#globalpov

[transcendentwhispers]

[chelseadaltonpederson]

[geographyofcare]

Ananya Roy Can We Shop to End Poverty?

[danielleshow]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVaFGZYBr00)

[aemiliafay]

The New Age

Sitting in my global poverty class at Berkeley as we livetweet in debate between two popular thinkers on global aid, Jeff Sachs and Bill Easterly. How amazing is it to see technology used in such an interesting way, fostering debate, sharing the ideas of so many students.   Twitter can come off as such a silly technology but I am sitting in my seat reading some great thoughts and opinions of 750 of my peers, ideas which normally I would never be able to see. Interesting to see Berkeley pushing the boundaries and trying to be innovative in education, using tools that students are familiar with in a casual setting as a way of fostering formal debate.   check out the debate on Twitter by using the hashtag globalPOV, a shortening of the name of the class, Global Poverty - but also hinting at the idea of a global point of view.

[danielleshow]

Where and When

I remember feeling a sort of synesthesia around space and time. December 7th, for example, feels like a place that I visit every year instead of a date that will undoubtedly return every 365 days. And with this came a sort of nostalgia, that I will never get another December 7, 2014 for instance--which my mother, for the record, finds ridiculous: "she's even sad about the seasons changing!"

This part of myself might be why I feel such an attraction to the theater. When a communal process builds a place that becomes a time where another place and time may be performed, and then can be performed again, changed, reconstructed, with different people of different histories and intentions.

In a way, theater is itself liminal, a construction occupying the intermediary of space and time.

In Global Poverty we talk about spatially distant neighbors and spatially proximate strangers. We ostracize the problems at home while romanticizing problems abroad. I think this same analysis can be put on time: where UC Berkeley is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, but many headlines of protests from last night focus on police who were injured and windows broken instead of the solidarity and righteous anger of students and community members that was met with police violence.

The need for more space and time is ubiquitous, unlike the present which betrays us with its ephemeral state. I will never be able to prepare myself or reflect enough without entirely squandering each moment.

And as I sit in my room, I feel like I'm running from a cynicism of knowing "too much" and grasping for a sense of hope, of which I may be falsely convinced is fleeting. Because hope is a part of a continuum, and to dismiss it is to spurn the generosity through which it was built by community.

The fallacy that I will ever know too much is born out of arrogance. And while in Global Poverty we also discuss finding a space between the "hubris of benevolence" and the "paralysis of cynicism"—where we may no longer find good intentions to be enough, but are not too discouraged in the face of injustice and strife—I think I've come to learn that there is a fair amount of hubris in cynicism as well.

So in my efforts to stifle the lurking hubris and cynicism within myself, I need to lend myself the time and space that prevents escapism. Building community isn't easy, but being a part of a collective helps us take things in strides.

So in our search of getting to the here and now, I think we must remember that we are a part of a continuum. We are fighting for those from our past and future, those who are proximate and distant, and we are not alone.

[maitri-bhavana-blog]

The #GlobalPOV Project - "Can Experts Solve Poverty?"

Read about the artist, Abby VanMuijen, here: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/05/13/poi-abby-vanmuijen-drawing-her-way-to-a-better-education/

The Blum Center:  http://blumcenter.berkeley.edu/globalpov/

[browntourage]

#GlobalPOV Project: "Who is Dependent on Welfare - Ananya Roy"

I came across this video yesterday and flipped out, #1 because I took this Global Poverty class at UC Berkeley and every moment of it was absolutely brilliant. #2 I'm an Ananya Roy FANGIRL- she's got style, elegance, and poise for days. Her mind is radiant, and her student fans cheered that year when she decided to stay at UC Berkeley instead of taking Harvard's bait to swing their way. #3 This video (and all the videos in this Blum Center x GlobalPOV series) are super creative and artistic ways of communicating theory, statistics, and proposals. This particular video shows us how the magnitude of how the wealthy depend on government subsidies and welfare.

"Poverty is not only the lack of income and wealth but also the poverty of power."

Checking out these videos as some food for thought and post-grad connection to the class that changed my life.

-H