LOCAL KNOWLEDGE: Community, Media Activism,
Public Health and the Environment
Faculty: Anne
Fischel X6416 SEM II E-3108 Office
Hrs: Monday 1-3
Lin
Nelson X6506 SEM
II E-3102 Office Hrs. Monday 1-3
PROGRAM
SCHEDULE (all classes are in SEMINAR II)
Tuesday
10-1 E-1105 Presentation/Screening
Tuesday
2:30-4:30 B-3109 AnneÕs
Seminar
C-3107 LinÕs
Seminar
Wednesday
10-1 A-1107 Workshop
A-3105 Workshop
or Breakout space
Friday
9:30-12:30 B-1105 Presentation
Friday
1:30-3:30 C-3107 LinÕs
Seminar
C-3109 AnneÕs
Seminar
Friday
3:30-4:30 C-3105 Closure
We will
have several fieldtrips this quarter. Most fieldtrips will take place on
Fridays. Occasionally, we will
have fieldtrips on other days depending on the availability of our community collaborators.
OVERVIEW
OF THE PROGRAM:
Our
program starts from the perspective that the community base of knowledge needs
to be acknowledged and supported. In these days of globalization, fast-paced
media, mass marketing and celebrity, what people in diverse communities around
the world know at a local level is often trivialized or ignored. Local
Knowledge will
explore the dynamics of community life through collaborative efforts with
people in our region as they work to sustain and empower their communities.
Our focus
on the local will not be uncritical or romantic. Communities can be isolated or
isolating; they can be exclusionary; they can compete in unhealthy ways with
other communities near and far. Communities are not homogenous; their diversities
are reflected in both the vitality and stress of community life.
It is
important for us to be open and reflective about all we about to experience and
learn as a group. We will be drawing upon broad areas of thought and inquiry Ð
in community and regional studies, environmental studies, public policy, labor
studies, media, global studies and research methods. We will be constructing our explorations with attention to
the social philosophy and advocacy identified with popular education,
community-based research, media activism and public art. While our daily efforts will involve
inquiries with neighbors in Olympia, Shelton, Tacoma and Centralia/Lewis
County, we will be linking this work to broad patterns of social analysis and
activism. In fact, some of our attention will be directed to other communities
whose labor and environmental struggles have been dramatically chronicled. Our
expectation is that our emerging knowledge in this program will be vivid, rich
and particular in its attention to the details and distinctiveness of life in
neigborhood, town and city; at the same time, we want to cultivate a sense of
comparison, context and connectedness across communities.
One
essential goal is to learn how to collaborate with community groups responding
to regional and global change. Our starting point will be understanding how
communities, especially marginalized ones, identify, use and critically
evaluate their own local knowledge and resources. We will explore how economic
change, internal conflicts, and different experiences of class, gender, race,
immigration and oldtimer-newcomer positions challenge and diversify the
knowledge within a community. We anticipate working with communities on
projects focusing on social justice, environmental protection and public art,
documentation and communication. We will also be involved with community
projects which are creating new possibilities for economic, cultural and
ecologic sustainability.
Here
are some of the questions we will be considering:
á
What
is local knowledge? How is it cultivated, identified, applied and critically
evaluated?
á
How
are community stories created, documented and communicated?
á
How
does expertise/outside input affect approaches to locally identified issues?
á
How
do broad regional, national and international conditions impact communities and
how are these conditions interpreted in different ways at the local level?
á
What
role does media play in local communities? How do community members interpret
and learn from media images? What alternative media resources exist in the
community and how are they utilized?
á
What
sense of history and future guides communities? How can that future be
sustainable?
á
What
can we learn about collaborative community research and media documentation Ð
and our participation in it? What political, aesthetic and ethical
considerations should guide this work?
During
fall quarter our emphasis will be on acquainting ourselves with local
communities in the region through presentations, reading, group research, and
field trips. We will develop
skills in community mapping, video documentation, and interviewing. Winter
quarter will offer more in-depth experience with a range of tools and
approaches. Students will be researching and planning colllaborative,
multi-faceted projects to be implemented in spring quarter. Our goals will be
to develop projects contributing to community discussion and decision-making,
to develop a strong sense of local place, story and culture, and to widen our
understandings of regional and international movements and support networks
available to local communities.
Some of
the frameworks and skill areas we will be working with include the following:
social science research methods, Òcitizen muckrakingÓ, corporate research,
public policy analysis, local history and archival research, video production,
visual design and media literacy. We expect everyone to develop basic skills in
all areas through team projects, before focusing more deeply in a few areas in
which major project work will be done.
Local
Knowledge will be
a demanding program. Collaborative community-based work is challenging and
requires us to be responsible and committed. We hope and expect that you will
register for the entire year. We expect regular attendance, careful preparation
of all assigned readings and research, full participation in all program
activities and willingness to develop the skills needed for effective
collaboration. We welcome your participation, but we reserve the right to
address any problems that negatively affect your ability to work well in
community settings.
READING
LIST (IN ORDER):
Eugene
Nelson, Break Their Haughty Power: Joe Murphy and the Wobblies
Beverly
Brown, In Timber Country
Beverly
Brown and the Jefferson Center, Voices from the Woods
Paulo Freire,
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Charlotte
Ryan, Prime Time Activism
Center
for Public Integrity, Citizen Muckraking
Andrew
Schneider and David McCumber, An Air That Kills
David
Korten, When Corporations Rule the World
Loka
Institute, Doing Community-Based Research (to peruse on your own this quarterÑwill read
together in winter quarter)
THEMATIC
READERS AND RESOURCE GUIDES:
Connected
to core readings and themes: notebooks containing readings and lists of
supplemental resources will be available in the Library, Center for Community
Based Learning and Action/Labor Center, and SEM II E-3105 classroom.
**Local
History/National Context :
supplementary readings on the IWW, local history, and the national historical
context.
**Community
Learning and Popular Education (linked to weeks 3 and 4): Jefferson Center
newsletters and reports, community education strategies, adult literacy,
Highlander Center.
**Community-Based
Research (linked to week 6): CBR tools
**Environment,
Health and Community: (linked to weeks 7 and 8): environmental policy toolbox,
citizen advocacy strategies, government documents, on-line resources.
**Corporate
Research (linked to week 9): NGOÕs, strategies, tutorials.
**Interviewing,
Oral History Research and Questionnaire Design: guides, tools, and philosophy:
YOUR
WORK:
RESOURCE
GROUP: Some of
your work will be developed through discussion with a resource group of approximately
6 people in your seminar. We will help you form your resource group week 1 and
will create new resource groups at mid-quarter. Possible activities you could
do together with your group would be: writing and sharing journal entries,
reading and discussing resource guides and resource sharing. You will be allso
be expected to write a draft of each essay and work with a sub-group of 3 to
critique and revise the essays.
JOURNAL: A journal is not a diary. In
Local Knowledge we would like you to think of your journal as both a tool of
learning and a documentation of your work. By the end of each quarter it will
serve as a portfolio of your learning process, reflections and completed
assignments.
Your
journal should be well-organized into distinct sections. It should contain: (1)
all handouts, (2) your notes on class presentations, (3) reading notes, (4)
analytic reflections (about 1 page) in preparation for each seminar (these
should be written on the computer) which you will share with other seminar members,
and (5) specific assignments; i.e., an interview/oral history, an ethnographic
observation, and documentation of video work (including a script). Your faculty will collect and review your
journals twice this quarter (by 1:00 Wednesday of week 5 and by 1:00 Thursday
ofweek 10, focusing on a few reflections and other pieces you have selected.)
ESSAYS: Three 5 page essays in response
to framing questions about readings/viewings that Anne and Lin will provide.
Due Friday of week 4, 6 and 9. You will be asked to share a draft with 2
members of your resource group and make revisions based on their comments.
Please turn in your original draft, reader comments and your revised (final)
draft.
INTERVIEW/ORAL
HISTORY: Your
collected writings on interviewing: your interview questions, other raw
materials, at least partial transcription of your interview and reflections on
the interview process.
ETHNOGRAPHIC
OBSERVATION:
Field notes, written reflections, distilled description, self-reflexive
component.
VIDEO: A short, collaboratively produced
video sharing your new knowledge of a communitiy site. To be integrated with
other forms of presentation (written, interactive?). Along with the completed
video please expect to keep written logs, a shooting script, copies of
releases, as necessary, and other relevent documents of your process.
PRESENTATIONS: This quarter your ethnographic
observations, oral history work and video/audio production will be synthesized
into a presentation about a particular site in Olympia. You will work on this
project in small collaborative groups. Your presentation can be set up like an
installation or in some other engaging and informative format. Our goal, as a
program, will be to construct an interactive, 3-dimensional, time-based ÒmapÓ
of our new learnings about Olympia.
Local Knowledge: Revised 10/12/04
Main
reading: Break Their Haughty Power
Tuesday: Program
Logistics and Introductions
Yarn
Game: Origins
Questions: Where
do you come from?
What
are you bringing with you?
What
is history, and what is our relationship to it?
Collective brainstorm: what is community? What is local?
Reflective
writing
Continue
and compete in PM and share out with 2 colleagues
Group
de-brief
Keep
your reflective writing in journal to revisit later.
Lewis
County and Centralia websites
Wednesday seminar 10-12: Break Their Haughty Power
Wednesday
all-program gathering: 12-1 (orientation to Centralia and prep for fieldtrip)
Wednesday
2:00-3:30: Lecture Hall 1, training/orientation for van drivers; bring valid
drivers license;
Friday
9:00: fieldtrip to Centralia
Friday
12:30 PM: ÒLewis County Hope and StruggleÓ at the Olympia Club
Assignment: write up field trip experience
for Tuesday of week 2
Optional
and recommended: Attend Friday night Artwalk.
Readings: Local History/National Context
Reader
Tuesday
10-1: Film: ÒAn Injury to OneÓ by Travis Wilkerson; the Wobblies and
alternative visions of Labor (Guest: Peter Kardas and Dennis Otterstetter,
Labor Center staff); discussion of Centralia fieldtrip.
Wednesday
10-1: mapping workshop
Friday:
Olympia field trip starts 9:30 at Seven Oars Park near 4th Ave.
Bridge and end ends at 4:30 at First Christian Church.
Week 3: October 12-15
Reading:
Brown, In Timber Country
Tuesday 10-1:
Debra Salazar: Forest Policy: Natural Resources and Social Justice; Screen ÒCutsÓ;
Create groups for ethnographic observations and Wednesday media workshops.
Tuesday 2:20-4:30:
Seminar
Wednesday
workshop 10-1: Sound
Recording with Minidisk Recorders and Microphones (with Aaron Kruse)Ñin A-3105)
Digital
camcorders (with Anne in A-1107)
Friday library workshop and research activity and seminar:
9:30-11:30
AnneÕs group in seminarÑweÕll meet in B-3109**
LinÕs group in library workshop
(in B-1105)
11:30-12:30
B-1105: Everyone--screen ÒHolding GroundÓ
1:30-3:30 LinÕs group in seminar
AnneÕs group in library workshop
(in usual seminar room)
3:30-4:30 Closure
Assignment
1: Ethnographic Observation: observation and write-up. NO PHOTOGRAPHS or FILM or
SOUND RECORDING!
Assignment
2: First Paper Due Tuesday of week 4 before fieldtrip
Readings:
Brown, Voices from the Woods, readings on popular education, Ritchie, ÒConducting
InterviewsÓ in Interviewing Reader**
Monday,
Oct. 18: Grand opening of Center for Community-Based Learning and Action. Gus
Newport speaks. (Time TBA)
Tuesday: Fieldtrip to Shelton (times approximate; stay tuned)
9:20:
vans leave Red Square for Shelton Historical Society and walking tour.
12PM:
Meet at Mason County PUDÑbrown bag lunch, meeting with Sarah Loose, Jefferson
Center, and panel with Shelton community activists
Wednesday workshop 10-1: Digital Camcorders: (with Anne in A-1107)
Mini-Disc Recorders (with Aaron in
A-3105)
Thursday,
Oct. 21 7pm: Suggested screening: RachelÕs Daughters at Olympia Film Society
Friday 9:30-12:30:
Workshop on listening/interviewing
Friday
3:30-4:30: Discussion of ethics of media/ethnographic observation
Tuesday 10-1:
Appalshop films: Minnie BlackÕs Gourd Band, Girl Hoops, Coal Bucket Outlaw, Jon SilverÕs Trials of Juan
Parra
Tuesday 2:30-4:30:
Seminar
Wednesday
10-1: Library Workshop, part 2 (details TBA)
Friday:
Fieldtrip to Commencement Bay with Leslie Rose, Citizens for a Healthy Bay (www.healthybay.org) (exact times TBA)
Readings:
1. Citizen Muckraking, Ch.1-4, 8, and ÒMuckraking 101Ó , ch. 2-7
2. Jackson, Prime
Time Activism
Tuesday 10-1:
Guests: Lea Mitchell, PEER, and Journalist panel
Tuesday 2:30-4:30
Seminar
Wednesday
workshop 10-1: media work in progress
Anne and
Lin at Faculty Retreat: Thursday, Friday
Friday:
group projects based on Citizen Muckraking--details TBA
Readings:
Schneider and McCumber, An Air That Kills and supplementary resources
Tuesday 10-1: Environmental Policy and
Community, Screen Chemical Valley,
Tuesday 2:30-4:30: Seminar
Wednesday workshop: 1. 9:30-10:30 Everyone: Intro
to Video Editing
2. 10:45-1:00: media work in progress
3. Sing up for a 1-hour editing proficiency on
Wednesday afternoon or Thursday
Friday 9:30-12:30: Michael
Silverstein (physician and public health practitioner) and Dennis Otterstetter
(Field Organizer, TESC Labor Center)
Friday
3:30-4:30 Closure
Readings:
An Air That Kills, Citizen Muckraking, ch. 6, and supplementary
resources
Tuesday all day: Tacoma
fieldtrip to ASARCO and other sites. (details TBA)
Wednesday 10-1:
Environmental Health panel with Vivian Blanco,and Lillian Bartha (local
physicians) and Brandy Smith (Washington Toxics Coalition)
Friday
9:30-12:30: Working with Public Documents, Building a Proposal, LK and other
program grads: Ben Tabor
Friday 1:30-3:30
Seminar
Friday
3:30-4:30: Begin Discussion of Winter Quarter
Assignment
2: Editing Script Due
Readings:
Korten, When Corporations Rule the World, Citizen Muckraking, ch. 5.
Tuesday 10-1: Possible
films: From the Mountains to the Maquillas, Stephan Chemical, McLibel
Tuesday 2:30-4:30:
Seminar
Wednesday10-1:
Project Strategies and Problem-Solving
Friday: No
Class: Preparation for week 10ÑAnne and Lin available as needed
Presentations: Creative synthesis of field observations and interpretations of Olympia community.
Tuesday
AM: Set-up for
presentations
Tuesday
PM: View
presentations with TESC and community participation
Wednesday
10-1: Project/Program discussion, closure
Friday
9:30-11:30: Self-evaluation workshop
Friday
PM: Everyone working on
evaluations