Democracy Now! aired an amazing program today with an interview with Utah Phillips from four years ago. This interview is wonderful.
He talks about being sent to Korea, the importance of feminism, becoming a pacifist, the importance of learning from elders, his inspirations and activists who inspire him, and the importance of maintaining hope. Really, you need to hear this. It’s wonderful.
This radio program is an edited version of a talk by Harjap Grewal, an organizer with the Canadian-based group, “No One is Illegal.”
He discusses the ways in which NAFTA, the state sanctioned guest worker programs, and cooperations put profit before human rights and engage in a new form of Indentured labor and slavery. Likewise, he explores the legacy of colonialization and racialization of immigrants that is still very much with us today.
He describes immigration as a “political act,” and discusses not only immigration stories in the U.S. and Canada, but also the situation in Spain where over 6,000 northern African immigrants died last year trying to make the journey.
Most importantly he provides examples of ways to resist and provides examples of resistance from Vancouver.
The only problem is that there is some music playing in the background that can be very distracting. I can’t figure out why it’s there.
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Barre Toelken always talks about the “So What? Question.” So…Some questions for folklorists and ethnographers that come to mind—
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A thoughtful and important essay from a 21 year old voter from Whitesburg.
Listen.
Rethinking Globalization:Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World textbook
I just read about this textbook from Rethinking Schools. It was published in 2002. This resource textbook teaches students 4th-12th grades social justice issues as an interconnected web. As the authors say in the introduction (which can be found online as well), Read the rest of this entry »
I just read this article in Dollars and Sense magazine. It discusses Agrentina’s experiment with job creation while also exploring the possibilities of the Employer of last Resort Proposal, a government job plan somewhat similar to the WPA. Although much explored, public folklore’s deep roots with the WPA has always inspired and interested me. I wonder what models for our own work can be found in the WPA and the murals, archives, and books they left behind? Sure it was a flawed program. But flawed models are still models and they can be used and rethought. Mistakes can be learned from. Similarly, the Employer of Last Resort Proposal seems to be something folklorists should know more about– a key economic issue for those of us working at the intersection of local economies and cultural production.
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According to a recent 67 page report published by Human Rights Watch, “although whites commit more drug offenses, African Americans are arrested and imprisoned on drug charges at much higher rates, the reports find.”
This report by Human Rights Watch also includes suggestions for how to help address this problem, including directing funding to inner city programs and:
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In working with a few different oral history programs, I have always been intrigued by how much information these interviews about rural life in North Carolina, Arkansas, or central Kentucky contain about climate change. When men and women in their 80s and 90s discuss their childhoods, they often recall extended winters, greater amounts of snow, creeks running so deep they would flood their banks, and trees so filled with robins that robin soup was a popular dish.
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I have posted the annotated bibliographies, which you can find under the pages section of this blog. If there are books, articles or radio programs that you know of that I have not listed, please post and let me know!
Participatory research is typically defined as a form of research which combines three things: research, education, and action. Strongly linked to social action, participatory research is largely becoming the norm in many fields which folklorists sometimes see as competitors in the fight for departments and funding such as Women’s Studies, African American Studies, Pan-African Studies, and American Studies to name a few. Read the rest of this entry »
I am in the process of finishing up the podcasts created for my independent study and preparing an annotated bibliography of useful sources that combine folklore and human rights education.
Once complete, the annotated bibliography will be housed here.
If you have any suggestions for books, webpages, school programs, archives, etc, please let me know. I am hoping this site can be a resource for people interested in the combined possibilities of folklore and human rights education, so feel free to post!