The Bicycle Film Festival is an annual, curated film festival focused on sharing a range of new bike films. Each festival offering is unique, and the films included are selected from submission and the final collection are then toured internationally to sell out crowds.
Brendt Barbur is the Founding Festival Director. He was inspired to create this event in 2001 after a traffic accident while cycling in New York City.
The Bicycle Film Festival is a platform to celebrate the bicycle through various forms of artistic expression, including music, art, and, notably, film and has significantly propelled the urban bike movement as well as promoting lesser-known types of bike riding.
Image: Bicycle Film Festival
This festival now spans 90 cities across the globe and the BFF has garnered a vast audience of over 1 million individuals. It has become one of the foremost art and cultural event advocating sustainability. The Bicycle Film Festival also has offshoot links with associated workshops, screenings, panel events, concert, food events and art exhibitions worldwide.
I really appreciate this event because it showcases new and original films that you cannot see anywhere else. the festival covers such a wide range of experiences, places and styles and it really gives you an insight into how important bicycles are to so many people. It is really a celebration of people, place and riding – it is affirming and heartwarming.
The Bicycle Film Festival’s YouTube channel is a testament to the range of interests, skills and quality of bike films being produced by enthusiasts. Here are a few of the offerings over the years:
As someone who delights in discovering artists who use bikes in their creations, I was delighted to stumble upon an Australian artist named Hilary Warren.
First, she’s an Australian female artist who, despite winning many awards, is not as well known her male counterparts. But that’s not what drew me to her work – it was the fact that two out of her five prints on the site featured a bicycle!
I also appreciate that Hilary is an older artist who only has two followers and few views of her work on this platform. As someone who values supporting and increasing the visibility of lesser known or underestimated individuals, I was more interested in Hilary’s work than the others listed.
I was also interested to Hilary uses work uses etching, which is not a common art medium – and certainly not one I have seen used in bike art very often at all.
I was also intrigued by Hilary’s artwork because it brought back memories of my time in Hoi An. I had the pleasure of cycling around the city and taking in the local atmosphere, and her prints captured that feeling so well. It was a delightful reminder of the happy days I spent exploring the city on two wheels and seeing exactly the kind of houses her work depicts.
Hilary’s choice to depict bicycles in the everyday life of Hoi An is significant because it serves as a reminder that bikes are utilized by diverse communities all over the world. It challenges the normative images and pervasive media representations that often only showcase white men as cyclists. By highlighting how people from all walks of life use bicycles in their daily routines, Hilary’s prints offer a much-needed reset from the limited and exclusionary messaging we often receive about cycling. It is refreshing to see such a representation showcasing a broader range of bike riding lifestyles, contexts and experiences.
In this collection, Hilary depicts everyday life in Hoi An, Vietnam, where bicycles are a staple of daily life. The way she captures the spirit of the city and how casually the bicycles wait outside people’s front doors at the ever-ready – is simple and meaningful.
It’s a testament to the way that bicycles are woven into the fabric of a community, becoming a vital part of the culture and identity of a place.
I like that her prints are understated and simple.
The sepia wash accentuates the nostalgic feeling of bygone years ..a time when every house had a bike ……. (*sigh*)…………..
Hilary Warren is a Canberra-based printmaker who began her art career after working in science. She obtained a PhD in Plant Biochemistry in 1970 and worked in Immunology until her retirement in 2014. She then turned her skills to printmaking, focusing on the Photopolymer Photogravure technique, in which she adapts her own photographs to create etched photopolymer plates. Warren has developed this skill through workshops with well-established Australian printmakers, and her hand-pulled prints are created using oil-based etching inks and Hahnemuhle paper.
Warren’s early work focused on images from her travels in Europe and Asia, but with travel limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she has started a series of botanical etchings using photographs taken in her own garden and at the Australian National Botanic Gardens. In other works, she explores still life, always emphasizing the use of light and shade to create a unique view of something ordinary.
Warren is committed to participating in the Australian and international printmaking community and finds inspiration in print exchanges, exhibitions held in Canberra by the Artists Society of Canberra and the Canberra Art Workshop, and prestigious art prizes, where she has been selected as a finalist in several. She is always eager to learn from others and continues to develop her skills through workshops and collaboration with other artists.
Latin America is driving the promotion the use of bicycles as a means of transportation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and creating cleaner and healthier societies. Costa Rica has a progressive national policy that promotes the use of bicycles and road safety education. Here is a little more about what is happening there. Very inspiring! Enjoy! NG.
Photo: Gabo G./Shutterstock
Costa Rica: leading the way with national bicycle policy
Costa Rica is driving bicycle riding and policy action in Latin America.
Costa Rica is leading the way with its national policy to promote the use of bicycles.
The country is offering tax incentives for companies that encourage their staff to use bikes. This initiative forms part of the strategy to decarbonize the country by 2050.
More and more businesses are providing exclusive parking slots, showers, and changing rooms for their employees, among other facilities.
The aim is to encourage more people to use bicycles instead of cars, which generate more than 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in Costa Rica.
Road safety education
To further promote the use of bicycles, the government is calling for better street infrastructure and road safety education.
This education will be mandatory for all students in public and private schools. The government is also encouraging and regulating municipal systems of public bicycles. Public and private initiatives that promote the use of bicycles are already booming in Costa Rica.
BiciBus, a company that provides advice to those who want to replace their cars with bikes, is one of them. Another is the Cycle-Inclusive badge, which is granted to cycling-friendly businesses.
In addition, a team supported by both BiciBus and Cycle-Inclusive travelled 917 kilometres by bicycle from San José to Panama City to raise awareness of the role of bicycles in creating cleaner and healthier societies.
This initiative shows the positive impact that bicycles can have on communities and how they can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Making positive change
The initiatives highlighted in the UN Environment Programme report demonstrate the positive impact that bicycles can have on communities.
Costa Rica’s national policy to promote the use of bicycles, better street infrastructure, road safety education, and municipal systems of public bicycles are all effective ways to promote the use of bicycles as a means of transportation.
This report is a perfect example of how bicycles can create positive change, and this initiative is a model that other places should follow.
By encouraging the use of bicycles, communities can live better lives while creating a cleaner and healthier environment for future generations.
An example for other countries
These initiatives taken in Costa Rica to promote bicycle usage are a remarkable example of how a country can take concrete steps towards decarbonization and creating a more sustainable future.
By offering tax incentives to companies that encourage bicycle use by their staff, improving street infrastructure and road safety education, and promoting public and private initiatives that support cycling, Costa Rica has set an impressive benchmark for other countries to follow.
It’s heartening to see the positive impact that bicycles can have on communities, and how they can play a crucial role in mitigating climate change.
This case study from Costa Rica provides valuable lessons and inspiration for other cities and countries looking to embrace clean mobility and create healthier and more sustainable environments for their citizens.
In this session, we are truly transcending time, space, place and bodies as we explore the NM potentialities of reimagining an inspirational, yet relatively, unknown WWII story.
We are very excited to have guest presenter Jenny Ginsberg (University of La Trobe) presenting key insights of her recent Master’s research.
Jenny is putting together a PhD submission and is keen to discuss this opportunity with the SIG to garner some initial New Materialisms ideas and suggestions as a launching off point for this exciting next step.
…and yes, as you might have noticed from the similar surname, Jenny is my Mum!
This session’s provocation was:
What new possibilities might emerge from a New Materialist ‘return’ to the inspirational flight and return of the Danish Jews 1943-1945?
The Civilizing Process: moving from sociological understandings to Posthumanist materialities.
Abstract
The genesis of this research lies in an extraordinary moment in history. It was one in which lives were saved; when courage, creativity and social cohesion combined and triumphed.
This research merges a fortuitous and rare meeting of a wartime story of escape and return. It is the story of the flight of the Danish Jews in 1943 and their return home in 1945. Nearly 8,000 Danish Jews escaped directly to Sweden while 470 were imprisoned in Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp. This project traces the extraordinary and unparalleled rescue of those imprisoned in Terezin, as well as the survival of more than 95 percent of the Jewish population of Denmark – a remarkable achievement at the time that was unmatched by any other Nazi-occupied European country.
In her Master’s, Jenny used Norbert Elias’ concept of national habitus to foreground relational, long-term state formation processes as part of a theory of The Civilizing Process (Elias, 2000). Jenny’s project uniquely put to work national habitus to argue that the events of 1943 flight and the 1945 return, must be considered as an ‘entangled’ experience. This enables a close relational understanding of the significance of this point in time with(in) the inclusive and compassionate Danish national ‘habitus’ at that time. This project looks at the multiple figurations found in Danish society and the crucial role they played in the successful escape and return of the Danish Jews.
Of particular interest for the NM SIG is the recognition of the often overlooked and under-appreciated contribution of Danish women to the wider occupation historiography, which was largely written and curated by men. Jenny invites the SIG to engage in the yet-to-be-explored materialities of this story – such as the boats used in the escape, letters, clothing, symbolisms and defiant collective practices adopted by the Danes – and myriad other material-affective-discursive forces and most notably, those co-contributing to the unified and compassionate leadership and the sustained, collective response to the urgent needs of fleeing and captive Danes.
Some session snapshots
We had an amazing time! The warmup activities got us thinking beyond and making links that we were not able to arrive at individually. Jenny’ session was expertly put together and she is a highly engaging storyteller.
The rich materiality of this era gave us much to discuss and there were some great ideas on how Jenny could move forward using a posthumanism and/or New Materialist approaches.
Below are a few session highlights.
NM SIG Activity
To start, we did a few collaborative thinking-writing activities. The first was a collaborative poll of keywords and ideas (see above). We then did a responsive, collaborative writing task using the chat box. That was great fun! Below is what we cocreated (names removed for privacy).
Collaborative chat box writing activity
My 100-word worlding for this session
Jenny’s telling untold stories again. The WWII flight and return of Danish Jews. Snippets of materialities: no yellow stars, food parcels, clothes, boats, Red Cross visitations, propaganda films and the king defiantly riding his horse down Copenhagen’s main street. Ignoring German soldiers in bakeries. Leadership agreements. Unspeakable everpresent brutality. Inescapable – ineluctable. A nation-wide underground resistance: all locals were in on it. National Habitas. Protect all Danes. Homes preserved (not looted), goods boxed up, gardens watered for those ‘away’. Rescue missions, drunk signatures and white buses sweep for ‘others’. Secret fishing boat crossings. Flowers, chocolates and K1,000 compensation on return.
*Postscript: As of March 2022, Jenny was accepted to do this topic as her PhD.*
CONGRATS to Jenny….
…and a massive thank you for sharing her hard work and this most remarkable story.
Presenter Bio
Jenny Ginsberg is an educator of 40+ years, a social activist and an artist. She has taught at a range of Melbourne schools, including MLC as a leading teacher in gifted education and oral history. This September, Jenny is submitting her Master’s by Research (School of Social Sciences at La Trobe Uni, Melbourne) and is looking to undertake a PhD in 2022.
She aims to use the PhD to deepen and extend her Master’s project (see abstract below). Jenny’s research interests include the sociological theories of Norbert Elias, an emerging interest in Feminist New Materialisms, long-term historical/sociological processes, leadership, and the interconnectedness of all things.
As a mature-age researcher (74), she is growing old, with the emphasis on growing, and brings a wealth of knowledge and life experience to her work.
Regular readers of this blog know my bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork was with the local people and riders of Lunsar, Sierra Leone.
The Lunsar Cycling Team has been gaining increasing attention recently, especially with the upcoming, ever popular annual Tour de Lunsar cycling event.
I was delighted to see AFRICAP is a Tour de Lunsar event supporter. AFRICAP cycling caps was founded by Hammer (from Sierra Leone!) who started it out of a love for cycling and a desire to bring something special to the sport.
Africap was created to merge two passions: African prints and cycling. Cycling caps are not traditionally made with African prints, so Africap saw an opportunity to change that. They create beautiful and stylish cycling caps made from traditional African fabrics.
Image: Africaps
Ankara Prints
Each Africap product is made with a unique African print. The prints are sourced from all over the continent, so no two products are exactly alike.
These cycling caps are handcrafted from Ankara material which is a traditional African fabric. Ankara textiles are wax-printed cotton fabrics commonly used across West Africa and each region has its own distinctive design. The material itself is great as it is very light, airy and absorbent which helps keeps riders cool.
Each cap is named after a particular region that the fabrtic is from. Africaps are not factory made, but released in limited editions so are collector’s items and highly sought after.
Image: Africaps
There are so many different African prints and textiles, it can be hard to know where to begin. One of the things that makes African prints so special is the range of colours and designs. Whether you’re looking for something bright and bold or more subdued and traditional, there’s an African print out there for you.
Ankara prints are unique for many reasons. One reason is that they are handmade. African prints are also usually made with bright, bold colors that reflect the vibracy and diversity of African cultures. Ankaras often have geometric patterns that are created by both hand-painting and block printing. African prints usually have a lot of symbolism. For example, certain animals may be used to represent different ethnic groups or ideas. All of these factors combine to create some truly beautiful and unique fabrics.
Image: Africaps
Africap’s STORE has a range of musettes and their groovy cycling caps are named after the regions the material comes from –such as Bo, Ngor, Cocody, Abduja, Odu and Regent.
I was super impressed to see that Africap supports sustainable practices and that no plastic materials are used during production or sales cycles. I can see why these caps have quickly become a favorite among cyclists in Africa and for those ‘in the know’ internationally.
Africaps is working to expand its reach beyond Africa, and has already partnered with several international cycling teams.
The company’s mission is to promote cycling in Africa and to help African cyclists reach their potential. And it was great to see them doing this with their renewed support of Tour de Lunsar 2022.
See more about Africaps and Hammer in Sylvie D’Aoust’s video below.
August 9th is the UN International Day of World Indigenous People.
Recognition for Indigenous people needs far more work.
This year, the UN is highlighting the marginalization of Indigenous Peoples by demanding a ‘social contact’ that better recognizes the social and economic inclusion, participation, and approval for all involved.
This post outlines 2021 the UN International Day of Indigenous Peoples and this year’s central theme.
I’ve also included a curated list of resources and links for those who want more at the end.
Image: UN
This year’s theme is:
Leaving no one behind:
Indigenous Peoples and the call for a new social contract
Here’s what the UN has to say:
Indigenous peoples & a new social contract
There are over 476 million indigenous peoples living in 90 countries across the world, accounting for 6.2 per cent of the global population. Indigenous peoples are the holders of a vast diversity of unique cultures, traditions, languages and knowledge systems. They have a special relationship with their lands and hold diverse concepts of development based on their own worldviews and priorities.
Although numerous indigenous peoples worldwide are self-governing and some have been successful in establishing autonomy in varying forms, many indigenous peoples still come under the ultimate authority of central governments who exercise control over their lands, territories and resources. Despite that reality, indigenous peoples have demonstrated extraordinary examples of good governance, ranging from the Haudenosaunee to the existing Sámi parliaments in Finland, Sweden, and Norway.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated many existing inequalities, disproportionately affecting populations all over the world that were already suffering from poverty, illness, discrimination, institutional instability or financial insecurity. From the perspective of indigenous peoples, the contrast is even starker. In many of our societies, the social contract, at the very least, needs some revision.
Image: UN
What is a social contract?
This August 9, International Day of Indigenous Peoples, we must demand indigenous peoples’ inclusion, participation and approval in the constitution of a system with social and economic benefits for all.
That is why the 2021 theme is ““Leaving no one behind: Indigenous peoples and the call for a new social contract.” But, what does it mean?
A social contract is an unwritten agreement that societies make to cooperate for social and economic benefits. In many countries, where indigenous peoples were driven from their lands, their cultures and languages denigrated and their people marginalized from political and economic activities, they were never included in the social contract to begin with. The social contract was made among the dominant populations.
Over recent years and decades, various societies have sought to address this, including through apologies, truth and reconciliation efforts, legislative reforms, as well as constitutional reforms, while at the international level, these efforts have included the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and advisory bodies such as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Image: UN/Rick Bajornas
Despite the existence of international instruments to respond these inequalities, not all are embarked on the collective journey to ensure that no one is left behind, including indigenous peoples. Therefore, the building and redesigning of a new social contract as an expression of cooperation for social interest and common good for humanity and nature, is needed.
The new social contract must be based on genuine participation and partnership that fosters equal opportunities and respects the rights, dignity and freedoms of all. Indigenous peoples’ right to participate in decision-making is a key component in achieving reconciliation between indigenous peoples and States.
Cultural Survival is an organization committed to advancing indigenous peoples’ rights and cultures worldwide. They have a well-curated list of 12 things to do ranging from articles, podcasts, interactive maps, and other links to learn more about indigenous people around the world. It is well worth a look – check it out here.
Matt Root and his two cargo bike under 95cm ‘city experts’. Image: Radio Adelaide.
Recently, I had the opportunity to hear Matt Root, an avid bike rider and dad of two toddlers present a session called ‘Going Dutch, cargo bikes for kids’ – and it was really great!
His presenation focused on what life on a biek and in the city is like from the point of view of his two young sons. Perspectives like child-centred research and having chilldren activitely participating and informing research and policy is a key step in better redesigning more liveable cities for all.
So I was most intrested to hear what emerrged from the two young experts (Matt’s two sons, aged 2 and 4) while Dad (Matt)* rigged on-board GoPro cameras to capture all the fun and sense of adventure.
In this session, we heard what the pre-schoolers liked and disliked about our streets from their unique vantage point (see below).
From this vantage, Matt draws out aspects of what new ideas we can learn from these young experts.
Below are a few of those insights. All images by Matt Root.
After Matt’s presentation, I went looking for more information about this and was happy to see Victoria Local Goverance Association has a Child Friendly Cities and Community focus.
*Matt Root is a co-owner of Flyt transport planning consultancy based in Perth and he is focused on the planning of safe and convenient bicycle infrastructure across the city. Between 2018-2020 Matt led the State Government’s planning for Perth’s Long Term Cycle Network to accommodate the city’s population in 2050.
From the front box of a cargo bike, how do our streets and
built environment look and feel to a 2 & 4-year-old?
The Urban95 initiative asks this simple question to leaders, planners, and designers.
Urban95 design principals focus on family-friendly urban planning and those designs can help us active transport professions in our work.
The Urban95 project has at its heart a focus on children-friendly cities and urban development.
Urban95 interventions help cities increase positive interactions between caregivers, babies and toddlers; increase access to — and use of — the services and amenities families need; and reduce stresses on caregivers. They are organised into two categories of policies and services:
Family-friendly urban planning and design, including the planning, design and regulation of a city’s space, land use, infrastructure and services
Healthy Environments for children, including improving air quality and access to nature
The Urban95 background states that more than a billion children live in cities, and rapid urbanisation means that number is growing.
Babies, toddlers and caregivers experience the city in unique ways.
They need safe, healthy environments, where crucial services are easily accessible, frequent, warm, responsive interactions with loving adults are possible, and safe, a stimulating physical environment to play in and explore abound.
The City at Eye Level for Kids (Ebook pg 54 & 55).
The City at Eye Level for Kids
From Urban95 comes The City at Eye Level which, as their website explains, develops and shares knowledge about how to make urban development work at human scale.
A collaboration with the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s Urban95 initiative, this – The City at Eye Level for Kids – book contains over 100 contributions from across the world on work to improve cities for children and the people who care for them.
It shares practices, lessons, perspectives and insights from 30 different countries around the world, that will be useful to urban planners, architects, politicians, developers, entrepreneurs and advocates for children and families.
So instead of having our usual guest presenter, we thought we’d use the recent conference to hold a Popcorn Session.
Popcorn Sessions are where we watch and discuss NM ‘research clips’ such as conference recordings (15-20 mins long each) to think-with creative and cutting-edge NM ideas and experiences.
These research clips explore a range of different ideas and approaches and are lead by some of the world’s leading posthumanist and NM scholars/researchers – so we are very lucky!
The focus for this popcorn session is taken from the ICQI session called Entanglements in the World Becomings.
July Popcorn Theme: Entanglements in the World Becomings.
Recognition, Creative-Rationality, Writing and the Excess of Inquiry – Jon Wyatt (Uni of Edinburgh).
Crafting a New Materialist Becoming – Lise Jean Claiborne (Uni of Waikato).
Slow Dancing and kinship. The Holly Oak, the horse chestnut, Bronwyn and Jane. Jane Speedy (Uni of Bristol) & Bronwyn Davis (Uni of Melb. and Western Sydney Uni).
NM SIG Discussion points and lines of flight
..if we only write for ourselves (or for other NMs) is that limiting?
….what is the purpose?
…….delighting in ‘swerving off course’
………….human ‘desire lines’
…………….a picture I drew about my PhD research
…………………I couldn’t stay longer
…………………….contact – what is your ‘best’ contact?
…………………………the importance of …(more).. thoughtful relationally
……………………………I don’t mind staying
………………………………..Does NM work best when it is unseen and hidden?
……the Holly Oak …….. the horse chestnut ……. the table top……
Below are two 100-word wordings I wrote based on my discussion notes and reflections from participating and thinking-with this NM SIG Popcorn Session.
Coextensions swerving off course
Births of practicality. Limitations of relations, power and ethics. Does ‘anything’ really ‘go’? Using ‘swamps’ to describe things. Leaving marks and theory debt. The uncomfortable possibility that what we reject, we have actually adopted. Discovering Rautio’s four balancing arts. Interweaving the academic and the everyday. Audacious engagements are more-than-method. We are crafting a New Materialist Becoming. Ethical propositions transforming behaviour. The delights of swerving off course. Human desire lines and co-extensions. Considering how to make our work ‘speak to’ other-than scholars. The performativity of being and academic. People want to stay later – there is so much more! Nothing is ordinary.
Slow Dance and Kinship
We’re in the private world of two scholarly lovers: a voyeuristic delight of intellect and intimacy. Slow dance and kinship. Paramours from opposite sides of the world exchange thoughts, writing, photos, drawings, and poetry. They sit under special trees, thinking deeply about each other and the world. Intraspecies tree empathy, tabletops, and hospitalisation for a stroke. Frothy entanglements with nomadic feminist scholars, grainy wood(ly) figures, solitude, ‘eyeless’ gazes and being bodily compromised. Our ancients believe. Vulnerability and the interconnectedness of all things. Pink and purple lines with green dots trace the hidden, yet (un)known. Mycorrhizal assemblages of love.
For this month’s NM SIG meeting, we are putting to work New Materialisms differently. We are using NM to consider more deeply some of the wider and pressing current affairs and social movements of our day. There is much happening locally and globally that is troubling and significant – and these dynamics demand our attention and engagement as compassionate human beings, community members, ethical researchers, and citizens of the world.
So we are taking some time to check-in and think-with some of the current ‘big themes, events and issues’ in the news and media, in particular:
Women’s issues/rights and recent protests
COVID-19
Climate Change
…and to consider the human and non-human aspects of current events/news to tease out the ways these issues are entangled.
The highlight of this meeting is an interview with Dr. Adele Pavlidis – where we chat about a recent paper she co-wrote with Prof. Simone Fullagar that took an NM lens to the early days of COVID.
We also invited members to bring ideas about these current social issues with the purpose of linking them to our research.
Thinking through the disruptive effects and affects of COVID-19 with feminist New Materialisms
Dr. Adele Pavlidis is a Senior Lecturer at Griffith University. She is a social scientist and writer who draws on a range of methods to better understand the world we live in. Her work examines the ways sport and leisure can be understood as spaces of transformation and ‘becoming’. Influenced by Deleuze and Guattari, Irigaray, and contemporary feminist writing on affect (Probyn, Ahmed, Blackman and others), Adele’s intellectual concern is with the possibility of a feminine cultural imaginary and a future open to possibility.
What happened in this meeting?
We had a great time! Lots of generative discussions.
Below are two 100-word worldlings I wrote as a summary of: 1) the interview and 2) the subsequent discussion.
Excavating the ‘no global’.
Thinking-with Adele’s disruptive effects and affects of COVID-19 and ‘the women’s problem’. Relationships between price, value and ‘what you get’ in (re)turn and environment. Quality, care, potentiality, privacy and openness. There is nothing wrong with being angry. Privileged intersections: Instagram’s ‘Advanced Style’ sans @suekreitzman. Loving the multiscalar. Considering Janelle Knox-Hayes’ ‘value of markets’ and the time-space sociomateriality of organisations and natural environments. There is no such thing as ‘the global’. Theresa’s feeling that this thinking is like GIS – layering data on top of each other, then exploring the multi-lens/scale mess reminds me of Karen Barad’s ‘stratification’. Purposefully ‘plugging in’.
Climate change inequities.
Climate change is a product of inequality. If we look at inequality as a practice that is connecting us or an outcome of/or a network of relations… or as predetermined/context/flows…. response-ability… can we flip inequality? What about inequality as something we are responsible for? Colonialism and modern economies of slavery. Emma Dabiri says Do not touch my hair and has great suggestions for What white people can do next – moving from allyship to coalition. Making visible individual actions and larger structures that remove agency. Moving to individual actuals as objects of inequalities. Challenging amnesias and re-collecting Feminist New Materialisms elsewhere.
Resources
For this meeting, we suggested the below resources to get the juices flowing.
Fullagar, S., & Pavlidis, A. (2020). Thinking through the disruptive effects and affects of the coronavirus with feminist new materialism. Leisure Sciences, 43(1-2), 152-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2020.177399. This paper (see above to download) focuses on the disruptive biocultural force of the coronavirus highlights the value of more-than-human perspectives for examining the gendered effects and affects on our everyday lives and leisure activities.
For a pure theoretical provocation, try this YouTube Karen Barad clip of a paper on troubling times/(Un)doing the future (31 min)
I appreciate the sentiment of Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) in taking time to recognise and celebrate the hard work parents do.
I like to think that mums are always appreciated as much as they are on Mother’s Day (ie for the other 364 days of the year as well) – not just one day a year … I hope …
Traditionally Mother’s Day is celebrated with breakfast in bed, flowers or lunches out with loved ones.
With much work needed to address systemic gender inequities, I’m proposing that this Mother’s Day is an opportunity to recognize such issues and think more carefully about how we celebrate mums and other (female) carers.
Mother’s Day is an opportunity to consider more critically the presence and presents we are giving to mums and what these ‘gifts’ communicate, expect and perpetuate.
Keep in mind that Mother’s Day (and other similar commemorative events) are overwhelmingly driven by corporate advertising and marketers who don’t give a shit about mums – they just want to sell more crap.
Such ‘gifts’ are not very honouring, nor are they particularly thoughtful.
So for Mother’s Day 2021, consider doing things a little differently.
Consider talking to a mother (key person) in your life – and dig a little deeper. Have a D & M (deep and meaningful). Be curious about their life (if they are willing to share) listening to what they have to say – and take your time. Go beyond the superficial and every day. Ask them more probing questions and listen to their experiences. Take time to really listen to what life is like for them – to be a mum/carer and a woman-person in the world. Ask them what their life is like – all the ups and downs. Tell them you notice all the small, thankless, important things they do – and that you know there are thousands of other hidden things that you are not aware of, but you know they do anyway, to make your life easier. Explain how you are aware of how hard they work – for you, in the home, at work, in the world.
A conversation like this is something a box of chocolates can’t achieve.
Oh… and if you do want to get them a present, ask them what they really want. Something just for them – and when they tell you what it is, don’t question it, discuss it or negotiate it- just do it.
And maybe you might want to add in something else – something more thoughtful and personal. Something just from you – that you think is an adequate tribute to that special person in your life.
