#perception

Why We’re Teaching Urban Planning Students To Write Poetry

Op-ed: To prepare students for the complexities of community work, two educators turn to creative writing to help ignite imagination, self-awareness and communal connection.

Civic engagement is central to the mission and moral legitimacy of higher education. While it is challenging to foster authentic relationships between campus and community, we have found a way to make it happen: We’re teaching urban planning students to write poetry.

In the basement of an off-campus building with unreliable heat, our students pulled their chairs into a circle and pulled out their writer’s notebooks. The class consisted of Drexel students, West Philly community leaders, and two faculty members who had gone way out on a limb – us.

Few in the class had ever written a poem, let alone read their work out loud in front of an audience. We each took turns reading the poems we’d written, while the others snapped and nodded in affirmation. This was not a humanities course. This was the final “exam” in a required class on civic engagement and participatory planning.

Our class, Civic Engagement and Participatory Methods — a required course in Drexel University’s Department of Architecture, Design & Urbanism — helps students hone the skills necessary to engage in community work, whether as an architect, a community organizer, the leader of a local nonprofit or an urban planner. We have co-taught this Side by Side class for the last nine years; half of the participants are students at Drexel University and the other half are community students who reside in surrounding West Philadelphia neighborhoods.

Over the course of 10 weeks, students explore and refine their approach to leadership, how they show up in a group setting, cross-cultural communication skills, public meeting facilitation, media engagement and other essential competencies. The class blends practical training with a critical look at the historical and present-day factors that influence life in the city of Philadelphia.

This raises two questions: What does poetry have to do with civic engagement? And why center the humanities in a class designed for urban planners and architects?

We see civic engagement as a creative practice. Planners, architects, organizers and block captains need to strengthen their creative muscle so they can respond to the demands of a dynamic, uncertain world.

Writing and reading poetry does this by surprising us, drawing our attention to a particular moment in time and space, and making space to process difficult emotions. Poetry allows students to draw upon their humanity and meet each other (and themselves) across vast differences in expertise and experience. These tools help us understand the stories of people who are different from us.

Poetry cultivates our capacity for attention to people and places. This sensitivity allows us to imagine together, turning the dream language of the poem into the steel cables of Hart Crane’s Brooklyn Bridge or the rust and gold of J.P. Clark’s Ibadan. Civic awareness makes poetry stronger, not just planning.

Access to poetry’s dream language enables us to be more flexible. To successfully run a community meeting, facilitators need to be able to “dance in the moment” (a favorite phrase in the coaching world). “Dancing in the moment” refers to being fully present for the person you are listening to while tuning in to your own reactions. It requires curiosity about what the other person brings with them, even if it doesn’t fit the story about them that you came in with.

The poetry we write and read in class helps our students learn to dance in the moment, and it helps build the bonds of trust that allow Drexel and community students to reckon with each other’s stories and viewpoints. From our own years of experience in community work, we know these are essential skills for any community leader and any aspiring urbanist.

These days, there is a lot of handwringing about the future of the humanities in higher education. After all, the humanities, including creative writing, have been considered essential to a well-rounded education for many hundreds of years. We believe students stay away from humanities courses not out of a lack of interest, but because they are worried about the return on investment.

So why are some of us simply wishing for students to come to their senses and prioritize humanities and arts classes, when we can integrate these tools into every discipline and allow creative practice to permeate our pedagogy?

In spite of reports of diminished student resilience when it comes to difficult texts, we do not feel the need to water down the rigor of our class. We have been consistently inspired by our students’ excitement, and their bravery, when writing poems with pen and paper so that they may add more tools to their urbanist toolkit.

Early on in the term, we studied Ross Gay’s “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian,” a poem set in our beloved city of Philadelphia. Gay describes a moment when strangers unexpectedly come together around a neighbor’s overflowing fig tree. Students wrote poems trying to capture this feeling of unexpected togetherness. For one undergraduate, this inspired her to write an ode to public libraries in Philadelphia, which she sees as “an underappreciated staple,” “a gathering place,” “a shelter,” “a mental escape,” even “a home office.” For her, the social infrastructure of the public library provides a space with “the possibility of conversing with a stranger.” In a time of disappearing funding and the ongoing privatization of public space, public libraries just found their newest advocate.

In the fifth week of class, we introduced the describe-interpret-evaluate model, an intercultural communication tool we have adapted to teach students how to communicate across differences of race and class. This tool forces students to withhold their impulse to jump to conclusions, pausing long enough to take in the whole situation from a variety of points of view. Only at the end of the exercise are they invited to engage their faculty of judgment.

The pause is what matters, and it is precisely where students frequently struggle. This year, we assigned a poem about forgiveness — “Phase One” by Dilruba Ahmed — to help students accustomed to the hot takes of the social media era to learn how to pause to offer grace and understanding, to others and to themselves.

After crafting her response poem on forgiveness, an architecture student reflected, “A crucial part of both forgiveness and being a leader is accountability. Leaders make mistakes and they deserve grace. As a leader it’s important that I learn to forgive myself, but also important that I take accountability for my mistakes.”

We have taught this content many times before, but only this year, when engaging her creative muscle, could a student come to this insight so quickly. We wish all experts in planning and design would be open to making mistakes, taking responsibility for them, and using that insight to grow and change.

Like every city, Philly has its struggles to overcome. Our students, from Drexel and the neighborhood, are working to mend this broken place. In response to Alice Walker’s poem “I Will Keep Broken Things,” a graduate student reflected that “brokenness does not equate to worthlessness. In fact, there is an inherent beauty in things that carry the marks of time, history and experience.”

Recognizing this beauty allows designers, planners and other leaders to work with the strengths and assets that exist in every community and neighborhood in Philadelphia. It gifts the power of poetry to the practice of planning and offers the insights of the attentive urbanist to the poet’s gaze. Too often, experts notice only what’s missing, deficient or broken, and we lose the power of possibility to reimagine and build anew.

Just as we did in our class, poetry can ignite our creative capacity to reimagine together what possibilities exist for cities and communities that stand together, recognize each other’s worth and dignity, and build collective power.

Around 9 p.m., the classroom’s heater sputtered. The security guard rapped on the window, telling us it was time to close up for the night. The students signed each other’s poetry zines, like you would a high school yearbook. We emerged, lingering for a few more minutes under the streetlights of the West Philadelphia neighborhood we call home.

▻https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/why-were-teaching-urban-planning-students-to-write-poetry

About Deep Listening

Deep Listening, as developed by Pauline Oliveros, explores the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the conscious nature of listening. The practice includes bodywork, sonic meditations, and interactive performance, as well as listening to the sounds of daily life, nature, one’s own thoughts, imagination, and dreams. It cultivates a heightened awareness of the sonic environment, both external and internal, and promotes experimentation, improvisation, collaboration, playfulness, and other creative skills vital to personal and community growth.

Inherently collaborative, the first published Deep Listening scores and activities (Sonic Meditations, 1971) were workshopped in the context of a female-identified collective, the fem-ensemble, over a period of many months. From the 1980s onwards, Deep Listening workshops, retreats, and the Deep Listening Certification Program were developed and facilitated in close partnership with playwright IONE (also Oliveors’ life partner) and movement artist Heloise Gold. Today, the philosophy and practice of Deep Listening continues to evolve through a growing international community of listeners.

▻https://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu/deep-listening
#deep_listening

How the Arts Can Create the Foundation for a Multiracial US Democracy

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A few Mondays ago, the emails started to roll in. One after another, my colleagues announced their departure from leadership roles at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). These advocates helped culture thrive in every corner of the United States—on an annual budget that was less than 10 percent of the cost of the Trump Organization’s latest $3 billion condo project in Miami. Their farewell letters came on the heels of grim updates about cuts in the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Kennedy Center, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Let me be clear: President Donald Trump and his administration have taken a chainsaw to programs that affect actual life and death. By contrast, the arts may seem a matter of small importance. Still, for me, these were the cuts that broke my heart.

For instance, I help run one of the leading university-based arts administration departments in the country. For more than 50 years, our program at Drexel University in Philadelphia has helped train thousands of students for careers in arts management, fundraising, community engagement, and cultural planning.

And yet, I have a confession to make. To paraphrase Shakespeare, there is something rotten in the way arts and culture work in the United States. The Trump administration’s actions, harmful though they are, are a wake-up call. For too long, the arts have been an elitist, exclusive space. The chance now is for arts workers and creatives to heed that call—and do better.
Arts and Democracy

The current upheaval of our sector gives those of us in the arts and creative fields an opportunity to rethink everything. Instead of seeking a return to the status quo, we have the chance to place culture and creativity at the center of US political life.

Artists explore complicated questions. They help to open new ways of understanding and acting in the world. They take us on a collective journey that can be joyful and exhilarating.

For me, nothing compares to a live jazz drummer pushing the beat on the ride cymbal, while a trumpeter dances up and down the scales. No laughter is more genuine than an improv theater group that takes an audience suggestion somewhere very, very silly.

These tools of group process, improvisation, and deep listening are vital tools for building a democratic culture. Arts leader and former NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson linked the domains of democracy and creative practice, when she said during a 2024 commencement speech that “creating and experiencing art is one of the most powerful ways to develop the skills and habits needed to be curious, to ask questions, and to fulfill the duties of citizenship in a participatory democracy.”
Legitimation Crisis

Of course, many people have lost faith in the US political system. Even before the 2024 elections, 68 percent of people surveyed by the Pew Research Center said they were dissatisfied with the way America’s democracy works.

Discourse on democracy may sound appealing, but try asking poor people, Black people, queer people, youth, people with disabilities—the list is long—how much influence they feel they have on how the system functions. The answer you’ll get in most cases, simply put, will be little or none.

And this popular perception is not wrong. Back in 2014, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page published a study that found that “business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”

In reality, what the media likes to call “democracy” feels out of reach to most Americans, especially if by “democracy” we mean popular control over governance. As it happens, a similar malady affects the thing that many people like to call “the arts.”

In fact, both politics and the arts are widely considered the province of elites, removed from everyday life. Too many political leaders are “sorry, not sorry” about this. Political scientist Nicholas Tampio wrote back in 2017: “In recent years, numerous political theorists and philosophers have argued that experts ought to be in charge of public policy and should manipulate, or contain, the policy preferences of the ignorant masses.” And philosopher Olúf ẹ́mi O. Táíwò noted in 2020 that “when elites run the show, the group’s interests get whittled down to what they have in common with those at the top.”

My own field of arts and culture has also been content to reward experts who embody “excellence” with funding and institutional support. Notwithstanding recent efforts to support equity, diversity, and inclusion, the arts field remains mostly dominated by large, typically Eurocentric institutions, like ballet companies and symphony orchestras that receive the lion’s share of funding from private philanthropy.

Sixty percent of arts philanthropy goes to just 2 percent of cultural institutions, according to research by Holly Sidford and Alexis Frasz of the Helicon Collaborative. These institutions generally do a poor job of speaking to the hopes, fears, and questions of everyday people, steeped in symbols and behaviors that are utterly incomprehensible to the uninitiated.

For example, I may be a university professor, but even I have only a foggy idea of how the Electoral College works. Nor can I figure out the appropriate time to applaud during a classical music concert. Yet somehow these systems claim to represent us.

Instead of leaving our fate to the elites, there is an opportunity, particularly in this moment of crisis, to use the arts to build a true multiracial democracy through participatory, collective, creative action.
Building Democratic Culture Through the Arts

Over the last year, I have seen firsthand the power of the arts breathing life into democratic practices. I’ve been gathering artists, urban planners, policymakers, and students to explore the ideas raised in Democracy as Creative Practice, a book I coedited with cultural planner Tom Borrup.

Instead of talking about democracy, we’re trying to improvise it together. We’ve pretended our bodies were trees in Nashville, generated performance poetry in Denver, and devised theater skits in Spain. After the artist-facilitators help us create something together in real time, only then do we sit and talk about democracy and “the issues,” and have noticed the conversation flows much more easily. There is even video evidence of the fun we had in West Philadelphia, when we used art to reclaim democracy.

One moment stands out. At a pro-democracy conference held this past April in Toronto, I led workshop participants in a surrealist writing game. Vocalist Roula Said helped us transform these poems into a set of improvised songs. Choreographer Shannon Litzenberger turned the whole glorious mess into a folk dance.

The participants, including policymakers, funders, scholars—not the typical arts crowd—laughed, sang, and danced together. We moved beyond rational argumentation into embodied cocreation. The rest of our conversations about the US-Canada relationship and the future of democracy proceeded from a place of intimacy and camaraderie that no group of strangers could ever attain at a different sort of political meeting.
Envisioning a New Role for the Arts

When I describe participatory arts practices, I often get arched eyebrows and am regularly asked: “If everyone is an artist, does that mean that anything is art? Don’t good artists have to spend 10,000 hours practicing first?”

I respond with a smile. Art has the capacity to be many different things; there is room for experts, hobbyists, and dabblers alike.

I am a mediocre piano player, so I pose no threat to Thelonious Monk. In fact, I spend more time and money than most people I know so I can see professional artists practice their craft, since I know firsthand how hard it is to play music well.

Creative practice is everyone’s birthright. When it’s done as a collective activity by amateurs and experts alike, we can hold each other in community and bolster our brave explorations.
The Path to Rebuilding Culture

In short, to rebuild democracy using creative practice, the arts and culture sectors need to make their own structural changes and clean our own house.

We need to start with a narrative shift. Arts and culture are not just about excellence. Creativity is also a vital tool to make sense of our individual and collective experience. The arts are a radical act that enables sovereignty over our own narratives and our own attention in a time when attention has been coopted as a for-profit commodity and narrative sovereignty is a battleground—politically, technologically, and economically.

Artists should be embedded in government agencies to make them function better. Theater should be part of the curriculum in every K-12 classroom, not just an elective where funding permits. Participatory art is key to reimagining our cities.

Certainly, it is important to join the fight to save the NEA and the Smithsonian, but let’s not leave it at that. Let’s remake society around our collective artistry. I commit to being part of building a creative democracy, and I am not alone.

Now that US democratic practices and the arts are in free fall, this is an opportunity to assert that their fates are inextricably linked. Let’s not greet Trump’s takeover of culture with a shrug just because other vital systems are under threat.

Resisting the enclosure of our own minds, and our bodies—that is what democratic, revolutionary praxis is all about. This is especially the case when done collectively and made visible so that we may bolster each of our efforts and exploration.

▻https://nonprofitquarterly.org/how-the-arts-can-create-the-foundation-for-a-multiracial-us-demo

Democracy as Creative Practice. Weaving a Culture of Civic Life

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Democracy as Creative Practice: Weaving a Culture of Civic Life offers arts-based solutions to the threats to democracies around the world, practices that can foster more just and equitable societies. Chapter authors are artists, activists, curators, and teachers applying creative and cultural practices in deliberate efforts to build democratic ways of working and interacting in their communities in a range of countries including the United States, Australia, Portugal, Nepal, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The book demonstrates how creativity is integrated in place-based actions, aesthetic strategies, learning environments, and civic processes. As long-time champions and observers of community-based creative and cultural practices, editors Tom Borrup and Andrew Zitcer elucidate work that not only responds to sociopolitical conditions but advances practice. They call on artists, funders, cultural organizations, community groups, educational institutions, government, and others to engage in and support this work that fosters a culture of democracy.

▻https://www.routledge.com/Democracy-as-Creative-Practice-Weaving-a-Culture-of-Civic-Life/Borrup-Zitcer/p/book/9781032758725
#livre

#bouc_émissaire

The ability to accurately perceive others’ emotions is arguably critical for successful social interaction and may facilitate upward social mobility through personal and career advancement. Yet, prior research suggests that individuals of lower social status are better at perceiving others’ emotions. These competing viewpoints lead to the question of whether emotion perception ability—often referred to as empathic accuracy—shapes or is shaped by social status. In a preregistered experiment (n = 1197), we tested these alternate perspectives and found a robust negative relationship between individuals’ self-reported social status and behavioral measures of emotion perception. These effects were limited to emotions expressed by an individual actor and did not extend either to emotions expressed in a group or to similar judgments in a nonsocial control context. In addition, we found preliminary evidence that self-assessed increases in social status over the lifespan were also associated with worse emotion perception. These patterns support the perspective that social status shapes emotion perception abilities, but importantly, this relationship depends on one’s subjective sense of their status, both in comparison to others and in evaluations of one’s own lifespan trajectory.

#empathie #vulnérabilité #statut_social

Welfare and social protection: What is the link with secondary migration? Evidence from the 2014-crisis hit Italian region of Lombardy

Evidence on the relationship between secondary international migration and welfare state (or formal protection) support is currently limited. Also, the experience of financial support from semiformal and informal social protection networks has seen limited inclusion in current reflections on secondary mobility patterns such as onward and return migration. Our study analyses the relationship between support from formal, informal and semiformal social protection and short-term secondary migration intentions. The study uses open-access data from the Regional Observatory for Integration and Multiethnicity of Lombardy (Italy) and adopts a competing-risk framework through multinomial logistic regression. Our data do not support the hypothesis of an ex-post “magnetic effect” of the Italian formal social protection on its beneficiaries: individuals on formal welfare are more prone to onward and return migration. However, the positive relationship observed between welfare entitlements and onward migration intentions cannot rule out any effect of welfare magnetism from more generous welfare systems. Monetary aid received from Italian friends is negatively related to return intention. At the same time, economic support from foreign-born friends is correlated to return migration. We interpret results according to social network theory. Economic support and social capital from bridging networks can act as an ex-post integration-driven magnet. Bonding social capital from ties with migrants in Italy cannot secure the migrants’ stay in Italy. However, it can support return migration. Networks providing bonding transnational social capital, and expressed in the form of financial support from relatives living abroad, are instead positively correlated to both forms of secondary migration.

▻https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/psp.2469

Immigration et appel d’air : anatomie d’un fantasme
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnRPLS8Crnk

#Clément_Viktorovitch revient chaque semaine sur les débats et les enjeux politiques. Dimanche 12 novembre : le début de l’examen au Sénat du projet de loi immigration. Parmi les mesures phares de ce texte : la régularisation des immigrés sans papiers qui travaillent dans les métiers « en tension ».

C’est l’une des mesures les plus discutées au sein du projet de loi immigration : l’article qui prévoit la régularisation des travailleurs sans papiers dans les métiers en tension. Les parlementaires Les Républicains en ont fait une ligne rouge : en aucun cas ils ne voteront le texte si cette mesure en fait partie. Or, la Première ministre a besoin de leur soutien si elle désire s’éviter un nouveau 49-3. Autant dire que les négociations s’annoncent serrées.

Ce qui est intéressant, ce sont les arguments qui sont utilisés pour pourfendre cette mesure. Et notamment un argument, répété ad nauseam par les élus LR, mais aussi par le Rassemblement national : régulariser les immigrés sans papiers qui travaillent d’ores et déjà sur le territoire, cela créerait un « appel d’air », voire une « pompe aspirante », qui inciterait toujours plus d’exilés à tenter de rentrer illégalement sur notre territoire.

Aucun accroissement des flux migratoires

Il se trouve que cette question a été bien travaillée par la science politique. Nous avons, par exemple, un article très important qui a été publié en décembre 2020 par trois chercheurs : Joan Monras, Elias Ferran, Javier Vazquez-Grenno. Il a même été mise à jour en avril 2023, pour intégrer les données les plus récentes. Ce papier se penche sur la décision, prise par le gouvernement espagnole en 2005, de régulariser 600 000 exilés extra-européens. Bilan : près de 20 ans plus tard, aucun accroissement des flux migratoires n’a été constaté. Aucun appel d’air. Mêmes observations pour ce qui s’est produit aux Etats-Unis en 1986 : l’Immigration Reform and Control Act a permis à trois millions d’immigrés de régulariser leur situation. Résultat : toutes les études ont montré que cette décision n’avait pas entraîné une augmentation de l’immigration.

Plus généralement, aucun article de recherche n’a jamais montré l’existence d’un prétendu « appel d’air » à la suite d’une campagne de régularisation. D’autant qu’il faut, en l’occurrence, être précis sur la mesure proposée par le gouvernement. Les individus concernés doivent justifier de trois ans de présence sur le territoire, avoir travaillé huit mois au cours des derniers 24 mois, dans un secteur en tension, le tout pour obtenir un titre de séjour d’un an renouvelable : cela n’a rien d’une régularisation massive !

Ceux qui s’opposent à cette mesure mettent aussi en avant un risque pour l’économie. Mais là aussi, cette question a été tranchée. Un gros travail de synthèse a été réalisé, pour Sciences Po, par Hélène Thiollet et Florian Oswald. On observe que, certes, pour les emplois les moins qualifiés, l’immigration peut entraîner, à court terme, une pression sur les salaires. Mais ce n’est ni systématique, ni pérenne. À l’échelle de l’économie dans son ensemble, l’immigration a au contraire un impact soit neutre, soit positif. Quant aux campagnes de régularisation, elles ont un effet bénéfique pour les finances publiques, puisqu’elles font rentrer un surcroît de cotisations patronales dans les caisses de l’Etat. En plus, bien sûr, de sortir de la précarité des hommes et des femmes qui travaillent, sont intégrés, bien souvent payent des impôts, et contribuent à la vie de notre société.
Peurs et fantasmes

C’est précisément tout le problème des débats sur l’immigration : certaines positions ne sont étayées ni par des faits, ni par des preuves, mais par des peurs et des fantasmes. On pourrait d’ailleurs évoquer le cas de l’AME, l’aide médicale d’Etat pour les immigrés sans papiers, dont le Sénat vient aussi de voter la suppression – au motif, là aussi, qu’elle créerait un appel d’air. On sait pourtant que le vrai problème de l’AME, c’est plutôt que ceux qui devraient en bénéficier ne la demandent pas : d’après le dernier rapport de Médecins Du Monde, plus de 80% des personnes éligibles à l’AME n’y ont pas recours. Avec des conséquences évidemment dramatiques pour ces personnes, qui finissent par accumuler de graves retards de soin. Mais aussi des conséquences négatives pour notre système de santé et pour les finances publiques, puisque, comme l’ont rappelé de nombreux médecins, il vaut toujours mieux prendre en charges les pathologies le plus tôt possible.

Tout le problème, c’est que le gouvernement a tendance à céder devant ces arguments, aussi contestables soient-ils. Le président Macron a d’ores et déjà restreint l’AME, en 2019, quand il a décidé d’en conditionner l’accès au fait de prouver trois mois de présence sur le territoire, contre l’avis des professionnels de santé. Nous verrons bien quel sera le texte qui ressortira, in fine, des débats parlementaires. Mais si l’on se fie à la manière dont ils ont commencé, on peut craindre que les passions n’y triomphent, hélas, sur la raison.

▻https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/entre-les-lignes/chronique-immigration-et-appel-d-air-anatomie-d-un-fantasme_6150630.htm

voir aussi, pour les #Etats_Unis (#USA) :

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Immigration : les étrangers pas plus délinquants que les autres, selon une étude

L’étude du Centre d’études prospectives et d’informations internationales rattaché à Matignon montre que la surreprésentation des étrangers dans les statistiques répond à des biais tout au long de la chaîne pénale. Elle paraît alors que le ministre de l’intérieur souhaite renforcer les possibilités d’expulsion des étrangers délinquants dans le cadre d’une future loi immigration.

(#paywall)
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2023/04/21/immigration-les-etrangers-pas-plus-delinquants-que-les-autres-selon-une-etud

par ailleurs, l’aspirant habite Javel

La #perception erronée des risques par l’humanité renverse les progrès mondiaux dans une « #spirale_d'autodestruction », selon un nouveau rapport de l’ONU

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Le monde pourrait défaire les progrès sociaux et économiques et faire face à 1,5 catastrophe quotidienne d’ici 2030, selon le Bilan mondial phare de l’ONU.

26 avril 2022, NEW YORK/GENÈVE – Les activités et comportements humains contribuent à l’augmentation du nombre de catastrophes à travers le monde, mettant en danger des millions de vies ainsi que l’ensemble des acquis sociaux et économiques, avertit un nouveau rapport de l’ONU.

Publié par le Bureau des Nations Unies pour la réduction des risques de catastrophe (UNDRR), en amont de la Plate-forme mondiale pour la réduction des risques de catastrophe qui se déroulera en mai, le Bilan mondial 2022 (GAR 2022) révèle qu’entre 350 et 500 catastrophes de moyenne à grande ampleur ont été enregistrées chaque année au cours des deux dernières décennies. Ce chiffre devrait atteindre 560 catastrophes par an, soit 1,5 par jour, d’ici 2030.

Le Bilan mondial 2022 attribue ces catastrophes à une perception erronée des risques guidée par « l’optimisme, la sous-estimation et l’invincibilité », conduisant à des décisions politiques, financières et de développement qui exacerbent les vulnérabilités et mettent des vies en danger.

Le monde doit redoubler d’efforts pour intégrer les risques de catastrophe dans notre façon de vivre, de construire et d’investir, qui entraîne actuellement l’humanité dans une spirale d’autodestruction », a déclaré Amina J. Mohammed, Vice-Secrétaire générale des Nations Unies, qui a présenté le rapport au siège de l’ONU à New York.

« Nous devons transformer notre complaisance collective en action. Ensemble, nous pouvons ralentir le rythme des catastrophes évitables tout en nous efforçant d’atteindre les objectifs de développement durable pour tous, partout. »

Le rapport, intitulé « Notre monde en danger : transformer la gouvernance pour un avenir résilient », constate que la mise en œuvre des stratégies de réduction des risques de catastrophe préconisées par le Cadre de Sendai pour la réduction des risques de catastrophe 2015-2030 a réduit le nombre de personnes touchées et tuées par des catastrophes au cours de la dernière décennie.

Malgré cela, l’ampleur et l’intensité des catastrophes augmentent, et plus de personnes ont été tuées ou touchées par des catastrophes au cours des cinq dernières années qu’au cours des cinq précédentes.

Les catastrophes ont un impact disproportionné sur les pays en développement, qui perdent en moyenne 1% de leur PIB par an sous l’effet de catastrophes, contre 0,1 à 0,3% dans les pays développés. C’est la région Asie-Pacifique qui supporte le coût le plus élevé, avec une perte de PIB imputable aux catastrophes de 1,6% en moyenne chaque année. Dans les pays en développement, ce sont aussi les personnes les plus pauvres qui souffrent le plus.

Aux effets à long terme des catastrophes s’ajoute l’absence d’assurance soutenant les efforts pour reconstruire des bâtiments sûrs. Depuis 1980, seulement 40% des pertes liées aux catastrophes étaient couvertes par une assurance, les taux de couverture dans les pays en développement étant souvent inférieurs à 10%, et parfois proches de zéro, selon le rapport.

« Les catastrophes peuvent être évitées, mais seulement si les pays investissent du temps et des ressources pour comprendre les risques et les réduire », a déclaré Mami Mizutori, Représentante spéciale du Secrétaire général pour la réduction des risques de catastrophe et chef de l’UNDRR.

« Ignorer délibérément les risques, sans les intégrer dans la prise de décision, revient pour le monde à financer sa propre destruction. Les secteurs essentiels, des gouvernements au développement, en passant par les services financiers, doivent de toute urgence repenser la façon dont ils perçoivent et gèrent les risques de catastrophe. »

Les phénomènes météorologiques de plus en plus extrêmes qui résultent du changement climatique font partie des risques les plus menaçants. Le Bilan mondial 2022 réitère les appels à accélérer les efforts d’adaptation lancés lors de la COP26 en démontrant comment les responsables politiques peuvent prendre en compte la résilience climatique dans leurs décisions de développement et d’investissements. Ces initiatives comprennent la réforme de la planification budgétaire nationale pour tenir compte des risques et de l’incertitude, tout en reconfigurant les systèmes juridiques et financiers pour inciter à la réduction des risques. Elles offrent également des exemples dont les pays peuvent s’inspirer, comme l’innovante taxe carbone sur les carburants introduite par le Costa Rica en 1997, qui a contribué à inverser la déforestation, facteur majeur de risques de catastrophe, tout en stimulant l’économie. En 2018, 98% de l’électricité au Costa Rica provenait de sources d’énergie renouvelables.

Rédigé par un groupe d’experts issus du monde entier, le Bilan mondial est une synthèse des domaines d’expertise indispensables pour comprendre les risques complexes et les réduire. Ses conclusions alimenteront l’examen à mi-parcours de la mise en œuvre du Cadre de Sendai, occasion de recenser les défis et de passer en revue les progrès de chaque pays par rapport à l’objectif, aux cibles et aux priorités d’action dudit cadre.

« À l’heure de l’examen à mi-parcours du Cadre de Sendai, ce rapport doit être entendu comme un signal d’alarme pour accélérer l’action sur les quatre priorités du Cadre et arrêter la spirale ascendante des catastrophes », a déclaré Mami Mizutori.

« La bonne nouvelle est que les décisions humaines sont les principaux catalyseurs des risques de catastrophe ; nous avons donc le pouvoir de réduire considérablement les menaces qui pèsent sur l’humanité, et en particulier sur les plus vulnérables. »

▻https://www.undrr.org/fr/news/la-perception-erronee-des-risques-par-lhumanite-renverse-les-progres-mondiaux

pour télécharger le rapport : "Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022"
▻https://www.undrr.org/publication/global-assessment-report-disaster-risk-reduction-2022

#rapport #ONU #risques #UNDRR #optimisme #sous-estimation #invincibilité #climat #changement_climatique #catastrophes #effondrement #collapsologie

https://i.imgur.com/553iuOm.png

#TRUST #Master_TRUST

Trigger Warnings | Centre for Teaching Excellence

A trigger warning is a statement made prior to sharing potentially disturbing content. That content might include graphic references to topics such as #sexual_abuse, #self-harm, #violence, #eating_disorders, and so on, and can take the form of an #image, #video_clip, #audio_clip, or piece of #text. In an #academic_context, the #instructor delivers these messages in order to allow students to prepare emotionally for the content or to decide to forgo interacting with the content.

Proponents of trigger warnings contend that certain course content can impact the #wellbeing and #academic_performance of students who have experienced corresponding #traumas in their own lives. Such students might not yet be ready to confront a personal #trauma in an academic context. They choose to #avoid it now so that they can deal with it more effectively at a later date – perhaps after they have set up necessary #resources, #supports, or #counselling. Other students might indeed be ready to #confront a personal trauma in an academic context but will benefit from a #forewarning of certain topics so that they can brace themselves prior to (for example) participating in a #classroom discussion about it. Considered from this perspective, trigger warnings give students increased #autonomy over their learning, and are an affirmation that the instructor #cares about their wellbeing.

However, not everyone agrees that trigger warnings are #necessary or #helpful. For example, some fear that trigger warnings unnecessarily #insulate students from the often harsh #realities of the world with which academics need to engage. Others are concerned that trigger warnings establish a precedent of making instructors or universities legally #responsible for protecting students from #emotional_trauma. Still others argue that it is impossible to anticipate all the topics that might be potentially triggering for students.

Trigger warnings do not mean that students can exempt themselves from completing parts of the coursework. Ideally, a student who is genuinely concerned about being #re-traumatized by forthcoming course content would privately inform the instructor of this concern. The instructor would then accommodate the student by proposing #alternative_content or an alternative learning activity, as with an accommodation necessitated by a learning disability or physical disability.

The decision to preface potentially disturbing content with a trigger warning is ultimately up to the instructor. An instructor who does so might want to include in the course syllabus a preliminary statement (also known as a “#content_note”), such as the following:

Our classroom provides an open space for the critical and civil exchange of ideas. Some readings and other content in this course will include topics that some students may find offensive and/or traumatizing. I’ll aim to #forewarn students about potentially disturbing content and I ask all students to help to create an #atmosphere of #mutual_respect and #sensitivity.

Prior to introducing a potentially disturbing topic in class, an instructor might articulate a #verbal_trigger_warning such as the following:

Next class our discussion will probably touch on the sexual assault that is depicted in the second last chapter of The White Hotel. This content is disturbing, so I encourage you to prepare yourself emotionally beforehand. If you believe that you will find the discussion to be traumatizing, you may choose to not participate in the discussion or to leave the classroom. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so if you leave the room for a significant time, please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.

A version of the foregoing trigger warning might also preface written materials:

The following reading includes a discussion of the harsh treatment experienced by First Nations children in residential schools in the 1950s. This content is disturbing, so I encourage everyone to prepare themselves emotionally before proceeding. If you believe that the reading will be traumatizing for you, then you may choose to forgo it. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.

Trigger warnings, of course, are not the only answer to disturbing content. Instructional #strategies such as the following can also help students approach challenging material:

– Give your students as much #advance_notice as possible about potentially disturbing content. A day’s notice might not be enough for a student to prepare emotionally, but two weeks might be.

– Try to “scaffold” a disturbing topic to students. For example, when beginning a history unit on the Holocaust, don’t start with graphic photographs from Auschwitz. Instead, begin by explaining the historical context, then verbally describe the conditions within the concentration camps, and then introduce the photographic record as needed. Whenever possible, allow students to progress through upsetting material at their own pace.

– Allow students to interact with disturbing material outside of class. A student might feel more vulnerable watching a documentary about sexual assault while in a classroom than in the security of his or her #home.

– Provide captions when using video materials: some content is easier to watch while reading captions than while listening to the audio.

– When necessary, provide written descriptions of graphic images as a substitute for the actual visual content.

– When disturbing content is under discussion, check in with your students from time to time: #ask them how they are doing, whether they need a #break, and so on. Let them know that you are aware that the material in question is emotionally challenging.

– Advise students to be #sensitive to their classmates’ #vulnerabilities when they are preparing class presentations.

– Help your students understand the difference between emotional trauma and #intellectual_discomfort: the former is harmful, as is triggering it in the wrong context (such as in a classroom rather than in therapy); the latter is fundamental to a university education – it means our ideas are being challenged as we struggle to resolve cognitive dissonance.

▻https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/trigger

Why Trigger Warnings Don’t Work

Because trauma #survivors’ #memories are so specific, increasingly used “trigger warnings” are largely #ineffective.

▻https://i1.wp.com/www.stirjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/trigger.png?resize=740%2C493

Fair warning labels at the beginning of movie and book reviews alert the reader that continuing may reveal critical plot points that spoil the story. The acronym NSFW alerts those reading emails or social media posts that the material is not suitable for work. The Motion Picture Association of America provides film ratings to advise about content so that moviegoers can make informed entertainment choices for themselves and their children.

Enter stage right: Trigger warning.

A trigger warning, most often found on #social_media and internet sites, alerts the reader that potentially upsetting information may follow. The words trigger warning are often followed by a subtitle such as *Trigger warning: This may be triggering to those who have struggled with _________. Fill in the blank. #Domestic_abuse. #Rape. #Body_image. #Needles. #Pregnancy.

Trigger warnings have become prevalent online since about 2012. Victim advocate Gayle Crabtree reports that they were in use as early as 1996 in chat rooms she moderated. “We used the words ‘trigger warning,’ ‘#tw,’ ‘#TW,’ and ‘trigger’ early on. …This meant the survivor could see the warning and then decide if she or he wanted to scroll down for the message or not.” Eventually, trigger warnings spread to social media sites including #Tumblr, #Twitter, and #Facebook.

The term seems to have originated from the use of the word “trigger” to indicate something that cues a #physiological_response, the way pollen may trigger an allergy attack. A trigger in a firearm is a lever that activates the sequence of firing a gun, so it is not surprising that the word was commandeered by those working in the field of #psychology to indicate objects and sensations that cause neurological firing in the brain, which in turn cause #feelings and #thoughts to occur.

Spoiler alerts allow us to enjoy the movie or book as it unfolds without being influenced by knowledge about what comes next. The NSFW label helps employees comply with workplace policies that prohibit viewing sexually explicit or profane material. Motion picture ratings enable viewers to select movies they are most likely to find entertaining. Trigger warnings, on the other hand, are “designed to prevent people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response… to certain subjects from encountering them unaware.”

Say what?

Say hogwash!

Discussions about trigger warnings have made headlines in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and various other online and print publications. Erin Dean writes that a trigger “is not something that offends one, troubles one, or angers one; it is something that causes an extreme involuntary reaction in which the individual re-experiences past trauma.”

For those individuals, it is probably true that coming across material that reminds them of a traumatic event is going to be disturbing. Dean’s definition refers to involuntary fear and stress responses common in individuals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder characterized by intrusive memories, thoughts, or dreams; intense distress at cues that remind the individual of the event; and reactivity to situations, people, or objects that symbolize the event. PTSD can result from personal victimization, accidents, incarceration, natural disasters, or any unexpected injury or threat of injury or death. Research suggests that it results from a combination of genetic predisposition, fear conditioning, and neural and physiological responses that incorporate the body systems and immunological responses. Current theories suggest that PTSD represents “the failure to recover from the normal effects of trauma.” In other words, anyone would be adversely affected by trauma, but natural mechanisms for healing take place in the majority of individuals. The prevalence of PTSD ranges from 1.9 percent in Europe to 3.5 percent in the United States.

The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous.

Some discussions have asserted that because between one in four and one in five women have been sexually abused, trigger warnings are necessary to protect vast numbers of victims from being re-traumatized. However, research shows that the majority of trauma-exposed persons do not develop PTSD. This does not mean they aren’t affected by trauma, but that they do not develop clinically significant symptoms, distress, or impairment in daily functioning. The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous. Now some students are pushing for trigger warnings on college class syllabi and reading lists.

But what?

Balderdash!

But wait, before people get all riled up, I’d like to say that yes, I have experienced trauma in my life.

I wore a skirt the first time George hit me. I know this because I remember scrunching my skirt around my waist and balancing in heels while I squatted over a hole in the concrete floor to take a piss. We were in Tijuana. The stench of excrement made my stomach queasy with too much tequila. I wanted to retch.

We returned to our hotel room. I slid out of my blouse and skirt. He stripped to nothing and lay on the double bed. He was drinking Rompope from the bottle, a kind of Mexican eggnog: strong, sweet, and marketed for its excellent spunk. It’s a thick yellow rum concoction with eggs, sugar, and almond side notes. George wanted to have sex. We bickered and argued as drunks sometimes do. I said something — I know this because I always said something — and he hit me. He grabbed me by the hair and hit me again. “We’re going dancing,” he said.

“I don’t feel like dancing — “

“Fine. Stay.”

The world was tilting at an angle I didn’t recognize. The mathematician Matt Tweed writes that atoms are made up of almost completely empty space. To grasp the vast nothingness, he asks the reader to imagine a cat twirling a bumblebee on the end of a half-mile long string. That’s how much emptiness there is between the nucleus and the electron. There was more space than that between George and me. I remember thinking: I am in a foreign country. I don’t speak Spanish. I have no money. We went dancing.

Labeling a topic or theme is useless because of the way our brains work. The labels that we give trauma (assault, sexual abuse, rape) are not the primary source of triggers. Memories are, and not just memories, but very specific, insidious, and personally individualized details lodged in our brain at the time of the trauma encoded as memory. Details can include faces, places, sounds, smells, tastes, voices, body positions, time of day, or any other sensate qualities that were present during a traumatic incident.

If I see a particular shade of yellow or smell a sickly sweet rum drink, I’m reminded of my head being yanked by someone who held a handful of my hair in his fist. A forest green Plymouth Duster (the car we drove) will too. The word assault does not. The words domestic violence don’t either. The specificity of details seared in my mind invokes memory.

Last year a driver slammed into the back of my car on the freeway. The word tailgate is not a trigger. Nor is the word accident. The flash of another car suddenly encroaching in my rearview mirror is. In my mid-20s, I drove my younger sister (sobbing, wrapped in a bed sheet) to the hospital where two male officers explained they were going to pluck her pubic hair for a rape kit. When I see tweezers in a hospital, I flash back to that awful moment. For my sister, other things may be triggers: the moonlight shining on the edge of a knife. The shadow of a person back lit in a doorway. An Hispanic man’s accent. If we were going to insist on trigger warnings that work, they would need to look something like this:

Trigger warning: Rompope.

Trigger warning: a woman wrapped in a bed sheet.

Trigger warning: the blade of a knife.

The variability of human #perception and traumatic recall makes it impossible to provide the necessary specificity for trigger warnings to be effective. The nature of specificity is, in part, one reason that treatment for traumatic memories involves safely re-engaging with the images that populate the survivor’s memory of the event. According to Dr. Mark Beuger, an addiction psychiatrist at Deerfield Behavioral Health of Warren (PA), the goal of PTSD treatment is “to allow for processing of the traumatic experience without becoming so emotional that processing is impossible.” By creating a coherent narrative of the past event through telling and retelling the story to a clinician, survivors confront their fears and gain mastery over their thoughts and feelings.

If a survivor has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided.

According to the National Center for Health, “#Avoidance is a maladaptive #control_strategy… resulting in maintenance of perceived current threat. In line with this, trauma-focused treatments stress the role of avoidance in the maintenance of PTSD. Prolonged exposure to safe but anxiety-provoking trauma-related stimuli is considered a treatment of choice for PTSD.” Avoidance involves distancing oneself from cues, reminders, or situations that remind one of the event that can result in increased #social_withdrawal. Trigger warnings increase social withdrawal, which contributes to feelings of #isolation. If a survivor who suffers from PTSD has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided. The individual is in charge of each word he or she reads. At any time, one may close a book or click a screen shut on the computer. What is safer than that? Conversely, trigger warnings perpetuate avoidance. Because the intrusive memories and thoughts are internal, trigger warnings suggest, “Wait! Don’t go here. I need to protect you from yourself.”

The argument that trigger warnings help to protect those who have suffered trauma is false. Most people who have experienced trauma do not require preemptive protection. Some may argue that it would be kind to avoid causing others distress with upsetting language and images. But is it? Doesn’t it sometimes take facing the horrific images encountered in trauma to effect change in ourselves and in the world?

A few weeks ago, I came across a video about Boko Haram’s treatment of a kidnapped schoolgirl. The girl was blindfolded. A man was digging a hole in dry soil. It quickly became evident, as he ushered the girl into the hole, that this would not end well. I felt anxious as several men began shoveling soil in around her while she spoke to them in a language I could not understand. I considered clicking away as my unease and horror grew. But I also felt compelled to know what happened to this girl. In the 11-minute video, she is buried up to her neck.

All the while, she speaks to her captors, who eventually move out of the frame of the scene. Rocks begin pelting the girl’s head. One after the other strikes her as I stared, horrified, until finally, her head lay motionless at an angle that could only imply death. That video (now confirmed to be a stoning in Somalia rather than by Boko Haram) forever changed my level of concern about young girls kidnapped in other countries.

We are changed by what we #witness. Had the video contained a trigger warning about gruesome death, I would not have watched it. Weeks later, I would have been spared the rush of feelings I felt when a friend posted a photo of her daughter playfully buried by her brothers in the sand. I would have been spared knowing such horrors occur. But would the world be a better place for my not knowing? Knowledge helps us prioritize our responsibilities in the world. Don’t we want engaged, knowledgeable citizens striving for a better world?

Recently, the idea of trigger warnings has leapt the gulch between social media and academic settings. #Universities are dabbling with #policies that encourage professors to provide trigger warnings for their classes because of #complaints filed by students. Isn’t the syllabus warning enough? Can’t individual students be responsible for researching the class content and reading #materials before they enroll? One of the benefits of broad exposure to literature and art in education is Theory of Mind, the idea that human beings have the capacity to recognize and understand that other people have thoughts and desires that are different from one’s own. Do we want #higher_education to comprise solely literature and ideas that feel safe to everyone? Could we even agree on what that would be?

Art occurs at the intersection of experience and danger. It can be risky, subversive, and offensive. Literature encompasses ideas both repugnant and redemptive. News about very difficult subjects is worth sharing. As writers, don’t we want our readers to have the space to respond authentically to the story? As human beings, don’t we want others to understand that we can empathize without sharing the same points of view?

Trigger warnings fail to warn us of the very things that might cause us to remember our trauma. They insulate. They cause isolation. A trigger warning says, “Be careful. This might be too much for you.” It says, “I don’t trust you can handle it.” As a reader, that’s not a message I want to encounter. As a writer, that is not the message I want to convey.

Trigger warnings?

Poppycock.

▻http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/09/15/trigger-what-why-trigger-warnings-dont-work

Essay on why a professor is adding a trigger warning to his #syllabus

Trigger warnings in the classroom have been the subject of tremendous #debate in recent weeks, but it’s striking how little the discussion has contemplated what actual trigger warnings in actual classrooms might plausibly look like.

The debate began with demands for trigger warnings by student governments with no power to compel them and suggestions by #administrators (made and retracted) that #faculty consider them. From there the ball was picked up mostly by observers outside higher ed who presented various #arguments for and against, and by professors who repudiated the whole idea.

What we haven’t heard much of so far are the voices of professors who are sympathetic to the idea of such warnings talking about what they might look like and how they might operate.

As it turns out, I’m one of those professors, and I think that discussion is long overdue. I teach history at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, and starting this summer I’m going to be including a trigger warning in my syllabus.

I’d like to say a few things about why.

An Alternative Point of View

To start off, I think it’s important to be clear about what trigger warnings are, and what purpose they’re intended to serve. Such warnings are often framed — and not just by critics — as a “you may not want to read this” notice, one that’s directed specifically at survivors of trauma. But their actual #purpose is considerably broader.

Part of the confusion arises from the word “trigger” itself. Originating in the psychological literature, the #term can be misleading in a #non-clinical context, and indeed many people who favor such warnings prefer to call them “#content_warnings” for that reason. It’s not just trauma survivors who may be distracted or derailed by shocking or troubling material, after all. It’s any of us, and a significant part of the distraction comes not from the material itself but from the context in which it’s presented.

In the original cut of the 1933 version of the film “King Kong,” there was a scene (depicting an attack by a giant spider) that was so graphic that the director removed it before release. He took it out, it’s said, not because of concerns about excessive violence, but because the intensity of the scene ruined the movie — once you saw the sailors get eaten by the spider, the rest of the film passed by you in a haze.

A similar concern provides a big part of the impetus for content warnings. These warnings prepare the reader for what’s coming, so their #attention isn’t hijacked when it arrives. Even a pleasant surprise can be #distracting, and if the surprise is unpleasant the distraction will be that much more severe.

I write quite a bit online, and I hardly ever use content warnings myself. I respect the impulse to provide them, but in my experience a well-written title and lead paragraph can usually do the job more effectively and less obtrusively.

A classroom environment is different, though, for a few reasons. First, it’s a shared space — for the 75 minutes of the class session and the 15 weeks of the semester, we’re pretty much all #stuck with one another, and that fact imposes #interpersonal_obligations on us that don’t exist between writer and reader. Second, it’s an interactive space — it’s a #conversation, not a monologue, and I have a #responsibility to encourage that conversation as best I can. Finally, it’s an unpredictable space — a lot of my students have never previously encountered some of the material we cover in my classes, or haven’t encountered it in the way it’s taught at the college level, and don’t have any clear sense of what to expect.

For all these reasons, I’ve concluded that it would be sound #pedagogy for me to give my students notice about some of the #challenging_material we’ll be covering in class — material relating to racial and sexual oppression, for instance, and to ethnic and religious conflict — as well as some information about their rights and responsibilities in responding to it. Starting with the summer semester, as a result, I’ll be discussing these issues during the first class meeting and including a notice about them in the syllabus.

My current draft of that notice reads as follows:

Course Content Note

At times this semester we will be discussing historical events that may be disturbing, even traumatizing, to some students. If you ever feel the need to step outside during one of these discussions, either for a short time or for the rest of the class session, you may always do so without academic penalty. (You will, however, be responsible for any material you miss. If you do leave the room for a significant time, please make arrangements to get notes from another student or see me individually.)

If you ever wish to discuss your personal reactions to this material, either with the class or with me afterwards, I welcome such discussion as an appropriate part of our coursework.

That’s it. That’s my content warning. That’s all it is.

I should say as well that nothing in these two paragraphs represents a change in my teaching practice. I have always assumed that if a student steps out of the classroom they’ve got a good reason, and I don’t keep tabs on them when they do. If a student is made uncomfortable by something that happens in class, I’m always glad when they come talk to me about it — I’ve found we usually both learn something from such exchanges. And of course students are still responsible for mastering all the course material, just as they’ve always been.

So why the note, if everything in it reflects the rules of my classroom as they’ve always existed? Because, again, it’s my job as a professor to facilitate class discussion.

A few years ago one of my students came to talk to me after class, distraught. She was a student teacher in a New York City junior high school, working with a social studies teacher. The teacher was white, and almost all of his students were, like my student, black. That week, she said, one of the classes had arrived at the point in the semester given over to the discussion of slavery, and at the start of the class the teacher had gotten up, buried his nose in his notes, and started into the lecture without any introduction. The students were visibly upset by what they were hearing, but the teacher just kept going until the end of the period, at which point he finished the lecture, put down his papers, and sent them on to math class.

My student was appalled. She liked these kids, and she could see that they were hurting. They were angry, they were confused, and they had been given nothing to do with their #emotions. She asked me for advice, and I had very little to offer, but I left our meeting thinking that it would have been better for the teacher to have skipped that material entirely than to have taught it the way he did.

History is often ugly. History is often troubling. History is often heartbreaking. As a professor, I have an #obligation to my students to raise those difficult subjects, but I also have an obligation to raise them in a way that provokes a productive reckoning with the material.

And that reckoning can only take place if my students know that I understand that this material is not merely academic, that they are coming to it as whole people with a wide range of experiences, and that the journey we’re going on #together may at times be #painful.

It’s not coddling them to acknowledge that. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

▻https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/29/essay-why-professor-adding-trigger-warning-his-syllabus

Race

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Les répercussions mondiales de la mort de George Floyd, le 25 mai 2020, l’ont montré : plus que jamais il est utile de défendre un usage critique du mot race, celui qui permet de désigner et par là de déjouer les actualisations contemporaines de l’assignation raciale.

User de manière critique de la notion de race, c’est, en effet, décider de regarder au-delà de l’expression manifeste et facilement décelable du racisme assumé. C’est saisir la forme sédimentée, ordinaire et banalisée de l’assignation raciale et la désigner comme telle, quand elle s’exprime dans une blague ou un compliment, dans une manière de se croire attentif ou au contraire de laisser glisser le lapsus, dans le regard que l’on porte ou la compétence particulière que l’on attribue. C’est ainsi expliciter et problématiser la manière dont selon les époques et les contextes, une société construit du racial.

Si le mot a changé d’usage et de camp, il demeure cependant tributaire de son histoire et y recourir de manière critique fait facilement l’objet d’un retournement de discrédit. Celles et ceux qui dénoncent les logiques de racialisation sont traité·es de racistes. Celles et ceux qui mettent en lumière l’expérience minoritaire en la rapportant à celle des discriminations raciales sont accusé·es d’avoir des vues hégémoniques. Dans le même temps, les discours racialisants continuent de prospérer sous le regard indifférent de la majorité.

Si le mot de race sert à révéler, y recourir est donc d’autant plus nécessaire dans le contexte français d’une République qui pense avoir réalisé son exigence d’indifférence à la race et y être parfaitement « #aveugle », « #colour-blind », dirait-on en anglais.

▻https://anamosa.fr/produit/race
#livre

« Race », de Sarah Mazouz

Sarah Mazouz est sociologue, chargée de recherches au CNRS. Ses travaux s’appuient sur des enquêtes ethnographiques et mobilisent les critical race studies, la sociologie du droit, la sociologie des politiques publiques et l’anthropologie critique de la morale. Elle montre comment s’articulent dans l’espace social immigration, nation et racialisation.

▻https://soundcloud.com/radio-traces/sarah-mazouz-final
#lecture #son