Archives: November 2014

Chinese or Canadian or CBC or…?

I would like to start my post this evening with the question: what does “co-ethnic” mean?  These two weeks, the theme for our seminar has been race and ethnicity.  More specifically, as part of this week’s readings, we are looking at a couple of research studies done by Dr. Eric Fong at the University of Toronto and Dr. Elic Chan, who is an honorary research associate and sessional instructor at our very own university – UBC!

In their article, Fong and Chan gave an overview of past research, findings, and theories involving co-ethnic clustering. Then, they talked about their research on Chinese and Indian immigrants who settled in Toronto.  Back to the question I posed in the beginning — what does “co-ethnic” mean? It is simply when you have people of the same ethnicity together.  In the case of “co-ethnic clustering,” we have people of the same ethnicity coming together and living in the same neighbourhoods. They then go on to discuss factors that contribute to co-ethnic clustering: co-ethnic preferences, economic resources, and the use of co-ethnic information resources. Their findings show that co-et

Ethnic preferences (the favouring of amenities that are relevant to their ethnicity, such as Asian malls) and using co-ethnic resources – specifically Asian real-estate agents – were predictive of co-ethnic clustering.

This article led me to ponder about my own ethnicity and how that affects my choice of people I hang out with.  A few weeks ago, I attended an event on campus in which the purpose was to bring together Chinese-speaking international students to talk about their identities in light of the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong.  With the exception of the Mandarin for Cantonese Speakers class I took in first-year, this was the first time I got together with so many Asian people all at once through by the factor of Chinese-speaking.  This makes me think about ethnic-clustering (mentioned above).  My reasons for being there though, were different.  One reason was to support friends who were there, but other reasons included interest in the topic.  Discussions focused on self-identity.  Participants were all from Asia – Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, and I was the only Canadian-born-Chinese.  I identify with Chinese culture and values, but not with Chinese as a nationality as I’ve never been to China before.

I think the event and the class discussions have really connected for me in that I’ve been asking myself questions of my identity and how I come about to hang out with friends that I hang out with.  For example, I often see many Chinese students clustered together or athletes clustered together. My reason for clustering? Mainly as a result of work/volunteer and class involvement!

Source: Eric Fong and Elic Chan, “The Effects of Economic Standing, Individual Preferences, and Co-Ethnic Resources on Immigrant Residential Structuring” International Migration Review 44(1): 111-141.

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Eliminating Racial Hierarchies at UBC: The Global Lounge

In her book “Race, Space, and the Law”, Sherene H. Razack discusses the concept of space as a social product, and how it can shape the identities of individuals. She states that identity-making processes that exist in spaces are multiple and gendered, isolating subordinate groups and creating a hierarchical race structure. In other words, the spaces that individuals are placed in shape their identities and how they are seen and perceived by others.

The effect of space on racial hierarchies can be looked at in a historical context. Due to the impact of imperialism and colonization in history, public spaces have created racial isolation between individuals of different ethnicities or minority groups, further highlighting the dominance of dominant groups (white European settlers) who have acted to keep the minority in their place. Although that isn’t quite the case today, there are still certain forms of racial isolation in spaces that exist in modern society. Though less extreme, there are still some occurrences in which racialized groups are interlocked with one another and cause a clash of cultures within the sharing of space. Steps have been taken to counteract the amount of racial isolation in areas, especially in UBC.

The Global Lounge at UBC (located around the Marine Drive residences) acknowledges multicultural diversity within the university, and provides a shared space for any student to use and feel at home. Throughout the school year, they hold various events to promote global citizenship and encourage networking between individuals from different groups. In addition, the structure of the lounge reflects on and recognizes the cultural diversity that exists within the university, and acknowledges the unseated Musqueam territory that the campus is placed on. In this manner, the Global Lounge acts as a counteraction to racial isolation on campus and providing students from different parts of the world to recognize themselves as individuals who come together within a shared space, rather than being isolated from one another.

I recently attended an event hosted by the Global Lounge known as “Impact Lab”, a series of workshops that promote topics related to global citizenship, and was attended by Global Lounge network members (such as myself), and others who were invited. The particular session that I attended focusing on the topic of “the power of connections”. These workshops helped give Global Lounge network members (such as myself) and other attendees an insight to the importance of connections between cultures and further solidify our knowledge of being global citizens, increasing our awareness of the people who we share the space with. The workshops that took place during the event gave those in attendance a better understanding of the sharing of cultures and the impact that recognizing the presence of other races and cultures can have on society.  One of the workshops that I took part in was hosted by two network members from the Caribbean African Association and Engineers without Borders, which discussed the failure of the PlayPump water system in Mozambique, and the role of culture in this situation. By discussing this, we gained a better understanding of how the clash of cultures and racial isolation can make an impact on a part of society, in this case the PlayPump project. For instance, revenue was dependent on the use of billboard ads that surround the water tank, which we determined was an unwise idea because the people in Mozambique wouldn’t mind the ads posted. In relation to Razack’s article, the implementation of a capitalist method like this creates a sense of racial hierarchy through the form of a South African organization placing themselves in the space of the Mozambique population, showing a clear existence of racial hierarchy within the shared space and making the identities of both parties more transparent.

To avoid racial hierarchy in UBC, the Global Lounge opens their space to all students who want to feel comfortable and welcomed in the university. That way, international students and local students aren’t isolated from one another and can share the identity of being UBC students and also global citizens, eliminating racial distinction and hierarchy in campus. In addition, with the acknowledgment of the unseated Musqueam territory that UBC is on, the Global Lounge provides a welcoming atmosphere that acts as the opposite to spatial regulation of the different types of students in UBC, allowing everyone to be more mindful and aware of the owners of the land they are on.

And last but not least, the Global Lounge gives those within the shared space the opportunity to be able to network with one another with a nice hot cup of free coffee. Because let’s face it, who doesn’t love free coffee?

 

 

 

 

 

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“Is this Halloween Costume Racist?” Drawing the line on cultural appropriations in costumes

The day before Halloween, the Sociology Students’ Association held an event with the Anthropology Students’ Association to facilitate a discussion on cultural appropriation on Halloween costumes. The panel involved professors from different disciplines to give a holistic view, including Renisa Mawani (Sociology), Charles Menzies (Anthropology) and Leonora Angeles (Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice).  The event was hosted in the Anthropology and Sociology Building at UBC during a lunchtime break. Because I didn’t have class at that time and because I enjoy listening to these types of conversations, I readily participated and attended the discussion.

 

The ideas brought up by the audience and panel was extremely interesting and yet unsurprising. The first topic that was discussed was Halloween’s traditional historic roots. It derived from a Celtic harvest festival tradition where it celebrated the eve of All Saints Day to celebrate those who have passed away. It was a day of reversal, an inversion from good to bad that opened up a way to abrupt society and allow acts of rebellion. The true spirit of Halloween is unleashing this “chaos.” Presently, and particularly in North American Western culture, Halloween has turned into a capitalist invention of consumption. In other words, it’s a holiday that encourages us to buy, buy and buy treats, decorations and (of course) costumes.

 

Costumes that people wear on Halloween are becoming more controversial in regards with cultural appropriation and sexualization. However, for this blog, the former will be mostly addressed rather than the latter.  The question arises as to which cultures are being appropriated? What are costumes that are made to be costumes (i.e. black face)? How do humans create and produce these ideas in the first place? But before answering these questions let’s define the term Orientalism. Orientalism is a term coined by Edward Said and explained that it is a process of cultural representation of “others” or “Orientals” (those who are not European, white or from the West geographically, morally and culturally) (Said 31).  The images that we see of Mexican costumes with a sombrero, poncho and mustache or the Native American costume with the feather headdress are all images produced by white Western eyes, not their true cultural meaning.  So the big question that we’re all asking now (and what was asked in the event) is: Where’s the line in what is appropriate in terms of non-racist costumes?

 

To answer that question lies with another question: What is the fundamental problem that we must first address? As hinted by Orientalism, these images are made by Western ideals. We must re-imagine the power play that is at large. The ones who have power, control this production of images and costumes as acceptable. As Razack states, we live in a “white settler society [that] is established by Europeans on non-European soil” (1). Ultimately, there is a racial hierarchy in our system, which is reinforced and created through patriarchy and capitalism.  It is this system of social institutions that obscures the problem and it is through addressing the structural division of power that we can fix any other issues.

 

An analogy that Charles Menzies brought was that this situation is like a sickness. In addressing only racist cultural appropriations we are only fixing the symptoms of a sickness. We must diagnose the sickness first to eradicate these symptoms of racism and appropriation. In this case, the sickness is the way in which there is a structural division of power in our society that controls these images.

 

Overall, I enjoyed listening to the discussion made.  I went to this event because I love learning about issues like this that revolve around race. It was extremely interesting to me because I thought about Halloween in a deeper extent that I would’ve done if I discussed this with a friend. It was unsurprising because it was logical and understandable in how these racist costumes are from a bigger problem of power relations. It makes me wonder how one (especially those who are not white) negotiates their identity in Canada, in a culture that tells other cultures what they are “supposed” to be and look like. I agree, it is a larger problem than it being racist, it is about the ways our society and culture has been created by white settlers on non-European lands and the implications it has.

 

Works Cited: 

 Razack, Sherene H. “When Place Becomes Race.” Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002. Print.

Said, Edward. “Knowing the Oriental.” Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. 31-49. Print.

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Goffman, Foucault, and a UBC Nerdfighters Event

In this second blog post of mine, I am going to write about a club event that I attended. The club is called the UBC Nerdfighters Club and the event was their Dead Poets’ Society Halloween Event.

So, Nerdfighter? What’s that? The UBC Nerdfighter Club describes their purpose on their Facebook page:

Our goal is to bring together the local Nerdfighteria community to decrease worldsuck and have some fun while we’re at it.

 DFTBA

Still confused? Let me unpack that for you. By the end of this blog post, I hope to give you a sense of what I’ve discovered the UBC Nerdfighters Club to be about and how club members use the club to negotiate their identity. I am going to unpack what it means to be a “Nerdfighter” in “Nerdfighteria” and, to do so, I am going to employ the theoretical help of Goffman’s (1961/2012) piece, Asylums, as well as Foucault’s (1975) piece, Discipline and Punish.

I did not have much of an idea of what a Nerdfighter was until I went to this club event. A close friend of mine had told me about the club before and had tried to explain what it was, what members did, and why they did it, but the terminology that she used to describe the Nerdfighter culture (i.e. “worldsuck”) threw me off a bit. I asked her to take me to a club event so I could see for myself what the club and its members were about… this led to us attending a Halloween event they named the Dead Poets’ Society (after the movie, I assume… although I have not seen the movie myself if I am being honest). The gist of the event was that, in gearing up for Halloween, we were all to meet up, eat a lot of sugar, and have a poetry circle of sorts where everyone brought some “spooky” material to read to the group.

When we walked into the room that the event was being held in, we were met by many rounds of “Hello!” from other club-goers. We all sat in a circle of chairs and helped ourselves to baked goods. We began the night with introductions. Going around the circle, each person was to introduce themselves by name along with a declaration of which Hogwarts House they were in (Pottermore-dictated or otherwise). Next, as per promised, everyone took turns sharing poetry. I heard everything recited from Edgar Allen Poe to J.R.R. Tolkien (recited poetry from a club member as well as an audio recorded version of Mr. Tolkien himself narrating it—both in elvish) to the “Monster Mash” (because, as club members voiced, no Halloween celebration would be complete without it). As the poetry began to taper off, the topic of viral Youtube videos came up and so our group watched some popular and comedic Youtube videos that, seemingly to me anyway, appeared irrelevant to poetry but nonetheless enjoyable. This soon led to a big group discussion on television shows as well as past/upcoming movies based on comic books, which led to a group debate on DC versus Marvel comic book characters.

At this point in the night, I was starting to get a good feel for the atmosphere in the club—it seemed that nothing was totally off-topic for them and everyone got caught up in the different fandom subjects with ample amounts of liveliness. It was at this point that I explained to everyone that I was new to learning what “Nerdfighteria” was all about and gave an open question out to the group to enlighten me and describe what the club meant to them. I explained that, to me, it seemed that if club members were interested in topics of sci-fi and fantasy literature and film (as were continuously brought into discussion), they could just as easily join the UBC Sci-Fi and Fantasy Club. I was confused as to how the UBC Nerdfighters Club was any different from this.

In answer to my questions, club members then pointed out to me that, actually, two executives of the UBC Sci-Fi and Fantasy Club were at the event too and that Nerdfighters had a distinctly different culture than just being interested in sci-fi and fantasy fandoms. A club executive explained that “Nerdfighteria” is a community (primarily an online community) stemming from the VlogBrothers, John and Hank Green. Basically, John and Hank Green are two brothers who post video blogs on Youtube. Their vlogs have gained popularity and have happened to intersect with many sci-fi and fantasy fandoms because of some of the content in the vlogs include John and Hank Green’s musings about their various fandom interests, however one club member explained to me that it was not just about the fandoms per se: “The cool kid in middle school that you never were—here, you’re cool.” Another club member added that the club was a place where anyone could come to be an enthusiast at, no matter what you wanted to be enthusiastic about. It was also explained to me that the club was about “doing good” by “decreasing ‘worldsuck’—things that make the world sucky” and “increasing ‘worldawesome’—things that make the world awesome.” I was told that increasing worldawesome is done in a couple ways. One of the most essential ways to increase worldawesome is by facilitating acceptance (acceptance of different likes and interests, acceptance of different ways of thinking, acceptance of different people). Another way to increase worldawesome is done through the number of projects that the Vlogbrothers have founded to promote charity and awareness to different causes—most notably, the Project for Awesome.

To give some theoretical backdrop for how I understand Nerdfighters to be constructing their identity, I will first introduce Goffman (1961/2012). Goffman (1961/2012) begins by writing on the characteristics of ‘total institutions’. He defines total institutions as structures of “residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals [are placed], cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life” (492). Goffman (1961/2012) points to mental hospitals and prisons as examples of total institutions. He writes that total institutions facilitate a “mortification of self”: “process of ‘killing off’ the multiple selves possessed prior to one’s entrance into the total institution and replacing them with one totalizing identity over which the person exercises little control” (492). Goffman (1961/2012) notes that, in these total institution settings, individuals who go against the administrative totalizing force often have their behaviour characterized as “acting out”—he emphasizes that this “acting out” is really just a way these individuals are attempting to preserve their self-autonomy and preserve their behaviours as of their own doing.

While he writes on how mental hospitals and prisons as total institutions shape the self through isolation, regulation, and formal administration tactics, these examples also shed light on the nature of the self as it is experienced in more “ordinary” civilian settings. He understands that an individual’s identity is something that is constantly being defined by the restrictions and freedoms that other institutions place onto the individual (Goffman, 1961/2012). He writes that “the individual… [is] a stance-taking entity, a something that takes up a position somewhere between identification with an organization and opposition to it, and is ready at the slightest pressure to regain its balance by shifting its involvement in either direction. It is thus against something that the individual can emerge” (Goffman, 1961/2012, p. 502). Goffman (1961/2012) specifies that “Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wider social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personal identity often resides in the cracks” (502).

Quick to emphasize themes of opposition, Goffman (1961/2012) would help explain how the Nerdfighters find their identity in resisting the pull against the rigid boxes that society puts around what it means to “be cool” and what are the acceptable ways for an individual to “be”—behaviour, likes/interests, and otherwise. The idea of Nerdfighteria is a notion to extend acceptance to all individuals no matter where they come from, what they like, or how they think to oppose this totalizing idea that being cool is not to indulge in things that may be considered by larger society as being “nerdy”.

Foucault (1975) piece can also aid us in understanding this relation of power in Nerdfighteria as an aim to redefine what being nerdy entails. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault (1975) writes that power is a relation between the “powerful” and the “powered”. He writes that the relation between the two characterizes the following causal relations: if the powered disobey the powerful, the powerful punishment powered, and so the powered remain submissive to avoid this punishment. This internalization of discipline Foucault borrows from Bentham’s conception of the Panopticon.

Being a nerd is often denoted as an undesirable (sucky) status. Nerdfighter culture is a movement to reclaim the status and re-define what it means to be a nerd and re-define it as something that is awesome. In Nerdfighteria terms, Nerdfighters (previously, the powered) aim to reclaim the power by redefining what is “sucky” and what is “awesome” (“awesome” wields the power, “sucky” denotes non-power). Nerdfighteria attempts to break a setting that functions as both Panopticon and total institution.

John Green gives a simple definition of what it is to be Nerdfighter: “a Nerdfighter is a person who, instead of being made out of bones and skin and tissue, is made entirely of awesome.” I conclude on the note that, rather than fighting against nerds (as the name might suggest), the term embodies fighting FOR nerds and being “pro-nerd” by pushing against the bounds of worldsuck and redefining worldawesome as a push against totalizing social pressures and against these pressures that attempt to instill an internalized discipline.

 

…Lastly, what of the mysterious acronym “DFTBA”? It is the motto of Nerdfighteria meaning “Don’t Forget To Be Awesome.”

UBC Nerdfighters

References

Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and Punish. New York: Pantheon, 622-636.

Goffman, E. (2012). Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. In S. Appelrouth & L. Desfor Edles (Eds.), Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory (2nd ed., pp. 492-502).  Thousand Oaks, California, USA: Pine Forge Press. (Original work published in 1961)

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Share: The Spatial Politics of the Occupy Central 佔領區的空間政治

Translated by Marianne. Written by Xueying He 何雪瑩. Saturday, November 11, 2014.

The Occupy Movement in Hong Kong has lasted for a month and a half. The three Occupy Central leaders claimed that they would confess to the police someday. Students organizations like the Hong Kong Federation of Students and the Scholarism believed that they could not retreat without any desirable outcomes. These show that everyone has a rather similar view towards the Occupy Central: the three leaders think that civil disobedience is the core of the movement, so the movement could not reach an end unless they confront the judicial process; the two student unions think that the movement is the means to the negotiation of political reform. However, how is the Occupy Central different from other social movements? Although a tough question, I would like to start my answer with the function of space, through the  perspective of urban geography.

佔領持續接近個半月，佔中三子強調有天他們會主動自首，學聯和學民認為未有任何成果難以撤離。這說明了各人對佔中的想像非不一樣：三子認為公民抗命是佔領運動的核心，必須完成自首和面對司法程序整個運動才告圓滿；雙學大致上認為佔領是政改談判的籌碼。然而佔領跟其他社會形式的社會運動有何分別？ 這個問題不好回答，但從城市研究或地理學而言，起點必然是空間的作用。

We are surprised by the booming study rooms, the colourful comment walls, the concrete flower garden, and the tents everywhere on the highway; we are attracted by the surreal scenes that appear in Hong Kong for the first time. These scenes are possible through the interaction of space and time. The typical organized political involvements such as voting and council meeting occupy very limited time and space, and most of the recent political engagements and social movements occurred in the virtual space. This is not to deny the importance of the time-space-constraint political engagements, in fact these forms are the also the necessary components of this Occupy Movement. But the Occupy Hong Kong reflects the infinite possibility of occupying a physical space for a longer period of time.

我們對瘋狂生長的自修室、五彩斑斕的連儂牆、水泥地上種花、幹道上遍地盛開的帳篷驚喜，為香港首次出現如斯虛幻的畫面着迷，事實上這些景點得以發生，是空間和時間兩者互相交織而成。一般體制式的政治參與如投票、諮詢會議等所佔據的時間和空間都相當有限，近年矚目的網上政治參與和社會運動更是發生在虛擬空間。這不是說時間和空間有限的政治參與不重要，實際上以上的政治參與和社會運動都是這場佔領運動得以發生所不可或缺的條件。然而今天的佔領之所以如此撼動人心，甚至超越其他社會運動，正反映出長持續一段時間佔領物理空間所孕育的無限可能性。這也許是其他形式的社會運動無法比擬的。

Surrealism of Walking across the Flyovers

游走於行車天橋的超現實
數周前我在「流動民主教室」曾經提起，能在幹道上蹓躂是多麼surreal的事，有位中年男子立刻走過來對我這種「佔領幹道」的正面思想表達不滿。今天用雙腳在金鐘的行車天橋上游走，我仍對眼前的景象有多超真實感到不可思議。這的確不是我們使用空間的習慣。試試閉上眼回想佔領或罷課前的金鐘長什麼樣子。那是一座恍如堡壘般，被圍起（fortified）和升高（elevated）的政府機關。人們要過去多從金鐘地鐵站出發，穿過海富中心，上電梯，經天橋到達「門常開」。由地底（地鐵）經天橋到離地升高的政府總部，整個過程完全沒有「腳踏實地」，也沒有停留的理由和時刻，因為它僅僅是一條通道，讓行人行來行往，什麼事都沒有發生。

而分隔中信大廈和立法會出入口的馬路，仔細想想，我們何時開始得知那條叫「添美道」？答案很可能是2012年的反國教運動。後來今年夏天的新界東北，還有今次的佔領運動，添美道再成主角。在非「社運進行中」之時，你會記得添美道嗎？又有多少人會在添美道流連忘返？
添美道、龍和道這些地方，令我想起法國人類學家Marc Auge筆下的non-place。先別管他本來的理論是non-place是超現代性（supermodernity）的產物而超現代性又是什麼，這些non-place的特性是沒有任何人際社會關係、身分和歷史性的地方，他筆下的例子包括機場、公路和超級市場。其他在政總短暫發生過的社會運動都曾暫時將添美道、龍和道、夏慤道這些non-place改變，為其賦予社會關係、身分和歷史意義，而眼下的佔領運動更是「2.0」加強版。

Commercial Center Becomes Living Areas

Before the Occupy, the Admiralty was a political and economic center. Such a non-space was not designed for a long stay, nor for attracting people to stay. Yet this movement is able to continue, with thousands of people staying over nights and millions of people mobilize during off-work periods, not only because the occupiers have strong beliefs in democracy, but also because this emotionless commercial centre has become suitable for long term stay and even living. This process is placemaking.

商業中心變成生活場所
本來金鐘是個政治和商業中心，non-place空間設計從不宜久留，也不打算吸引人久留，結果這場運動得以一直延續下去，長期有上千人在晚上過夜，放工時間有上萬人在流動，固然因為佔領者對爭取民主的理念非常堅持，同時也因為這個冷冰冰的商業中心變得適合長時間逗留，甚至棲息和生活。這個過程正是地方營造（placemaking）。

In other words, because citizens are most clear about the need of their communities (the best example, again, is the location of the stair handles), they do not need bureaucracy to decide the use of every inch of the land….. During a movement, with enough time and physical space,

換句話說，正因為市民本身才最知道社區的需要（最佳例子再一次是扶手樓梯的位置），他們不需要官僚以上帝視角決定每吋土地的用途。當關心空間使用的團體和個人多年來辦研討會寫文，建議釋放官僚對公共空間的限制之餘，也希望擴闊市民對空間規劃和使用的想像時，原來只要一場佔領發生，有着足夠的時間和物理空間，人的潛能就這樣釋放出來。基本的地方營造原來可以咁簡單。而當沒有了不准踢足球不准玩滑板等為怕發生任何意外等的外來規定，市民自己會學習跟別人從實踐中討論空間使用的法則和規矩。當中難免會有些衝突，例如點解你紮個營阻住我個營出入，但這也是學習的一種，而且外來規定引發的衝突、不快和風險，往往不比自發狀態少。

城市屬於使用者不屬於地主
更基本的是，佔領運動要爭取的不止是真普選、廢除功能組別和市民有免受不合理警察暴力自由這些公民及政治權利，它愈來愈關乎爭取城市權（Right to the city）。法國哲學家拉斐伏爾（Henri Lefebvre）於1960年代提出爭取城市權運動後，這場討論一直延伸至今天方興未艾，地理學者也開始將城市權的意義擴闊到無限大包括公民得以享有公共物品（public goods）如水電房屋的權利，如此使用城市權概念並沒有錯，但我們必須回到拉斐伏爾提出城市權的背景。他看不過眼的是在空間生產和使用的過程中，交易價值 （exchange value）取代了使用價值（used value）成為決定性原則。一塊地用來起樓還是起公園並非視乎能為市民帶來多大用處而是能賺幾多錢。為何今場佔領運動是一場關乎城市權的戰役，其實答案就在我們日常的修辭當中。佔領城市的主要幹道會令每人返工多30分鐘，經濟損失幾多億，商店損失又幾多億；換句話說，夏愨道應該是幹道而不是讓人佔領的建制和警方修辭正是空間的交易價值凌駕一切的明證。當我們每天為可能清場擔驚受怕，不就是因為我們使用道路和政府總部作為抗爭空間的城市權受威脅嗎？
可以幾肯定的是即使我們成功爭取公民和政治權利落實，城市權卻更難落實。一來城市權面對的不止是政治還資本的影響（全球民主國家爭取城市權的運動更是形形色色，可見民主並非萬靈丹），二來爭取城市權不是單單以獲取公共資源為目標，而是一場不曾止息和演化的運動。拉斐伏爾筆下的城市權可分為right to participation 和right to appropriation。前者比較容易理解，簡單可說是當空間改變所有受影響的城市人都該有權參與決定，而非限制於地主、屋主或股東本身；而right to appropriation更是一場阻止空間異化的行動。拉斐伏爾認為當空間的交易價值凌駕於使用價值，空間便會跟城市使用者發生異化，兩者關係割裂起來，只有通過空間的appropriation人們才能重奪空間，而非落入資本累積倫理之中。城市不屬於地主，而屬於使用者。拉斐伏爾同時提出將autogestion這個工人自己營運工廠的概念融入城市權之中，透過appropriate城市空間我們才能自我管理空間下的生活，將城市空間重新跟社會關係網絡重新連結起來，而非受資本累積邏輯決定城市生活。這，不正正是發生在今天的金鐘嗎？

當佔領運動由爭取政治公民權利延伸至城市權，而且因為物理空間和時間許可，以實踐而非一般倡議（advocacy）的形式爭取，這就是一種預兆式政治（prefigurative politics）：佔領華爾街的精神領袖、人類學家David Graeber指出，佔領華爾街的預兆式政治的重點在於，我們要爭取一個理想，在運動間必先將其實踐出來。

香港佔領主幹道的獨特性
這場佔領運動將會在香港和世界近代史上佔上一席，理順空間在佔領運動的獨特角色將對我們理解其本地和國際重要性非常有幫助。國際上近年佔領運動如雨後春筍，由2010年英國學生佔領大學校園抗議瘋狂加學費、阿拉伯之春、佔領華爾街在全球遍地開花、2011至12年西班牙的Indignants Movement、去年土耳其伊斯坦堡，關於佔領的專著和研究從不缺少。當中雖然不少研究偏重互聯網的動員能力，但空間作為佔領運動最獨特的條件卻不容忽視，而且當人家大多數都是佔領廣場或公園，香港卻因沒有如此具公共價值的廣場加上誤打敵撞下佔領主要幹道和一堆附近零碎的non-place，這種香港的獨特性注定是要被仔細研究和記上一筆的。而我們在香港，當一些前輩都說運動陷入膠着狀態而要盡快退場，或者我們是要「佔領人心而非佔領馬路」，他們說的在社運的策點上都非常有道理。但如果將空間在佔領運動的獨特性包含在內，我欣賞到的倒是另一面：時間愈長，佔領區物理空間和在其之間發生的人際和社會活動和關係也在不停演變中，如此看來這個空間實驗每天都在經歷或大或小的改變，從來不曾陷入膠着狀態。「佔領人心，而非佔領馬路」，我非常明白爭取全港市民也很大程度上同意這樣的說法，但同時我也感到，只有透過佔領馬路，人心才會發生改變。

相片、文字來自：
http://news.mingpao.com/…/art…/20141109/s00005/1415471606437

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“It’s all Greek to me” – “Doing Gender” at a Frat bids party

As the end of the “rush” period for most fraternities comes to a close, UBC’s Greek population is gearing up for its next big step in the initiation process. Aspiring members will be (or will not be) given ‘bids’ to their fraternity of choice. As a non-Greek member of the UBC population, I don’t normally have much involvement in this process, save for the fact that I have been invited to some “rush parties” along the way. This year, I was invited to what they boys were calling a “bids party,” where their aspiring members will be awarded bids before the official “bids day” which takes place at the SUB. The party was held on the Saturday night before the week of “bids day” so that the boys would have a heads up as to whether or not they would get their ‘official’ bids the coming week.

Having attended the party as somewhat of an outsider, it was interesting to observe the boys as they went through the process. It was apparent that the boys were desperately trying to radiate their most masculine features in order to impress both each other, as well as any girls that were in attendance. I found this display of gendered body language, attitudes, and actions to be very applicable to an article that I recently read for one of my sociology classes. West and Zimmerman’s “Doing Gender,” highlights some of the ways in which people interact with and “do” their gender in public environments. ‘Gender,’ according to this article, is described as the degree to which an ‘actor’ is masculine or feminine in comparison to the stereotypical expectations of gender.

As I observed the fraternity, it was extremely obvious that the boys were trying their hardest to meet the expectations of the stereotypical male. According to the article, individuals constantly perform scripts of their gender. After my initial connection of their actions to the West and Zimmerman article, this became somewhat comedic to watch. Most of the boys were buff, wearing tight fitting tops, and walking with straight backs to accent their muscular physic. As well, their language exuded what they probably associated with as being sufficiently “masculine” in order to keep themselves within the confines of what they were presenting as what fraternity members should look like.

This went on for an hour or two before the actual bids process began. Each of the aspiring members were called into a back room, where they would remain for approximately 10 minutes before being brought back out into the main room. When they re-entered the room, the members of the fraternity began clapping incessantly, and howling their fraternity chant to welcome their new pledge. I was informed that from the moment they received their bid, they became pledges, and would be made to prove themselves worthy and willing to become an official member of the fraternity, come “official initiation.”

For me, this party was an excellent example of West and Zimmerman’s theory of “doing gender.” Each member and aspiring member of the fraternity was an active participant in their gender in order to impress others and stay within the margins of the stereotypical “male.” My speculation for why the boys felt such a dire need to stay within this stereotype again follows West and Zimmerman’s theory. According to their theory, failure to properly ‘do gender’ is possible, and gender assessment and accountability are ever present. I think that especially for fraternity members, the idea of being evaluated based on how they measure up to the standards put in place for their gender category is very apparent, and constantly at the back of their mind. Overall, it was certainly interesting to observe this evaluation and presentation of gender from an outside point of view, and I wish the boys luck in their process of becoming members of their fraternity of choice.

West, Candace and Zimmerman, Don H. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society 1(2): 125-51.

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Power All Over: Foucault

After reading Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, I cannot help but to view everything through the lenses of power. Foucault describes in his article the focus of the Panopticon,  is to “induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” 627-628. His core argument is that such arrangement imposed by the one in power imposes surveillance upon the prisoners. This strict notion of social hierarchy through this architectural apparatus is what fuels the continuum of surveillance, enforcing this kind of arrangement to ensure “dissymmetry, disequilibrium, difference.” It is evident to acknowledge that Foucault tries to expose power as something larger than yourself, something majestic, something of status that hovers over you. This clear identification recognizes that power is fuelled by a single state government, or in Foucault’s context, prison guards in the Panopticon sustaining clear power relations which, “whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogenous effects of power” 628. The individual’s identities are stripped by the authorities who are present in the higher social hierarchal ladder. In other words, the surveillance imposed upon the inmates sourced from the central power erases every trace of the prisoner’s individuality.

From reading this article up until I attended an UBC event on “Cultural Identity”, I believed that power has always been someone, someone out there that provoked fear and intimidation, such as a nation’s government. However my outlook shifted when I attended this dialogue event which focussed on Identity Crisis of the self.

At the beginning of the event when I sat down, the keynote speaker of the event handed me a sheet with “Cultural Identity Survey” printed at the top. On this survey were 5 statements in which  I must circle on a scale from 1-5 where I stood on the continuum between the value statement on the left and the value statement on the right, based on my personal beliefs. The statements were:

1) An individual’s identity is shaped by themselves. —- An individual’s identity is shaped by society.

2) Identity is fixed and doesn’t change. —– Identity is fluid and changes depending on time and space.

3) I feel I am the same person with different people — I feel I am a different person with different people.

4) My cultural background has no effect on my identity. —- My cultural background is central to my identity.

5) My ethnicity is central to my identity —- My ethnicity is one of many things that inform my identity.

He began to introduce that because each person is rooted from various different cultures, we possess our own powers to identify ourselves with who we are. “Ethnicity no longer defines us, but informs us” – Obama (the keynote speaker mentions this during the discussion). It is key to recognize from this quote that, society used to categorize individuals into certain groups, whether thinking about gender, sexuality, or cultural background. Ever since the 19th century, questionnaires would ask: Please check one of the following: 1) Japanese 2) Chinese 3) Latino … etc. By checking a single box, it cancels out the rest of the unchecked choices, forcing the individual to be categorized into a homogenized group. The ease of this process allows society to define who we are on the basis of a single check mark. As a result, Obama’s notion that in the 21st C, ethnicity today informs us, referring to the acknowledgement that our own background awards us the power to identify ourselves with whatever we like. By doing so, it breaks down the walls of strict groupings, de-emphasizes the scary idea of powerful state government who defines us through these processes. Similarly, this quote dismantles Foucault’s Panopticon ideal of defining one’s identity through surveillance and authority.

In addition, the event not only provided dialogue regarding how to identify yourself through learning and knowing your cultural background, but also provoked an underlying notion that each individual holds the power to yourself. Through our previous class discussions we mentioned that one’s identity is more than often constructed based on how other’s react to you, or in other words, identity as a “social construction”. This is certainly not false, however we also must look in a contrary light in that each person is the power. Power is something imagined, and unfortunately is often portrayed as the intimidating sublime or the large figure hovering over you. This kind of control possesess the individual and thus creates a ‘false reality’ that your identity is fostered by someone else. However, we must free ourselves from the prison cells that we have so  deeply believed in and redeem power for ourself. Foucault is not wrong, but he is not right either in this context. I must criticize him in this regard that this reading is what created this “power-phobia” with the image of the authoritarian watching your every move.

After attending this event, I have learned to re-think the ideals of power and whether or not my identity is formed by social constructions or by who I really am. As a UBC Student studying Sociology, I ask of you, please, empower yourself to be yourself. Governmental Powers (prison guards in Foucault’s context) impose authority upon citizens in order to standardize everyone for simply the ease of management. However each person is different. We come from different backgrounds. Hold onto your power and resist standardization, because we are more than just a questionnaire checkmark.

References:

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Pg. 622-636.

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Bid Day a UBC Welcome to Guyland

Bid Day.

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Bid Day is the yearly UBC event in which young men discover they have been admitted in to the Greek Fraternity System.  Bid Day is the final segment of the week long RUSH process.  Students who are interest in joining a fraternity apply and go through a long interview like process with the frat’s of their choosing.  On Bid Day they gather at the Student Union Building and go through two rooms one to find which Fraternities have selected them and the second to confirm and sometimes choose their position in 1 frat, if they’ve been accepted into more than one.  If you find your name on the list, you’ve earned your “bid” and are officially admitted to begin your initiation.  The process is very quick and efficient.  It oddly resembles a sports team roster or discovering you’ve been cast the lead in the school play.

There are very few surprises on bid day.  Most of the Rushee’s have a pretty solid idea of where the stand with their first choice of frats.  From what I gathered from talking to active frat members the process is rather straight forward.  The Rushee’s find their name on the list a select few will have names on multiple lists, but for the most part this step is just a matter of formality.   However there are always a few disappointments.  A handful will walk by the lists and not see there name and will have to walk out with some inevitable rejection.

Following identifying your name on the Bid Roster for your desired frat you then make your formal acceptance in a second room where you are greeted by an active member who usually greets you with much enthusiasm and a t-shirt.  Lots of hand shakes, embraces, smiles are in the second room.  However this is not the event.  This is the behind the scenes work.  The backstage.  Bid Day is truly about what happens on the ground, or more specifically that spot in between the side of the Sub and the Aquatic Centre.  Entrance into Guyland (according to UBC Frats) happens there.

I was invited to step onto the balcony upstairs at the SUB to peer down onto the scene unfolding outside.  My perspective of the charade that is Bid Day was from above.  An eye in the sky if you will.  Below me were a lot of young men, or frat boys, congregated in to their respective packs.  Distinguished by their coordinated Fraternity t-shirts or matching attire.  They were all staring at the side door from the basement of the SUB with alarmingly eager anticipation.  Energy is high.

One frat guy comes out of the door in question and gestures for his entourage to come front and centre.  The Phi-Delts distinguished by their navy t-shirts push they’re way to the front of the crowd.  The door bursts open once again and a Phi-Delt rushes out into the mob of navy shirt frat brothers and announces a new member, who quickly follows behind the hype man and is engulfed by a sea of Navy.  The begin chanting in unison and push and shove the new member until finally hoisting him above the mosh pit of Phi-Delts.  These guys are loud.  This is the boisterous frat welcome. (Link to short YouTube clip of Bid Day 2014 t UBC)

This welcoming chanting hoisting embracing phenomenon is repeated many times over.  With each new “pledge” that comes through the door is again welcomed with a thundering chant and exclamation from his new Greek brothers.  This is supposed to mark the moment that officially welcomes them into their new community and certainly the new  dimension to their identity.  I could only imagine what a moment this would be for the newcomers.  I could imagine a whole host of reactions from “This is so awesome!”, to “What is happening!!” or even “What the heck have i gotten myself into” all could be expected.  However for most there was a quick look of shock at just the sheer volume of the chanting which was usually responded with equally excited expressions.  Some newbies cheered, some chanted along (even if they didn’t know the words), so laughed and most just gave animalistic shouts.

To say I was overwhelmed with the energy at Bid Day would be a slight understatement.  I was jaw to ground, fit a tennis ball in my mouth shocked.  More because it was almost equally as energetic and enthusiastic for every single guy that walked out of the door, and this had been going on for over 2 hours, in the middle of the day.  The whole time I was observing what was going on below I just kept thinking to myself “That’s a lot of testosterone.”  Which seems to be quite a normative response to such events because of the chauvinistic hegemonic masculine behaviors I was witnessing.  There was playful aggression, loud barbaric chanting, a sense of competitiveness to see which group could out-do the other, and of course an glorification of the Kimmel’s “guy code” also referred to as the “bro code”, as many of the frats refer to their collective groups as brotherhoods.

I believe the events of Bid Day would fit very well as a case study in Kimmel’s exploration of Guyland.  The sense of passionate unity between the Frat guys and their new recruits was evident.  They wanted to welcome them into their uniform club, not only do they dress the same (with their matching t-shirts), but the chant in unison and follow a strict hierarchy, yet instil a sense of mutual respect as they want the welcome to warm and ego-boosting before the  embarrassing and frankly humiliating initiation rituals begins.  Bid Day is about celebration of brotherhood, and its genesis in young men’s lives.  The whole process is very symbolic, with the emerging from behind closed doors into a swarm of cheering admirers and new peers.  Some would say its as dramatic of a ceremony to say that many of the frat brothers are literally entering a whole new world.  With a unique set of values.  But what Bid Day certainly reiterates is that brothers stick together, from day one.

Many of the frat brothers that I spoke to identified strongly with the Greek system.  Strongly enough to consider being apart of their frat as part of who they are as people.  I believe the electric masculine intensity that Bid Day exalts has a large part to play in the loyalty to Guyland or frats that these young men strongly identify with.

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Breaking A Norm

Time flies so fast without a hint. Our seminar is entering its second last week. For old time’s sake, I want to reflect on a little event that I created in this seminar at the beginning of the term.

I planned a norm-breaking experiment* with a friend, who was going to give a presentation to the SOCI 433 class with me. I told him that I want to break a norm by speaking Chinese in a class setting, and at the same time displaying important contents in Chinese, and he can do the same in Filipino, one of his mother tongues. (For those who are not familiar with the class, it is a student directed seminar on identity and structure. I am one of the four coordinators of this class. It has15 enrolled students, whose majors are sociology and political science; all of them are in second year level or higher. Every week, students attend two 1.5 hours classes, and one to three of them have to give a presentation on the assigned readings and facilitate a discussion afterwards.) Our presentation took place in the fourth class, when personal network was not well established between the presenters and the audience.

At the beginning of the presentation, I showed a PowerPoint slide with a rather long introduction of the reading and discussion contents in traditional Chinese. At the same time, I stood in front of the classroom, faced 14 colleagues, and talked in a serious tone about the contents in Mandarin for roughly one minute. Then my presentation partner at the back of the classroom began to speak fast in Filipino, with the long written Pilipino displayed in another PowerPoint slide. After that, we switch our language back to English. Before the class ended, we asked our colleagues to reflect on our behaviours and we debriefed on our experiment.

At first, I feel a little unprepared and uncomfortable, mainly because I had to start the presentation with Chinese. My nervousness affected my speech, making me unable to speak Mandarin as fluent as English. But as I continued talking, I came to an assumption that the contents were communicated to the audience, who remained silent but attentive. I somehow forgot the fact that all I said and displayed in Chinese would not be understood by the majority of the students. Later, when listening to my partner speaking a language that I am unfamiliar with, I was unable to capture any meaning, although I judged from the duration of the speech and the length of the written words that he was mentioning some important points.

Speaking in a non-English language in a sociology class was so unnatural that it seemed to be merely a performance. I had to control myself not to laugh at our pretentiousness. No one interrupted our speech or raised questions. When we finished this introduction, we suddenly spoke in English again, because we knew that English is the only language to sustain the operation of this class. At the end of the class, students reflected on our acts. A white female responded that at first, she expected us to translate what we said; then she came to question herself in her head why she should expect that. Another white female also reflected that she unexpected us to speak in non-English languages, but then she also realized that speaking English as a norm in universities is questionable.

By speaking non-English languages for a certain period of time without notifying my classmates, and acting as normal as I can, I intended to challenge other students’ expectation of receiving a presentation in English in a formal class setting. According to Neil Smelser, social norms are a set of mutual expectations of how to think and behave (as cited in Nick, 2002, p. 40). Their surprise would reflect that English is the normative language used in Vancouver’s higher education institutions like the UBC. Why is English the normative language at UBC? This question triggers a series of complex discussions about space, language, and identities of Vancouver. In brief, UBC is based on the unceded territory of the Musqueam community, but its official language is exclusively English, which reflects the white settler society’s identity control of communications and values over this public space.

As a Chinese, I share neither the indigenous identities nor the white settlers’ identities. Speaking my own language in a classroom, where communication in English is mutually expected, not only challenge the normalization of a white settler society’s language, but also challenge my legitimacy of speaking Chinese in public. Chinese characters and Mandarin represent my identities and values as a Chinese; they also represent knowledge and experiences that are required to understand the language. My location in the front of a classroom facing all students put me into a public space, and since I am one of the presenters, I became the center of the public discourse.

Occupying a foreign public space, being the central of focuses, and speaking in my mother tongue that few audience understood, make me a representative of a single unified identity and value as a Chinese. Yet as an individual actor in this experiment, I realized that communicating my Chinese identity and value to a public space outside China contains several barriers: the displacement of collective knowledge and experience relevant to China, the displacement of China’s cultural and political contexts, and the displacement of the audience that I can communicate.

* this experiment was part of the assignment of another sociology course that I enrolled in, which was a seminar on social movement.

Reference

Nick, C. (2002). Making Sense of Social Movements. McGraw-Hill International.

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The yellow umbrella

 

HKRibbon2_CherihanHassunDemocracy3_Cherihan_Hassun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 1st, I was walking to our 433A seminar class, while the HKSA (Hong Kong student association) stopped me and asked if I would wear their yellow ribbon to help and show support for the protests and democracy movements in Hong Kong. At first, I had only heard of this movement through media and the newspaper, but after seeing and talking with the HKSA it was real and that information was more alive and I could tell that each one of them had so much dedication to what they were doing. I had asked them why there were poster boards and markers and they replied that if a message were to be written, they would take it back to Hong Kong and be sent to the protesters on the streets! At that moment I was astonished and thought that, I should be also campaigning about Tibet and its troubles within China. This was an excellent way to excel their club, show and spread awareness, and dedication to their people in HK showing, they are not alone and that this movement has been seen worldwide. A few days later, someone had mentioned that there will be an event for the HK movement in front of SUB and that it would be good that not only HK students show up, but other ethnicities, and organized clubs to join. Once I arrived, there were many students dressed in yellow, ribbons all over and yellow umbrellas to make a statement that they are not giving up, and whatever weapons the police use like the tear gas and pepper spray, the umbrella will defend, guard and prevail truth. It was one of the most amazingly well organized event that I have ever been to, nothing like it and I felt special being able to participate in a country that allows the practices of language, orientation and freedom. I believe that this generation is for the better and that we can strive to make changes to benefit for all.

I would like to relate this event with the reading: Beyond the self: How structures limits agency. (HK movement – yellow umbrella).  In this reading there are points that have relationships, and procedures that abide with people, production, and human relations. The questions I would like to discuss are dealing with the HK movement (people) and how will the supporters protest back, (production) how their lives produce persistence? and how human relation will connect this HK movement for the better, and if universal suffrage was allowed in HK what issues would arise in the future?

Ever since the pro-democracy protesters started occupying the busiest districts in HK, the Chinese government has been trying to limit the spread of this news in mainland China by suppressing everything that is related to the occupy central movement. For example all the posts about the movement have been censored on Weibo, the most popular social media in China. Instagram was also blocked in large parts of China due to the protest. How did this occupy central movement, led by a 17 year old student, have caused such panic to the Communist party’s authoritarian control over the rest of China? Being the third most important international financial center, after London and New York City, what influences to the rest of China, or even on a global scale, does it have?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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