Category Archives: Term 1

Ramblings from my first term as a GRS student.

Complicit.

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Watching “A Vision of Students Today” was a reality check. As GRS students, most of us are cognizant of our place in the greater scheme of things and the impacts that our decisions have on people, places and creatures that we don’t have to face on a day-to-day basis. And yet, watching this I could relate to almost every single one of the statements the students were holding up.

Sometimes, it feels impossible to break free from my complicity. It’s so easy to grab that coffee in the take away mug, the cheap hoodie that was probably made by a kid in a sweatshop or indulge in that sweet fruit that was flown from the other side of the globe. I am so used to the comforts of privilege in our technologically connected, academically educated, consumer society. Almost everything I could ever want is right at my fingertips. Sometimes, I get frustrated and down on myself for not being stronger about making the right decisions. There is no doubt that we all need to do our best to be part of the push for a more socially just, economically sound and economically equitable world, however, we can’t beat ourselves up for succumbing to the indulgences that break our morally righteous ideals. Being cognizant is the first step. Being a part of the change is the next. I think by talking about these issues that we, as socially aware students grapple with, we can take comfort that we are not alone in being frustrated with our own complicity.

It started out small.

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It all began with an innocent search on the UBC Go Global website. I was looking for some sort of international experience (that wasn’t an exchange) that would take me to India. In this search, I stumbled upon the Academic Internship Council internship in Mumbai. This is an internship program offered through Go Global in which students are able to go abroad to do internships to gain experience in their field of study. My interest was piqued. Unfortunately, there wasn’t very much information online about the program so days later, I found myself sitting in the office of the Go Global Advisor for Internships and Research Abroad.

What started out as a far off dream of going away to do an AIC organized internship in the summer turned into a quest to organize my own internship in January instead. The Go Global adivsor made this all seem possible. With his guidance, I scoured the internet for organizations working in the fields of food sovereignty, social justice, urban agriculture, sustainable agriculture and the environment. I sent out emails to people on the other side of the world asking if they would accept me as an unpaid intern in the new year. It was scary and empowering at the same time. And believe it or not, I heard back!

I got accepted by Navdanya as an unpaid intern beginning in February. Initially, upon submitting my application, I got a reply from Navdanya Bija Vidyapeeth (Earth University) which is located on the Navdanya Biodiversity Conservation Farm in Doon Valley, Uttarakhand. I was elated at their response however this is not where I had initially hoped to do an internship. Because I am fascinated by cities and interested in the policy and activism side of food systems, I was really excited about the idea of doing an internship at Navdanya’s Delhi office. Getting in touch with the office, I learned, is no easy feat. Because New Delhi is 13.5 hours ahead of Vancouver time, there were some nights that I was up three of four times calling the office, trying my darndest to get in touch with the New Delhi internship coordinator. For a long while, she remained elusive. Finally I awoke to an email inviting me to come and intern in Delhi! Never have I been so excited.

As soon as the trip is a reality, the panic set in. It seems the closer my trip gets, the longer my to-do list gets. Passports, visas, vaccinations, documents to be obtained form Navdanya, scholarships to secure, offices to call, courses to organize. There have been a number of points in the process that I thought I would have to give up: when I learned that I might lose my scholarship if I missed the semester; when I couldn’t get in touch with Navdanya; when I couldn’t figure out the process of Visa application given my intentions to intern; when I realized how much it was going to cost me. It’s been frustrating, no doubt but the scariest part of it all is that once all the items are checked off the list and I’m sitting on that plane, I have no idea what India has in store for me. I’m terrified and exhilarated. But one thing that this experience has already taught me is, if you put yourself out there, you can make anything happen and there are always people around to help.

I really thought I could pull this thing off but today, I bought my ticket so India here I come!

West Is Best?

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It’s funny how every semester I take a bizarre smattering of classes across many faculties and yet somehow common themes always seem to emerge from all my courses. This semester I have been doing a lot of thinking about the unbelievable pervasiveness of the colonial foundation upon which our society is build. I realize it’s not an original discovery but this term I have begun to recognize the power of our colonial past in shaping our entire perspective on the world, past and present. I have also been struggling with just how difficult it is to break free from this this mindset that was constructed by imperialism over the centuries and infused into my understanding of literature, history, and even science.

It was Dr. Shafik Dharamsi’s talk that really solidified for me a lot of ideas that were swirling around in my head which I was having a hard time pinning down. As I have been trying to plan an international internship, I was struggling to articulate my motivation in wanting to undertake this international experience. At the forefront of my mind was the fear that I would fall victim to the obvious pitfalls of international volunteerism. It got me thinking about my own biases about India, the country that so fascinates me.

I began thinking about how Western hegemony is really at the root of most of the ecological and social turmoil caused by agricultural reforms in India. This is the basis for the socially constructed concepts that don some countries developed and others developing, as Dr. Dharamsi discussed. I find these terms to be highly problematic and indicative of a deep seeded problem that underlies the burgeoning unsustainability of India’s food system. The West is touted as the pinnacle of progress. Less affluent nations and their citizens strive to achieve the prosperity they perceive in the West. Richer nations in turn, “help” these poorer countries progress by investing money in a manner that perpetuates their conception of what constitutes development. Inherent in this foreign aid is judgment. Countries of the Global South are often perceived as backwards or less than. Western knowledge is held in higher regard than traditional locally adopted practices and knowledge systems. Well-intentioned Western governments, organizations and individuals often lack a basic understanding of culture and have an ingrained disregard for the value of traditions.  In many cases, helping countries to “develop”, perpetuates the colonial framework built by imperialism over the centuries and ultimately sustains poorer nations’ dependency on the West, which further exacerbates the South/West disparity. In order to deconstruct the challenges of India’s food system, we must consider the colonial histories that created the divide between developed and developing countries in the first place.

As a westerner, planning to go abroad to intern with an organization doing work in the field of food systems, I am afraid that I will become part of this problem. It’s difficult to overcome the thoroughly engrained Western biases I have grown up with. I think it is  important that the world shifts its development paradigm. Instead of imposing a top down system where we try to go in and fix the problems we perceive in the Global South, we need to reflect on the ways we might be able to learn from cultural traditions and practices. It seems ironic that as we frantically try to back step away from the industrialized corporately controlled food system – with a revival in farmers markets, community supported agriculture and urban farms – on other side of the world countries are eagerly shedding their pastoral traditions. Why would we inflict on others a system that is failing us? A wealth of knowledge and vast diversity of wisdom exists around food globally but if we continue to belittle these cultural practices, we will loose them to homogenization. In the West we stand to learn a lot from the food cultures of the Global South and our immigrant community. An equitable, just and respectful exchange of knowledge across the cultural divide could greatly enhance the social, economic and ecological sustainability, cultural and biodiversity, and equality of our food system globally. By undermining the legitimacy and value of traditional knowledge systems in India we are diminishing the stability and sustainability of our local and global food systems. We are missing an opportunity. All parties could benefit from the establishment of a lateral discourse that would allow for a mutual exchange of valuable food systems knowledge and would foster a more socially, environmentally and economically sustainable food system. I hope to become part of this conversation.

GRS GRAD FEATURED IN UBC ALUMNI TREK MAGAZINE

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http://trekmagazine.alumni.ubc.ca/2014/december-2014/features/the-love-bug/

This article got me really excited. It’s so neat to read about all of the weird and wonderful places a GRS degree can take you. I’m not someone who usually spends too much time worrying about what job I’ll get (or won’t get) after graduation. I’ve always thought that if you’ve really got a passion for something, you are bound to find somewhere you can indulge it, at least in some way, shape or form. Sometimes, however, when I think about how quickly graduation is approaching, I feel a seize of panic. What if I can’t find my place once I’ve got this degree? Reading about Afton Halloran instills a new confidence in the power of passion and in serendipity.

You always hear people say bugs are the food of the future. It seems reasonable given their environmental, health and social benefits as outlined in the article. I would love to say that I am excited by the prospect. I like to think of myself as someone with adventurous taste buds – I’ve eaten moose brains right out of the scull and munched on all kinds of other exotic delicacies – but I have to say, there’s something about the idea of crunching on the exoskeletons of insects that really grosses me out. It’s a texture thing I think. The sound I imagine they’d make in your mouth is too much for me. It’s these kinds of silly preferences that will likely slow the appearance of insects on dinner plates in the Western world. As dustinbright said, we’ve got some pretty funny ideas of what is and is not okay to eat. For some reason we’ve deemed bugs too icky for dinner even though they’re enjoyed by people almost everywhere else in the world. I hope that for the sake of our planet we, as a society, are able to transcend our arbitrary penchants and be open to the idea of a new, sustainable protein source: bugs!

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