Community Engaged Research Projects Reflection

I've really enjoyed reading many of the pieces we've worked with over the last few weeks, and I wish we had more time to do close readings of them and really talk as a group about the points that are being made in them.  It feels a lot like we're just skimming through these really well in-depth topics, but I guess they'll be more time for that as the quarter goes on.

To me, one of the most interesting topics we've read would have to be the history of migration.  I believe it was the week 3 reading which went into it the most (age of migration chapter 10?) but most of the readings have at least touched on it.  I always forget how much I like history until suddenly I'm two hours into reading Wikipedia articles and it's midnight and I don't remember how I got here.  The way migration is affected by so many different factors we have yet to fully understand is definitely something I would like to read more about.  Specifically the different theories and schools of thought surrounding the topic.

No matter what it is, I'm always drawn to trying to understand the inner workings of things (economics, cars, the bits of computer parts spread out over my desk as I write this) but in this case, with this topic, I don't know if it can be approached in the same 'take it apart and look at it' kind of way that I usually end up taking.  Migration is a collection of personal experiences which somehow feels drastically different even from other 'personal experience' topics like literature, music or language.  As interested as I am in reading more about different theories of why migration happens and why it happens from one place to another, I end up wondering if it's really something that can be nailed down and understood properly with a unifying set of theories.  Then again, I'm still new to this whole subject, and maybe it's still mostly my own ignorance that makes me feel like it's different from what I'm used to working with.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Reflection 7/5

FIGURE OF THE MIGRANT THOUGHTS It's always interesting to me how many assumptions we have that we don't openly think about or recognize. The assumption or stereotype of migrant as a 'failed citizen' is one that I think many of us subconsciously have, even if we do not believe that they have failed because of their own choices. In many cases, we view them as being from a failed state, and this judgment, too, is one that should be openly addressed and critiqued. The chapter mentions that 'the most 'dispossessed refugees have created some of the most interesting non-state social organizations'. I am recording this partially as a reminder to look for some of these later. Often when people think of immigrant organizations it is criminal organizations that come to mind. A few years ago I read an interesting piece about the idea that organized crime is an almost necessary step for any immigrant community in a “1 st world” coun
Read more

Journal Entry IV

Did you post witnesses? he said. To report to you on the continuing existence of those places once you’d quit them? That’s crazy. Is it? Where is yesterday? -Cormac McCarthy,  Blood Meridian Memory is something, as Julie pointed out in feedback this week, that shows up in most of my reflections and longer journal entries.  This one isn't going to be any different. I'm sitting in the Jetpack Ecolodge in Grunwald, just outside of Berlin.  It is Monday morning.  I have just said goodbye to Zosia as she headed out to get her taxi to the airport and, though Sophie will be here another day, I feel pretty alone in a way that is both sad and exciting, and she too will leave tomorrow and then I really will be the last one in Berlin. It makes a strange sense:  I was the first one of the group in the city, followed by Sophie half a day later, so I should be the last one out.  To truly complete the palindrome I should have stayed in Lichtenstein again but I wanted to se
Read more

Journal Entry II

I still feel that I between the flooding and the Hamburg trip, I haven't had time to fully process everything we saw at Sachenhausen.  The last 4 days have been unrelenting each in their own different ways.  That being said, there are many impressions I got while there that I'm sure will form more fully even as I write this.  For that reason, I'm mostly I'm going to talk about the Sachenhausen part of the week. The first, strongest thing that I felt there was the sense of hallowedness that I had on some level expected.  I have dozens of photos from other places we've been.  I have three from that place.  I know others have felt the same, and the few pictures I did take almost felt wrong when I was taking them, and I found that I had to explain to myself that it will be important to show people what it was like when I get home, and that's why it was okay to take a small amount of photos.  It's an entirely different kind of documentation, even though we w
Read more