play and the nets that are there are chained to fences at the ends of the field.  These nets face the fence.  Attempts have been made to contact the school to unlock them, but there has been no response on the school’s part.  We make due by playing with the nets backwards.

The other night I played on a soccer field at UBC.  It was perfectly groomed and had solid visible white lines and eight nets on the field.  In both fields there are sufficient relations to declare them as soccer fields, but where one thrives, the other lacks.  And in this case, the lack of access to nets at the other school, in comparison to my experience at UBC, highlights a disparity in relations concerning membership.

As a UBC student and a campus resident I have access to one of the best soccer fields I have ever played on.  These fields are accessible to me because of my membership and proximity to UBC. Membership at their field, however, is locked away from these boys, and reserved for others  This field represents their home turf, but ironically they lack the membership which would grant them the full capacity to make the field into a fully functional soccer field: a field with at least usable nets.

This difference in membership made me realize my position in relation to these boys.  In one respect, my relation to them is that of an outsider who is trying to gain membership into their group.  On the flip side, however, they are the outsiders and I stand to represent the group they seek membership into: Canadian society.  Although we physically stand on the same field, we run under the constraints of many shared but also many different relations and the varied spectrums of the relations between us situate us on symbolically different fields.  In that sense, we live fields apart from each other, but not worlds apart by any means.

This distance can be bridged, and through playing soccer we can make this happen by helping build new relations – relations that extend memberships to these boys.  It is from this position that I realize just how important and meaningful playing soccer can be, and this is something I am now reminded of every time I see a soccer field.

Image taken from http://www.insidevancouver.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DTES.jpg

I have been working at the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House for the past few weeks serving food during the lunchtime drop in. I am realizing that it is not an easy place to be. Even before I moved to Vancouver, people constantly reminded me of the notoriety of the area as a place where Vancouver’s most destitute come to reside. I have never really been able to take these warnings seriously; most remind me of children’s stories of Bogeymen and Demon Ghosts, tales to keep us away from the fire, stories that demonize the poor and dig deeper lines of separation between people. Although I recognize a lot of the rhetoric of fear and loathing as largely unfounded, I cannot help but feel a sense of discomfort when interacting with people at my field site. Anthropology recognizes that any interaction between researcher and participant will inevitably influence data that is collected. As Burawoy describes, these contextual effects can be highly informative and offer new lines of insight. Therefore, I have tried to use these moments of discomfort in my interpersonal interactions to inform my research and better understand the dynamics of community in the area.

I can be very shy and passive and I am absolutely terrified of conflict, which has made it difficult for me to maintain dialogue and has distanced me from the people I am working with. Sometimes however, the few verbal interactions I have had with people end up pushing me to be more aggressive, particularly with men. I have had guys ask, “hey gorgeous, are you on the menu?” and I feel disgusted and angry. I have to calm the urge to tell people to eff off. I must be polite, calmingly Canadian polite. Except that one time someone asked if I would sell him my panties. Gut response got the best of me, “fuck off, no.” I am constantly at one extreme or the other, fight or flight, afraid or aggressive, because people are constantly transgressing my personal boundaries either intentionally or unintentionally. Even speaking to women is difficult because many of them are themselves being aggressive or defensive, perhaps for the same reasons I am behaving this way. Within the neighbourhood house itself, these experiences and interactions have meant that I try to be as passive of an observer as possible and focus on interviewing volunteers rather than community members. Although not the ideal way I would like to interact with people, I have to concede to my own limitations and discomfort and try and find ways to work with what I have.

The DTES is not the demonic hell hole that people constantly depict it as; there are nodes of community that certainly do exist and the DTES Neighbourhood house is one such venue. Although my interactions with people in this community are limited by my discomfort, I am using these interactions to inform my analytical approach and further explore how they might reflect deeper issues of community building and belongingness. I try to keep in mind Burawoy’s assertion that any sort of intervention between researcher and participant, even from the most passive observer, can be both informative and insightful.