#especially if you're from a 'majority' culture talking about a 'minority' cultures food

[murderessdominatrix]

lil rant but I hate hate HATE when white american social media people do 'trying/reviewing/comparing foreign candy/treats/whatever' because inevitably they'll get to the Mexican snacks and the flavor profile for most Mexican snacks is often some combination of "Sal, límon, chile y azucar" (which in english is salt, lemon, (sorry, LIME) chili peppers and sugar) which white american people aren't used to eating, so they usually don't like it. And that's OK! Nobody HAS to like ANYTHING!

But they're making social media content, which means they need a sensationalist reaction. So 99% of the time, they'll go "this is DISGUSTING!!" "people EAT THIS???" "is this even EDIBLE?!?!?"

I distinctly remember one specific youtuber trying a candy that I love and grew up with and she specifically said, and I quote, "this tastes like hot dumpster juice" which. I didnt feel great about that. I doubt anybody would feel great about someone trying your favorite childhood snack for the first time and calling it "hot dumpster juice"

I've had food I didn't like from cultures I didn't grow up with. And maybe it's a little bit of a cultural thing too because when I was raised, I was told the POLITE thing to do when trying something new is serve yourself a very little bit (because you have to finish whatever you serve yourself), swallow whatever you put in your mouth, and if you don't like it say "oh, I'll save the rest for later/ im too full, i cant possibly eat any more!". If you're with people you know who have a thicker skin/ are more direct in general you can go "I'm sorry, I'm not a fan/ im not used to it". I know white americans will often straight-up say "I didn't like it" because they tend to be very direct about almost everything.

But I feel like calling food that a whole country eats on a daily basis 'inedible' or 'disgusting' MUST be crossing SOME kind of line. And yet.

#if you grew up in the culture and call food from your own culture 'disgusting' its one thing right? #but if you're an outsider calling another culture's food disgusting thats another thing. #especially if you're from a 'majority' culture talking about a 'minority' cultures food #but also i feel like im maybe being a bit hypocritical bc i know ive clowned on british food here before #but god knows. if i was in front of a british person right now. and they eagerly handed me a plate of idk. wigan pie barm. #i would down that whole thing with a smile and rave about how delicious it was. #because there's a real human person right in front of me thats trying to do something nice! im NOT going to hurt their feelings! #and if im filming a video. there's possibly THOUSANDS of real human people looking at my reaction. maybe wanting to share their food with me #im not gonna hurt their feelings. #as opposed to here. none of you are real people with feelings (im joking). #but theres no faces attached to this site so it FEELS different to me ig. still. ill try to stop clowning on british food from now on.

[max1461]

Alas I fear you're just a tad more critical, dialectical even, about the modernising project than the majority of your peers... which makes you based tbh

Thank you anon. It’s true that I’m quite based, yes.

The thing is like, I really want to stress that in almost any other cultural context I would be arguing for “modernity”. I love modern technology and medicine, I love modern comforts (indeed, I often think to myself “my god I’m glad I was born in the latter 20th century” while microwaving some food or laying my bed in an air conditioned room when it’s 90 degrees out), and even on an aesthetic level two of my biggest fascinations are contemporary sewer systems and international shipping, hallmarks of the modern world! I am a modernity enjoyer!

The thing is, uh, well it’s twofold. One is that people just go berserk when you point out any downside that has come with industrialization or other aspects of the modern world, it makes them Very Mad even when you are in fact being quite moderate. I am not advocating an end to industrial society, and although there certainly are people who do, I actually think they are a pretty small proportion of the people who make critiques of modernity. A loud and loudly incorrect minority, to be sure, but they have literally no power in the world at all and will never see their agenda enacted. I think most people who criticize some aspect of the modern world just want to see this or that done better, and find it useful to point out the historical or structural origins that they think the problem has—and correctly or incorrectly they may see these problems as originating from some aspect of modernity. Making such points is fine! It is not equivalent to calling for the death of a millions babies! Sometimes I just want to shake people and go “not everything is a call to genocide! Stop calling everything you disagree with genocide! LITERALLY most things are not attempted genocide!”

Moreover, like, it’s unrealistic to expect that something have no downsides. Modern industry is great, but if you think it has no downsides at all I think you’re being silly. This doesn’t mean we need to throw out everything since the industrial revolution! It is enough to point out those downsides and attempt to resolve them. One needs to do this with anything. It’s not a radical statement. Again, I stress, everything I believe in this area is truly quite moderate! But you can’t talk about how to fix something if everyone gets Very Mad when you bring it up, which is annoying.

I want to stress that I’m not talking here about people who are talking to outright primitivists, especially people who would be suffering or dead without modern technology. I get why those people are mad, that makes a lot of sense! This is not what I am referring to in this post.

The second aspect of the thing, and the one that bothers me more, is people creating conflicts between “modernity” and “tradition” in domains where no such conflict actually exists. If you think Japan had to give up kimono in order to industrialize you are being goofy. But I’ve already written a whole post about that.

#anon #society

[fatehbaz]

Hello, I hope you're well. Do you have any recommendations about where to start with decolonization theory? I've heard a bit about it but nothing substantial.

Hey, thanks for the question. Before I start rambling, I’ll just give a really short, blunt response: Despite all the jargon-heavy academic content written about decolonization, especially as a trend in the past 15 years, I think that the way to learn about decolonial thought and practice is to read the work of people living in the Global South; the work of marginalized environmental activists and agricultural workers, especially in the Global South; and the work of Indigenous scholars, knowledge holders, and activists who are explicitly willing to share their knowledge with non-Indigenous people. That said, I’m not too well-versed in technical decolonial theory per se, and instead I try to read more of the ecological/environmental, social/anthropological, and activist writing of Indigenous people and people from the Global South, what you might call decolonial thought. Rather than focusing on the technical theory and writing of wealthy Euro-American academics, I prefer more radical decolonial writing that integrates local/Indigenous cosmology, environmental knowledge, and ecology alongside the social and political aspects of radical anticolonial resistance. Something that I’m really interested in, regarding decolonial thought, is the importance of Indigenous and non-Western cosmology (ontology, epistemology, worldviews) because these ways of knowing actually provide frameworks that stand in contrast to extractivist thinking, suggesting alternatives that could be implemented. So, below I’ve listed just a couple of the most accessible authors that I’ve been reading recently, and I’ve split recommendations into four categories: (1) Indigenous authors writing about sovereignty and ecological consequences of colonialism; (2) technical decolonial theory and Indigenous resistance; (3) decolonial theory and ontology; and (4) synthesizing technical decolonial theory with writing on Indigenous worldviews and environmental knowledge. This definitely isn’t meant to be an extensive or definitive list of resources; and I know other people might have some better or different recommendations to make. But I hope this helps, if only a little bit, as an introduction!

-

Y’know, I think there’s a tendency among a lot of Euro-American academics to make the concept of decolonization much more mysterious, obtuse, and complicated than it needs to be; there’s an awful lot of discourse about metaphysics, ontology, and other intellectualized aspects of decolonization that are probably less important right now than concrete actions like reforestation and revegetation projects; healing soil integrity, health, and biodiversity; dismantling monoculture plantations; ending industrial resource extraction; ending de facto corporate control of lands, especially in tropical agriculture; allowing local Indigenous autonomy; preserving and celebrating Indigenous languages and ways of knowing; etc.

So, I’m not all that knowledgeable with technical decolonial theory. Instead I mostly just try very hard to read the environmental, anthropological, activist, etc. writing of Indigenous and minority communities, people from the Global South, and Indigenous traditional knowledge holders. Often, this kind of writing doesn’t always take the form of “theory.” A lot of decolonial theory - that I’ve seen, at least - is concerned with discussing trends/currents in academia and Euro-American discourse about the Global South. (In other words, a lot of decolonial theory written by white authors seems more concerned with talking about what decolonization means for academia and discourse, rather than actually exploring the worldviews of Indigenous peoples and the Global South.) Instead, the kind of stuff that I try to read explores Indigenous and non-Western resistance, community-building, and ecology; and so the resources that I recommend might not qualify as decolonial theory but they are decolonial, if that makes sense?

In my experience, some of the works that best demonstrate or embody decolonial thought are not works of theory, but are instead works of social history, nature writing, natural history, or works that explore bioregionalism, food, and local folklore. I also like to note that there is a trend among activists and scholars in Latin America to use the term “anticolonial” instead of “decolonial” or “postcolonial.” These latter two terms might imply that existence or identity in the Global South is doomed to always be defined by its relationship to Europe, the US, or imperialism generally. However, “anticolonial” might connote a more active role; you may still suffer the effects of imperialism, but you’re also an active opponent of it, living and thinking outside colonialism, with a unique worldview that exists autonomously rather than being defined always in reference to colonial actions or standards.

Indigenous authors writing about sovereignty and ecological consequences of colonialism:

So here are a few Indigenous scholars that I read, who write not just about decolonial thought, but also about place-based identity, environmental knowledge, and how decolonial theory can often be Eurocentic:

– Zoe Todd: Metis scholar and environmental writer, who famously criticized academic discourse about decolonization for itself being Eurocentric and colonial; here’s a nice interview (from 2015) about decolonial theory, where Zoe Todd criticizes Western academics and the ontological turn in anthropology.– Kyle Whyte: Potawatomi scholar, who writes about Indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous food systems, colonization, contrasts between Indigenous and Euro-American worldviews, and preservation of Indigenous enviornmental knowledge; here’s a list of Whyte’s articles and essays, most available for free.– Robin Wall Kimmerer: Potawatomi ecologist, bryophyte specialist, and educator, who discusses contrasts between Indigenous and Euro-American ways of knowing; here’s one of my favorite interviews with Kimmerer.

Technical decolonial theory and Indigenous resistance:

And here are two recommendations on more technical anticolonial/decolonial theory. These texts are both a bit dense:

– Boaventura de Sousa Santos wrote a wonderful work of decolonial/anticolonial theory and thought, titled Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide (2014). This work is a bit technical but very interesting and thorough, and explores how a major function of imperialism is to deliberately dismantle Indigenous worldviews, ways of knowing, and environmental knowledge, to replace Indigenous ecological relationships with “extractivist” and “industrial” mentalities.

– Arturo Escobar wrote a good work of anticolonial theory in direct response to de Sousa Santos’ work; Escobar’s text is called Thinking-feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South (2015).

Both of these texts and authors explore the Global South’s active resistance to industrial/extractivist worldviews; they both also largely focus on Latin America and reciprocity, communal relationships, agroecology, and active resistance in Latin American communities.

Decolonial theory and ontology:

The ontological turn in anthropology is kiiind of a manifestation of decolonial theory, though it’s kind of problematic and often Eurocentric, popular among wealthy academics. The Metis scholar Zoe Todd, referenced earlier in this post, has written about the problematic aspects of the ontological turn. The ontological turn was big news in academia around 2008-2012, happening alongside the rise in popularity of Mark Fisher, “capitalist realism,” and Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology. Basically, I guess you could summarize the ontological turn as an effort to decolonize thinking in anthropology departments of Euro-American universities, to better understand the the worldviews/cosmologies of non-Western people. Here’s a summary by environmental scholar Adrian Ivakhiv, which references the role of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Phillipe Descola, two anthropologists working adjacent to decolonial theory.

Synthesizing technical decolonial theory with writing on Indigenous worldviews and environmental knowledge:

– Phillipe Descola: A renowned anthropologist whose work inspired much of the decolonization trend in US anthropology departments and the ontological turn in anthropology; Descola’s work deals with epistemology and ontology (so it’s often pretty dense) and takes a lot of cues from the work of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, the Brazilian anthropologist who popularized the study of Amazonianist cosmology. Other Euro-American anthropologists who write about technical decolonial theory: Bruno Latour (kind of problematic); Isabelle Stengers.

– Eduardo Kohn: An anthropologist focused on decolonization and Indigenous worldviews; Kohn also takes cues from Viveiros de Castro and Descola. Kohn authored How Forests Think, which is a study of Indigenous Amazonian worldviews and how Amazonian people perceive nonhuman living things and the rainforest as a community. You can look up interviews with Eduardo Kohn

– I don’t know if you saw this post I made recently, but it shares a fun publication called The Word for World is Still Forest, which is an exploration of the cultural importance of forests from decolonial and Indigenous perspectives, and it’s a good example of decolonial theory being explored by visual artists, geographers, poets, anthropologists, and activists.

-

So, these are just the first examples that come to mind. I’m sure other friends/readers/followers might have some better recommendations. [ @anarcblr ?]

Often, I feel like a lot of technical decolonization theory is written by white professionals and academics, and I, personally, don’t think it’s important to have a white academic acting as a “middle man” whomst “translates” the thinking of Indigenous theorists and people from the Global South. In my experience, there’s a lot of “decolonization theory” content in journals, books, etc., over the past 20-ish years, mostly written by white academics who seem to have just recently “discovered” the “utility” of decolonization theory for “improving their field” or something. Discussing the “utility” of Indigenous knowledge is itself a kind of colonialist way of thinking, since it sees the knowledge as profitable or valuable or something to be employed like a machine, a way of thinking that is itself extractivist. (I’m not anti-intellectual, and anti-intellectualism is a problem, especially in the US. But I’ve not really found academics willing to just straight-up say radical things like “capitalism has to be confronted if we’re going to be serious about decolonization.”)

Like, they write about decolonization as if it’s major benefit is its practical/pragmatic application to improving science, metaphysics, conservation, or climate crisis mitigation. One example of this behavior is a huge amount of headlines in mainstream US news sources and environmental magazines, from late 2018 and 2019, that say some version of “Indigenous knowledge may be the key to surviving the climate crisis” or “planting trees might be the single best defense against global climate collapse, and Indigenous peoples’ knowledge can help us implement it” And this just doesn’t sit well with me. Firstly, because it frames Indigenous knowledge as an inanimate resource to be “tapped,” appropriated, employed, “put to use.” And secondly, because this not news. This - the role of vegetation and healthy soil microorganism communities in mitigating desertification, biodiversity loss, and local adverse climate trends - has been well-known to Indigenous peoples for centuries or millennia, and has also been very well-known to Euro-American environmental historians and academic geographers for decades.

I guess I’m saying that the current Euro-American discourse of decolonization has a lot of issues.

Anyway, the theory that I personally like best isn��t too academic or jargon-heavy; I like the work that which synthesizes human elements (anticolonial; anti-imperialist; anti-extractivism; anti-racist) with ecology (cosmology and folklore; traditional environmental knowledge; place-based identity), since ecological degradation and social violence and injustice are inseparable issues, and this is an interconnected relationship that decolonial theory and Latin American worldviews seem to understand very, very deeply.

And, I guess another element to the kind of decolonial writing that I enjoy is the importance of Indigenous and non-Western cosmology (worldviews, epistemology, ontology, ways of knowing) to providing alternatives to imperial, colonial, and extractivist mentalities. This is how decolonial thinking is not just about finding ways to defend against further imperial violence, but also proactive in promoting healthier alternatives that can be implemented.

I hope that some of these recommendations are useful!

[beowulf1445-blog]

WIMtern Task 1: Introduce your self and why you're a good fit for When In Manila

This is me, this is who I am, and this is my identity. 

This is Edwin Cayago Aruta Jr. Also known as Edge. At first glance, most of the people see this person as unfriendly, innocent-looking, or a mysterious person. Unfriendly, maybe because he only talks occasionally in public and most of the people observe that he doesn’t take the initiative to introduce his self to a new person. Most people also say that he has an innocent looks. Probably because of the eyebrows and a young looking face? And a mysterious guy, as some of his friends told him that they’ve been curious about this person when he was still a stranger to them. What is your first impression?  

Now, let me take you into a closer get-to-truly-know about Edge. 

Hi! My name is Edwin. But you can call me Edge if you like. I’m a third-year student of the University of the Philippines in Diliman and currently taking BA Art Studies (Interdisciplinary), minor in film. My course demand lots of writings like research, critique, art and film reviews etc. and it makes me crazy because of the tons of papers that I have to submit in my major classes especially during midterms and finals. Despite of this crazy loads of writing, I can still manage to pass because of the interest that I have about the topic of my papers and I get to learn more things and discover new ideas. I don’t still any experience writing reviews about a restaurant and I only write at the notes of my Facebook just to express my ideas and emotions and publish them privately. Or chat my friends about a food that I tried and share to them my thoughts about the food and the place where it is served.  

I am just a simple person with a simple dream, and it is to make my dreams come true. I’m from a family who doesn’t have much. I even have worries enrolling every semester thinking if I can get the lowest bracket in the Socialized Tuition System of UP because I may not be able to continue my studies if I don’t get a free tuition. Our financial crisis has been my anxiety but at the same time, my motivation to push harder to realize my dream of becoming successful in my field and give my parents the life that they deserve. Of course, my dreams will not be realized without the help of my friends, people around me, and most especially, My Father in Heaven, my God.  I’m actually a friendly person. And I’d love to have more friends and family around me. 

When my friends begin to tell their first impression to me, they will usually say, “Akala ko nung una suplado ka, sobrang friendly mo pala.” Even though I’m already used with those first-impressions, I can’t still help myself not to get shocked. Maybe because of the fact that I am an ambivert type of person and predominantly introvert. Yet, I’m excited to meet new people and friends if I get accepted as an intern for the writing team in When In Manila. I could easily adapt in my environment especially if I feel that it is a good community. I could also adjust and become flexible with my surroundings and the situation that is taking place.  

I may not have so much experience about writing blogs or articles in the internet, I still have the necessary skills and personality to fit as an intern for When In Manila: I’ve been trained a lot about writing reviews and critics in my major classes, I have the passion and motivation to get better, I desire to share and help other people by reading what I wrote, I believe in team work or synergy, we share the same passion on telling the story of our own culture and identity as a nation. In other words, why I am a good fit for when in Manila? Because I love to share my stories. Most especially, the story of my beloved country.  

This is me, this is who I am, and this is my identity.  

#WIMtern #Task1 #WhenInEdge,#WhenInManila, #EdWinInManila