Institutional Turmoil

“It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.”

--Kahlil Gibran

There is so much going on in my head lately. Much of it has to do with being a living contradiction within a living contradiction of a graduate program. Why is it that no one wants to discuss the reproduction taking place simultaneously with the critique and resistance of the status quo within which we reside? How can ideals of change, justice and betterment be professed and aspired to, when at the drop of a hat, the maintenance of oppressive structures are upheld and enforced on Others perceived to be a threat? What happened to conflict resolution; to understanding; to putting in the work that goes toward defying the status quo which means dealing with discomforting things, people, ideas? We talk of disruption as a powerful tool that leads to a multitude of possibilities in ways of being that are possible, yet treat those people, things, and ideas that disrupt as a problematics in need of reprimanding if not removal.

I am constantly struggling with finding my voice and expressing it with confidence. When I experience the turmoil of these contradictions taking place, I am bewildered. I thought the point of the academic endeavor was to become a self-actualized scholar, which meant journeying through the landscape of ideas and issues and emerging with the formulation of one's own voice and way of knowing and doing things. Yet I am a witness to the shaping power of our figure heads, and the reality that these people hold our lives and livelihoods in their hands. It is they who must sign the paper of approval. How can I think that I have the power to become when it has to meet the approval of the powers that be? Yet the powers that be behave as if they have no power; as though we are their colleagues; that is until we are either met with bureaucratic realities of things like coursework, exams, and other tests of measurement, or in need of usually negative sanctioning.

Must I always conform to what is inherently contradictory? I am clearly not okay with this yet feel as though, when attempting to articulate this inner turmoil, that it is the institution that is defended by way of the issue being made personal, rather than effectively examined with alternatives to be considered. The people with power are suddenly powerless to the workings of the institution and those that have a problem can either shape up and conform or just go away. Those that have been treated well by the institution have a hard time seeing things as troubling, reducing responses to critiques of it as a personal problem to be met with individualized solutions. And so the ways of institutionalization continue.  

But I don't want it to be this way! I want meaningful work and relationships to emerge from my journey. For the powerful to be transparent in their power yet open to alternatives to institutional ways of being.  For those around me and myself to be willing to work with and through the troubling for the sake of being all the better for it instead of silencing it. I want a mentor, friend, and collaborator, not just someone to defer to because of their position. I want to be okay with expressing what's in my soul without fear of being shut down. Challenge me, but not for the purpose of belittling. I am in need of much nurturing and realize that institutions don't hug back, but refuse to believe that those that have been institutionalized   have no humanity, no soul, no desire to make things different. It doesn't have to be this way. When will we let our spirits, knowing and feeling what is right, lead us? 

Feelings I'm Working through...

Being overwhelmed and overworked by what is ultimately the bs of academia makes it difficult to reassert my what my purpose is in being here. I want to do well by others through my work. Yet blow-ups with colleagues that have left festering wounds that make it impossible to make eye-contact, the departure of dear friends who keep me focused on my purpose, and not really knowing the right way to go on top of this make it difficult to know what steps to take. Now I'm taking on too much, making it hard to see clearly about any one thing. I want to be a friend, a good person people want to turn to, yet by asserting myself, have I burned bridges to friendship? I feel more alienated than ever when it comes to what I'm doing academically because I am unsure of the way to go, the way that allows me to go towards love of self and love of others through action. I don't want for anything to be too late when it comes to this but I can't help but wonder. It all feels like too much. And then I heard this song during a hot yoga session, a good articulation of the feelings I'm working through... a longing for all of this to work out...

Until next time...

My Take on this year's ASA conference

Are sociologists capable of imagining, let alone, enacting real utopias? If I'm asking this question, then I clearly had some issues with this year's ASA ( or the American Sociological Association) conference.

As a scholar, I have always been interested in aspects of our social world that keep various inequalities in tact. Over the years I have enjoyed being able to put a name and understanding to things I have experienced and continue to experience throughout my life.

Lately I have changed direction towards being able to understand what it would take to work through and engage issues like those concerning inequality and especially exclusion, the phenomena that keep these things in place, and movement toward transcending these things. In the end I care about movement toward our mental and spiritual growth as a people things that should allow for equality to occur in various social settings, because we are purposefully doing right by others. The paper I presented addresses love as a key component in this process.

Yet on a bare bones level, it seems this community of scholars, most of whom study the problematic aspects of our society, could hardly stand to engage the topic at hand, that of Real Utopias. Being a newcomer to a conference of this scale (I had previously attended the Pacific Sociological Association conference a couple of years ago), I had no idea the atmosphere would be so alienating! Because of dorky name-tags (yeah I said it, those things were awful) that gave away our names and affiliation, no one even had to make an effort to introduce themselves to one another.  What more could anyone possibly want to know about each other? After witnessing a moment of non-name-tag wearing rebellion from a respectable former colleague, I quickly abandoned my own (which might have possibly made me even more invisible to conference-goers).

 If utopia for sociologists is not having to take the time to meet fellow members of their "community" from across the globe, then this place must have been heaven for them! I was quite purposeful in attempts to make eye-contact as a means of gauging the possibility of introducing myself. Not one sociologist would take me up on this outside of a session of some sort. Even within sessions or at receptions, no one was interested in anything more than a brief exchange of ideas about a particular subject. No, "Hey, you want join me/us for coffee later at x?" Or "Hey let's exchange numbers and we can contact one another if dinner plans develop." The possibility did not appear to be an option for anyone except the people I already knew (and even those guys hardly seemed interested in keeping company with me).

At the PSAs a few years ago, not only did these things happen with new acquaintances, but we ended the final night of the conference creating our own soul-train line at some Arabic-themed club our little mob happened to stumble upon in our exploration of the area. All of this among relative strangers!

At the ASAs, to use trekked-out terminology, people were on red-alert and shields were up at maximum strength, or perhaps yellow-alert, shields up at maximum, and engaging in evasive maneuvers. Utopia indeed! The only thing remotely utopian about the conference atmosphere was that people seemed a bit adventurous about what they wore to the conference proceedings, something I have no problem challenging on a regular basis (I stand firm on my policy of going no where near heels or uncomfortable shoes of any kind. So far my Converses work just fine).

Additionally, because of a hotel snafu (no one on either the ASA site or the Cheap o Air site bothered to mention there were two Crowne Royal Plaza hotel locations) I was lugging my suitcase about while waiting for my friend to get us into our hotel. Because it had been done before by friends at other conferences, I had no problem asking first, the registration desk and then someone in the ASA offices a floor up, to allow me to leave my suitcase while I walked about the convention center and wait for my friend to arrive. To my dismay, not only was the answer no, but at the ASA office, hands were thrown up while it was explained to me that in no way could this person be held responsible for a suitcase 'cause what if someone walked off with it? In the ASA office? Who would go up there with that in mind?Are you serious?

That's when it hit me. The issue with this conference, and the realization that comes with knowing that the bulk of the sociologists at this conference are the last people one could count on to imagine and make utopia of any sort a reality, is that none of these individuals wants to take on the responsibility. To be responsive to the needs and concerns of others? To actually go out of their way to demonstrate the care, concern, and respect they claim to have for others? Of course the first response would be to throw-up hands and instantly absolve oneself of responsibility. To actually meet someone that is a part of the community they participate in, someone completely different from themselves, someone new? Impossible when your name and affiliation are already on display.

Interesting that a couple of Canadians saw the opposite of what I saw, that Americans were so friendly and open. Maybe skin tone had something to do with that. Even sociologists of color seemed to refuse my invitation of introduction. But knowing that folks of color are just as capable of accepting and reinforcing stereotypes about ourselves makes this no surprise.

One bright spot in all of this is that I did find two people who accepted my invitation of introductions. These individuals were non-sociologists and people of color who had no problem with me trying to get to know them and were more than okay with telling me snippets of their stories and experiences in Denver. I also got to hang out, walk about and explore the area with two awesome friends.

Well, next year it's back to business as usual for the ASAs with the theme "Interrogating Inequality: Linking Micro and Macro". Wait, isn't something sociologists already do? Enough of the presentations for this year's conference were certainly indicative of this theme. Maybe those were presentations from the future.

Until next time y'all!

What am I doing again?

For the first time in my long tenure of schooling, I saw that I may well be wasting my time with what could easily be described as bs (sorry but swearing is so unnatural for me). Graduate school has already been a trying journey for me and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier now that I've lost my way.

What I mean by this is interacting with scholars and scholarship that is utterly meaningless to my goal of addressing and changing social problems; especially those that deal (in one way or another) in oppression. I realize this aim is way too vague a way of saying I want to help people and that my scholarship and attaining this status of Ph.D. is the only way I can imagine of being of any real help. I want to find solutions to issues powerless individuals deal with, thereby being a barrier breaker or at least a bridge maker of sorts.

Throughout my travels in academia, I've made it a point to put to use (or at least try to) any sort of scholarship I came across towards this goal. My current academic endeavors (of witnessing the compartmentalization that comes with the 'creation' of a 'new' space of knowledge by way of theorizing how to track 'global' media culture a la the thingification of something or other in children's toy movies, thus making it difficult for someone to have agency over their experience of something that does nothing for people living lives that deal in/directly with inequalities ), and hanging out with people smart enough to see through the bs of these endeavors, has made me question myself and what I'm doing; and not in that reactionary way where my self-esteem has been challenged via humiliation.

How can I use these pockets of 'knowledge' that seem so useless to people? I wouldn't dare tell those close to me about these things I'm 'learning' because a huge who cares would be in their words and stares.  Nothing screams out the  frivolity of upper-class tendencies than participating in some of these conversations being had. I've never felt that way about my studies until now. I need to do something productive about this discomfort fast because I really do want my Ph.D. But I also want what I eventually do and what I am doing now to matter, or at least be a step in the right direction of realizing this goal. Silencing the experiences and struggles of the 'real' world by dwelling on how our fantasy worlds are constructed and exist seems a bit of a misguided step backwards for me.

I am in serious need of guidance right now.

Until next time....

Areas of Study

As a graduate student, I feel the mounting pressures of trying to pigeon-hole myself in a way only academics can; by claiming areas of 'expertise'. What do I want to become somewhat fluent in? I've been thinking about this lately and have yet to come up with definitive answers. Instead I've come up with more worries, chief among them being claiming expertise in an area that is rather obscure from an academic's perspective.

What I would like to be able to do is use my education and 'expertise' to serve as a bridge for those--be they in higher education or some other professional realm--in need of assistance with overcoming obstacles seen and unseen. I want to help individuals, especially underrepresented ones, navigate these realms successfully. I want to also challenge and disrupt the status quo of the institutions and underlying structures that make it difficult for certain populations to succeed. Making change to these things would make it easier for others to thrive where they otherwise wouldn't (or at least that's what the idealist in me would like to think).

How does this translate when it comes 'claiming' an area of expertise? What does this mean I want to do? All I know is that I would like to work towards the betterment of humanity in general, but I don't know where that fits me academically. In addition I would love to infuse these desires with art, be it through photography, film, painting, drawing, graphic novels...I enjoy telling the stories of others as well as the stories dwelling within myself. I think it helps us understand who we are and reminds us of what we are capable of--for better or for worse. In fact I was hoping for part of my dissertation to be a documentary.

Today I met a gentleman who got a interdisciplinary Ph.D. in political science, criminal justice and fine art. How cool is that? Part of his dissertation was doing a series of paintings. His defense involved his committee and others exploring the integration of the three areas in his project. I want to be able to do something like this. Something that calls to me, yet is beneficial to others as well. I only hope to be so lucky as to find a space like this. Still, I don't know where to fit myself in...

Oh well. Until next time...

How DJing is like Research

After being inspired by this post on DJing, I began revisiting ideas of the similarities between being a DJ and being a researcher/scholar. Being a DJ myself (when I have the chance) I love it when I have a set that flows together and wish my research came out similarly, which is how I began thinking about the subject. Here are a few of the ideas I had about the topic.

For one thing, like a researcher/scholar, DJs have to know their music. This usually means they've heard the stuff they play hundreds of times. Not only that, but they get a feel for the themes in their music enough to fit things comfortably together in ways others might not have noticed otherwise. Researchers and scholars do this, only with books instead of music. With both repetition is key to becoming familiar with both sets of knowledge.

There is also a air of expertise required in each realm. DJs have flexibility and freedom of choice as to what their area of 'expertise' is. For some, this can be rather fluid and expansive. Research is kind of the same, except for there are other forces that dictate what one can and cannot do. Often what is and isn't considered research dictates what a researcher/scholar does. When treated in such an orthodox manner, research/scholarship becomes rather restrictive and thus lacking in soul. With DJing on the other hand, a DJ is free to infuse their craft with their personality. Depending on the setting, I like to communicate messages of love thematically. In other words, I think it is easier for DJs to have a voice through their craft that is not nearly as transparent in research/scholarship.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Maybe thinking of research like DJing might change the way I pursue it. But it's not nearly as simple. For one thing, DJs have a choice of what their model is and can make their own rules when it comes to constructing it. Researchers/scholars have to read stuff they do and don't want to, and most of it wouldn't be read otherwise. Quite frankly some of the stuff I have to read makes my eyeballs want to bleed--probably because I also want to stab them out.  Not the case with DJing where I do not have to suffer and most of the stuff I like is more like crack to me than a royal pain--especially when finding a musical gem. Not very many books do that for me. Oh well, I'll do my best to try integrating the thoughts I have about DJing into doing research since, regardless of my experiences in reading some of this stuff, I really do want to become a scholar with my voice and soul in tact.

If there are any additional thoughts on this topic along with maybe making scholarship more like DJing in spirit, or just other things that should be considered, feel free to contribute your ideas. As usual, I'm open to them.

Until next time...