Category Archives: Uncategorized

CAPCON, ASTU, and The Blogs

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Attending the CAP Conference was a wonderful experience. However, while the speakers were amazing and had very interesting work to share with us, I felt that was not the highlight of the event. Rather, I felt that the event was inspirational and wonderful simply because it exist. What was amazing was that there were so many students who volunteered to present and were enthusiastic about their work. The enthusiasm and real interest in what they did shown through. The CAP Conference was a good wrap up for the year due to the way it celebrated knowledge and learning.

We packed so much material into the year. While the course may have been challenging at times, everything we learned can be applied to our future academic learning and writing or real world events. Combining research writing with topical subject matter, like the TRC, achieved this. Not only did we learn how to write, but we left the class more knowledgeable about the world around us. Perhaps we were able to think about a topic from a different perspective, or to apply critical thinking to something we had not previously noticed.

The blog assignments were a great way to achieve this kind of critical thinking or different perspective. Through the blogs, we were able to discuss many issues or express ideas and then have a discussion with our peers. Or we could build off of our peers work, either adding to it or challenging it. Being able to read and understand our peers thoughts on issues discussed in class, and brining in new popular or scholarly sources helped to better our understanding or bring new ideas/perspectives to the table. This kind of work is very beneficial for broadening our understanding and developing our own thoughts.

The Cover of Cockeyed- A reflection of the emancipation rhetoric?

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While it appears many of my ASTU peers have the Canadian edition of Cockeyed (all with the same cover), there are a variety of other editions with different covers. I looked them up online and noticed how these various covers worked to strengthen the emancipation rhetoric (Couser, pg.44) of the memoir or perhaps reinforced hegemonic values. My copy’s cover looks like this:

The cover is very simple, mostly black and white, with very little text and no quotes or additional information except that it is a memoir. Most notably, however, the man on the cover, Ryan presumably, is shown without a face. As Laurie described in class, this was a way for the cover artist to show how blind people are often ignored, rejected, or otherwise treated as an unimportant “other”. By portraying Ryan faceless and only as a disabled body (notice the inclusion of the cane and glasses), the artist has shown how blind people are often overlooked by others. The able-bodied majority only sees them for their disability rather than the sum of their parts. In this cover, Ryan lacks individuality or identity, only his blindness is left. The cover calls attention to these problematic social attitudes and thus is an addition to the variety of other elements the text has that makes it a rhetoric of emancipation. On the other hand however, I find the back of my edition to be in stark contrast to this. It is my understanding that authors typically do not choose what is put on the back of their books, but that the publishing company chooses this.


I felt that this was evident on my copy’s back cover due to the way it portrays Ryan’s disability as something he might overcome and that his story serves to inspire able-bodied people. This is achieved in a similar way to this advertisement’s approach to disability, as we discussed in class. It could be argued that this edition and this edition have a similar effect by having very bright, attention-grabbing covers and inspirational backs that work to limit its “counterhegemonic potential” (Couser, pg.47).

I found the differences between the editions to be very intriguing because although they each exist for the same purpose of capturing peoples attention, they approach this in very different ways. Some editions reinforce the stigma surrounding disability by suggesting that it is an issue that can be worked through or overcome if the affected individual has a positive attitude. It suggests that if “they” can do it, “we” can do it too! While other editions or covers have the opposite effect due to the way they critique that stigma.

Multiculturalism encouraging segregation?

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Does multiculturalism encourage segregation? I read Reyhana Heatherington’s Ubyssey article, Why does Black History month receive so little attention in Vancouver? and it got me thinking about some topics we have recently covered in our CAP classes. The article suggests that the spatial factor causes black history to be neglected, therefore making it important for Vancouver to celebrate Black History Month. The article suggests that the only beneficial thing that occurred from segregation was that “it encouraged people to develop their community”. Today in Geography, we discussed the idea of ‘good segregation’ versus ‘bad segregation’. Presently, ‘good segregation’ represents the same idea the article describes, that having spatial separation can mean a voluntary, mutually supportive, group. These groups can act as welcoming points for immigrants coming to Canada and are temporary in that the immigrant’s future generations are probable to stray away from these groups. ‘Bad segregation’ represents what we may typically think of when we hear the word segregation. That is one which is long term and involuntary.

On the one hand, having spatially separate groups may be helpful to immigrants due to the benefits of being part of a community. However, spatial separation could be the start of occupational and linguistic separation, creating the long term segregation Canadians typically, currently do not desire. Thus, it could be argued that being a multicultural country, a mosaic, encourages segregation. The assimilation model, however, perhaps rids us of the segregation problem because no clear, and distinct groups form.

However, I argue that assimilation does not rid us of segregation issues. Additionally, while some immigrants arriving in Canada may find these spatially separate communities helpful, others may find them to be isolating. I believe that regardless of whether you are living in a multicultural, mosaic style country or an assimilated, melting pot, country; segregation can occur and thus it is important to be continually working towards being an inclusive country.

Distancing Ourselves from the Problem

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After visiting the Belkin’s Witnesses and the Museum of Anthropology’s Speaking to Memory: Images and Voices from St. Michael’s Residential School, it seemed to me that many Canadians (myself included) have begun to think within the “us versus them” framework, that many of them have tried to dismantle. It appears to me that a large majority of the TRC events are focused on the relationship between the Canadian government and the First Nations people. Additionally, there is a large focus on the Christian church’s relationship with the First Nations people. This makes sense for obvious reasons, especially due to the way that these institutions are primarily responsible for the residential schools- a large focus of TRC events.

As was discussed by many of my peers in last Thursdays class (Feb. 13th), the various churches apology statements are severely lacking in expressing initiatives that they will take in order to aid aboriginal communities. These churches statements are written in a way that suggests they are distancing themselves from the problem rather than providing solutions or aid for it. However, it seems to me that many Canadians are doing something similar. Despite being knowledgeable about TRC and aboriginal related issues, they distance themselves from the issue. I have often seen people think critically about the government and churches actions but not go beyond that. We begin to think within the “us and them” framework, separating ourselves from the government, and thus thinking we are not part of the problem. We are critical of the churches lack to take action but yet we do not take action ourselves.

Perhaps, we should start focusing less on the relationship between the church/government and the First Nation peoples, and begin focusing on their relationship with all other citizens of Canada. Distancing ourselves from the situation is always less effective than taking action and participating in it. I believe Canadians should start thinking about what we can do to aid aboriginal Canadians rather then only considering what the government or churches should be doing.

Who is the Archivist?

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During the last three visits to the UBC’s RBSC, I primarily worked with the Douglas Coupland Archive. One part of this archive (and a portion of the texts pre-selected for us to work with) was the folder he created containing research for his book, City of Glass. After it was given to UBC, it was preserved in exactly the same way it was originally put together because the order in which he organized his research and the method in which he did so has significance.

This made me think, who really is the archivist? On the one hand, UBC’s RBSC has played a significant role in the archival process. They collected all the materials in the Douglas Coupland Archive and organized them in a way they deemed to be productive and logical. In this Ubyssey article, written in 2012 by Kayi Wong, she describes the process of organizing, and updating the Douglas Coupland archive (whose original materials were first acquired in 2010). It is clear from this article that a lot of thought and time must be put into this process, particularly when trying to find “how and if [texts] relate to eachother” (Gillean).

The article makes it clear that there is a balance that must be achieved between maintaining the texts exactly as they were created but also organizing them in a way that aids others in understanding how texts are related. This highlights the important role that the UBC archivists play in determining how an archive is presented and understood. This role is particularly evident when remembering how our texts for this terms first ASTU paper were chosen. UBC contributed to my understanding of the Douglas Coupland archive initially by effecting how the texts were collected upon their arrival at UBC and again when choosing which of these texts would be given to me for the ASTU paper.

However, Douglas Coupland himself also played a role in my understanding of his archive. The way he presented his City of Glass research folder is the same way I am currently seeing it today. In the process of organizing the folder he had to choose what materials he wanted to include, that he wanted to organize it by chapter, and that he wanted to hold it in an accordion folder.

Taking all this into consideration, it could be argued that the library archivist, Sarah Romkey, the three graduate students (mentioned in the article), and Douglas Coupland were all archivists in this context. All five of these people had a direct influence on the organization of the Douglas Coupland archive and therefore influencing how I perceive and understand it.

Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt

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Today I saw this absolutely brilliant video project, Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt. The videos, followed seamlessly by additional, more detailed information and pictures, follows the process of creating an ordinary T-Shirt from the very beginning, at the cotton farm, to the end when a customer has it in their hands. This project was done so well because it holds a lot of information and presents it in a beautiful way while keeping it short and concise.

I found that the video relates to our course in a few ways. Firstly, it is a perfect example of globalization. Just as it is said in the videos, there is a whole world behind one shirt. The creation starts in Wisconsin, where the seed is grown, moves to Texas, Mississippi, Columbia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Miami, and New York. Without all the people and machines that preform each task in each location, the t-shirt would not be made. Every single step is important and has a large impact on the lives of the people who do them. When talking about why they did this project, Planet Money’s David Kestenbaum said “Keynes’ idea was that there’s more to the markets than just numbers; there are people and emotions making decisions. And to the extent that we are finding the human element in the very dry subject of economics, it’s actually perfect for us.”

Recently I also saw this video, Detox: How People Power is Cleaning Up Fashion, which talks about the environmental concerns surrounding the textile industry. While it is about a different subject, it also shows how there is a whole world behind one t-shirt.

Watching both of these videos reminded me of the western perspective. They are both obviously targeted towards a western audience who buys the t-shirts, not the factory workers. Both the videos are primarily about educating the western audience. I can guess that a large majority of the people who buy these shirts do not know about all the nuances that go into creating it. While I did know generally about the whole process shown in the first video, there are many aspects, like how the cottonseeds are grown in a lab with a very efficient machine, which I had no idea was happening. I found the video to be very enlightening. I think that the way it was produced, the simplicity of it, and the additional information after each video segment, made it something that anyone could easily watch and understand. They didn’t use complex language and explained things well. I believe that this made it very accessible for a large audience.

Facebook is Changing Our Identity!?

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In this illuminating video, Is Facebook Changing Our Identity?, created by PBS and hosted Mike Rugnetta, Mike speaks about memory, witnessing, identity, and how these things are affected by Facebook. As he describes in the video, Facebook allows us to post pictures and status updates therefore saving memories. With the new timeline feature, one could literally scroll quickly through the memories of their life. Obviously that may not be entirely possible. But imagine if people born today started posting to Facebook (whether it be a photo, status, or post on someone’s wall) of every major event in their lives! Each birthday, vacation, delicious dinner, concerts, good grade, job, etc. One could conceivably go on Facebook and scroll through a visual and extremely organized depiction of their whole life! However, notice how these examples are all good and happy events. An important part of Facebook is your friends, the people who you expect to see all these posts. Very rarely to people make posts about a bad day they had, that they lost their camera, went to hospital, have depression, failed a class, or broke up with a partner. People typically do not want all 500 of their Facebook friends to know this. While these things can vary on the effect they will have on your life, it has no significance to whether or not you will post about it on Facebook. Of course people occasionally do this but only in a fraction amount compared to happy statuses and pictures of their cats.

We form our identity through our memory. What we have experienced and more importantly what we remember shapes who we are and how we represent that. So what would happen if we selectively remembered? What if we only remembered the most happy and good parts of our lives? Would we still be the same person? Would we identify the same way? Facebook essentially does this selective remembering. Looking through our Facebook timeline, we remember all the good parts of our lives. Not only do we see specific things, but we see them in way better clarity and accuracy than our own memories could give us. So as we continually post to Facebook and look at our timelines, are we forming our identity around what Facebook shows us? Around specific memories of our lives? I’m not too sure. Maybe PBS does have a point, but for now I think our identity is safe from the reign of Facebook. I believe that Facebook is only a complimentary force in creating our identity rather than a controlling one.

Does Globalization Help Connect People to Each other?

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In this video, Globalization II – Good or Bad?: Crash Course World History #42, the awesome John Green discusses the benefits and disadvantages of globalization in our world today. He talks about increased individualism, the global economy, the disparity between rich and poor, imagining the future, and violence amongst other things. In the video, John Green speaks about many topics we have discussed this term in all of our CAP classes within the globalization framework.

One of the things I found most interesting was his ideas on individualism. He mentioned that when asked to imagine the future, we actually only imagine our own future. He said that in the recent past, humans have begun to increasingly celebrate individualism, especially in the wake of the failure of Marxist collectivism ideas. He also mentions how technology has increased individualism. We are beginning to spend an increasingly large amount of time at our individual screens rather than with our families and friends. The interesting things as that most of the things people do on the Internet are intended to or somewhat fulfill the desire to connect with other people. Obviously I can’t speak for everyone; I know that many people may only use the computer for work, school, etc. I also spend a significant amount of screen time writing for class on word, doing research on the Internet, or just looking up definitions, etc. None of these things make me feel directly connected to other people. However, I spend a ridiculously large amount of time on social media, an unhealthy amount of time. If I look at the most popular social websites, I notice that they are all essentially about taking a glimpse into other peoples lives and then commenting on it. They are all about sharing and reacting to peoples lives, all about sharing human experience. Yet, they are dragging us away from actual human connection. The more time I spend watching YouTube videos, the less time I spend talking to my friends who are literally only a few doors down the hall. Though, in saying this I think that it only holds true if you spend a large amount of time online. If you are able to manage your time well, I do not think that spending some time on YouTube or Facebook is going to have a negative impact on your life.

John Green also spoke about whether or not a global economy will reduce violence. Some people argue that this economic interdependency will prevent war. However, John Green points out that there is still tons of ethnic and nationalistic violence, for example in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. In our Poli Sci class we had a large discussion about when, why, and how violence should or should not be used. However, I think the discussion really boils down to whether or not the end justifies the means? Violence can be used to improve the well being of a large group of people. For example, violence was used in some cases to help get women the vote. It might also be used to sacrifice the lives of some people in order to save a larger number of other people. Or it may just be used purely for the purpose of harm. Globalization really does affect violence in all these situations. Due to globalization more people are aware of violence occurring around the globe and can take action to help end it. Again, this is an issue relating to people connecting with other people.

So, I wonder, does globalization help or hurt people in connecting people to others?

Half a Million Secrets

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I saw this TED Talk video, Half a Million Secrets, in which the creator of Post Secret explains the website, tells a few stories about particular secrets, and explains why he initially started the project. He says that he believes the reason he started the project was because he subconsciously wanted to let go of his secrets through crowdsourcing. This got me thinking about why would people want to tell their story in an anonymous fashion. There are so many websites where people can write anything they want anonymously and it can be seen my many people. However, websites like Post Secret and Six Word Memoir (SWM) are particularly interesting because they are made entirely for the purpose of telling a story about yourself, and many people hearing it, without anyone knowing it was you. I’m assuming that people like to do this because it helps them get something off their chest without facing any severe, face-to-face repercussions.

When we were initially studying these two websites I thought about Six Word Memoir as something that was more artistic or clever. I thought that Post Secret was more popular due to the anonymous and voyeuristic aspect. I viewed these two websites as having very different purposes. The first was more about posting and being creative. It appeared to me that most of the site visitors were part of the Six Word Memoir community and therefore also made posts themselves. On the other hand, I saw Post Secret as having more viewers who did not send post cards but regularly visited for the interesting, voyeuristic aspects.

However, now I have realized (something that should have been blatantly obvious to me in the first place) that both websites are actually about telling an intricate and fascinating story with only a few words. It only occurred to me after studying these websites that people are probably actually interested in Post Secret not only for the scandalous or surprising aspects of it. I think that people really like visiting the website because you get to read many stories but very quickly. You can read 10 words on one post card and it reveals a huge story that makes you curious and makes you use your imagination. I think both these websites are mostly appealing because you get to use your imagination and read a long story in such a short time due to it being told in such few words.

A Western Perspective

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I found this video, BNV 2013 Finals Round #2 – Albuquerque, to be very interesting for a variety of reasons. I obviously liked it because it was well written, preformed, and topical. But more importantly, it made me think about a concept that has continually been a part of our study in life narratives. This concept being the ‘Western perspective’. The video’s statements about privilege reminded me of aspects of reading foreign life narrative from a western perspective. One of these aspects is ignorance. Until this term, I had not previously realized how authors have to write their story while also giving the reader background information, context, and knowledge about the subject due to their ignorance. Also interesting, how this isn’t done so that the story makes more sense. Depending on the audience, the author may not have to include this background information at all because he or she knows that the reader is already aware of it. However, for a western audience, the author must fill this knowledge gap before they can begin to tell the story they initially intended to. The way this was done in Persepolis, using the child’s perspective, was very interesting and clever. As the young character learns about the world, so does the reader. I thought this was a very smart way to integrate the background knowledge into the story without it seeming out of place.

Additionally, I thought it was very interesting how life narratives are marketed for a western audience. In regards to “What Is The What”, many people in class spoke about how they disliked the cover because the boy appeared to be very anonymous and unidentifiable. Furthermore, the quote on the front of the book is more about the quality of the writing than the story itself. Many of my peers pointed out that someone would have no idea what the book is about unless they read the back and even then the summery is fairly vague. In some ways, this also brings up questions I asked in my last blog post, on whether the modifying of traumatic life narratives is acceptable because it helps to reach a larger audience or whether it is harmful because it doesn’t tell the true story to the best of its ability.

Lastly, I found it interesting to read the comments on the video. Mostly, it is people arguing. While I obviously do not except the comments to be filled with scholarly discussion, I was a little bit surprised with the response. I expected at least some people to write comments about how it was well preformed and captured a large issue very well. I thought this because that is what the people who shared this video with me were saying. However, the comments are mostly filled with presumably white people defending themselves in a sarcastic manner. There are a few comments restating what the video was saying, and a small amount of just blatant racism, sexism, and homophobia. The latter form can generally be found on any YouTube video regardless of its contents. To me these comments only seemed to further enforce the existence ignorance in a western perspective.

I wonder what can be done to better educate the privileged, western audience? Are authors already doing it very well by integrating it smoothly into their writing? Is there a better method? Moreover, are people marketing these life narratives in way that is beneficial or detrimental?