Week 6
I had my midterm evaluation this week and began coursework with a reflection of the previous five weeks. During this process I recombined my learning
objectives as I will elaborate on in my concepts learned from this week. The reflection on the previous five weeks allows for an interesting weekly evaluation of concepts learned because I thought about them in the context of completing the second half of the program.
Concepts Realized this Week
I have learned enough through limited exposure to the texts listed in my ILC to focus the direction of my learning contract. I have combined the learning objectives: “What interdisciplinary symbolism of eating food can the student relate to the concept of sharing the experience to promote social cohesion?” and “How has racism and prejudice in the U.S. been used as a tool to divide members of the working class.” and connected their concepts together. The new single objective is: I want to better understand the historical origins of the biopolitical infiltration of the domestic space to increase my awareness of the pressures applied to culturally appropriated groups of people in effort to understand how a community oriented collective could support the engagement of an individual with a social group through food.
I have discovered that, according to Grenier, the historical origin of the biopolitical infiltration comes from previously developed violent tendencies in colonists before and especially after the civil war. When national identity was attached to the white body, the desire to kill the other was masked and all non-white bodies were emotionally and spiritually fed upon. The ingestion of the other can be complicated when the black subject inhabits their own stickiness and the consumer is upset by the black subject attempting to leave the stickiness. As argued by one of the most respected scientists in the world, Robert Lanza, and one of the most widely read astronomers Bob Berman, consciousness can be explained as the product of the interaction between the individual spirit or soul and the simulation-like interface of the universe. The conscious deprivation of a “soul first, human second” perspective coincides with the history of misdirected emotions of unresolved frustration and attachment to materialistic goods. The origin story of man’s explanation of reality changes when man removes himself from nature, just as the origin story of a nation changes when citizens believe another culture to be primitive, as mentioned in An Indigenous People’s History of the United States. The misdirection of overwhelming human emotion fuels an origin story not grounded in reality that lead to brutal, inhumane treatment of non-white bodies which was followed by the seemingly safe ingestion of the other. Moving forward into the next half of class I intend to question the direction of human emotion and whether the ingestion of something that extends beyond food can be a beneficial tool to help bring people together. I found this direction by asking how people ingest the message behind the politically inspired Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavors in seminar. Can the ice cream and the message attached to the ice cream be consumed without being a consumer? This concept came up in An Indigenous People’s History of the U.S. when the author discussed the peoples of the corn. The food was humanized by having spiritual representation of deceased members of the tribe in each kernel of corn. The appreciative consumption of the values respectfully and spiritually invested in the food through group ce
lebration and dance created a bond between people over a shared interest. The one tasting lab that stood out from the rest was Annie’s corn lab. The recently acquired knowledge of the history of corn and the historical representations of it in the context of current events invoked a gag reflex when intentionally tasting the corn puree and I was having a very hard time ingesting the corn products despite the absence of an overbearing repulsive taste. Moving forward into the second half of the class I hope to increase my understanding of this concept.
The reflections I made from this week’s content specifically are linked to a few quotes from the text:
“[tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar] were the first objects within capitalism that conveyed with their use the complex idea that one could become different by consuming differently” (Newman 2013: 83)
Newman quoted H.S. Irwin, “The original purpose in building the coffee house was to provide appropriate facilities for the “genial institution of Change”.” (Newman 2013: 79
“We would say that the strongest have survived, that is these salmon,” says Dirk of the Fisheries. “You guys here get excited about a run of 100,000 fish, we talking about 2.5 million.” (LaDuke 2016: 60)
Newman has been discussing occupations filling the middle-man role between certain products and consumer. Modern farmers adapt to a market of the consumer and their newly monetized services begins to shape the mind of the farmer. At what step in the production of heavily commodified crops does the misdirected intention of farmers of varying degrees of moral centrality affect the food? Do the methods used to grow the food reflect the moral centrality of the farmer?
Newman’s quote of Sidney Mintz identifies the ingredients used to appeal to individual identity through food. This observation is supported by the quote from H.S. Irwin because all ingredients were present in early coffee houses. Coffee houses also became trading centers for coffee beans. Irwin’s stated purpose for the coffee house was outcompeted by an outside interest that altered the intended collective agenda to benefit from sharing the interest of commodifying the shared interest of others. The commodification of the space affects the culture that grows from using the ingredients Mintz mentioned and the coffee consumers entering the incipient space. The effectiveness of a group appealing to individual identity can be shown in Conroy and Allen’s study from 2010.
The presence of one value system imposing their “superior” beliefs over the other also came up in The Winona LaDuke Chronicles. The stories of Indigenous leaders siding with oil corporations and assimilating the origin myth and identity of the people with the outsi
de interest remind me of the political hijacking of the coffee house. In the mentioned communities, the perception
of shared interest in land changes when the concept of promoting the land (and other values central to the group’s identity) now includes extracting oil in the context of personal identity, potentially altering individual moral centrality.
The last quote about Maori and Wintu observation implies complete unawareness of long term consideration, and specifically disrespects millennia of Indigenous observation by assuming the other methods of observation are inferior to their own biological DNA testing methods. The necessity to validate other methods within your own value system suggests a potential nonalignment will be found, and in this case, because of inferior methods by the other.
Activities
This week Natasha and Erik came over to my house to have a workshop on WordPress. I sat back and watched Natasha give Erik a broad outline of WordPress and the key places to look for common uploads. Hearing Natasha’s understanding of WordPress shed light on the important factors of uploading and helped narrow down the overwhelming display of options when devising the presentation of an idea. This week I read An Indigenous People’s History of the United States Chapters 5 and 6 in addition to chapters 6, 7, and 8 of Newman’s The Financial Life of Food and pages: 1-6, 15-63, 130-156, 212-240 from The Winona LaDuke Chronicles. I uploaded a lot of week 4 content at the beginning of this week for my midterm presentation.
I also created a moral framework component to educate a younger person on how to establish and maintain a sense of self identity.
Internship
The meeting on Thursday with Fertile Ground was to review the brochures for any mistakes and go over the final edition of the Fertile Ground Collective Garden contract. We ended up touring the neighborhood; passing out brochures and talking with community members we encountered about the garden cooperative. This experience gave me so much confidence with the project going forward because of the receptive and enthusiastic encounters I had. People who I encountered were willing to pass brochures onto other housemates and neighbors within apartment buildings. A few people were very thoughtful with their responses and asked questions that showed honest consideration. Gail called me on Monday and we discussed another day in which we could pass out brochures.