Author Archives: mercedes

I’ve been fascinated by ecosystems of late; by the intricate processes which often go unnoticed or unseen.  The nematodes and mites, the micorrhizal associations taking place in the soil that then provides a habitat for the trees which then capture and store carbon as well as providing various ecosystem services.  I’ve been amazed to discover about the complexities of marine ecosystems and how they have been changing rather drastically, having been greatly impacted by the over exploitation of fish stocks and a changing environment..

Everything is interconnected.  An ecosystem is an intricate web of life which is composed of many parts fit together to make a complex system.  When one part if affected, everything that it touches is affected.  The resiliency of ecosystems is greatly affected by the diversity of species present, illustrating the reality that each piece plays a unique role that cannot be underestimated.

Ecosystems disprove the notion that anything can exist in isolation.  I have found that in beginning to study ecosystems I have begun to better understand the world that I live in and be able to situate otherwise independent phenomena within a broader context.  In so doing, it becomes apparent that systems such as global health, food production, and transportation are complex rather than complicated; they cannot be understood or affected by looking at one piece alone.

The desire to understand and engage within complex systems naturally lends itself to further questions; how does one set about to understand, let alone touch something which touches everything else?  Grasp something which is infinite, changing, and dynamic?  The mystery of an ecosystem is in the way that each individual piece offers itself to the next, the way that each interaction is mediated by an enigmatic rhythm.  In so doing, individual, otherwise disconnected pieces are fit together as a whole.  The beauty of this is that a singular nematode participates equally in the glorious process of creation simply by being a nematode.

Who ever thought that a worm could change the world?

*The nematode to which I am referring is a type of roundworm that lives in the soil and helps to break down organic matter and make available needed nutrients. 

The following is an excerpt from a writing in Anthropology 330 which situates The Seed in a broader context.

Story

Humans exist in a natural world, and our interactions with one another and with our environment are mediated by our understandings of our place within it as determined by an overarching cultural or social framework. Stories passed on from generation to generation are vehicles through which that social and cultural framework is often established. In creating a sense of wholeness out of otherwise fragmented pieces of understanding, story gives meaning to our lives as social beings inextricably linked to the natural world. The story of The Seed is my own attempt to make meaning of our present engagement with the natural world. While it touches on many themes, this essay will draw primarily upon one; the food system as an expression of a society’s relationship with the natural world. It is intended to be an exploration of the stories which currently govern our interactions and mediate our relationship with one another and with our environment, and is built upon the foundation that such frameworks are integral to both environmental and social well being.  It argues that accepting a global capitalist system as our social and cultural framework has contributed to the erosion of the social relations and cultural frameworks which mediate our relationships with the environment and with one another. This has made us vulnerable to the insatiability of an economic system whose guiding principle is profit.

The following original short story was written as an attempt to explore the globalization of food and the implications on local food security.  It was submitted for Anthropology 330, Rural Peoples in the Global Economy

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 In the space between dusk and dawn, a shape coaxed it’s way along the moonlit shore. Quietly, it moved between the rocky crags, taking note of each distinctive feature with a dangerous alacrity. Moving from shore to shore, the shape tread softly in an attempt to mask it’s presence in the slowly rising sun. In the early glow of a gray morning, the vanishing water marks of the shore was the only evidence of encounter borne by the shape as it disappeared. Yet despite the means used by the interloper to operate in the unseen, the landscape was altered by those footsteps. As time wore on, the shape returned to this place, returning to those places which it had noted so carefully, and quietly gathering fragments of the rock which had fallen to the ground. It picked up the grains of sand which had been washed up on the shores, and tucked them inside of a glass jar. Time after time, the interloper returned to these shores, and time after time, it carried away with it a piece of the land. Each time after that, it would leave a piece of itself in the places it had emptied; it would leave a seed. And this seed contained within it the essence of the interloper, it bore its resemblance entirely, and once planted would grow up into a fruit bearing tree containing infinite amounts of similar seeds. Time passed, and the quiet moonlit dawns turned into expeditions carried out in broad daylight; the tiny grains of sand grew to be rocks, boulders, foundations. And slowly by slowly, the seeds took root, plunging their hands and toes into the fertile soil of the shore. And the seeds grew up into trees whose roots spread and become strong and indomitable. The shore, the virgin shore, lost its way and became a forest unrecognizable to its former eyes.

And the trees bore fruit; the fruit was sweet to the taste of the people. They did not know from where it came; they could not see the seed of its origin. Many marveled at the ease with which this fruit grew, its trees spread easily as far as the eye could see. The trees were strong and took no care of the other life forms which lay in its way. Its roots encircled them, and slowly they vanished. As the landscape changed, the people began to forget how they used to live, and began to steal from the land, just as the interloper had done. As the fruit began to replace their former foods, its seed took root within them, and they took on the shape of the interloper. They began to forget who they were, and rather than reject the allure of the ever expanding trees, they took the seeds and began to plant them in distant lands. The fruit was sweet to their taste, and the trees began to spread into all the earth. And the trees replaced the small shrubs, the low lying bushes, and the flowers which had graciously nourished the people for generations. Some quietly mourned the slow disappearance of these old friends, but most had become enamored by the sweetness of the tree’s fruit, and the ease with which they could pick it, and ignored the pleas of the elders. Children grew up knowing nothing of the ways of the past, some did not even know where the fruit came from, for it too began to be mysteriously separated from the tree, being sent to and fro faraway places. The spread of this fruit seemed invincible; before long its roots had circumnavigated the earth, weaving an impenetrable web….

One day, the people began to notice that something was very different; they no longer knew how to care for the earth and the former harmony which had governed their interactions gave way to an entrenched chaos. They used to have enough for everyone; but despite the promised abundance of the fruit, some people began to lack. Some people grew rich, they grew in power, and took as much fruit as they could. Others did not have enough. Slowly, this difference grew, and the rich became more and more rich, while the others grew unable to live. They fled to the margins of the community. Slowly, all around the world, those margins grew and grew, until many people could not live well. The food which had once covered the shores and nourished their bodies became an inaccessible commodity. They ate the fruit, but it did not sustain them. And soon they could not eat the fruit from the trees, for it was quickly gathered by the rich. They exchanged their time, their strength, their health to be able to pick the fruits which had fallen to the ground.

Illness began to spread; it spread to the people, touching their bodies and their minds. And it spread to the earth, touching the soil, the mountains, the rivers, the fish. Even the sky and the air grew faint. All around the world, the systems which had sustained the earth and the people began to unravel until the people began to worry. They began to despair, wondering how they would ever put it back together again. They tried to recover what had been lost, digging deep into the soil to find water which had not become contaminated. They grew hopeless when all that they encountered was roots; tentacles of the seed had monopolized the subterranean world. They began to despise the seed and its fruit. They began to fear it, to distrust it. They began to long for their former days, to dream of a new seed which could replace the old, a seed which could restore that which had been stolen.

Reflection and action are two sides of the same coin; engagement in life.  We act out of our thoughts, out of our ideas of what is real, and what should be made real.  I am reading a book right now which is about social innovation, about the multle lines of connection which string together people and stories, through which social change comes about.

The following are excerpts from this book, Getting to Maybe, written by Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman, and Michael Quinn Patton, p. 61 (references below)

We live, by and large, in a culture that divorces contemplation or reflection from action.  We go to school, a time of contemplation, to prepare ourselves for action.  Those who never wish to enter the world of action remain in school, as academics, or become monks, writers, artists.  Those who spring into action rarely find time for contemplation, for standing still—-except on vacation, when they collapse from overwork..

What do you think of these statements?  Are academics existing in exile from the world, or is thinking, studying, and learning actually a form of action?

Deep reflection demands careful observation, not only of the details but also of their relationships to one another….Successful social innovators are thoughtful actors and restless thinkers….

The need for ongoing reflection is shaped by the fact that in complex systems, no pattern stays in place for long, and no intervention has a predictable result.  The world is not acted upon, but rather interacts with us in often surprising ways….

As students in GRS we have the privilege of engaging with the world in a unique way- we engage with its history, its present, and its future.  We look at it through so many lenses: agriculture, land, food, community, politics, sociology, chemistry… I really believe that this time of learning, contemplation, studying, is a decisive action.

1. Westley, F., Zimmerman, B., & Patton M.Q. (2007). Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed. Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada.

Statistics? Ooh…sorry!

Believe it or not, that is the response that I got 98% of the time when I mentioned that I was taking a statistics class.  And, truth be told, that was my attitude to this required course for the past few years as well. I couldn’t have been more surprised.  I have discovered a new language of communication and expression, one which I am apt to continue learning.

Statistics speak of realities, and skillfully translate disconnected pieces of information into stories.  Those stories are then legible and recognizable in so many different languages.  The background, different elements of the context, and predictions of the future.  Statistics is practical, but it is also highly philosophical.  It is founded upon certain agreed upon truths which allow statisticians to make inferences based on a small sample size of data.

Before I took this class, I felt quite opposed to reducing people’s stories to statistics, and did not appreciate the value of this field.  What I have learned is that it is an incredibly useful tool in giving power to those stories, not only those of people, but those of the environment.  Of gathering together different stories and identifying trends and commonalities between them.  Of understanding the context in a totally different way. Statistics is a tool in analysis and understanding.

This is a reminder to me in just how varied the skills which are available as we attempt to understand one another and the world in which we live more completely.  As I apply the concepts I learned in statistics to my field of study, which has come to be defined as the relationship between sustainable livelihoods, food security, and health (specifically nutrition and maternal health) in a global context, I see how useful this kind of depth of analysis will be in asking the right questions, and connecting different sets of data together to see patterns and trends, to understand not only what is, but why it is.  To see relationships between different, seemingly unconnected, parts of the picture.

Mulembe.  You respond, ‘Mulembe’.  Kamahua.

This is a traditional greeting in Lugisu, one of the 52 languages spoken in the nation of Uganda.

Who is Uganda? Where is Uganda? What are it’s stories?

Yes, Uganda is a nation which borders Kenya, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda, yes, it is a member of the East African Community, a regional intergovernmental organization, yes, it is a nation who was colonized by the British until 1962, a nation with a rich and diverse cultural heritage with over 60 tribes and 52 languages. Yes, Uganda is all of this.Uganda is a highly agricultural nation, known for beautiful art and excellent music, for the infamous tea shared so frequently between friends and colleagues.  For the Nile River, for its mountains, lake, and rich natural beauty.

Yes, Uganda is all of this, and so, so much more, because Uganda is a nation which is composed of more than 30 million people, each of whom are a unique, beautiful expression of Uganda’s story.We fell in love with the nation because we fell in love with the people, with their warmth, welcome, their humor, laughter, and their enduring love. With their humility.We fell in love with their determination to overcome overwhelming challenges such as the HIV epidemic, which swelled in the late 80’s in Uganda.

Enter the story of The Aids Support Organization; TASO has been a key leader in reversing what was a death sentence for nearly 30% of urban populations in the late 80’s; HIV and AIDS.  The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Uganda has since been driven down by 22.7% to 7.3%, due in great part, to the leadership of sixteen individuals who chose to embrace those being rejected and stigmatized because of AIDS, to meet the practical needs of the dying, to offer care and support to the lonely and afflicted, and to advocate for those who were oppressed.  Meeting in houses and a borrowed office, they may not have imagined the magnitude of national and international social change that they would inspire, nor that that they would teach and train well over 30,000 people in more than 21 nations on HIV/AIDS treatment and management, that their expertise would be sought after by institutions such as the UN. I doubt that this small group who began without a name, an organizational structure, or any funds would today be administrators of the Global Fund for Uganda due to their recognized leadership, integrity, and organizational efficiency.  That from a borrowed room in Mulago Hospital, they would imagine that today, they would be operating 11 fully equipped service centers spanning every region in Uganda, having brought a cumulative number of over 200,000 people through TASO care since their inception (TASO Achievements, http://www.tasouganda.org/).

They were simply a small band of people who had committed to care.

They acted on one thing; love.

I feel like at least ten years have been condensed into this last one. Amazingly enough, I have five or ten more grey hairs than I did last year at this time.  I must have learned a lot!

One thing in particular that has really changed my life has been working with people who think and operate very differently from me.  I remember early on this year a friend asked me how I was liking my job working with other student leaders at UBC.  I gave her a blank stare, and replied that I was ‘learning a lot’…code for thisisreallyhardandIdon’tlikeit!!! More questions revealed that one reason it was so challenging was that no one on my team thought like I did! Months and months went by, and though I recognized that my ideas were different, I could not understand why despite our best intentions, we were having such a hard time seeing things the same way, and functioning as a team! It felt more like we were in a three legged race gone wrong-people pulled in different directions but forced to work together. 

One day, frustrated, tired, and still totally oblivious to what was really going on, I went out with my team for a drink after our day.  Feeling guarded and misunderstood, I was totally unprepared for the beautiful thing that was about to occur.  As we began to talk and be honest about our experiences, I heard my team-mates in a new way, and realized that we had been totally set up! Each of us sees life, work, and communication in a very different way, and each of us brings a unique piece to the table. In fact, we were chosen not for our similarities, but for our differences! For a long time, we struggled to put those pieces together, but in that moment, a lightbulb went on for me as I realized that not only do they see and think differently from me, but I see differently from them, and just as I was frustrated with feeling misunderstood, they were challenged by not being able to understand me! As we talked, hope began to chase away the shadows in my mind, and I saw that it was in fact our incredible differences that created the potential for excellence. I saw that I needed to learn to see through a different perspective and communicate to understand, not to be understood.

 This experience for me has been more meaningful and helpful than anything else I have learned, for it was really a microcosm of the world in which we live, and how really, we are each using our own lens to see and interpret the world, but that lens cannot be assumed to be universal.  I am learning that it is in that space, that un-interpreted, un-communicated grey zone that most great ideas fall to the ground.

Furthermore, as I saw how unique each person really was in their approach, I started to see the potential for interdisciplinary, intercultural teams to go deeper, wider, and farther than we can go as individuals.  I started to see the world in a new lens, to see the incredible complexities differently, and to realize that we so desperatly need one another to piece together the whole picture.

Offer up your piece, no matter how small or big it is!

Two years ago, I arrived at UBC with a dream in mind.  Young, determined, and full of unspoken assumptions, I came thinking that I knew what to expect. In fact, until I sat down to verbalize these dreams in my five year plan (very good idea!), I didn’t quite realize that what was in my head and what was in my heart were quite different!  As I began to write, the evidence of a paradigm shift spilled onto the page.  Once so confident in my role in the world, I had now started to see very differently, to see the unseen histories, power structures, and ways of relating that have shaped our world today.  I saw that mostly, Ihad tended to interpret the rest of the world through a lens created by second hand stories about people I have never met.  The stories of ‘the poor’ in our world that are told by the rich, creating a form of ‘poverty knowledge’ that is vastly different from reality. 

My definition of ‘the poor’ began to be challenged as I delved further into this story, and began to see that those with little material wealth in this world may be far more rich in the truest things of life than those whose lives are characterized by comfort and financial wealth. This year especially, I have seen my own poverty in a new way; a total paradox between material goods and internal poverty.

This desire to leave my own comforts, leave the familiarity of this culture and hemisphere in order to hear the real stories of others, and see life through a new lens became an urgency as I reflected on the very reason for which I had come to UBC in the first place; to study Nutrition and Maternal Health in an international context, unto becoming skilled enough to serve those in need in what I had once thought of as ‘poor countries’.  Everything about this has now been turned upside down and put on pause: why?  Because I am not willing to become another ‘development expert’ who is unable to see through the eyes of the other, (those they are trying to ‘develop’) and stand together with them as equals. Furthermore, the assumption that others are in need of ‘development’ is a construct of politics and power, and may not be true at all!  I realized that I too have heard a single story (Adichie); both of development, and of nations deemed to be in need of such a thing.

I feel like we as a world are actually on the brink of a massive shift in how we see and understand others around the world; too much has been built on false stories, partial stories, and un-truth.  

One year ago, I set in my heart to begin a new journey this May.  A journey of discovery, of learning to see and hear differently, of listening to stories, of leaving my own context and becoming ‘the other’ to someone else.  One year ago, I did not know how this would materialize.  Today, I just finished packing one blue backpack that holds almost all of my worldly possessions. One backpack that will travel along with me to Uganda in just a few short days.  One backpack that will be filled with a new story.

I am going on a journey of learning to see. to hear. to smell. to touch. to taste.

I am going to reclaim my senses and shake off the dust of an upside down world in search of an upsidedown kingdom where the first are last, and the last are first.

The Danger of A Single Story, Chimamanda Adichie.  Ted Global 2009, Filmed July 2009, Posted October 2000. http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

The Following is an excerpt taken from my own writing, submitted for Sociology of Development and Globalization, submitted February 13, 2012 (SOCI 301, highly recommend it!!!)

It was amazing for me to study the history and context of “development”, and start to see how and why the world is the way that it is, and realize just how meaningful our words are!  One very interesting reading for this class was a short text taken from Arturo Escobar’s ‘Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, (Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J. , 1995), called ‘The Discourse of Development’.  It is upon this text that I expand. 

Enjoy!

“What does it mean to argue that development should be understood as a discourse?”

 Amartya Sen describes public discussion as a vehicle for social change. Something happens, something is created as ideas are formed into sentences that are then pronounced, agreed upon, and disseminated. Perhaps the reason for this is due to the reality that everything that is translated into the natural, tangible world begins in thought form, is fortified as it is spoken, and is ignited into reality as perceptions and mindsets are molded in response. Conversation is the process of naming and un-naming, (Freire, Paolo) of speaking realities into existence, and of forecasting futures. When someone whose words hold weight says something, they are in essence creating a new reality in the dimension of the unseen and bringing it into the physical realm where its implications are tasted, touched, and felt by the people whom it affects. Development as a discourse is a particular way of understanding the world in which we live, and the powers that shape it. This paradigm considers the power of a word, which is the embodiment of a thought, the expression of a belief, and the action of a value. A discourse brings abstract ideas and concepts into an arrangement that can then be translated into an action, or series of actions. A discourse is a process of identifying values and establishing connections that shape perceptions, which then shape actions. Arturo Escobar refers to discourse as the process through which social reality comes into being, the articulation of knowledge and power, of the visible and the expressible,(Escobar, p. 84) and discusses the way in which words create space (p. 85) that guarantee a certain response. I doubt that Escobar is referring to physical space; rather, he is describing an unseen reality that houses our words. Words express values; and when those words are spoken with power, a reality and way of relating is established. Everything exists in relationship, the premises for engagement within are critical.

  “A report that is issued by an expert has the potential to shape a reality for many, for it creates a premise upon which a response is justified. This report is an example of the ways in which a discourse creates a context for ‘development’”

Sen, Amartya, Development as Freedom

Friere, Paolo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed Escobar,

Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World