Bodies/City: A Symposium, May 3, 2012

Join me tomorrow, May 3, 2012, for a symposium featuring the words and art of Amy Harris, Maggie Helwig, Richard Fung, Donna-Michelle St Bernard, Dyan Marie, Devon Ostrom, Kate Beaton, and Bryan Lee O’Malley. Each featured speaker will discuss their work in relation to urban culture, Toronto, and the ways in which we imagine ourselves through the lens of the Big Smoke.

Invited participants and the audience will be given even footing to discuss desire, immigration, emigration, poverty, wealth, and cultural cross-communication and misunderstandings. And anything else that comes to mind.

This is FREE edu-tainment, my friends!

Where: Jackman Humanities Institute @ 170 St George St (NW corner Bloor & St George, across from St George subway exit). Main floor, just off the main floor lobby

When: TOMORROW, May 3, 2012 @ 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

Why: Free thoughts and free refreshments.

There have been a few developments, not the least of which has been a breakthrough in work on my framework for understanding community archives. I’m preparing to present my framework at the SAA in August. Here’s a teaser and feedback is welcome and appreciated:

My poster will present research undertaken during the past twelve months of doctoral studies to develop a framework for understanding the genesis, social contexts, and capacities of community-based archives. Because these initiatives often emerge as grassroots projects outside of established archival systems, few comply with a traditional definition of archives. They are heterogenous in their approach to appraisal, the types of records they keep, the ways in which they organize their records, and the strategies they employ to make these collections accessible. Thus, attempting to produce a clear-cut and simple definition of ‘community archives’ can be a diverting and sometimes frustrating task. Drawing from postmodern theory, archival studies, and craft studies, my proposed community-based archives framework avoids the trap of classification that excludes as much as it includes by resisting a temptation to suggest a more precise definition. Instead, the framework assumes only that the champions of these archival initiatives share an ‘archivist’s sense of duty’ to preserve the documentary evidence of our socio-economic and political lives. The community-based archives framework is, therefore, a macro-tool that (1) serves researchers who study archives as sites of memory, knowledge, and community-building activities by revealing the broader social and political contexts that have produced these initiatives; and (2) helps policy makers and professional archivists anticipate opportunities and challenges that may arise through partnerships with community-based archives.

My papa was a very interesting man. Patient. Inquisitive. Hard working. Sensitive. Strong. Compassionate. Stubborn. Respected.  He could do his taxes without a calculator (yes, they were often slightly wrong). He built me a garage when he was well into his 70s.  I’m pretty sure I inherited his sailor mouth—although, he stuck with the traditional expletives (e.g. bugger, bastard). He once tried out “mo-fo” on my little brother to see if he could make it work. It didn’t stick. He told great stories about the On To Ottawa Trek, riding the rails, teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, and farming up at Meadow Lake. He took my Grammy to Hawaii once, but he was actually scared of flying. He had a full head of hair until he died. When I was born, he thought my name was Verbecka. He was later corrected, but only after buying a Canada Savings Bond for someone named Verbecka Hardy. He didn’t get a hearing aid until he was in his 80s. He took my mom to Disneyland in 1962 (?) and they actually met Walt Disney. He owned Churchill Hardware in Saskatoon until the late 1970s—he knew how to use every single tool that he sold. The mechanics at Canadian Tire used to let him onto the repair floor to watch how they fixed cars. I always thought he looked like Humphrey Bogart, but then I learned that Bogey spit when he talked. My papa didn’t like to spit. He thought it was rude. He wasn’t a great typist—he hand big Dutch hands that could never really hit the keys very well. I always picture him with a pencil in his hand. He kept cherry chewing gum in his desk drawer and I was allowed to have a piece from time to time. He let me lick the salt triangles before he put them in the soft water tank. He kept everything, just in case he needed it someday and he bought stuff when it was on sale.He grew plants in the basement under a pink light. I still have no idea why he did that. He would run an incredible grow-op. He loved animals. Cats always found their way onto his lap. There were always ten boxes of shreddies in the cold room, next to the dozen or so boxes of Neilson’s chocolates. I always liked the Willowcrisp ones. He used to let me hold his big thumb when we went for walks together. He called me his ‘klein machen’. He would ask me “Wie jeht es?” and I would reply, “gut.”

 …and I promised I wouldn’t cry as I wrote this, but I broke my promise…

And I miss him dearly. He was my jack-of-all-trades. He could do anything. Not a week goes by when I don’t think of him or wish he were here to help me take care of my house! And meet his lovely great granddaughter, who can spot him in photos and calls him papa, too.

City Park is a centrally located neighborhood in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, bounded by the shores of the South Saskatchewan River and the central business district. As one of the first neighbourhoods established in the relatively young city, it has a mixture of 1900s character homes and wartime bungalows, each built on a spacious lot typical of Prairie urban development in the Twentieth Century. City Park also boasts a large greenspace named Kinsmen Park. First purchased by the municipality in 1903, the park was initially used as a horse-racing grounds and later as the site for an annual agricultural fair and exhibition. Today, the park hosts a children’s play area and amusement centre, two baseball diamonds, and a soccer pitch. During the much-too-short summer months, it’s a favorite location for picnic lunches and pick-up football games. At night, however, the park becomes something else, something considerably less ‘family friendly’. Kinsmen Park is a well-known cruising area and hangout for male prostitutes. It is in this park that many young men have their first homosexual experiences. In fact, the park’s ‘disreputable’ nightly activities are so well known in the larger community that they are often the source of local mythology. The road that circles through part of the park is known as the ‘fruit loop’, and it is impossible to survive high school without bearing witness to a series of jokes made at the expense of those ‘fags in the park.’ It should come as no surprise that Kinsmen Park is also a dangerous area for gay men and the epicenter for gay-bashing incidents that seem to increase in regularity with Spring temperatures.

It was in Kinsmen Park on a Spring night in 1993 where I first announced my own queerness. The weather was just warm enough to justify a midnight game of capture-the-flag with a few friends. We planned to rendezvous at a particular meeting place and divide up into teams before starting the game. I was the first to arrive. As I sat on the cold ground waiting for the others, I was approached by a group of five young men in jean jackets and white sneakers. They were carrying baseball bats. One of them explained to me that they were out “looking to bash some fags” and wanted to know if I was interested in joining them. I declined, explaining that I was waiting for friends, and four of them moved on. The fifth, a scrawny boy with a peach fuzz mustache, sat down next to me and gave me an uncomfortable smile. He apologized. It wasn’t ‘like him’ to participate in any gay-bashing, but his older brother had dragged him out that night with the group. He “didn’t have anything against fags”, but was just “going along with his buddies”. Before I could stop myself, I admitted to this boy that I was gay—something that I had never before said out loud. And then I was immediately struck with an intense sense of danger. Luckily, the boy did nothing. He gave me another uncomfortable smile and then quickly left to go catch up with his ‘buddies’. One by one my friends arrived at our meeting place and, as they organized into teams, I continued to sit on the cold ground contemplating what I had just done. My gender likely saved me from physical harm—I would certainly have felt the end of a bat if I were a gay man. Nevertheless, I was shaken and the uneasiness I felt during those few moments would haunt me for months after the encounter. I was also left dealing with the realization that I was just like one of those ‘fags in the park’. Although years have passed, I often think about how reckless I was to disclose my sexuality to a possible assailant and, at the same time, how liberating this felt. I ponder how my disclosure might have affected that young boy. Did he dismiss it easily or did it shake him as it shook me? Why did he stay behind and think it necessary to apologize to me for his behaviour? Was he questioning his own sexuality? These are questions I will never be able to answer.

I point to this moment in the park as a defining experience in my life. It was not until recently, however, that I began to think of the anxiety and distress resulting from the incident as part of the everyday trauma that I experience as a lesbian. A traumatic stressor is traditionally understood as an external event outside the range of normal human experience and which leaves one feeling disempowered, helpless or overwhelmed. An instance of trauma might be a singular event, such as a natural disaster or an assault, or it may be prolonged, such as exposure to abuse or war. Within this limited definition, my encounter with the gay-bashers in the park constitutes a singular traumatic event, a one-time-only occurrence with a distinct beginning and end. Confronting gay-bashers might also be part of a prolonged experience of verbal and physical homophobic violence. Yet neither of these categories of trauma seems appropriate in scope because they both assume that the traumatic stressors are “outside of the range of normal human experience.” What is normal? Confronting a potential assailant in the park might be an unusual experience for a heterosexual person; it is not unexpected for a gay man in Kinsmen Park at night. At the risk of perpetuating the victimization of gay men, gay-bashing in the park is a known risk. This is not to say that every gay man is assaulted every time he chooses to go to the park, but only that the threat of assault is ever present. This was true in 1993 and it is true today.

Now, just about everything having to do with the G8 Summit and the subsequent shit storm of G20 that took over Toronto and turned it into a police state, is fundamentally wrong. Money was misspent, police used illegal tactics to search and seize, citizens’ rights were violated, and gobs of taxpayer coin was lavished on fake lakes for media and giant fences. Don’t. Even. Get. Me. Started. At one point, I was told that I would need to obtain a security pass just to get to my office in the morning. My bags were searched three times as I walked down my usual route through campus. There has been plenty written about the ridiculousness of the G8/G20, so this is not the focus of my concern. This time.

But I digress… the interesting thing about this story is that the emails were obtained by an opposition party member through Access to Information, even though they were not exchanged using official email addresses. In fact, Tony Clement and Claude Doughty carried on these conversations about the use of government funds through their personal gmail accounts. One might assume that they communicated using their personal accounts in order to keep their conversations ‘off the record’. Unfortunately for these two, the nature of their discussion was official business and the records can be subpoenaed. This has left Doughty enraged and vowing to never use email for private conversations again. In an article in Maclean’s, he is quoted as saying, “”To me, these emails are conversation … but they’re in a form that’s now reproduceable … I guess we’re all going to go back to telephones.”. 

Last time I checked, phone conversations were also considered records and could be subpoenaed.

And really? Seriously? You are surprised that people want to know about how their millions were spent?

Maybe you shouldn’t have personal conversations about really important, highly scrutinized and controversial spending of many millions of dollars ‘off the record’. In fact, I’m fairly sure that the age of accountability is going to bite you in the ass for doing this. Why else would you need to use ‘off the record’ communication if the conversation was, in fact, above board. It seems like only shady/politically uncouth business happens ‘off the record’.

Thoughts?

Angelina's Report Card

A gorgeous little story appeared on BoingBoing this morning about a man who has tracked down some of the women who attended a NYC girls voactional school in the 1920s. In 1996, Paul Lukas found a treasure trove of their report cards in the garbage and, thankfully, retrieved them. The records are artwork; lovely photographs, hand-written notes and typed details on classic report card paper. Lukas recognized their value, but had no other way to engage with them. He kept them as curios for years, but eventually decided to track down some of the students. He writes about the report cards in an article that originally appears in Slate. Lukas claims that interacting with the records and using them to learn about the lives of young girls in Manhattan in the 1920s was a life-changing experience. See, archives change lives!

My philosophy: Respond to good press graciously, but never to ignorant criticism.

I’m thrilled.

And I’m curious… How will this impact information management and surveillance? OK, I’m a total nerd, but I’m just very interested in how this monumental change in social policy will have trickle down impact on information management. If this were the UK, I would wonder how the new category could become subject to crazy surveillance and what this will do for privacy. Computer databases will have to be amended to include a new category of data. How will other countries handle these passports upon entry?

Again. Thrilled. Just…. curious.