Archives: self and society

A Reflection on Reflection 對反思的反思

My identities are complex. They keep changing and shifting focuses depending on context. And They should always be intersectional.

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“my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.” – Flavia Dzodan

Reading this quote on Facebook today made me think of my positionality in relation to the #Ferguson issue. The jury officially announce that the white male police, Darren Wilson, face no charge shooting 18-year-old ‎black citizen Michael Brown‬ to death on August 9th in Ferguson, Missouri, United States. Started from Ferguson, a city with a large black community, solidarity events and protests spread over the U.S. and some parts of the world, many tagged as #BlackLivesMatter. Learning from Alice Goffman’s lecture earlier this semester that in low-income black communities, young men have to face policing, arresting, and killing in their everyday life in the U.S., I do not just see the shooting and the jury decision as a single issue but a systematic problem that put the African-American ethnic groups in fundamental disadvantage and injustice. 

Why does this disturb me and why it is relevant to me? Because in this context I quickly see myself as a person of colour in a white-settler society (Razak, 2002) that is established upon white privilege.  At the same time, along the line of Razak’s intesectional approach to space, gender, and race, I am aware that my position as an ally with the #BlackLivesMatter protest is not simply related to my skin colour, but a self that intersects with multi-dimensional identities such as in ethnicity, gender, and social location. To expand my thoughts I think it is good to start with this tweet:

#Ferguson

[first, let me try to type in my thoughts in Chinese]

這幾行字簡約卻充滿爆炸性，因為其啓發我將種族和性別不公聯繫在一起。這在我看來，也是交織性女權主義的魅力。

[Then, I translate them into English]

These few lines are simple but explosive, since they push me to further see ethnic and gender oppression together (in a white-dominated patriarchal system). To me, this is the charm of intersectional feminism.

[as I learn sociology through an English-speaking education, I soon run out of words in Chinese and return my reflection to the English thinking mode]

To be sure, paralleling the experience of the “black man” and “girl” in contrast to the experience of the “white boy” does not mean that we should draw an equation mark between the two. My experience being a Chinese woman is very different from that of a black man. But the experiences of the blamed and the redeemed connect me to the movement of black people’s rights.

When I was taking SOCI 101 sociological theories in another university, I was confused about the feminist theory because I saw it as a combination of all kinds of social justice arguments. To be honest, I was not impressed at all and I came to resist the “feminism” label. I had negative feeling towards feminism as feminists make claims over almost every issue on injustice. To simply put, I was tired of seeing the label “feminism” everywhere. At the same time, “feminism” was a term that I often associated with the images of radical men-haters and naked FEMEN.

But now, when I am reflecting on how I have been reflecting on feminism during these few months, I see the value of feminism that intersects every social components together. Which means, nothing should be explained merely by race, gender, or class, etc. — it should be explained with these all together.

I first heard of the term “intersectionality” from the courses offered by the UBC Gender, Race, Sexuality, Justice program. I got to talk about it further through learning about it in some public lectures, and interacting with my friends who self-identified as feminists (mostly male!). This semester is very special to me in terms of the process of feminist self-realization. I never publicly claimed to be a feminist until I take SOCI433, which provides me with an intersectional approach to see my identities and other’s identities. The classroom goes beyond the physical space into the virtual space (Facebook group) of public discourses, and allows me discuss feminist topics and issues such as Emma Watson’s UN speech and rape cultural on UBC campus with friends and classmates.  More importantly, throughout reading feminist writings by Azaia, bell hooks, and Beckie, I realize that feminism is a way of thinking of the world intersectionally, and acknowledging our own limited but international perspectives. For example, early in Azaia’s thesis, she acknowledges that her writing comes from a perspective of a white urban working-class female (2014, p. 20). In bell hooks writing, she also make it clear of her positionality as a black female.

After all, in this post I touched lots of bits and pieces of my identities. You may think there is no “theme” or a major theory. But this is exactly my point. In this post I try to briefly show you how my identities are intersected:

  • my gender intersects with my ethnicity,  which make me an ally of the #BlackLivesMatter;
  • Chinese as my first language (everyday, reflective) intersect with English as my second language (academic, critical, reasoning)
  • my past perception of feminism intersects with my current experiences of feminism.
  • my social position as a UBC sociology student intersects with my gender, class, race, and other identities, which provide me with resource and access to critical-thinking education and further identity discovery.

My identities are complex. They could not, and should not, be reduced into a single one.

Reference:

Razack, S. (2002). Race, space, and the law. Toronto: Between the Lines.

Windwraith, A. (2014). Deconstructing the Language of Rape.

hooks, b. (2000). Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics.

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Not so trivial

A few days ago, some members of the self-directed seminar and I went to the Gallery, the on-campus pub, to grab some dinner. Unbeknownst to us, there was a trivia night event going on in the Gallery. Upon finding out, we decided to partake in it on a whim.
Games of trivia have a special spot in my heart. In high school, I was part of the school’s trivia team, and our team placed first in BC as well as doing quite well in the national competition. Even before high school, I always enjoyed collecting factoids and having obscure skills. I busted out these interesting tidbits about whatever topics we were discussing or when there were awkward gaps in the conversation. In short, I was (and still am) “that kid” who had something to say about everything.
Over the years, I have met many trivia enthusiasts through competitions and other trivia events, not to mention that a couple of my best friends were in the same high school trivia team. I had always thought that trivia attracts a certain sort of people — “that kid” — but I could not articulate what these attributes were. I stopped playing trivia games competitively once I entered university, but I still occasionally went to the odd trivia nights at pubs or at school, thinking nothing much of them. This time was different, however. Maybe it was the company of my fellow students in the SDS on identity, maybe I was in a more reflective mood — for whatever reason, I started thinking more deeply about why trivia was such a big part of my, and apparently of many others’, identity.
I think my affinity for “useless” knowledge and obscure skills stems from my body. I am not, and have never been, a physically imposing person. Physical strength has never been, well, my strength. Instead, I claimed power through knowledge and intelligence. I suspect that trivia attracts a certain type of person because its main function is to assert intellectual power; knowing small facts about subjects signals that my knowledge is so wide-reaching that it covers the realm of common knowledge and overflows into details that, surely, only a master of the subject would be aware of. Games of trivia, especially, are usually set in public arenas, such as tournaments, TV shows, or pubs. Only in games of trivia can you be a smartass in front of crowds of strangers.
This realization about trivia helped me think about the various different ways in which I exercise power. Atkinson talks about contemporary men doing “Pastiche Masculinity” — adapting to the death of traditional masculinity by creating multiple identities with various ways of claiming power. Surely staking a claim on power by knowing many “facts” is positivistic and based on Enlightenment ideas of rationality and objective truths. In order to overcome this, I must hold myself back from correcting others in abrasive ways, and consider different ways of knowing.

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The Path to an Established Career in Medicine

In my previous post, I talked about going on a tour in a local hospital led by two medical residents (Ken and Jeff) and put together by an undergraduate club at UBC.  I explained my interest in a career as a physician and then briefly mentioned the themes of structure, agency, and autonomy, using an example from the tour.  In this blog post, I would like to write about the process to an established career in medicine in relations to two of the aforementioned themes: structure and agency and using my favourite reading (The Sociological Imagination) from our seminar this semester to analyze my thoughts.

 Photo: midwifery.ubc.ca

Working 70-80hrs/week 

A recurrent topic that both Ken and Jeff brought up was having 70-80 hour work weeks.  As residents they work 70-80 hours per week with a possibility of having additional hour devoted to research work which may add up to a 100-hr work week.  As a response, I tried to challenge them with the question, “How do you keep yourself healthy while trying to keep others healthy?” It just didn’t make sense to me that the job of medical residents and doctors is to keep people healthy and cure patients, but while they’re doing that, they’re asked to work 70-80 hour weeks, to work on-call, to work overnight, to do all-nighters, to skimp on sleep….. In response, Jeff described to us times that he would not have worked-out (exercised) for months and that he hasn’t cooked his own food in three months.   He told us that it is important to be adaptable because this is just something that you “adapt to.”  He then dubbed this work-life style an “old system.”

Relocating to rural areas to work

Jeff talked to us about his desire to work in the northern areas of BC, such as Kamloops, after he completes his residency.  My question, of course, was “why?”  From what I heard, his biggest reason for working in the interior is for the work variety and calmer lifestyle that it would provide.  Whereas in a big hospital in the metropolitan areas there are different doctors working in different units, instead, working in the rural areas would mean that one doctor could be moving across all units and following all the patients. He also mentioned that there are “more things you can do” and “it’s easier to do things.” By that, I think he meant that the system is less bureaucratic and more flexible, hence easier to navigate, work around, and to do things.

Working in a big hospital

Ken on the other hand, gives off a more ambitious and driven sense of character, and is firm about working in big hospitals.  His two main reasons for doing so are: (1) he wants to deal with kids who are super sick (these residents are pediatricians) and (2) he is really keen on the academic side of things and doing research — big hospitals and big cities would have the resources to assist him with grant-writing and open up to him a network of people relevant to his research work.

Tips for Applying to Medical School

A big question that we had as a group was about the process of applying to medical school.  On this topic, Jeff and Ken had similar insights.  Both of them agreed that you need to “jump hoops” and “play the game.”  They say that the admissions process is to find the right people.  Here are a list of inspiring messages I got from them:

  • be honest, genuine, and straight-forward
  • don’t contrive / blow-up or magnify your work and/or accomplishments
  • “If you’re in it [going to medical school] for the right reasons, it’ll show [in your interviews]”
  • be excited
  • be yourself!

Jeff also told us about how we wasn’t like most of the other medical students who were overachievers to begin with.  However, after being in medical school he started following the “culture” and tried to do many things too – trying to “find his place in the world,” but he ultimately burn out.  With that, he leaves us with some life advice:

–-> “Don’t sacrifice your happiness for your future” 

 Photo: newcw.phsa.ca

This reflection makes me think about  a quote from C. Wright Mills: “The first fruit of this imagination – and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it – is the idea that the individual can understand her own experience and gauge her own fate only by locating herself within her period, that she can know her own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in her circumstances”

Throughout the three four examples I gave above, I see strong interlinks between structure and agency.  In the quote above and in Mill’s (1959) The Sociological Imagination, he discusses how people are living and making choices under the influence of the current time period and organizational structures.  Working 70-80 hour weeks – is it really a choice? Relocating to rural areas – is it really a choice? Working in a big hospital – is it really a choice? Or are these “semi-choices” or “choices under circumstances” Why must we “jump through hoops” and “play the game” in order to get into medical school? What are these “hoops”? What is this “game”? These are all questions that, I pose to the reader, you – to think about, discuss, and answer.

And the question for myself – who am I, this person who wants to do what to get where [medical school, a career in medicine]?

Reference: Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press.

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Construction of a space: My experience at UBC Improv show

I really like improvs.

Improvs are comedy shows with no script provided, where actors perform their acts by improvising on the spot.

My first experience of watching an improv show was in elementary, where a group of famous improv team visited our school to perform. The experience was mind blowing and since then, I became very interested in the subject. When I was in first year at UBC, I remember watching UBC Improv at our residence, as part of the first week program. I also went to their weekly improv shows, hosted at the Neville Scarfe building. And last Friday, I visited the site again, as an excuse for my blog assignment.

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Team Brunch Money’s performance on “Justice” in UBC Improv’s Nov 21 show

The room was filled with people and laughter was spread out through the room. Once again, I was amazed by how clever these actors were, as they related their skit to themes thrown out by the audience, built and changed their identities according to the situation and concluded by bringing together all the odd and irrelevant characters and situations to one plot. Their characters, use of language and action were rewarded by laughter and applause from the audience. The audience themselves seemed to be very energetic and engaged. What was significant though, was how this space was created.

In Razack’s article, “Race, Space, and the Law: Unsettling a White Settler Society”, she investigates how bodies are produced in spaces and how spaces are produced by bodies, based on Henri Lefebvre’s concept of space as a social product, where appropriate places to social relations are assigned, which could be served as a tool of thought and action, and as means of production, control and power.

I knew that Scarfe 100, where UBC Improv took place, was a social space because it was constructed by actors and audience who seeked for this space. The space was not randomly created but seeked by students, adults, friends of actors, and others who understood the language, understood the culture, therefore, understood the humour. I was interested in how this space was produced and how this space could influence bodies like the actors and myself, performing and watching the show.

 As the show preceded, I realized that it was the actors’ efforts that created the space of engagement and acceptance. In situations where actors blanked out, other actors would immediately jump in to improve the situation or laugh at each other to promote laughter from the audience. Engagement from the audience were encouraged by actors as they would challenge the audience with statements like “I can’t hear you!” And by waiting for appropriate themes to be shouted out. I know I am not usually an outgoing person, but I found myself quite actively engaged in the performance.

The identity of this space is also uniquely constructed. What attracts people to watch improv shows is the notion that anything can happen in these shows. Basically, anything out of the norm in society is the norm within Improv shows. Gender switches, talking animals, illuminati invasion are all commonly played out. Comedy shows like improv are also one of the few spaces where social taboos and political injustices can be performed without serious consequences. This is because of the notion that comedy shows are performed solely for humour purposes and not to be taken seriously. I mean, can you really arrest a comedian? This gives power to comedians to challenge existing social inequalities in a  seemingly light hearted, comical way. Historically, comedy shows were used by the powerless of society to voice their opinions, to influence and educate communities, on these social taboos and political injustices.

This reinforces Lefebvre’s idea that spaces are socially constructed, served as a tool of thought and action, and empower the users of the space.

However, because of this notion, there is definitely a burden on the actors’ shoulders. Improv actors are expected to be creative and funny while managing through a fine line of appropriate/inappropriate social taboos. They are encouraged to include social taboos in their acts but must be aware of the negative reactions when it is taken too far. For example, a white guy at the show provoked a lot of laughter from his character of being an ignorant American who always orders burgers at a Mexican restaurant. However, I believe this reaction would have been different if the same guy played the American who orders black people to serve him burgers. Since there is no script provided, every actor becomes responsible for their act.

Nevertheless, I have always been a big fan of improv and I encourage you guys to take part in the improv workshops, hosted by UBC Improv, as you will experience creating a small social space of your own, from attending to acting your own skit.

 

References:

Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, Blackwell, 1991

Razack, Sherene, Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society, Between the Lines, 2002

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Autonomy in the Medical Profession?

This drizzly afternoon, I rushed to the bus loop from class in order to make it to a tour of a local hospital put together by a student-run club at UBC whose mandate is to help students in their process of pursuing a certain health profession.

We were met by two residents (graduated medical school students who have begun practicing in hospitals/clinics) at the lobby of the hospital.  Both residents are males in their fourth year of residency — one had a staff identification badge hang down his t-shirt whereas the other had a stethoscope around his neck and was dressed in a neatly pressed dress shirt.  Let’s call the former Jeff and the latter Ken.

In the past year and a half, after hurdles and hurdles of career choice challenges and changes, I developed an interest in becoming a doctor.  There are various reasons why I think may be a suitable career choice for me (without thinking about my uncertainty of my capabilities in the natural and physical sciences for now).  Amongst the passion of directly help people, the excitement for science, the ability to earn a living wage, and the respect, a big draw for me was the autonomy I perceived that a career in medicine would entail.  To put it into picture, I have been (day)dreaming about how nice it would be to be a family physician/GP and be able to focus my time, attention, and efforts on helping patients without having to worry too much about living up to the expectations of supervisors, following bureaucratic rules, and navigating professional relationships with co-workers.

Hearing from the residents today made me feel a little grey as while Jeff was showing us around and telling us about his experiences in medical school and being a resident at the hospital, these words he spoke jumped at me:

  • protocol
  • procedures
  • divided
  • paperwork
  • culture
  • process
  • system
  • adaptable
  • protected time

These are all words that I would say can be related to bureaucracy and more pertaining to your class theme, structure versus agency.  Jeff used the word “protocol” when he showed us around the maternal care room.  In the maternal care room, there is an apparatus that you use to revive a newborn when he/she stops breathing (please excuse my faulty explanation). When he explained this to us he pointed to the poster on the wall which states the protocol, or what procedures the doctor should follow in such an event.  He said to us something along the lines of, “It’s here because you won’t have time to think, they just want you to follow the instructions and just do.”  

In my next blog post, I will expand on my thoughts about agency, structure, and the process to a career in a medicine.

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One Soup Night, Two Identities: Making Sense of my Musings at a UBC Event

In this blog post, I plan to write about an event that I went to at the residence that I live at on campus, my discomfort at the event, and my musings on why this was so. I will bring in aspects of Du Bois (1903/2012) to help with my understandings.

I have had the opportunity to live on campus for the duration of my undergraduate degree—well for eight months at a time anyway since I live at my family’s home in Surrey during the summers. In my first year, I lived at a UBC first year residence in a double room with a close friend from high school. In my second year, I applied for UBC residence and did not get in, so I looked into other options for housing and resigned myself to finding somewhere to live off-campus if nothing panned out. I ended up applying to another residence at St. Andrew’s Hall. St. Andrew’s is where the College of the Presbyterian Church is located at UBC as well as residences for students of the college in addition to UBC students.

I lived at St. Andrew’s during my second, third, and now in my fourth year. On their website, St. Andrew’s writes:

The sense of community is important at St. Andrew’s Hall. Not only students studying for ministry within The Presbyterian Church in Canada but all residents are encouraged to bring their gifts to the community and to make use of opportunities for intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual growth.

In my (going-on) three years living at St. Andrew’s, I have received email upon email of events hosted by St. Andrew’s for its residents and community members to attend. It was only this year that I actually went to one of them—in part because I have a roommate who is a Community Coordinator at St. Andrew’s (similar to the role of a Residence Advisor at UBC residences) and so she is very vocal to encourage all of us in our apartment to attend upcoming events. This particular event was a Soup Night. Every Wednesday, St. Andrew’s hosts a Soup Night in their chapel, followed by an “Open Table” discussion on a different religious or spiritual topic of the week, led by one of St. Andrew’s chaplains. I get an email about Soup Night and the Open Table discussion every week to remind me that there is yet another one to be hosted, telling me what kind of soup will be given out and what the topic will be. This time around, there was organic red lentil soup to be had and “world salvation” to be discussed.

I had never been in the chapel at St. Andrew’s before, but I have walked past it many times, so I knew where to go. When I entered the chapel with my bowl and a spoon, I noticed that there were some differences between it and the churches that I had been in before. It was basically a big room with really high ceiling, there was a big cross on the wall, a wooden podium at the front and some regular chairs (not pews) as well as some couches. It looked as though the room functioned for many uses so the chairs and couches being mobile helped to re-organize easily. There were also some small tables and on them sat some pots. I figured that since the objective of the Soup Night was soup, I should head towards that. The pots seemed promising, so I gravitated towards them. I was greeted by a couple people who were standing by the pots. They told me to help myself to some soup. I did. Then I stayed for a little while and made small talk with them. They asked me whereabouts in St. Andrew’s I was living, what I was studying, etc. They also asked me if I would be staying for the Open Table discussion. At this point, I made a snap decision not to go to the discussion and told them that I couldn’t stay because I had something for class due the next day that I needed to get done. That part… was a lie. I didn’t have anything due the next day.

I had decided that I had become too uncomfortable being in the chapel and would not be comfortable going to the Open Table discussion within this setting. Although the Soup Night and the Open Table discussion was advertised as being open to everyone to attend, no matter their cultural, ethnic, or religious background, I was very intimidated to partake in it. I left the chapel soon after and went back to my apartment thinking about my discomfort.

Why did I feel uncomfortable? I had been to church before, especially when I was younger. My mom is Anglican and, when I was younger, she would send my sisters and I to Sunday school while she went to Sunday mass. My sisters and I stopped going to church regularly when we got older, but my mom still went by herself or with my aunts on occasion. For the most part, I only go now if my mom wants some company on special occasions such as Christmas Eve mass. However, our family still celebrates Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter) at home. Thinking back to my familiarity in my childhood with the church, I didn’t fully understand why I felt so uncomfortable in the chapel at Soup Night until I thought on it further.

Du Bois (1903/2012) speaks about the veil, double consciousness, and two-ness in The Souls of Black Folk. He writes on the veil as a metaphor for oneself being “wrapped in”. So long as one is wrapped in the veil, they will always see the image of themselves reflected back at them as how others believe them to be, allowing others to erase their two identities. The veil affects a person when the person internalizes this erasure of their two identities. When one transcends the veil, they can begin the process of juggling their two identities and their double consciousness. This two-ness of identification is something that I struggle with.

While my mom’s influence in my life meant that I was familiar with the church in my childhood, my dad’s influence in my life meant that I was also familiar with Islam. My family on my mom’s side are European, Caucasian, and Christian and my family on my dad’s side are North African, Berber, and Muslim. The two sides of my family have contributed to my sense of two identities, two cultures, two ethnicities, and two heritages. Growing up in a mixed household and with a mixed family, I embody a two-ness and a type of double consciousness. Although Du Bois writes specifically about his own double identity being American and African in a specific context—during the late 1800s/early 1900s, a time of social and political turmoil for African Americans, the beginnings of the Reconstruction Era of the American Constitution, and the emancipation of African American slaves in the South—my two-ness identification is markedly different from his.

Now, I don’t exactly identify as Christian myself, nor do I identify as Muslim, but these religious backgrounds cannot be isolated as purely religious identifications—in my mind, there is a distinctive cultural and ethnic component to claiming either. That is to say, there are different cultural and ethnic interpretations of Christianity and Islam (e.g. Muslims in Pakistan are influenced by a different set of cultural/ethnic backgrounds than Muslims in North Africa) and that both religiosity and culture/ethnicity feed into each other. So, as I thought about why I was uncomfortable at the Soup Night and wondered why I was uncomfortable since I had been in a Christian chapel many times in my life before, I realized that it was not just the religious aspect that I spurred my discomfort. It was also the cultural/ethnic aspects that had me uncomfortable and the idea that my two-ness might be erased by the other Soup Night-goers.

Those instances in which I had experienced the church had previously been with my mom and/or my sisters, who understood my two-ness. Previously, it had been enough to have someone at my side who knew my two-ness and, at Soup Night, no one knew of my two-ness and it would require that I attempt to explain it. Perhaps at this point you’re thinking to yourself, “You shouldn’t feel required to explain your two-ness to anyone, Krystal. That’s a personal thing and so divulging it is not a requirement if you don’t want to.” But that simply isn’t true. If you gave me a nickel every time someone asked me “what are you?” or “what’s your ethnic background?” or “where is your last name from?” I would be a decently wealthy person. These sorts of questions and speculations on my identity from others in the past, in a way, have coloured how I have internalized an obligation to let others know, since those questions have always framed to me that they are obligated an answer. For this, I feel that Du Bois falls a little short on the topic of two-ness. For me, my two-ness is largely framed by how I feel the obligation to communicate it to others because, if I don’t, they will understand me as one identity and I would feel almost like a fraud to go along with it because it is not the whole picture of who I am. Yes, Du Bois hits on some really important points regarding how a person internalizes their two-ness, but his understanding of this internalization as a linear progression (being wrapped in the veil → transcending the veil → having a double conscious/internalizing two-ness) is a short-falling of his piece. Two-ness is not static and I find myself negotiating (and re-negotiating) my two-ness differently depending on the setting and those around me.

 

References

Du Bois, W.E.B. (2012). The Souls of Black Folk. In S. Appelrouth & L. Desfor Edles (Eds.), Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory (2nd ed., pp. 271-283). Thousand Oaks, California, USA: Pine Forge Press. (Original work published in 1903)

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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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“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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The Interconnection between the Self and Society: My Experience at an Orientation Event

In September, I attended an orientation/ ice breaker event hosted by one of the largest social clubs in UBC. Prior to entrance, I had a stereotypical notion of the club as being composed mainly of a certain ethnic group with a certain outgoing behaviour. I could tell I was anxious and hesitant of my interaction with the group as I found myself constantly delaying my entrance, despite the friendly welcome from the executives. Hiding in the washroom for a few minutes, I convinced myself to enjoy the event and stepped outside. Thankfully, I encountered some of my classmates at the door who encouraged me to go in and participate in the activity. As we entered the lecture room, we immediately gathered together and talked about how awkward we felt at the event and how we did not seem to belong. It was not until we were separated by group leaders to our stationed groups that our conversation ended.

The event preceded with the hosts’ introduction of the club and some ice breaker activities. In the middle of an ice breaker activity, my classmate and I decided to leave the event as we felt uneasy in the group. Once we exited the event and walked toward the bus loop, we asked eachother the reasons to our anxiety within the group. For me, ethnicity was an issue because I did not classify myself as a member of the ethnic group representing the club. For my classmate, dress code was an issue as she felt she had not dressed appropriately to the standard of the group. For both of us, age was an issue because we felt too old to be involved in orientations, mainly held to recruit freshmen and newcomers to the club. This was a surprising investigation as both of us were completely unaware of eachother’s concerns of feeling different, nor were we discriminated by the members of the club. It was our own evaluation of ourselves, based on our presumptions of who or what is appropriate for the group, that placed a judgment on our belonging in the group. It was a personal trouble, according to C. Wright Mills, a trouble “occur[ing] within the character of the individual and within the range of his or her immediate relations with others,” a private matter. After realizing this, we decided to go back to the club and enjoy the rest of the event.  However, it was clear that our personal troubles had a connection with how we were socialized by society. From micro socializations such as forming lunch groups in school and intaking values taught by our parents to macro socializations such as historical values imposed by our culture and new values imposed by the media, we are socialized to identify ourselves in a certain way and expected to interact within a certain group. Therefore, we feel comfortable in partaking certain identities and groups, while it is difficult for us to interact with other groups, especially structured organizations such as clubs, without preconceived notions. The confined boundaries of relationships and identities held by individuals thus becomes a public issue; as Mills states that it occurs when “some values cherished by publics is felt to be threatened.. form[ed by a] larger structure of social and historical life.” On a broader level, this confinement leads to racism, classism, sexism, etc.

The social club I attended attempted to tackle this public issue by opening the club to a diversity of people to break preconceived notions of the club and to provide an inclusive space for all students in UBC. This was evident through their announcements in introducing their club, representation of executives (including one of the hosts and our team leader) of a different ethnic group than the majority makeup of the club. Everyone spoke in English, providing an inclusive space for people who did not speak the language of the group but spoke English. Dress code was not imposed and stationed groups were organized according to a random selection of alphabets. Individual choices for engaging/disengaging in activities were respected and everyone was encouraged to be themselves while still being accepted. However, despite the club’s efforts and claims to provide an inclusive space for all students, the type of clothing worn by executives and the series of sexually provocative cheers and games visualized an identity of the group in a certain way which portrayed an imagined community of who belongs and composes the group, affecting the ratio of students who ultimately decide to join the club.

Furthermore, by the dress code and attitude of the executives in leading activities during the orientation, social standards of executive behaviour are set and place limits on individuals when applying for executive positions, as they would have to prove themselves to be outgoing, to posess leadership qualities, to be able to laugh at and promote activities underlying stereotypical sexual and masculine/feminine orientations, and to be, or at least embrace, the culture of the dominant ethnic group. This is similar to how new fraternity boys had to prove themselves according to certain standards placed by senior fraternity boys, which emphasized the group’s definition of masculinity, during a rush event in Kimmel’s “Guyland.”

While at a broader surface level, the club seems very welcoming and inclusive to diversity, at a higher level of executive positions, there are more exclusive standards on behaviour and ideals; it is expected that a successful candidate would be able to conform to the group’s ideas and definitions in order to be accepted.

References:

Mills, C. W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.

Kimmel, M. (2008). Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men.

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