The Importance of Feminist Thought in Alternative Food Networks

This week's post is by SWIG member Hannah Evans

As a graduate student, I am interested in the geographic dimensions of uneven access to food in marginalized communities. The presumed advances in the food system have produced a worldwide abundance of cheap, processed, and genetically modified foods. Industrialized food regimes that favor mass-production, monocultural agriculture, and mechanization threaten clean water supplies, destroy arable land, pollute airways, and consume non-renewable resources at unsustainable rates. Perhaps the most disturbing consequences of these regimes is the uneven access and distribution of healthy, natural, and organic food in marginalized communities. Lack of resources and education, combined with an abundance of fast, commercialized food options, leave certain individuals and communities at once threatened by and dependent on industrialized agriculture.

Much in the way of resistance to such regimes has materialized recently in the United States through Alternative Food Networks (AFN). These networks function through efforts to establish holistic, sustainable, and locally-based food systems by linking the consumer to the production process. Some examples of these efforts include food co-ops and community gardening. Through direct connections with nature, these networks pose both an ideological opposition and alternative to industrialized agriculture. Many proponents of AFN claim that our connections to food are universal, citing the fact that everyone, regardless of race/ethnicity, class, gender and other social differences, has to eat. However, despite the fact that eating is a basic human requirement, uneven access to food persists, attesting to the very real existence of social inequality. Given that social differences are reinforced through the food system, how does one’s positionality influence the emotional experience of eating? Do current AFN address the variegated experiences of different individuals and groups when developing alternatives? Do these alternatives equally benefit all people? These questions are addressed in a recent journal article I read that highlights the importance of feminist perspectives on food movements.

In the article, the authors work through a feminist lens to discuss why emotion and affect are important factors to consider when developing projects that draw on peoples’ personal connection to food. It introduces important ideas regarding the problematic nature of programs that report universal ideas about these connections. It also expands the traditional definition of ‘access’ to consider emotions as principle (yet not sole) indicators of behavior. For me, one of the most interesting parts of the paper was the description of choice as “a fluid process that is continually varying through an extensive set of material relations that are particular to the time-spaces in which a specific judgment is taking place.” The recognition of social experience, both physical and emotional, as complex, discursive, and constantly changing has been one of the biggest influences on me this semester as I begin to understand the meaning of feminism in geographic research. Through this appreciation, we can start to see larger power structures that might otherwise seem omniscient as fragmented, malleable, and able to be transformed. Initially, for me, this was mind-blowing! My undergraduate experience seemed like it was filled with ominous visions for an impending apocalyptic future (I majored in geography and political science), but reading this article and beginning to understand this approach to research creates hope for the future, as it challenges the way I think and do research. This speaks to the importance of feminist thought in creating social change that positively influences the future of food movements.

Approaching Difference in Research and Beyond: Lessons from Indigenous Epistemologies.

For the past couple weeks I’ve begun preparing full force for my written exams– perching on the couch and reading for eight hours a day has its perks, but it can certainly get old after a while. This week I’ve been reading about indigenous epistemologies, something that until recently I knew little about. Indigenous epistemologies take a very different approach to knowledge, identity, and difference. Rather then try to summarize or reduce the diversity of indigenous epistemologies in this post, I’d like to touch on the work of indigenous scholar and activist Vine Deloria Jr., and discuss some of the productive insights his work offers for approaching difference in research and life.

Vine Deloria Jr. is a prolific Lakota scholar and activist whose work spans the 1960’s until his death in 2005. His work, among other things, explored the link between colonialism and the production of western knowledge, and the deep ideological rifts between indigenous and western approaches to knowledge production and identity. He argued that reclaiming a space for indigenous knowledge both inside and outside of the academy is central to social justice movements and the establishment of indigenous self-determination and sovereignty.

            
In the article “If you think about it you will see it’s true,” Deloria compares Western approaches to knowledge production and the Sioux’s approach to knowledge and identity. For the Sioux, there was no knowledge that was not valuable and all knowledge was directed towards the goal of “finding the proper moral and ethical road upon which human beings should walk” (43). The Sioux understood the universe as moral and alive, and every event and action was understood through its relational effects. According to the Sioux, everything was related and humans were not given a special status within these relations, but were just another important aspect of the whole. Unlike western approaches to knowledge, personal experience, emotions, and anomalies were seen as significant, and were presented as evidence that was reflected on personally and collectively. This evidence was grounded in the dynamics of place and understood through careful observation. Patterns that emerged were often connected through narratives and stories but never came to be understood as universal laws.

           
Deloria’s work offers a number of important insights that are relevant to us as researchers who produce variegated forms of knowledge. He argues that, for indigenous people, knowledge is a moral endeavor that helps people find their “proper moral and ethical” path in life. Thus knowledge is itself rooted in the moral imperative to finds one’s proper place, a place that is recognized as relationally constructed by human and non-human entities and that is always subject to change. Furthermore, the indigenous approach to engaging with all sources of knowledge, particularly the experiential and the unexpected, offers an inclusive and grounded approach that does not marginalize or create a hierarchy where some perspectives and experiences are given more weight than others. The evidence that deviates from an expected trajectory generates greater reflection and becomes a source for the development of new patterns and narratives. Lastly, indigenous approaches to knowledge tend to emphasis process over outcome within knowledge production. Research is judged primarily by the concepts of respect and reciprocity at the core of the process, and the actual relevance of the work to the different communities involved, rather than abstracted claims about future benefits.

            
I find that Deloria’s work and the work of countless other indigenous scholars (of whose work I’m only now starting to engage with) offers important alternatives to approaching research in ways that are inclusive, relevant, and social justice-oriented. Whether or not indigenous epistemologies and approaches offer alternatives that we can adopt within our varied research projects and interests, they nonetheless remind us of the colonial roots that remain a part of western scientific approaches and the value of engaging with relational ways of knowing. Recognizing these alternatives helps us to question the taken-for-granted moments when our research may misinterpret, misrepresent, and obscure important forms of knowledge production at the margins. These roots and routes of research are important for us to explore if we are to create more just and equitable futures through our work.

Deloria Jr. V. 1999. Spirit and Reason: the Vine Deloria, Jr. Reader. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing. 

Recognizing Bias in the World Map-- Brainstorming for Geography Awareness Week

As geographers, many of us are aware that the world map we have been using for the past 500 years is erroneous, reflecting European bias and colonial interests. Unfortunately, most people don't see it that way. The current world map continues to be taught in schools and referenced in decision-making processes that impact our every day lives. So, I was delighted when I saw people discussing the following post on my newsfeed this morning:

We Have Been Misled By An Erroneous Map Of The World For 500 Years 

Perhaps we could develop an activity for Geography Awareness Week that gives students an opportunity to think about these issues?

Cultivating New Worlds: Feminism in science fiction

As Halloween approaches, many of us begin to think of its various, frightful incarnations – the supernatural, monsters, aliens, and the like.  To be sure, the month of October is littered with movies, television shows, books, and stories that evoke such powerful imaginaries: from Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie, Alien, to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein.  However, after Halloween Day ends, much of this chilling creativity rescinds into the depths of popular culture.  But, while science fiction remains crucial to our Halloween imagination, it also thrives outside of the Halloween season.  In particular, feminist science fiction has, for years, enjoyed relative popularity and posed formidable questions surrounding women’s (and men’s) roles in society.

Feminist science fiction has focused on a variety of topics, primarily, the social construction of gender, political and social implications of reproduction, gender inequalities, and the intersections of race and gender.  Much like feminism, as a set of ideologies or movements, feminist science fiction has also remained just as diverse and fluid.  For over a century, feminist science fiction has taken on a multiplicity of forms and themes through a number of authors.  Notable writers include Mary Shelley, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Joanna Russ, and many more.  Perhaps most importantly, feminist science fiction has served as a bridge between theory and practice.  The creations of feminist science fiction authors directly represent the variety of goals envisioned through feminism and gender studies: worlds that have moved beyond gender, worlds that have embraced the diversity of desire and sexuality, and worlds that champion the rights and equality of others.  Of course, dystopias are also critical to the broader feminist science fiction project.  For example, Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel, Kindred, explores the complex and troubling intersection of race and gender through a grim dystopic fantasy. 

In any case, feminist science fiction writes and creates at the center of theory and practice.  Their creations reflect desires, anxieties, traumas, and much more.  However, it must be noted that these ‘fictional’ worlds oftentimes reflect and represent ‘nonfictional’ scenarios and circumstances.  Feminist science fiction has provided critical opportunities to interrogate the complexities of this world and pose important questions about it.  Through these efforts, it is hoped that readers and authors alike may cultivate new worlds and new ways of being.

Recommended feminist science fiction reading

Remembering difference in our mission to support women in geography

As graduate students, most of us will end up teaching at some point; for doctoral students, we can pretty much count on it. Those of us who will teach will invariably draw from our personal and professional lives to help students engage with classroom material. Presumably, I am not the only one who considers personal anecdotes an effective and dynamic way to engage students in the classroom.

So as we teach, we make connections between our personal as well as professional lives in the classroom, asking ourselves: Is this story relevant? Do I feel comfortable sharing a story from my personal life with my students? Does it accurately illustrate the point I'm trying to make? Will the people I’m referencing be embarrassed or annoyed that I used them as an example in my class?

But it occurred to me recently that when I do begin teaching, I will also have to make a decision about disclosing the gender of my same-sex partner. While professors in heterosexual relationships can reference their partners without fear of hostility or judgment, I am confronted with some difficult questions, such as: Is this story about my partner worth the potential disruption of sharing it? Is there value in disclosing my sexuality to my students, especially to queer students who may require role models and mentors? Will my students notice or even care?

As of yet, I have not been forced to confront these issues, and with the advances made possible by struggles for LGBT rights, they might be on their way to becoming non-issues. However, it is important to remember that women in geography (and science in general) come with a wide range of backgrounds, needs, concerns, and challenges -- all of whom need supporting. Through such support, I hope that we can work together to tackle issues related to gender, as well as sexuality in academia.

Just a few reasons that I appreciate and support the participation of women in our discipline

This week's post is by SWIG member Steven Allison

As a dude working with a women’s group, I’ve considered the reasons for supporting women in Geography. Spending time and money for the benefit of others with no clear benefit for yourself is pretty much the foundation of volunteering, so it shouldn’t be so strange that a man would encourage women in this way. Yet, some might argue that drawing funding and resources away from myself and towards others is foolish in the hyper-competitive and poorly funded world of academia. Slashed budgets and full schedules mean university life can be a kind of archaic zero-sum game in which any resources directed towards others are, therefore, not going towards you. I obviously don’t agree, and there’s a laundry list of reasons for spending at least a little bit of my day working collaboratively with others, but for today I’m gonna go ahead and play this zero-sum game and look at how supporting women in Geography actually has some pretty direct benefits for me.

Anyone studying Geography at SDSU knows the program wouldn’t exist without one woman in particular, Alvena Storm. The university was originally a simple teacher training college, and when Alvena joined the department after graduating from Berkeley in 1926, Geography was not the kind of place to send young impressionable students into the desert or some distant mountain to get their boots muddy. The department certainly wouldn’t have paid for infusing the classroom with a little adventure. Not so for Alvena! Our own campus library is full of tales of wild, Depression-era field trips where students trapped rattlesnakes and honed their survival skills. By the time I arrived, muddy boots fieldwork was de rigueur for SDSU. Denied a PhD herself (cause she was a woman), she developed the SDSU Geography department and its relationship with her former UC campus into the doctoral-granting powerhouse it is today. That’s why the Geography building will retain the name “Storm Hall” even after the remodel is over.

This story is not intended to suggest that only I reap the benefits of elevating women to positions of power in my own little department. For example, many Geographers are critical of the turn-of-the- century theorist Ellen Semple because she promotes environmental determinism. However, among her less noted accomplishments is her profound contribution to making American Geography legitimate in the eyes of the international community. As one of the first and most prolific translators of Friedrich Ratzel (the godfather of Geography, I guess), she maintained a firm stance on the importance of theory in any investigation. Her insistence on theoretically informed research brought a new vigor and seriousness to the discipline, sparking sophisticated debates about the theories she advocated. The international recognition she received has a direct influence on my own ability as a man to conduct fieldwork in Asia- and this is one small example of her legacy.

No matter where I look, from the foundation of my own department to the broader debates that form the backbone of my discipline, I can see the very real ways powerful women in Geography make life better for men and women alike. So to respond to the idea that volunteering for a women’s organization does nothing for me, I can only say it is, in fact, an errant misunderstanding of our discipline. Viewing the intellectual field as a competitive, closed environment, only heightens my sense that advancing women in geography is sure to yield great returns for not just the field in general, but also myself on a personal and professrional level.

Learn more about Alvena Storm and Ellen Semple here:
http://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/alumni/ellen-churchill-semple.html
http://library.sdsu.edu/scua/raising-our-voices/sdsu-history/faculty/alvena-storm

New York Times Article - Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?

This will be a short blog posting, but I wanted to quickly share an article that was recently forwarded to me. "Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science":
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

A couple of brief reactions:
-I'm not sure that any professors actually encouraged me to go to graduate school. I know that once I was in a master's program, I was definitely encouraged to continue to a PhD, but I don't recall my undergraduate professors suggesting grad school. I think a big part of my decision to pursue a graduate degree actually came from hanging out with graduate students on the triathlon team at UCSD. They made grad school seem like a reasonable thing to do. The author brings up several times that she was not encouraged to pursue a graduate degree (and somewhat discouraged from applying to a prestigious program), but it makes me wonder about how other people decided to go to grad school. Was anyone else specifically encouraged to go to graduate school by undergraduate professors?

-The math books for girls mentioned in the article are fascinating. You can find the first book here:
http://www.amazon.com/Math-Doesnt-Suck-Survive-Breaking/dp/0452289491/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

I'm not sure if I think the books are awesome or terrible. The Amazon reviews are mostly positive, although several of the negative reviews voice the issues I have with this style of book.

Tell me what you think in the comments!

updated:
On the issue of encouraging undergraduates to go to graduate school, I realized that I didn't make an explicit link in my original posting between encouraging undergrads to go to grad school and our organization (Supporting Women in Geography). I think that graduate students could have an important role in encouraging undergrads to pursue a graduate education. This is why I am excited about the joint Geography Graduate Student Association and SWIG effort to host a workshop on applying to grad school! This will be a great way to encourage undergrads and show them that grad school really is a viable life path for a diverse assortment of people (including women!).

Equality and community through enhanced perspective

This week's blog post is from SWIG member Manny Storey.

Of the many issues feminists might find important, I find particularly interesting the role of biases and categorical judgments in daily life. We tend to construct notions about how or who other people are and what their behavior means. Sometimes our judgments are critical and in other moments perhaps we become mesmerized or appreciative – either way, we lean toward or recoil from certain impressions. Some scholars would suggest that these tendencies are natural, and reflect various components of our psychological nature. Unfortunately, our notions about others can often result in misleading assumptions with adverse consequences, and in some cases cruelty and discrimination. I am going to suggest that the progress of humanity toward true social equity and justice will require a thorough examination of the thinking which underlies our assumptions.

Let’s consider two very different types of daily activity. The first is that of unhindered observation. For instance, a graduate student attends a lecture by a visiting professor whose research domain is quite unknown to the student. Because the student is unfamiliar with the subject, the content of the lecture requires careful listening for comprehension. Through the course of the talk, the student becomes very interested, and at the moment that the speaker reveals the key breakthrough accomplished through the study, the student is captivated. This is to say, the student becomes a wholehearted participant in the action of learning through sensory experience and forgets all preconceived notions. Time and experience are then synched directly through acute, real-time observation.

In contrast, let's imagine a corporation hosting an annual staff party at a local sports bar. Some employees are more inclined than others to go, some more or less extroverted. A certain supervisor gets a little bit boisterous after a few drinks, yet still in good humor, and those at the table are entertained. Realizing the attention, this person gets carried away, and forgets to observe that others are unable to participate in the interaction as such. A little observation would have revealed this, but instead another process happened: momentary blindness and deafness were induced by a failure to be attentive in real-time. In this case, it would seem that nothing terrible happened, yet it did: instead of observing the others at the table as living beings, the others became like objects in the view of that person, as a haze of drunken delusion set it.

By examining these two types of activity, there is quite a distinction. Perhaps we can apply this difference in approach to the way we view others – particularly with issues like gender bias and interpersonal conflict. It is all too easy construct mental models about other people (especially what they should be doing) which serve our own interests. These are subtle and often go unnoticed, but we need to really pay attention to them. We might like to think that we really have a solid idea of who people are, yet I suspect that we know very little about even our closest friends. Seeing through lenses of our own perspective really hinders our clarity, and we need to be responsive to the potentiality of the circumstances which arise in order act upon our values.

How do we give other people the space and freedom to truly be themselves? How do we abolish our own biases and really begin to learn about others as completely unique individuals? In what way can we relate with one another so that genuine humanity and community are expressed? Although there are no simple answers, it would be healthy to consider these type of questions more often.

It seems to me that a path toward true equality will only come through recognition of how little we actually know, and a keen desire to observe. To quote philosopher Alan Watts:

“You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as … I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I'm that, too. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it. ” 
― Alan Wilson Watts

This view reflects the kind of observation I am referring to: one that values people as inherently complex, unique, wonderful, and mysterious expressions of nature. Thus, perhaps we can begin to dissolve the power struggles that have caused so much suffering for humanity, and to build closer relationships based on a deep sense of respect. If we can wake up and really listen to and see others with clarity, perhaps our own lives will even become more vivid and meaningful.          

A riddle...

I heard this riddle as a kid (sorry that it is not a very happy riddle):

“A man and his son are in a terrible car accident. The father is killed instantly, and the boy is rushed to the hospital. When the boy arrives in the operating room, the surgeon looks at him and says ‘I can’t operate on this boy. He is my son!’ Who is the surgeon?”

I’ll give you a few hints:

-the surgeon is not the boy’s step-father

-the surgeon is also not a ghost

-there is nothing unusual about the surgeon’s relationship with the boy

ANSWER: (stop reading if you want to figure it out yourself!)

The surgeon is the boy’s mother.

Why is this a riddle, and not just a sad story? We all know that women (moms, even) can be surgeons, but somehow we forget this important detail when confronted with a surgeon of unknown gender. The male pronouns for the son probably further bias us (would we be better able to remember that women can be surgeons if we had just heard “I can’t operate on this girl. She is my daughter!”?), but I can’t test it on myself now that I know the answer. However, there is another great (and repeatable!) way to test our implicit biases. By taking a short (approx 10 min total) test online, you can evaluate your own implicit bias regarding women in science.

Just go to: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Continue as a guest, click through the disclaimer, then select the “Gender – Science” test. (There are several other interesting bias tests you can take, so try a few of them!) The tests work by measuring your response time while categorizing a list of words, so you have to work as quickly as possible. The website will ask you to answer some questions about yourself (this is research, after all), then will finally display your score.

The first time I took the test, I felt fairly good about myself because I scored only “slight automatic association of Male with Science and Female with Liberal Arts.” However, I took it again in preparation for this blog post, and this time got “strong automatic association of Male with Science and Female with Liberal Arts.” I am nearly certain that I got the lists of items in different orders in the two times I took the test (this is hard to explain unless you took the test – go take the test if you don’t understand what I am talking about), so according to the FAQs, my true score is actually the category in between, “moderate automatic association” This puts me with the largest group of web respondents (28%).

As a woman in science, I would like to imagine that I am not biased against women as scientists, but that does not appear to be the case. My own experiences back this observation of my bias. I have found myself on several occasions using male pronouns for scientists, doctors, or professors of unknown gender (which is quite embarrassing when I have assumed wrong). It is easy to assume that scientists are males because the assumption is often correct. The gender gap is the subject of a report by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), which is, by the way, where I heard about the implicit bias test.  The report is titled “Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.”

http://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few/

I don’t have space here to fully explore the full set of issues surrounding the gender gap in the sciences, or even really of implicit bias against women in science, but I hope that taking the implicit bias test can be an opportunity to think about our own biases and how they shape our daily interactions.

Did you take the bias test? Were you surprised by your score? Tell me in the comments!

Why Feminism Matters to Men

For decades feminists have been telling us that gender is not a biological fact, but a socially constructed reality. In other words, gender is not determined by whether or not you have ovaries, gonads, breasts, a penis, a vagina, or an x or y chromosome. I mean, to be frank, there exist very few people in this world who really know what biological “hardware” I have, but people still look at me and see a woman. When I walk by people on the street, I don’t see what’s underneath their clothing and I sure can’t look into their genetic coding, but I still see men and women. How is this possible if gender is strictly biological? Well, according to many feminists, it is not. Rather, gender is a performance that we put on everyday. It is performed through daily rituals like putting on make-up (or not), wearing gender-specific clothing (pink vs. blue), speaking in certain tones (high pitched vs. deep), sitting in certain positions (legs crossed vs. open). As we repeat these acts throughout our life, we perpetuate the idea that certain ways of thinking, acting, and feeling are feminine  while others are masculine, but this is not an objective reality; this is an act, a farce, a performance that we repeat and pass along to others. Over time these performances change as commonly held beliefs and norms about gender and other social issues become disrupted, by social movements for example. Sometimes these changes make space for more gender diversity and sometimes they don’t, but the point is that gender as we know it now is not inevitable; it can (and will) change. 

Often when feminists talk about the social construction of gender, they are implicitly referring to the ways in which femininity has changed over time. There is very little work that asks how changes in masculinity happen over time and place. This is an important area of study for people who do work on gender, though. If we show how femininity and masculinity are constructed in ways that affect the lives of both men and women, we can establish a platform for collaborative efforts that work toward gender diversity and equality. In short, more attention to the social construction of masculinity would show how and why feminism is not just for women.

With that in mind, I stumbled upon an article the other day that discusses how intimacy between men has become socially unacceptable as ideas about masculinity have changed overtime. In the article, authors Brett and Kate McKay feature photographs of men in the 19^th and early 20^th century who demonstrate a physical closeness or intimacy, by holding hands and embracing for example. According to the authors, some of these photographs predate the idea of homosexuality and it is impossible to state with certainty their sexual orientations (and furthermore, do we really need to know?). However, it is probably safe to assume that many of these men were simply taking photographs with their friends and that certain levels of comfort and familiarity were more socially acceptable between men at some points in history than others. Nowadays we live in a world where men feel the need to withhold from being intimate with others, lest their sexuality come into question, like when a man compliments another man and justifies this act by saying “no homo.” Is it possible to talk about this loss of intimacy and connection with other human beings as a form of oppression? What are the broader consequences of this loss on society? What do you think?

LINK TO- "Bossom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection" by Brett and Kate McKay

Debunking Common Myths About Women's Groups

If you are at all hesitant about joining SWIG because it is a women's group, please consider the following:

As an organization, our primary mission is to support the participation of women in the discipline of geography. However, in order to provide support for all women, we must confront issues related to sexuality, race, class, age, and other social differences that shape women’s experiences. After all, women come from many different backgrounds and are positioned differently in society depending on many factors, not just gender. In other words, to successfully support women, we must go beyond gender and start thinking about objectives that are seemingly outside the scope of a traditional women’s group. One way to do this is to collaborate with student groups on campus that address issues related to sexuality, race, class, age and other social issues- a goal we look forward to accomplishing this upcoming academic year.

Furthermore, we want to encourage men to join SWIG. Although you may not be a woman, chances are you care about the success and wellbeing of your friends and colleagues who are women. By joining SWIG, you will have the opportunity to support your friends and colleagues through fundraising activities, personal support and networking. More importantly, men can bring valuable perspectives and resources that help us grow as an organization. After all, like women, men face obstacles related to gender, race, class, age, sexuality and other social differences in academia and society alike. Through mutual understanding and collaborative efforts, we can find solutions to some of these problems!

Want to learn more about SWIG? Join us for our first meeting! Feel free to pack a lunch!

When: Friday, Sept 13^th at 12:30pm

Where: Under the tree behind the Geography Annex

We look forward to meeting you!