tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42819699304407745362024-03-13T16:42:35.788-07:00Christine FolchAnalyzing news, culture, history, current events of Latin America (and beyond).Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.comBlogger252125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-88739493402703102872015-12-23T19:04:00.000-08:002015-12-23T19:04:01.191-08:00Migrating to christinefolch.comPlease join me at my new site: <a href="http://christinefolch.com/">http://christinefolch.com/</a><span id="goog_751807780"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_751807781"></span>Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-52911054034383163332015-12-22T08:19:00.000-08:002015-12-22T08:24:54.573-08:00Colorado & Brazil mine disasters kill two rivers in 2015.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Contaminated_Rio_Doce_Water_Flows_into_the_Atlantic_(23414457121).jpg#/media/File:Contaminated_Rio_Doce_Water_Flows_into_the_Atlantic_(23414457121).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Contaminated Rio Doce Water Flows into the Atlantic (23414457121).jpg" height="480" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Contaminated_Rio_Doce_Water_Flows_into_the_Atlantic_%2823414457121%29.jpg" width="720" /></a></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">NASA Earth Observatory image shows toxic mud reaching Atlantic Ocean.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/44949218@N02/23414457121/" rel="nofollow">Contaminated Rio Doce Water Flows into the Atlantic</a>. Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0">CC BY-SA 2.0</a> via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/">Commons</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Basics to understand 2 of the worst environmental disasters from this
year. The short of it is that twin mining disasters have <span style="color: black;"><u><b>killed two rivers</b>.</u> The long-term punchline is this: figuring out how to respond to these disasters will shape the future because of how they affect trans-boundary water systems and the $$$ involved.<br /><u><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_yBrLM-N0nU/Vnl3vIREEqI/AAAAAAAABw0/-xGfo5es9wU/s1600/animas-river.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_yBrLM-N0nU/Vnl3vIREEqI/AAAAAAAABw0/-xGfo5es9wU/s320/animas-river.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Animas River Before & After (Durango Herald)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</u></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">August 5, 2015:</span> EPA employees & contractors, working on cleaning
up an <span style="color: black;">abandoned gold mine in Colorado,</span> instead release toxic waste water from a
breached dam. Contaminants from <a href="http://www.epa.gov/goldkingmine">Gold
King Mine</a> flood Cement Creek and then the Animas River, turning the whole
thing bright yellow.</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">November 5, 2015:</span> a dam holding back waste from an iron ore mine ruptures,
sending toxic mud into the <span style="color: black;">Doce River in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil</span>.
More than a dozen people die immediately and the river is turned bright red,
killing all forms of wildlife. Contaminants from the
Brazilian-English/Australian Samarco Mineração mine travel down the Doce and
reach the Atlantic Ocean on November 22, 2015. This means that the southern
Atlantic Ocean will feel the detrimental impacts.</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">### years: </span>the EPA is keeping quiet, but it's going to take years before
the Animas River will be <a href="http://www.livescience.com/51831-colorado-mine-spill-cleanup.html">cleaned
up</a>. During that time, communities that live on the basin will face
potentially lethal contaminants and the farming/ranching industries fed by the
river are done.</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">100 years: </span>Brazilian marine biologist Andres Ruchi <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34892237">told</a> the BBC to
expect that the southern Atlantic Ocean (!!!) and the Doce River would be
compromised for at least 100 years. </span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">Navajo Nation rejected by FEMA:</span> the EPA-caused spill has flowed into
Navajo land, which means that ground water is contaminated and houses near the
river are not suitable for human habitation. But <a href="http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/fema-wont-help-the-navajo-nation-with-gold-king-mine-spill-cleanup-7767124">FEMA</a>
has rejected tribal president Russell Begaye's request to help with clean-up.</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">Doce River Species Extinct: </span>"The biodiversity of the river is
completely lost," <a href="http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/11/brazil-mine-disaster-dam-collapse">said</a>
Rio-based researcher Aloysio Ferrão. "Several species, including endemic
ones must be extinct."</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">$### :</span> the EPA isn't saying how much it's going to cost to clean up the
Animas disaster.</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">Brazilian gov't sues for $5.2billion: </span>$260million pledged by Samarco
Mining Co. is not enough, according to the Brazilian government, which has
initiated a $5.2billion <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/mining/12024182/BHP-Billiton-shares-drop-as-it-braces-for-3.5bn-fine-over-Brazil-dam-burst.html">lawsuit</a>
against Samarco and its two parent companies: <a href="http://www.bhpbilliton.com/">BHP Billiton</a> and Vale. </span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flooding_after_Bento_Rodrigues_dam_breach.gif#/media/File:Flooding_after_Bento_Rodrigues_dam_breach.gif"><img alt="Flooding after Bento Rodrigues dam breach.gif" height="464" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Flooding_after_Bento_Rodrigues_dam_breach.gif" width="825" /></a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flooding_after_Bento_Rodrigues_dam_breach.gif#/media/File:Flooding_after_Bento_Rodrigues_dam_breach.gif">Flooding after Bento Rodrigues dam breach</a>" by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/NASA" title="NASA">NASA</a> - <a class="external free" href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86990" rel="nofollow">http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86990</a>. Licensed under Public Domain via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/">Commons</a>.
</span></span>Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-68796791265398627942015-12-15T10:17:00.003-08:002015-12-15T10:20:08.019-08:00Paris & Rest of World Get Much-Needed Good News: UN Climate Accord Passes<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G2Xz3Dpx5_M/VnBS9eyXrZI/AAAAAAAABvc/VbagSn9v5hk/s1600/Watching%2Bthe%2BParis%2Bvictory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G2Xz3Dpx5_M/VnBS9eyXrZI/AAAAAAAABvc/VbagSn9v5hk/s400/Watching%2Bthe%2BParis%2Bvictory.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watching French President Hollande Praise the "Ambitious" COP21 Agreement. Like many in France, we celebrated with Bordeaux and conversation late into the night.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
"The Paris Accord passes," said Laurent Fabius, triumphantly describing the successful outcome of COP21 Paris Climate Conference he oversaw as its president. As his green gavel struck the table, thousands of cheering delegates leapt to their feet.<br />
<br />
195 countries and the EU approved the COP21 Climate Agreement on Saturday, December 12, 2015--a historic global accord to stop global warming and tackle climate change.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Though negotiations stretched 'til Saturday, at the end, no one seemed to mind much that an extra day had been added to the already-long COP. And the good news was much needed in Paris, nearly one month to the day of the horrific November terrorist attacks. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The<a href="http://newsroom.unfccc.int/unfccc-newsroom/finale-cop21/"> UN Climate Agreement</a> is just the beginning of an uphill battle--imperfect and requiring a lot of work from all countries in order to make a difference. Here are major points:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Rxqv0gb_ho/VnBZIfdaZJI/AAAAAAAABwA/5om7wovnMm0/s1600/IMG_3255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Rxqv0gb_ho/VnBZIfdaZJI/AAAAAAAABwA/5om7wovnMm0/s320/IMG_3255.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
• <u><b>Global temperature increase limited to 1.5<span class="st">°</span>C (3<span class="st">°</span>F).</b></u> This is more ambitious than the initially proposed 2<span class="st">°</span> limit and shows that negotiators took seriously the needs of low-lying island states which are in danger of disappearing as ice caps melt. But, we've already used up 2/3 of that temperature increase and we'll need to *increase* carbon absorption, not just limit emissions. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
• <b><u>2050 deadline for halting the temperature rise.</u> </b>De facto, this is also the deadline for the transition to renewable energy<b> </b>sources. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
• <u><b>The principle of "differentiation" (<a href="http://www.fyeg.org/news/cop21-guide-4-differentiation">common but differentiated responsibilities</a>)</b></u> which holds that, while climate change respects no national boundaries and must be tackled globally, not all countries equally contribute to global warming. And so, developed countries are encouraged to invest in "technology transfers" to developing countries to help offset the hurdles and costs of not using quick & cheap fossil fuels. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
• <u><b>Human rights, indigenous rights, and climate justice</b></u> have been shunted to the Preamble, not the actionable part of the agreement... or entirely omitted from the text. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
• <u><b>The $100 billion funding mechanism</b></u> is a start, but pledged dollars/euros/yen/etc. still have to come in by 2020, the formal start date of the Paris Accord.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2rEXhVdRmI8/VnBWNXBEYMI/AAAAAAAABvw/k-DQNAjMseQ/s1600/COP21%2Bsign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2rEXhVdRmI8/VnBWNXBEYMI/AAAAAAAABvw/k-DQNAjMseQ/s400/COP21%2Bsign.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Green Zone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br /></div>
Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-59901727936811055932015-12-09T15:03:00.001-08:002015-12-09T15:08:44.332-08:00Big News: COP21 Climate Agreement Draft Unveiled Today; Approval Tomorrow?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bXz0eRMPt2Q/VmivLCjZnzI/AAAAAAAABuw/F0dz9NVen2o/s1600/1.5%2Bdegrees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bXz0eRMPt2Q/VmivLCjZnzI/AAAAAAAABuw/F0dz9NVen2o/s640/1.5%2Bdegrees.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Key text from the newly released COP21 Agreement Draft</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The COP21 Paris Climate Conference has unveiled the <a href="http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/da01.pdf">final draft</a>
of a global agreement to fight climate change by cutting back on greenhouse
gas/carbon emissions. Bureaucrats and negotiators are expected to work deep
into the night to hammer out the sections that are still up in the air. And we
might even get a final decision by end-of-day Thursday.<br />
<br />
One of the biggest advances made is in a seemingly small number: the difference
between 1.5° and 2° Celsius. Climate scientists and advocates have successfully
pushed for the inclusion of a 1.5° cap on global warming and not the previously
planned 2° cap. Their suggestions have made it to the final draft of the
"actionable" part of the agreement (i.e., the Articles).<br />
<br />
Given how other crucial concerns like indigenous rights and human rights have
been relegated to the Preamble, which is less actionable than the Articles,
this is promising--though only very tentative--news.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deforestation in Paraguay & Brazil contributes to global warming</td></tr>
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<span class="st"><br /></span>
Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-47480096184625973632015-12-09T14:11:00.000-08:002015-12-09T14:11:40.262-08:00Success! Got my Antarctica World Passport at COP21 Paris<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And I just *happened* to have an extra passport sized photo</td></tr>
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The 1959 Antarctic Treaty, signed by more than 50 countries (including the U.S.), designates that continent for peace and scientific research--a borderless land outside the territorial ownership of any nation. But climate change and peak oil put this at risk--> as companies and governments eye the thawing landscape for extraction. </div>
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As a way to bring attention to these issues, artists Lucy and Jorge Orta have invited everyone to join their collaborative project: the <a href="http://www.antarcticaworldpassport.com/en/">Antarctica World Passport</a>. </div>
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<a href="http://www.solutionscop21.org/fr/">Solutions 21</a> at the Paris Climate Conference is actually *hosting* an AWP Office, where officers read you the obligations and register your info, and where you then "cross" the border to get the passport stamped. </div>
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There's also a public policy aspect to this. If 1million people sign on, AWP can initiate legislative proposal through the Europeans Citizens' Initiative. </div>
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Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-11541560948082369522015-12-04T16:16:00.002-08:002015-12-04T16:16:31.532-08:00In Latin America, Nature has Rights. (Useful lessons from the margins.)<div style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 19px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
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In the past few years, a political resurgence of Amerindian cosmologies and values regarding nature has spread throughout Latin America. Perhaps the most significant development in this was the recognition in the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution of the inalienable rights of nature to “exist, persist, maintain and Regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions.” Bolivia has ratified a Law of Mother Earth in 2010 which rests on the principles of: “harmony,” “collective good,” “the guarantee of regeneration,” “respect and defense of the rights of Mother Earth,” “anti-commercialization,” and “cross-culturalism.”</div>
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Why is this interesting? Well. We need really creative thinking to get us out of the problems we've gotten ourselves into. And this way of seeing nature offers a lot of helpful insights. (The importance of creative thinking feels so obvious that it almost sounds like an after school TV special. Unfortunately, it often seems we haven't learned those lessons.)</div>
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I'm at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference, and I'll be attentive to how creative voices of the margins speak to larger issues of climate, nature, and environment. </div>
Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-27828938542360591562015-11-29T08:26:00.000-08:002015-11-29T08:29:24.600-08:00COP21 Paris: Why I'm going. What you should know.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>You're going to Paris, why???</b> <br />
-- From 12/5-12/13, I'll be in Paris to participate in COP21.<br />
<br />
<b>Wait. What is COP21? Sounds like a Bruce Willis action movie.</b><br />
-- The <a href="http://www.cop21paris.org/about/cop21">2015 Paris Climate Conference</a> (a.k.a. COP21) has been convened by the UN for world leaders, scientific experts, and ordinary people to discuss and finally achieve a "legally binding and universal agreement" on climate change.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Seems daunting. What's the goal?</b><br />
-- Simply put: to stop global warming. The target number is 2°C--although human-caused climate change has already raised global temperatures, the aim of the COP21 agreement is to implement changes that'll keep global warming below 2°C (3.6°F for those of us who are metrically-challenged).<br />
<br />
<b>And it's in Paris? Aren't you worried?</b><br />
-- Nope. Also, I consider it a privilege to visit France at such a crucial moment in its history.<br />
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<b>Why are *you* going?</b><br />
-- As part of my work on "creation care," I'll be with several evangelical organizations that are participating in <a href="http://cop21religions.org/en/events/">ecumenical meetings</a> to pray for, speak about, and urge climate change response.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Are you going to be writing about this?</b><br />
-- <a href="https://twitter.com/christinefolch">Obviously</a>.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Are you available for interviews?</b><br />
-- Oui.<br />
<br />
<b>Parlez-vous français?</b><br />
-- Para ser honesta, no tanto como quisiera. Estudié el aleman en el colegio y el castellano fue mi idioma materno. Whoops. I just did that thing where you switch to the next "not English" language. Mais, je veux practiquer alors que je marche dans la rues de <span class="st">La Ville Lumière.</span><br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Is there a well-designed, inspiring, yet brief video I could watch? </b><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cQ4EYieWsTU" width="560"></iframe>Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-58997069153601045622015-10-21T17:29:00.002-07:002015-10-21T17:32:06.479-07:00Grad School Tips: Writing Strategies a.k.a. Best Advice I Ever Received<style>
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</style><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hands down, the very best advice I received in grad school was: <u><b>Write every seminar paper as if you were going to
publish it and then do so.</b></u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Publishing
articles of original research while in grad school (in peer-reviewed academic
journals) not only helps you when you’re on the job market (you’ll notice that
other candidates who are getting hired, even for teaching-intensive positions
at community colleges, will have numerous publications), but it helps you with
your funding proposals because it shows that you’re already a productive
scholar and a sound investment for grant dollars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
way to do this is to actually talk to your professors in your seminars and say,
“I’d like some direction about where and how to publish the final paper from
this course.” Journals aren't interested in just literature reviews, so you'll need to gather your own <b>data,</b> which you'll turn into <b>evidence</b>, and then into <b>argument</b>. To reiterate:<u> <b>you'll need to do your own original research</b>.</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The general
stages of publishing seminar papers are this: do the research, write the paper,
get feedback from professor, incorporate the feedback, present it somewhere at a
conference, get feedback, incorporate the feedback, send it to a journal, wait
a while, get a rejection (or a revise & resubmit) with some feedback,
incorporate the feedback, re-submit to journal, get rejected & submit it elsewhere or get accepted with
some feedback, incorporate the feedback, re-submit, edit, and wait until
published. (Two years, if you’re lucky!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">For graduate students who are about to go on the job market or are already on it, my advice is to find some low-hanging fruit (i.e., a chapter from the dissertation, a seminar paper for which you did original research three years ago, etc) and work on polishing that and getting it submitted to a journal ASAP. </span></div>
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<img alt="" class="post_media_photo image" data-pin-description="Amanda Patterson" data-pin-url="http://amandaonwriting.tumblr.com/post/61477735872" height="680" src="https://41.media.tumblr.com/acd18b20b3daa9badde1689833a0c27b/tumblr_mt62xd8azM1rnvzfwo1_500.jpg" style="height: 680px; width: 540px;" width="540" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Many academics swear by Wendy Laura Belcher's <a href="http://www.wendybelcher.com/writing-advice/writing-your-journal-article-in-twelve/">Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success</a>. Though I haven't used it, I find the practical ways she breaks down the process very compelling. By demystifying the process, Belcher dispels some of the myths that lead to perfectionism. <u><b>Perfectionism is your enemy.</b></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Writing Inspiration Here: <b><a href="https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/you-should-be-writing">youshouldbewriting</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Caveat: my advice comes from the social science/humanities disciplines I know best. It's important to figure out the conventions of your field on this. You do this by looking at the CVs of newly hired assistant professors in your department and at Liberal Arts Colleges throughout the U.S. </span></div>
Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-63151393454629768412015-08-29T12:00:00.002-07:002015-08-29T12:03:43.899-07:00Introducing: The Global Brazil Lab @Duke This is a great time to be studying Brazil and Duke and the <a href="http://www.fhi.duke.edu/">Franklin Humanities Institute</a> are a great place to do it. The <a href="http://sites.fhi.duke.edu/globalbrazil/">Global Brazil Lab</a> rests on three tentpoles—<b>culture, politics, and nature</b>—because Brazil forces us to ask comparative questions, questions that cross borders of all kinds: historical, linguistic, oceanic. I've just joined the Lab as a co-director, along with historian John French and romance studies/visual art scholar Esther Gabara, where I'll be able to focus on bringing in the environmental humanities as we have wide-ranging conversations with students, community members, faculty, and guests from Brazil.<br />
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For more:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cnp4qTO1FhY" width="560"></iframe>Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-81012918293130664112015-08-21T11:08:00.003-07:002015-08-21T11:08:53.503-07:00Office Hours & Fall Course on Energy Futures/Environmental JusticeMy office hours are now available for sign ups and if you're interested in taking the Environmental Humanities/Cultural Anthropology course I'm teaching this fall, there are a few spots left.<br />
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<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-36915082406386097552015-07-04T15:00:00.000-07:002015-07-04T15:00:54.571-07:00Honored to participate: my poem on Lament For The DeadEvery day this summer, a community of poets, artists, and ordinary folk have chosen to lament the death of anyone killed by police or a police officer killed in the line of duty with a poem. Brooklyn-based writer Carey Wallace is curating <a href="http://www.lamentforthedead.org/">Lament for the Dead</a>.<br />
<br />
Today, I added my piece to it, grieving the death of Victo Larosa III, 23, in Jacksonville, FL who died for $60 of crack and innumerable lies about what matters in life. Poetry makes us vulnerable--and I'm no poet, so I feel a bit abashed--but the issues of violence in our country are more important and worth the risk. <a href="http://www.lamentforthedead.org/poems/2015/7/3/unknown-person-jacksonville-fl">Here</a> it is in full.<br />
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And the first three lines:<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: black; color: white; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27.200000762939453px;">When did we decide sixty dollars of crack</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: black; color: white; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27.200000762939453px;"> was our thirty pieces of silver?</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: black; color: white; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27.200000762939453px;">That we should take a life for so little.</span><br />
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More on Lament for the Dead's vision and purpose:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Lament for the Dead is an online community poetry project which will mark the death of every person killed by police this summer, and every police officer who loses life in the line of duty, with a poem. </blockquote>
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The first lie that hate tells us is that any other person is not as human as we are.<br />
This project resists that lie by recognizing each other’s humanity, even in the most difficult places.</blockquote>
<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-55621397019437262882015-06-16T08:06:00.000-07:002015-06-16T18:17:47.108-07:00Strong Words at Wounded Knee: "F*ck historical trauma, we survived all and every act of genocide."<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-151df770-fcc4-c6ca-3433-00d952f3109f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking south towards Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge really is beautiful.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A litany: "Fuck historical trauma, we survived all and every act of genocide."</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The physical alteration of signs shows the struggle over how to tell the story of Wounded Knee (December 1890). Although originally entitled “The Battle of Wounded Knee,” someone nailed over the correction “Massacre.” And on the arch entrance to the mass grave: “Fuck Historical Trauma, we survived all and every act of genocide,” followed by a hand-written litany of dates from the 1803 “Illegal Louisiana purchase from French fur-traders” to the 1973 “Wounded Knee standoff.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Everytime I visit Wounded Knee, I struggle over how to tell the story, but I wish everyone would visit the small hill in the southern part of Pine Ridge. And I especially wish everyone who calls the U.S. home would take the pilgrimage through South Dakota’s breathtaking prairie to the site.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A carefully, and obviously, corrected sign.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Although cameras capture the vistas of impossibly wide skies and gently rolling hills, they don’t do justice to the scent of sweet grass that perfumes the winds--the only sound except for the small chimes they awaken.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Wounded Knee is where Custer’s regiment, the 7th Cavalry, killed more than 200 Lakota children, women, and men a decade and a half after Custer fell to the Lakota at Little Big Horn. The 1876 engagement was a battle, the 1890 meeting was a massacre. In the dead of winter, their bodies lay in the snow while the wounded took shelter at a little church still decorated for the Christmas holidays. Medals of Honor were given to the soldiers who posed with their weapons and the poem:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Famous Battery 'E' of the 1st Artillery. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These brave men and the Hotchkiss guns that Big Foot's Indians thought were toys, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Together with the fighting 7th what's left of Gen. Custer's boys, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sent 200 Indians to that Heaven which the ghost dancer enjoys. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This checked the Indian noise, and Gen. Miles with staff Returned to Illinois."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close-up of the second half: "The meek will own the earth."</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A close-up of the first half.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span id="goog_871781810"></span><span id="goog_871781811"></span>Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-71472258560248051342014-12-18T09:46:00.003-08:002014-12-18T09:51:17.151-08:00Immigration, Deportation, & the GOP: Implications of the Cuba-U.S. Thawing<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a seemingly sudden about-face, the <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7f7f6bba9d934897a07b09039fd25e38/ap-source-cuba-releases-us-prisoner-alan-gross">White House announced </a>what everyone thought must come eventually: U.S. relations with Cuba have been normalized, ending one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. The U.S. embargo against Cuba has been dismantled and the first phone call between the presidents of both countries since 1959 took place at noon on December 17, 2014. Pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle responded on cue: Marco Rubio (R, the son of Cuban immigrants) criticized the move as "<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/marco-rubio-says-cuba-talks-are-absurd-113639.html">part of a long record of coddling dictators and tyrants that this administration has established</a></span>"; John Kerry announced that the previous 6-decade policy had “<span style="color: black; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kerry-us-cuba-policy-has-isolated-united-states-instead-cuba-fifty-five-years_821796.html">remained virtually frozen, and done little to promote a prosperous, democratic and stable Cuba</a>.</span>”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As much of the focus is on how this will change the island, the decision has implications for the mainland, too:</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) “Wet Foot/Dry Foot” and Immigration:</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cubans have enjoyed a privileged status regarding immigration, compared to the rest of Latin America. The basics: if you’re Cuban and have one “dry” foot on U.S. land, you are automatically eligible for permanent residency.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Up to now, Cubans have never been “illegal aliens” because of the <a href="http://immigration.about.com/od/immigrationlawandpolicy/a/U-S-Allows-Cuban-Migrants-Different-Treatment.htm">wet foot/dry foot policy</a>. Those intercepted by the Coast Guard before touching land (two “wet” feet) are repatriated to a third country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But with the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations, the policy (which was a punitive response to the Cuban regime) is surely going to end. When will Cuban immigrants cease enjoying this privilege?</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Stalwart GOP voters no more?</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since the 1960s, Cuban-Americans have been reliable Republican voters. They’ve wielded disproportionate influence, relative to their numbers, because they’re concentrate in one state (Florida)—a state whose electoral college votes tip the U.S. presidency. But Pew has noted that <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/24/after-decades-of-gop-support-cubans-shifting-toward-the-democratic-party/">younger Cuban-Americans are less GOP-inclined</a> than their parents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a trend already underway. In 2002, 64% of registered Cuban-American voters leaned Republican and only 22% leaned Democrat. But just one decade saw a shift of nearly 20% for both: in 2013, 47% of registered Cuban-American voters leaned Republican and 44% leaned Democrat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the sake of comparison, <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/11/07/hispanic-voters-in-the-2014-election/">60% of Latinos lean Democrat</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, what happens when Cuban immigrants face the same anti-immigrant rhetoric and politics particularly favored in some parts of the right? Will more of them defect from the GOP?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or will the Republican party realize that, in order to grow, it needs to soften on immigration more broadly and that there is terrain to be won in this area? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See also:<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 30px;"><a href="http://cfolch.blogspot.com/2012/11/hispandering-what-gop-doesnt-get-about_18.html">“Hispandering”: What the GOP doesn’t get about Latino (and Asian) voters</a></span></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) Deportation of Cuban criminals living in the U.S.:</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As one Cuban-American law-enforcement expert (okay, my cousin) remarked, there are "hundreds, if not thousands of Cubans that have received orders of deportation for their criminal activities in the U.S. Many will have to be hunted down and repatriated." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This will involve an unprecedented "rush" of law enforcement cooperation between two countries where such ties have not existed. Who coordinates that? What are the terms of these agreements? Will this lead to an increased militarization of the Cuban police? </span></div>
Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-72296135066775020402014-09-04T09:01:00.000-07:002014-09-04T09:01:46.625-07:00Wheaton Alumni Magazine: Sustainability: Lessons from Latin AmericaMy latest in Wheaton's Alumni Magazine, the Faculty Voice column:
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I tell
people that I’m an anthropologist, an image of Indiana Jones, fedora-clad and
bullwhip in hand, is often the first picture that comes to mind. Though I’ve
never raided a lost ark or escaped a snake pit, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> seen the stunning Iguazú waterfalls depicted in the fourth
film of the series. And I’ve heard stories that rival Hollywood drama from
locals adept at debating energy politics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cultural</i> anthropologist, I research how
people live in the world today. The core lesson I’ve learned is the importance
of seeing through someone else’s eyes, not merely because we value diversity,
but because it’s there we find wisdom. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I study
renewable energy in Latin America, a topic I find more engrossing now than when
I began my research in 2007. Yet, had I not heeded the input of an ordinary
Paraguayan, I would have missed that path.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Confession: the
first time I visited Itaipú Dam (the Brazilian-Paraguayan hydroelectric plant
that I research), I was underwhelmed. Even though it’s the largest dam in the
entire world (capable of powering 33 percent of California’s annual energy
usage), Iguazú, the Argentine-Brazilian cataracts where water pounds rock so
powerfully that the mist rises like smoke, eclipsed my present view of Itaipú’s
concrete wall and placid reservoir. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then, one
Paraguayan to my right murmured, “Paraguay used to have waterfalls like
Iguazú.” He took my look of surprise as an invitation to continue. “But they
were destroyed for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>,” he added
with a meaningful nod at Itaipú Dam....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For the rest of the piece, see the interactive version of the <a href="http://www.joomag.com/magazine/mag/0827695001407856714%20">Wheaton Alumni Magazine</a>.</span></div>
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<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-55441729280256817172014-06-30T11:02:00.000-07:002014-06-30T11:07:35.784-07:00From 1492 to Wounded Knee: A journey of learning & bearing witness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R5b1Ua2jSOY/U7DBt4ciHCI/AAAAAAAABcY/LbsEte8XVa4/s1600/IMG_4044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R5b1Ua2jSOY/U7DBt4ciHCI/AAAAAAAABcY/LbsEte8XVa4/s1600/IMG_4044.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 8: Lakota medicine wheel in Art Alley, Rapid City</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Sy4VG--_SrA/U7DECOQKzzI/AAAAAAAABdo/ifNv_7AAPfs/s1600/IMG_3818.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Sy4VG--_SrA/U7DECOQKzzI/AAAAAAAABdo/ifNv_7AAPfs/s1600/IMG_3818.JPG" height="180" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 4: "Off road" in Pine Ridge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Along with a colleague and six undergraduates, I took a journey of
listening and learning over the past two weeks in a Native American
studies course hosted at the <a href="http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/gel/science-station">Wheaton Science Station</a> in the Black Hills,
SD. Rather than approaching this as a class with two professors and six
students, we were eight learners. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6WuXgExwpQ0/U7DDwff5klI/AAAAAAAABdY/efQz9xJSe5w/s1600/IMG_3691.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6WuXgExwpQ0/U7DDwff5klI/AAAAAAAABdY/efQz9xJSe5w/s1600/IMG_3691.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 1: Learning to raise a teepee from OLC Lakota Culture scholar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZroKecxlN84/U7GitEbnkFI/AAAAAAAABeM/sKrBnovMY6Y/s1600/IMG_3684.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZroKecxlN84/U7GitEbnkFI/AAAAAAAABeM/sKrBnovMY6Y/s1600/IMG_3684.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 1: The teepee</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And, even more importantly, the
"classroom" was as large as South Dakota and the "textbooks" were the
dozens of people we heard from as they described their lives and the
experience of the Plains' native communities' past and present.<br />
<br />
In the midst of lamenting the horrors of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7fZonjD1M">Wounded Knee</a> and
White Clay--an 1890 vengeance massacre by the 7th Cavalry (Custer's
former unit) and a pernicious Nebraska outpost whose sole purpose is to
sell alcohol to Pine Ridge reservation, respectively--we also witnessed
gleaming stories of hope.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mJVZMweXsyY/U7DDFS9RjvI/AAAAAAAABdQ/_PYl79z62-A/s1600/IMG_3759.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mJVZMweXsyY/U7DDFS9RjvI/AAAAAAAABdQ/_PYl79z62-A/s1600/IMG_3759.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 3: Bison herd in the Black Hills, back from 1900 worldwide population of 1,000</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Wounded Knee was originally called a "battle" until a recent acknowledgement that the killing of 300 unarmed men, women, and children constitutes something quite different--the large red sign at the site tells the history and physically embodies the change. Note how the word "Massacre" has been nailed more recently on top, to cover the misnomer "Battle" underneath.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DNy48pnW2aE/U7F__M8bGGI/AAAAAAAABd4/FsVzbkhXMq4/s1600/IMG_4025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DNy48pnW2aE/U7F__M8bGGI/AAAAAAAABd4/FsVzbkhXMq4/s1600/IMG_4025.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 6: The Tragedy of Wounded Knee</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7AKX5u62YRg/U7Gi5EfdtHI/AAAAAAAABec/s7-C1FoQOVQ/s1600/IMG_3881.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7AKX5u62YRg/U7Gi5EfdtHI/AAAAAAAABec/s7-C1FoQOVQ/s1600/IMG_3881.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 5: Rainbows _before_ the storm on Pine Ridge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tJusTiODe08/U7DCpSY3oHI/AAAAAAAABdA/-XAdC6pXCzw/s1600/IMG_4076.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tJusTiODe08/U7DCpSY3oHI/AAAAAAAABdA/-XAdC6pXCzw/s1600/IMG_4076.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 10: Bear Butte vistas and prayer flags</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The adversities make the triumphs all the more poignant: <a href="http://www.olc.edu/">Oglala Lakota College</a>, which is rebuilding
the Lakota nation through education, and the creative economic
development engine Lakota Funds. Over the past four decades, more than half of the teachers in Pine Ridge schools and of the nurses at the Indian Health Service have passed through OLC's hallways. At the time of the college's founding, the majority of educators and health professionals on the reservation were non-Natives. OLC indelibly changed that. <br />
<br />
There were also moments of
just pure delight: to wit, digging up timpsula (prairie turnips) and
eating them raw right then and there.<br />
<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kBg6ZahAic4/U7DD42eKPuI/AAAAAAAABdg/7B6l-3XimY0/s1600/IMG_3863.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kBg6ZahAic4/U7DD42eKPuI/AAAAAAAABdg/7B6l-3XimY0/s1600/IMG_3863.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 4: Digging for timpsula (prarie turnip) </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wRnecK0AOM4/U7DC0YHcOwI/AAAAAAAABdI/iFPeShOHnqg/s1600/IMG_4068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wRnecK0AOM4/U7DC0YHcOwI/AAAAAAAABdI/iFPeShOHnqg/s1600/IMG_4068.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 10: Summitting Bear Butte, a sacred place of reflection and beauty.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g65GrJFJAxU/U7DCR8LlpFI/AAAAAAAABcw/3H79eiqCGzQ/s1600/IMG_4039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g65GrJFJAxU/U7DCR8LlpFI/AAAAAAAABcw/3H79eiqCGzQ/s1600/IMG_4039.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 8: Visiting the ever-changing, fragile yet powerful <a href="http://artalley.awardspace.com/">Art Alley</a> in Rapid City</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0jzGfP-SElg/U7DCFi-X8DI/AAAAAAAABco/bdUl-ITT04k/s1600/IMG_4066.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0jzGfP-SElg/U7DCFi-X8DI/AAAAAAAABco/bdUl-ITT04k/s1600/IMG_4066.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 10: Bear Butte</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mx-jpWfI8kQ/U7DCZqrgeAI/AAAAAAAABc4/v1WHWdldtu8/s1600/IMG_4035.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 8: Art Alley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eXZpbO_LXM4/U7DBxjYNRDI/AAAAAAAABcg/YNyyZCpFRK0/s1600/IMG_4058.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eXZpbO_LXM4/U7DBxjYNRDI/AAAAAAAABcg/YNyyZCpFRK0/s1600/IMG_4058.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 10: At Bear Butte, yes: all of the bison was used</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rCh4QNJ-C5c/U7GixMjXBDI/AAAAAAAABeU/riHipEyfb0I/s1600/IMG_3801.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rCh4QNJ-C5c/U7GixMjXBDI/AAAAAAAABeU/riHipEyfb0I/s1600/IMG_3801.JPG" /></a><br />
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<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-7811587178776349402014-02-24T16:02:00.001-08:002014-02-24T16:02:20.313-08:00In Print: "Arab Eyes, Arab Voices" -- a review in Books & CultureThree years after the Arab Spring gripped the Middle East and North Africa as well as social media world-wide, how do we begin to make sense of the complicated stories that are still unfolding?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1chIhbe">"Arab Eyes, Arab Voices,"</a> a review of Shibley Telhami's <i>The World Through Arab Eyes</i> has just been published in the March-April issue of Books & Culture.<br />
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<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-52291265965981004472013-11-30T15:20:00.000-08:002013-11-30T15:20:54.787-08:00It gets worse: the situation of Haitians in the Dominican RepublicTensions on the island of Hispaniola are on the rise and the situation of Haitian citizens (and their descendents) living in the Dominican Republic is becoming <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht">Kristallnacht</a>-ish dire. In September this year, the highest court in the land decided to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/09/30/2693951/dominican-republic-revoke-citizenship/">revoke the citizenship</a> of Dominican-born descendents of Haitian migrants. Up until 2010, the DR practiced <i>jus soli</i>--what the United States currently practices--granting citizenship to anyone born in national territory. What this means is that some 200,000 Dominican citizens have had their status revoked.<br />
<br />
On this past Tuesday, in front of a crowd with cellphone cameras raised, a Haitian man was alleged lynched in broad daylight (supposedly for attempted robbery). The <a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1063998?ref=feeds%2Flatest">image</a> made CNN news (warning: graphic). The recent unsolved murder of an elderly Dominican couple who lived near the Haiti-DR border was fuel to the fire and 200 Haitians were sent back "home" <a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1063998?ref=feeds%2Flatest">over the weekend</a>, fearing mob violence.<br />
<br />
Haitians are scapegoated in the Dominican Republic, accused of witchcraft (read:moral turpitude) and bringing crime, reminiscent of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/08/heritage-study-co-author-opposed-letting-in-immigrants-with-low-iqs/">how some in the United States characterize Latinos</a> including Dominicans.<br />
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<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-8895943722282189042013-11-18T15:09:00.000-08:002013-11-18T15:09:39.779-08:00AAA Presentation: All That Is Water: Engineering Energy Sovereignties and Electricity Nationalities
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">I'm delighted to be part of this excellent panel at the AAA conference this Wednesday in Chicago: <a href="http://aaa.confex.com/aaa/2013/webprogrampreliminary/Session9264.html"><b>Technopolitical Futures: Transformations in State and Expertise</b></a> (12-4pm) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 10pt;">I'm giving my paper,</span>
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 10.000000pt;"><b>All That Is Water: Engineering Energy Sovereignties and Electricity Nationalities</b>, at 2:15</span><span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 10pt;"> on Wednesday November 20 (room TBA).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 10pt;">My abstract: The engineers responsible for Itaipú Binational Dam were tasked with more than just churning water
into electricity or spinning nature into national development. They had to find a way to give electricity, generated by the
same water of the same river at the same dam, two discrete national identities as a way to defend the sovereignty of the
dam's owners, Brazil and Paraguay. Designed as a juridically distinct space of exception, Itaipú has become a “state
within a state,” simultaneously subordinate and exterior to the Brazilian and Paraguayan states, rescaling sovereignties
and territorialities to both the regional and the subatomic. As the state rematerializes in energy policies and practices,
technicians have been transformed into technocrats such that, in Itaipú, engineering is not merely a scientific endeavor
but a kind of politics as a vocation. This paper explores how electrical engineers superintend political processes and,
through material and symbolic entailments, bestow nationality upon the nigh immaterial—electricity—to construct energy
sovereignties and a territoriality that emanates from the circulation of charge. This invisible circulation animates
conceptualizations of property and value which form the basis of a wider ethic of renewable energy newly emergent in
South America. Through an ethnography of the discursive and physical interventions initiated by engineers in the world's
largest dam, I show how “nature” and “nation” are altered by hydroelectric statecraft, the political economic and symbolic
structures that emanate from the harnessing of hydroelectric energy and gesture towards a non-fossil-fuel future where
contentions over transborder water resources abound.
</span><br />
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Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-33076710826619475762013-08-26T15:12:00.000-07:002013-08-26T15:12:01.704-07:00Committed to Art: Homenaje a Bolivia (Honoring Bolivia) at the Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0cSNrd4K7k/UhvSKbCyg4I/AAAAAAAABUQ/tT-2VwjPvGQ/s1600/IMG_1702.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0cSNrd4K7k/UhvSKbCyg4I/AAAAAAAABUQ/tT-2VwjPvGQ/s400/IMG_1702.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from the last painting of the Virgin and the Trinity.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The <a href="http://www.mna.org.bo/">Museo Nacional de Arte</a> in La Paz is a stunning collection of visual art from the past five centuries. Bolivia's vast mineral wealth in colonial and early republic days is attested to in the religious and secular patronage of Renaissance, Baroque, and Impressionist (!) Bolivian art that is housed in a villa at the center of the city.<br />
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<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-40814388217026941652013-06-14T07:20:00.002-07:002013-06-14T07:29:46.126-07:00In The Atlantic: "Why the West Loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy"<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">My piece which explores why the United States is so fond of Science Fiction and Fantasy stories has just been published in <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/06/why-the-west-loves-sci-fi-and-fantasy-a-cultural-explanation/276816/">The Atlantic</a>. This comes out of a) my own deep love of both those genres and b) many invigorating conversations with my students.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Tolkien + Star Wars + Weber = my favorite things to talk about!</span>Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-41565003579957052872013-05-30T12:40:00.001-07:002013-06-14T07:22:44.352-07:00A Guide: Six Steps for Writing a Scholarly Article or Paper in Grad School<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
Although I enjoy writing, I still find it a challenge and
I’m often curious about how other writers work as
they’re producing scholarship. My own technique is something that I developed in graduate school and continue tweaking even now as I’m a professor.
The Six Steps I’ve listed below are the steps <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I</i> go through in order to produce a draft of an article or paper—I
realize that others do things differently and<b style="color: black;"> the key principle is to figure
out and go with what works for you. You’re not doing it wrong if you’re doing
it. </b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
It feels a bit vulnerable to reveal the unfinished product, but because
graduate school can be so grueling, I thought it’d be worth it to
put my process out there. All the disclaimers apply: I'm an anthropologist and this is me writing ethnography, disciplinary conventions from humanities, STEM, and even other social sciences are very different. There are other sites (<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less/124268/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/advice">here</a> and <a href="http://theprofessorisin.com/pearlsofwisdom/">here</a> and <a href="http://backupminds.wordpress.com/">here</a> and <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less/124268/">here</a>) that also give great advice on the doing of graduate school and the work we're to produce.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
You’ll notice two things from the start:<b><span style="color: black;"> </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: black;">1) I do a lot of pre-writing.</span></b><br />
(I call this
“writing.”)<span style="color: black;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><b>2) I do a lot of it by hand.</b> </span><br />
(Writing by hand does
something different for my brain as I’m trying to work through ideas or pushing
through a moment of “writer’s block.” Also, typing on the computer makes it
oh-so-tempting to start reading my email or fret about
the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/health/france-coronavirus-death/index.html">WHO news on the coronavirus</a>.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<b style="color: black;">The goal here is to produce a draft (not a perfect final
version) and this takes time</b>. Interspersed with all these steps are coffee,
eating, sleeping, grading, lecturing, commuting, bathing, jogging, interacting
with human beings who are not my students. These steps won’t work very well the
night before something is due.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>STEP ONE: Initial Brainstorming [by hand!]</b></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
Main Question: What’s interesting?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
To come up with an idea for a paper (or article), start with
the question “What’s interesting?” What’s the data puzzle that caught you eye?
What’s the question or confusion that you find intriguing?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
2 examples from my own writing:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><b>Why didn’t yerba mate catch on during European colonialism
in the same way that coffee and tea did, since they’re all non-European
products and all have a bitter taste? (This led to an article I placed with
<i>Comparative Studies in Society and History</i> <a href="http://www.academia.edu/2780114/Stimulating_Consumption_Yerba_Mate_Myths_Markets_and_Meanings_from_Conquest_to_Present">here</a>.)</b></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><b>Something I noticed in my ethnographic field work was that
there are different versions of the “origin stories” for the massive Itaipú dam
construction debt (and whether it was being repaid) and these versions seem to
coincide with the political and social position of the individual. Note: images
I’ve included in this post are the real notes for this paper. </b></li>
</ul>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
I actually write down questions like this in a notebook or
on a pad of paper. And then I try to figure out the “why” and the “so what.”</div>
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<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<u><b><span style="font-size: large;">STEP TWO: The Basics [by hand!]</span></b></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
Main Question: What’s going on? Why does it matter?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
On a piece of paper (usually legal paper turned sideways),
I’ll label four sections entitled:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><b>The Issue</b></li>
<li><b>The Data</b></li>
<li><b>Theory</b></li>
<li><b>So What?</b></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
And then I’ll jot down bullet points (sometimes entire
sentences) underneath each and answer the following questions:</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>The Issue: What is the issue, the main idea of this paper?</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>The Data: What data, what evidence do I have that connects
to the issue? (specific documents, interviews, participant-observation)</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Theory: What theories help explain what I’m seeing in my
data?</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>So What?: Why does this matter? What can we learn from this?</b></li>
</ul>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
In this and the next step, I’ll read new articles and books
that connect with the issue and the data. I annotate as I read (and even jot
down imaginary conversations with the authors): How does W account for what she
has uncovered? How is X challenging the accepted way of thinking about this?
What would Y ask about my findings? What would Z point out is missing from my
assertions? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-size: large;"><b>STEP THREE: The Set Pieces [by hand!]</b></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
Main Question: What are the major set pieces, the major components
of this article?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DN_5i29Urhg/UaednZSw6tI/AAAAAAAABSM/ZF5PxqKuMxU/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013180.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DN_5i29Urhg/UaednZSw6tI/AAAAAAAABSM/ZF5PxqKuMxU/s400/SKMBT_C360-13053013180.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qhv4q7vC3aM/UaednhKeD0I/AAAAAAAABSU/w7NUzcFcmKs/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013161.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qhv4q7vC3aM/UaednhKeD0I/AAAAAAAABSU/w7NUzcFcmKs/s400/SKMBT_C360-13053013161.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWkMrKbwC0A/UaednGU8FzI/AAAAAAAABSI/l7Jf86YnIyE/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013181.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="307" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWkMrKbwC0A/UaednGU8FzI/AAAAAAAABSI/l7Jf86YnIyE/s400/SKMBT_C360-13053013181.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I began in pencil, with the boxes around what I thought might be the "major set pieces" of the article, then I drew connecting arrows and annotations to my various bullet points. On another day, I used the blue pen and then, at the end, went back to pencil to try to figure out the logical flow of various sections.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
On another piece of paper (see the accompanying images), write
out five sections that will help you figure out what the main set pieces of the
article will be. You can see that I mark up this document repeatedly… I don’t
start out with Roman numerals or any kind of order. You’ll see marginalia,
arrows, and different colored ink. This is me iterating through ideas and
connections. I’m very opposed to starting out with a pre-determined order or
hierarchy of information. In fact, that’s one of the very questions that this
step is supposed to help me work out. I certainly don’t know it from the start.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
Under each of the section headings I’ll write out bullet
points and even entire sentences and sometimes I’ll realize that one section actually
has three main components. I usually draw boxes around the section headings
(you can see it on the yellow paper):<br />
<br />
<div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">
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</div>
<br />
<b>Introduction: </b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>All articles need them.</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Background/History/Primer: </b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>What background does the reader
need to know to be able to understand what’s interesting about the data?</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>The Data: </b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>In this case, since these are notes about Itaipú
dam and the construction debt, my data seemed to fall into two areas: a) How the
debt grew in the first place; b) How different groups interpret that story.</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Theory/Literature: </b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>Writers and key bodies of literature and
approaches that connect to the data. </b></li>
<li><b>For the paper I was sketching out, the two
main debates were: a) literature on hydroelectric dams; b) literature on
credit/debt. I ended up focusing on the latter.</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Effects/Findings/Outcomes: </b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>What has happened as a result of
the data?</b></li>
<li><b>What are my major conclusions, major interpretations of the data and
the theory? </b></li>
<li><b>What is my argument for why we’re seeing the data we’re seeing? </b></li>
<li><b>Why
does this matter?</b></li>
</ul>
<ul style="color: black;">
</ul>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
You can see that this step is several pages long and not
everything that I write here ends up in the final article. Some of it ends up
as fodder for other papers, because one of the main goals of this step is to
really focus on the heart of this article. The question is “What is this
article about? What is the story that I’m telling? What are the main components
necessary to tell that story?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
Stare and stare at these set pieces and create a logical
flow through them (notice the labeling of I, Ib, II, III, IIIb, IV, V).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do this only after writing down and
detailing all the components. For me, the order arises from my ideas and the
data. It’s not some formula that I begin with and then fill out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>STEP FOUR: Outline [typed!]</b></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LTIP2eTQH7M/Uaec_lV1flI/AAAAAAAABRQ/MzyvEmrmOuE/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013191.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LTIP2eTQH7M/Uaec_lV1flI/AAAAAAAABRQ/MzyvEmrmOuE/s640/SKMBT_C360-13053013191.jpg" width="494" /></a></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
Type up the work you’ve done, using the logical flow order
and using bullet points (and complete sentences… anecdotes, formulations of the
argument) for the various subsections of each. I aim for complete sentences
(just because it helps me start linking ideas), but this isn’t absolutely
necessary.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u><b><span style="font-size: large;">STEP FIVE: Iterating the Outline [by hand and typed!]</span></b></u></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5hRw2PFjq_c/UaedAO4d83I/AAAAAAAABRg/3GfErD3Ifok/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013200.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5hRw2PFjq_c/UaedAO4d83I/AAAAAAAABRg/3GfErD3Ifok/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013200.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OI4rInN6iU0/UaedARD8f3I/AAAAAAAABRk/Il_1qemCbYY/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013202.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OI4rInN6iU0/UaedARD8f3I/AAAAAAAABRk/Il_1qemCbYY/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013202.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the back of one of these pages, where I wanted more space and was trying to think through the way different constituencies were gathering data and making their claims about the debt from Itaipú dam.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Format the narrative outline with wide margins for notes and,
by hand, comment and annotate on what you’ve written. Ask:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br />
“So what?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
“What else needs to go here?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
“What are the steps?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
“How does theory connect?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
“What’s significant?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
“Why?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
“What’s missing here? What are the gaps?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
You might retype the outline with the added commentary,
print it out, and do this process again. The aim is to get to a place where
you’ve commented as much as you possibly can and gotten to the point where
there’s little more brainstorming that you can do to help focus the article and
interpret the data. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<b>This isn’t the moment for exciting rabbit trails into other
areas of research or articles.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<u><b><span style="font-size: large;">STEP SIX: Drafting [typed!]</span></b></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ESjOvG88IGs/UaedBKvCqDI/AAAAAAAABR4/OJv-h_QtgAI/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013211.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ESjOvG88IGs/UaedBKvCqDI/AAAAAAAABR4/OJv-h_QtgAI/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013211.jpg" width="247" /></a> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rk7v-L86xCQ/UaedAy8I82I/AAAAAAAABRw/Psxq4OKxDfY/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013210.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rk7v-L86xCQ/UaedAy8I82I/AAAAAAAABRw/Psxq4OKxDfY/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013210.jpg" width="247" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
After a few days of iterating through the outline, it’s time
to write. I’d suggest starting at the beginning of your outline and just write
the information into paragraphs. My writing goal is a minimum of 300 words a
day, but when I’ve commented and iterated through the outline, I can do triple
that in a few hours.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
When you feel stuck or tired with writing, print it out and
write additional paragraphs by hand on the back sides of the pages. Part of the
reason for printing it out is sheer paranoia—in case the computer dies, I have
a hard copy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
Do only minimal editing on what’s already been written
because the goal is to finish an entire draft, not to perfectly polish the
first three paragraphs over and over. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">
Once the full draft is done, you can go and ask, again
“What’s missing?” “What’s out of order?” “What’s too thin?”<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #444444;">
That's my process. Your suggestions? <span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: white;">How to write tips Ph.D. advice academic journal article publishing publication journal peer-reviewed academic writing anthropology ethnography academia author tenure "publish or perish" peer-review doctoral program edit revise faculty</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: white;"> </span> </span><span style="color: white;">"writing culture" "How I write"</span></span></div>
Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-23329109089418991352013-02-25T08:03:00.000-08:002013-02-25T08:03:45.891-08:00In Print: Surveillance and State Violence in Stroessner's Paraguay: Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam, Archive of TerrorMy most recent article has been published in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01534.x/full">American Anthropologist</a>. I'm very grateful to the anonymous and non-anonymous (read: colleagues) reviewers who gave feedback and especially to the former editor-in-chief Tom Boellstorff who gave such detailed and synthetic input. Writing, revising, and publishing this article in AA has been such an incredibly enjoyable experience. Interested in these archives, look <a href="http://cfolch.blogspot.com/2011/06/searching-paraguays-archive-of-terror.html">here</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qKh3O3_YAZ4/USuIoE8fNyI/AAAAAAAABP4/I6dOgysupqQ/s1600/AdT+11.2.0936.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qKh3O3_YAZ4/USuIoE8fNyI/AAAAAAAABP4/I6dOgysupqQ/s400/AdT+11.2.0936.JPG" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the "Archive of Terror" aka <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/CDyA/">Centro de Documentación y Archivo para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos in Paraguay.</a></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/CDyA/"><br /></a></td></tr>
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<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01534.x/full">Surveillance and State Violence in Stroessner's Paraguay: Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam, Archive of Terror</a><br />
<br />
Abstract: Like other dictators, Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner staked his regime's
claims to modernity on a massive hydroelectric project, Itaipú Dam.
Critiques of dams tend to focus on environmental degradation caused by
flooding, forced displacement of communities, and fiscal malfeasance.
But Itaipú, the world's largest dam, also participated in the Stroessner
regime's secret police terror apparatus. A series of formerly
classified documents about Itaipú Dam show how the secret police used
the dam in its security and intelligence apparatus to violently suppress
any opposition. They also reveal how the opposition to the Stronato
grew and mobilized around the dam. By interlacing these two threads,
this historical ethnography explores “hydroelectric statecraft” in
Itaipú Dam—that is, how the harnessing of the dam's resources has given
rise to particular political practices and structures within Paraguay.Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-10544182727242870662013-01-20T10:15:00.001-08:002013-01-20T10:24:04.290-08:00A Dominican Quest in Chicago: A guide to viandasMy Search for Viandas (A guide to what they are!)
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<br />
Germania, my lovely grandmother, came to the States from the Dominican Republic in the '60s. She was an amazing cook and from her I learned how to make the <i>Sancocho</i>, a traditional Dominican stew featuring an assortment of <i>viandas</i> and meats. The thing about a Sancocho is that it's a dish meant to be shared with the family plus the neighbors plus the kid from down the block who always hangs out with the neighbor's son plus whoever else happens to be walking by. There's no such thing as a "four portion" Sancocho. Which is why I've decided to make one for some of my students.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-joQBC-EED54/UPws9P6MtfI/AAAAAAAABPU/29XtKgihzI0/s1600/IMG_0216.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-joQBC-EED54/UPws9P6MtfI/AAAAAAAABPU/29XtKgihzI0/s200/IMG_0216.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Success?</td></tr>
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Chicago is a mecca for tremendous Mexican cuisine (see <a href="http://newrebozo.com/">New Rebozo</a>—quite possibly the best Mexican food I've had outside of Mexico and certainly worlds better than anything one can find in New York—the chef/owner features 18 kinds of mole) but when it comes to the Spanish Caribbean, not so much. The real trick is the viandas, the starchy vegetables that form the base of the stew. And after six months of looking for these in various supermarkets, desperation has set in. <br />
<br />
So, given the sad dearth of Dominican and Cuban ingredients in ordinary grocery stores, I set out on a quest (based on the recommendation of a Puerto Rican employee at Whole Foods) to find the famed Armitage Produce on the westside of Chicago…<br />
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Success! Behold, a surfeit of malanga!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b9MHuWrrkLc/UPwtK1IUXzI/AAAAAAAABPk/bwZPPRKybDY/s1600/IMG_0215.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b9MHuWrrkLc/UPwtK1IUXzI/AAAAAAAABPk/bwZPPRKybDY/s400/IMG_0215.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Malanga</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vfNwcmLrgd4/UPwtJKicLmI/AAAAAAAABPc/WWJdBCDG6Do/s1600/IMG_0214.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vfNwcmLrgd4/UPwtJKicLmI/AAAAAAAABPc/WWJdBCDG6Do/s400/IMG_0214.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ñame (the true yam)</td></tr>
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As you can see, people have split the ñame in half—in this case, the employees themselves. This is to verify that the root is good (people also do that with the malanga and yuca). One elderly gentleman, who grumbled about the mediocre size of the batata we combed through, warned me against trusting the quality of the root from the outside. Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-47669969809114060222012-12-23T14:42:00.000-08:002012-12-23T14:44:08.384-08:00Why College Dreams End in a Hard FallIncredibly upsetting: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0">For Many Poor Students, Leap to College Ends in a Hard Fall</a>, a piece published yesterday by Jason DeParle in the New York Times, gives a glimpse into the lives of three Latinas who attempt college and don't make it. <br />
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Six Infuriating Morals to the Story:<br />
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1. Guys are the best way to sabotage your education, especially if they cheat on you, propose to you, break up with you, avoid college, get back together with you. But, hey, at least you're not alone!<br />
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2. Read the fine print of your financial aid package or else a school like <a href="http://news.emory.edu/stories/2012/02/er_nacubo_emory_endowment_increases/campus.html">Emory</a> will find ways to saddle you with tens of thousands of undischargeable education debt. And then they'll wash their hands of it, "Hey, we were following standard procedure!"<br />
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3. Check your school email. Frequently.<br />
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4. Talking to professors and advisors when and even before things go badly is necessary. We're not mean, even if we seem gruff and when we say things that sound really hard, sometimes it's because we're upset <i>for</i> you.<br />
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5. Having a hard time? Non-traditional student? (Working class, minority, first generation college, veteran?) There's no structure that explicitly teaches you the hidden rules and hidden curriculum.<br />
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6. Why try? You'll still end up working retail for $8 an hour. <br />
<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281969930440774536.post-50471707140633195222012-12-03T17:04:00.002-08:002012-12-03T17:04:03.794-08:00Paraguay's Oil and Gas Concessions: Cool Map from the Vice Ministry of Mines and Energy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zHElaJhsll4/UL1BxubgPKI/AAAAAAAABPA/ofG8_B6FXrU/s1600/catastrohidroc30-11-2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zHElaJhsll4/UL1BxubgPKI/AAAAAAAABPA/ofG8_B6FXrU/s640/catastrohidroc30-11-2012.jpg" width="494" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catastro Hidrocarburos/Oil & Gas in Paraguay Map</td></tr>
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This map, found at the <a href="http://www.ssme.gov.py/vmme/images/CatastroHidrocarburo/catastrohidroc30-11-2012.pdf">Paraguayan Vice-Ministry of Mines and Energ</a>y (Viceministério de minas y energía) is dated November 30, 2012 and contains a listing of the Oil and Gas concessions granted various firms throughout the country, as well as noting critical "basins" (<i>cuencas</i>) where petroleum and natural gas reserves might be found.<br />
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Because the print is quite small, I'll list them out. Numbers 5 and 19 (President Energy and Crescent Global Oil in the Pirity Basin) have been getting <a href="http://cfolch.blogspot.com/2012/11/oil-and-gas-and-skepticism-new.html">lots of press</a> recently.<br />
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Concessions Granted ("<i>concesiones por ley</i>"):<br />
1 Primo Cano Martinez<br />
2 <a href="http://www.amerisurresources.com/">Amerisur</a> (Bloque San Pedro)<br />
3 Amerisur (Bloque Curupayty)<br />
4 Bohemia (Bloque Alto Parana - Canindeyu)<br />
5 President Energy Paraguay S.A.<br />
Pirity Hidrocarburos<br />
17 Aurora Petroleos<br />
18 Boreal Petroleos<br />
19 President Energy Paraguay S.A.<br />
<a href="http://www.crescentglobaloil.com/index.php?submenu=Oil&src=gendocs&link=Oil_Gas&category=Main">Crescent Global Oil Paraguay</a> S.A.<br />
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Concessions In Process ("<i>concesiones por trámite")</i>:<br />
6 Riviera S.A.<br />
7 Hidrocarburos Chaco S.A.<br />
11 MB Energia S.A.<br />
13 C.P.P. S.A.<br />
20 Land Oil/Crescent Oil Paraguay (Bloque Alto Parana)<br />
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Contracts Under Revision ("<i>contratos en revisión</i>")<br />
21 Paraguay Gas & Energy S.A. (Bloque Norte)<br />
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Permits To Be Determined ("<i>permisos por resolución</i>")<br />
8 YPF S.A.<br />
9 AET Paraguay S.A. (Bloque Alto Parana)<br />
10 Kilwer S.A.<br />
12 Petropar S.A.<br />
14 Amerisur R. PLC (Bloque Coronillo)<br />
15 Amerisur R. PLC (Bloque Espartillar)<br />
16 Amerisur R. PLC (Bloque Las Palmas)<br />
17 Quincy Energy S.A. <br />
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A few notes of interest:<br />
<ul>
<li>US-based Quincy Energy seems to have merged with Energy Metals Corporation of Canada, which then merged with Canadian/South African <a href="http://www.uranium1.com/index.php/en/">Uranium One</a> in 2007. I wonder what this means for the undetermined permit in #17. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>YPF (#8), Kilwer (#10) are Argentine firms; <a href="http://www.ultimahora.com/notas/563171-Gobierno-autoriza-contratos-con-dos-empresas-petroleras">Riviera S.A. (#6) has links with Grupo Cifel</a>, which is Russian in origin. <i> </i></li>
</ul>
<br />Christine Folchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13500207215276313135noreply@blogger.com4