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Text of the page (random words):
te directly with him in return and this long after his sojourn at walden pond had ended the book thoreau wrote based on the walden years was not ready for publication for seven years after thoreau left the pond while it did find its way into a small circle of like minded souls during thoreau s lifetime it was not until after his death that the work became iconic in american literature and nature writing like walden itself the idea of conducting a personal experiment in ecologically conscious living which is then shared with others has not only survived thoreau s lifetime but gained popularity a growing number of individuals from professional writers and activists to online journalists are recording their experiments in green living in the interactive public space of the blogosphere offering a vast array of answers to the question of what it means to be an environmentalist they too are sharing the stories of where they live and what they live for however their words can reach an audience on a scale and with an immediacy that thoreau never could have dreamed of though here one blogger imagines how thoreau s journals would have read as a blog i am interested in the contemporary online incarnations of green living experiments in what ways are these blogs personal projects that help to shape the writers ideas about certain environmental issues in what ways are they political projects intended as activism how do the blogs digital format shape the way the writers stories are shared received discussed perhaps the most famous example of a thoreau 2 0 style green living experiment recorded via blog and video and eventually as a book is colin beaven a k a no impact man here is the trailer for the documentary made about beavan s and his family s experience beavan is quite self reflexive in his choices to make this private experiment public via the web and other media i asked nine other green living bloggers to add their experience with these issues to the mix though blogs on green living are many and various i focused on those in which most posts were personal stories about the author s own attempts to live more sustainably rather than blogs that feature mostly news items product reviews general how to s etc and i included only blogs to which the authors had recently posted you can follow my conversations with the bloggers by clicking each of the following links the accidental environmentalist the clean bin project blog the crunchy chicken eco experiment green bean chronicles it s not easy to be green the last biscuit one green generation simple savvy and many thanks to cynthia of withywindle nature for joining this conversation she has been kind enough to share some thoughts in the comment section below posted by tamara wallace ramirez at 11 50 am 10 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday december 6 2011 pipe dreams the cultural narratives behind keystone xl the proposed keystone xl pipeline is a hotly debated project that if realized could have a vast environmental impact public discourse about the pipeline in the forms of media coverage and statements to the press speak to possible technical solutions to the project s environmental harms some recommend moving the pipeline s location others suggest replacing it with alternative energy sources however i propose that the root problem of the keystone pipeline is not so much technological as ideological the project proposal exists as a result of a set of unsustainable cultural narratives suppositions about consumption and the good life notions about science and the perceived separation between humans and non human nature these tacit assumptions are the forces driving keystone xl the impetus of its negative environmental impact and yet they are virtually invisible in public discourse about the pipeline examining the proposed project through a cultural studies lens reveals that keystone xl is a symptom of a deeper problem and that this problem is social not merely technological a lasting solution to the pipeline s ecological dangers will mean reimagining the destructive narratives from which it springs it will mean shifts in perception and political will without which technical fixes will be impracticable or ineffectual posted by tamara wallace ramirez at 5 12 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labor beauty sustainable community needlecraft among latter day saint women this is an abstract for a project i ve been working on in clst 315 qualitative field research methods with dr paul faulstich in this ethnographic study of knitting crochet and sewing groups in the las flores ward of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints in la verne california i explore the communal practice of hand making goods as it impacts participants relationships to material culture and consumption in particular i examine the differences between the needlecrafters engagement with the products they make and their perception of goods obtained commercially where production is performed by invisible others i investigate the mythic significance of needlecraft approaching the activity as a cultural practice that signifies a set of values and assumptions about the self in relation to the material environment observation of and interviews yield data on three major themes perceptions of labor definitions of the beauty and value of material products and the bearing that needlecraft practice has on community human relationships the data i gather from participants is analyzed against theoretical proposals about the importance of hand crafted products in the shift toward a more ecologically and economically sustainable culture i conclude that while participants to do not frame their activities as revolutionary creating hand made goods in this group setting offers important points of entry for reconsidering destructive assumptions about labor beauty and community that currently prevail in mainstream material culture and in standard patterns of consumption i am grateful for the way my visual research methods and qualitative field research methods classes have informed each other this semester especially on this project even though the methods in i used were not specifically visual or digital i found myself thinking often about theorists and discussions from visual research methods as i pursued this study i began this ethnography still trying to figure out what ethnography was exactly that process continues but there are some things i have learned that have made a big impact on my understanding of this work initially i felt a lot of discomfort about the ethnographic process because the inherent violence of the gaze felt very real to me our vrm class read some of frances fanon s writing about what it is to be seen as an object one who is the product of someone else s gaze one who is not allowed to emanate meaning but only receives the meaning imposed by others i did not want to perpetuate that practice by imposing my gaze on anyone in that way i tried to mediate this by choosing a field site in a community of which i was already a part lds women so that i would not be asking my consultants to be seen without also being included in the gaze by association i thought at the time that simply having a connection to the community myself meant that it was more allowable for me to speak about it still enormously uncomfortable both with the process of seeing and being seen i began work on the project then things began to change i was introduced through my professors own work and through that of others like jean rouch who pushed the boundaries of the traditional ethnography to a way of working that was intentionally self reflexive and collaborative at first i had believed that my authority to tell the stories of my consultants came from the connections we shared i saw my job as giving voice to those stories on the participants behalf as responsibly as possible i thought good ethnography meant letting participants speak for themselves and so was uncomfortable introducing my own interpretations of the group s activities or theoretical questions observations into the narrative however i came to realize that it was as undesirable as it was it impossible to avoid my own perspective further i began to see that a theoretical framework was crucial to explaining the significance and larger cultural implications that i saw in the activities of my consultants instead of thinking of the study as a monologue that i was helping to facilitate i began to understand it as a conversation one that involved the voices of participants in the study my own voice and the voices of other theorists together these voices would contribute to a shared narrative moreover that narrative was not fixed but ongoing readers of my study would also bring their interpretations to it donna haraway s work on feminist ethnography helped me to understood that just as the result of the study were necessarily collaborative so too would be determining the meaning of those results i remember a conversation in my vrm class in which we were discussing the concept of performing one s identity dr juhasz noted that we each do this all the time in all of our actions and interactions none of us she said wants to be understood as a stereotype we do not want our identities to be a projection of the assumptions and labels of others performing one s identity on one s own terms manifests and reinforces one s own ideas about the self it can even help to change perceptions of others about oneself this helped me understand my ethnography as a potential site of power originally i saw it only as a place where the stories of my consultants and myself would be made vulnerable by becoming objects of the gaze of others and i suppose that is still true in a sense but now i also see the study as a locus of authority as a collective interactive performance of our identities it is a vehicle to that we can use to share something of ourselves with the world on our own terms of course this is all much easier because i like the people with whom i conducted this study and i concluded that what they re doing has value it is easy to collaborate with people to whom you already feel connected and whose activities i see as positive rather than harmful how would this experience have been different if i had felt otherwise what will happen when this is the case what will it be like to try to forge a collaborative narrative when the participants in your study are hostile to my presence when they are doing something i feel is misguided or harmful i do not believe the answer is to always shy away from experiences like this in that case i could only ever study people who were not very different from myself and that seems very undesirable the honest effort to learn from others who are not like me is important too and too important to avoid out of discomfort these classes have helped me to see that critique and even deep disagreement can indeed be a part of an open respectful ethnographic process perhaps my next ethnographic project will be an opportunity to put this conviction into practice posted by tamara wallace ramirez at 2 25 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday november 23 2011 stealing welding making a mess my final project on digital storytelling for clst 355 visual research methods is due soon i m fishing around online for digital storytelling about which i might want to write my insecurity i mean er self reflexivity is flaring in particular i feel the tension between writing about things other people have made and making original work why am i commenting on other people s work instead of making my own original work or is making original work what i m doing here what it is that i can say about people s blogs that the blogs themselves are not communicating and even if my comments on the digital storytelling of others are valid are they useful am i offering anything new to the conversation about digital storytelling or are my comments just a mash up of pre existing concepts the blogs i ve researched what i ve read for this class other people s comments in class remixed in a peculiar way is this blog for example like a xerox of a xerox of a xerox and the ideas with which i m working have less and less integrity each time they re are reproduced or is my remix more than the sum of its parts does the stealing and welding and reshaping of ideas i ve found interesting form something unique an original work in my search for the blogs of digital storytellers i happened upon the site of one artist who would say yes in class we discussed the possibility of using a blog as a place to try out ideas to have unfinished thoughts to make a mess at the beginning of this blog i made a post about how uncomfortable i was using this space that way i was loath to post anything that wasn t finished as soon as it was out there it could be graded and judged i didn t see the blogosphere as a place where i could ask dumb questions or sift through ideas without having fully articulated my arguments but kleon s blog for better or worse made me feel a little more free to think of ideas as a jumping off point for mine to not wait for perfection before making something even if what you make turns out to be a mess messes the many many awful ideas you try out before reaching one you think you like seem a necessary part of the creative process but it s one i think the schools i ve attended have encouraged me to keep to myself the web offers thinkers the opportunity to do the opposite i m not sure how i feel about that yet but i m giving it a try i m basing this take on my academic work on the suggestions of a non academic here s to letting everyone see you sweat posted by tamara wallace ramirez at 4 53 pm 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday november 10 2011 digital storytelling amateurs and experts knut lundby defines digital storytelling as small scale amateur personal stories focused on self representation digital storytelling mediated stories 1 berkley california s center for digital storytelling describes a digital storyteller as a nyone who has a desire to document life experience ideas or feelings through the use of story and digital media usually someone with little to no prior experience in the realm of video production but time to spend a few days attending a workshop and developing a story with creative support and technical assistance from compassionate highly experienced facilitators i m intrigued by the idea that digital storytelling is usually done by someone with little to no prior experience in the realm of video production but who s work can be assisted by compassionate highly experienced facilitators for me these definitions beg the following questions what makes an amateur digital storyteller how is the amateur digital st...