RiMo - the Elusive MountainGirl

Is it all a dream, or does she really exist?

[mountainrigirlmo]

If Only for a Moment

If Only for a Moment

Reflections on participating in the Regeneration Project “ethnographic pop-up theatre” at the 2016 annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association By Tamar V.S. McKee, Ph.D. Located on the unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh First Nation, my current home of Squamish, British Columbia (where I serve as a professor in anthropology at Quest University Canada) is a far cry from the…

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[wnq-writers]

You are magic. Don’t ever apologize for the fire in you.

iship-usdarling, Haiku on love  (via moonglowlily)

[lifeaquaticwashere]

[putawaytheglobe]

An event or experience is tragic because it utterly overwhelms us. We cannot rest for thinking of what has befallen us, rehearsing it in our minds, unable to shake it off. We are, in effect, possessed. We are at the mercy of our situation. Our power to act or speak is nullified, and we are rendered immobile and mute. But by telling a story about the events that devastated us, we reclaim a sense of agency.

Michael Jackson, The Wherewithal of Life (via putawaytheglobe)

Truth

[mountainrigirlmo]

Long time gone....

I just had baby #2 and deep in my soul I know I am okay and that the troublings I feel have to do with a mad desiring ego. What do I desire? What I've craved my whole life: whole parents, not just those that see reflections of themselves - their worth and their shortcomings - in their children, especially an "out there" daughter. Yes, I would be devastated if I came to find out, one day, that my kids harboured such resentment over unrequited true (more like needy) love as I do, but I'll be damned if I let it go that far. For 20 years I've seen my mom's aura fade into a pollution brown-grey hue, and she liked it when I was around to keep her from fading even more. Everyone did. But now I'm slowly going on boycott and no one has made the transition from their pity party to the new life, career, and family I am finally building with the love of my life. They still want me to come back to Boulder and upkeep their lives like old times. At least, that is the pity story I tell myself but know I have blind spots too. I know I want things for myself that are tyrannous to ask of others. But see, I've got this significant other in my life who has shown me the difference between the things I am justified in wanting and needing versus those that are a product of living in a me-first family. So I learn these new, healthier, more honouring ways, and then suffer and reel when exposed to the pollution demons of the past. Build a wall? Break them down? "Mother did it need to be so high?"

[lasmaracuyas]

What does it mean to have a reciprocal discourse on catastrophic end times and apocalyptic environmental change in a place where, over the last five hundred years, Indigenous peoples faced (and face) the end of worlds with the violent incursion of colonial ideologies and actions? What does it mean to hold, in simultaneous tension, stories of the Anthropocene in the past, present, and future?

Climate scientists Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin (2015) argue that the beginning of the Anthropocene is, quite possibly, rooted in the environmental impacts of the genocide of fifty million Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, following Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America. Lewis and Maslin argue that the movement of species between the Old and New Worlds after 1492, as well as the precipitous decline in agriculture and land-tending due to the rapid loss of Indigenous lives, resulted in a measurable increase in forest cover, leading to a dip in carbon dioxide levels around the globe. They propose that one Anthropocenic “golden spike,” labeled the Orbis Spike, can be placed in the year 1610. The machinations of wide-scale anthropogenic environmental change instigated by European colonization of the Americas—and the subsequent meteoric rise of a global capitalist system that was fueled by resources mined, hewed, and drawn from colonies, often through slave and/or indentured labor—are now, arguably, catching up with the entire globe. If Lewis and Maslin’s Orbis Spike hypothesis is correct, then this compels humanity to tend to the interconnections between, first, Indigenous genocide and the violent enslavement of peoples from across Africa, the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas throughout the colonial period, and second, the contemporary economic, political, social, and cultural forces shaping current environmental and power relations.

[mountainrigirlmo]

Need to remember this for my anthropocene class this fall....

[wnq-writers]

1. It’s never too late to start over. 2. Do not become small for those who refuse to grow. 3. Click the send button. You typed it out for a reason. 4. Don’t forget to remind people how much they mean to you. 5. Don’t ruin something great because you think you don’t deserve it. 6. You don’t destroy the people you love. 7. Sometimes you have to keep on missing them until you wake up to find that you just don’t anymore. 8. Mental health comes before school, always. 9. Act like you trust people, but don’t. 10. There is nothing more beautiful than being desperate, and nothing more risky than pretending not to care. 11. Your first kiss will come when it’s time. It’s worth the wait. 12. Always remember how lucky you are to have yourself. 13. Nostalgia, whether you’re thinking of something good or bad, always leaves you a little emptier afterwards. 14. Feeling beautiful has nothing to do with what you look like. 15. Pour your heart into everything you do and watch every aspect of your life change one by one. 16. You’ll need other people and you’ll need to be that person for someone else, a living, screaming invitation to believe in better things. 17. Make yourself painfully aware of the characteristic and cookie-cutter personas you put on and others put on. Being the “cool girl” doesn’t mean smoking and letting guys walk all over you, and reading and writing doesn’t make you nerdy. Those associations have been taught by movies. Don’t feel like you need to fit into 1 persona. 18. Radiate confidence, even if it’s fake. One day it won’t be, and you’ll be untouchable. 19. One day you’ll realize I was the fresh air before your last breath. 20. Live in such a way that if anyone spoke badly of you, no one would believe it. 21. Take a second and look around. Remember where you are, who you’re with. You’ll look back on this moment and see the little things ended up being the big things. 22. Respect is a minimum. 23. We lose ourselves in the things we love. We find ourselves there, too. 24. Seek respect, not attention. It lasts longer. 25. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. 26. Nobody really knows what they want, not until it’s right in front of them. 27. Someone can be gone yet more present than anyone else. 28. You’ll never truly cherish the people in your life if you keep hoping for those that hurt you to come back to you. 29. Life doesn’t get better, you do. 30. Value yourself. The only people who appreciate doormats are people with dirty shoes. 31. If you don’t end up smiling while kissing someone, you’re probably kissing the wrong person.

emmuuhhhhh, 31 Things I Learned Coming Into 2016 Part 3 (via wnq-writers)

[hitohana]

the sun will rise and we will try again

[micdotcom]

These stunning photos capture just how exhausting micro aggressions can be 

Paula Akpan and Harriet Evans have launched the “I’m Tired” project to highlight the impact common microaggressions and stereotypes many face on a daily basis. By symbolically and literally carrying the aggressions on their backs, Apkan and Evans hope to help both the subjects and everyone else.

[annisatiarau]

“Descendant Of The Northern Lights”

[namrekeya-deactivated20161028]

It was a realistic idea, ok… that’s why I said she cannot speak. She could not speak because she did speak but was not heard. That was the meaning of ‘cannot speak’. I got a lot of nonsense as a result of my saying this to the extent that finally Dipesh Chakraborty told me that our friend Megan Morris had said a very wonderful thing to him saying , ‘those people who question Gayatri and say that you take away the subaltern’s ability to speak etc, they think her article is called Can the Subaltern Talk’ (laughs)! It was not about talking. It was about: when the subaltern speaks there is not enough infrastructure for people to recognise it as resistant speech. That’s what it means.

In Conversation: Speaking to Spivak (via namrekeya)

YES, ok.

[poetryfoundation]

Poetic Imagery – Creating murals from Krista Franklin’s poetry

Poet Krista Franklin visited Phoenix Military Academy to read “Manifesto, or Ars Poetica #2” to art students and discuss the possibilities for translating its imagery into dynamic oil pastel compositions. The students said they loved having Krista, who also talked about her experiences as a poet and artist in Chicago.

After the reading, Krista answered questions, and each student selected two lines of the poem at random to use as a basis for their pastel drawing. The drawings will later form a collage, which will be painted onto a large canvas that synthesizes all of the students’ visual interpretations.

[mountainrigirlmo]

Could do this at the university level....

[literary-ethnography-deactivate]

If you will be at the American Anthropology Association meetings be sure to pick up one of our limited edition Ethnographic Fiction chapbooks from the AAA booth in the book exhibit on Thursday from 9:00am to 5:00pm.  

It includes stories and novel excerpts from Paul Stoller, Ruth Behar, Julia Offen, BJ Isbell, and Katrina Thompson.

[mountainrigirlmo]

This aggravates my FOMO. No AAAs this year for me. Hard to waddle around the house much less around a conference a mile high.

[thisteenspirit]

[newyorker]

Another Trudeau Makes Canada Cool

This week, Justin Trudeau took the Liberal Party from third place in the polls to win the election, and he will lead a majority government. His platform includes fighting climate change (although he does not oppose the Keystone Pipeline), legalizing marijuana, reforming the criminal-justice system, and working to right wrongs perpetrated against First Nation people. After the cold incumbency of the Harper government, Trudeau is aiming to make Canada cool again.

Read more on Canada’s new Prime Minister—and his father’s legacy—on newyorker.com.

[mountainrigirlmo]

Psyched about this new era. Trudeau, don't psych us out, though!

[literary-ethnography-deactivate]

Here it is!  The cover for my forthcoming book with the University of Chicago Press.  If all goes well, the book should see daylight sometime in May or June 2016.

[mountainrigirlmo]

To contemplate for my next ethnography class. First time around = Alive in the Writing by Kirin Narayan

[bleutempete]

Dog logic

[mountainrigirlmo]

Queeda's M.O.