Doing the feminist intergenerational mic: methodological reflections on digital storytelling as process and praxis

In this article, we reflect on the methodology of a digital storytelling workshop held in May 2016, gathering activists and academics across four generations to share and record their activist histories. Drawing on observational notes and participant feedback, we investigate whether and how the workshop challenged knowledge-production conventions, ageist assumptions, and intergenerational scripts. We offer the concept of a feminist intergenerational mic, arguing that the norm-challenging possibilities of this methodology lay not in providing access to a mic, but rather in particular, routinized, feminist and intergenerational practices. Through this article, we contribute to conversations about feminist methodologies, power and vulnerability in research, participatory media creation, and aging studies.In diesem Beitrag greifen wir auf Erfahrungen im Rahmen eines digitalen Erzählworkshops im Mai 2016 zurück, an dem Aktivistinnen und Forscherinnen aus vier Generationen teilnahmen, um ihre Geschichten zu teilen und festzuhalten. Mittels Beobachtungsnotizen und des Feedbacks der Teilnehmerinnen untersuchen wir, ob und in welcher Weise durch den Workshop Konventionen der Wissensproduktion, Alter(n)svorstellungen und intergenerationale Skripte herausgefordert wurden. Wir nutzen das Konzept eines feministischen, intergenerationalen Mikrofons und zeigen, dass die Potenz dieser Methodologie, Normen infrage zu stellen, nicht darin bestanden hat, dass wir Zugang zu Mikrofonen ermöglichten, sondern in der Umsetzung spezifischer routinisierter feministischer und intergenerationaler Praktiken. Mit dem Artikel wollen wir zum Diskurs über feministische Methodologien, über Macht und Verletzlichkeit in der Forschung, über partizipative Mediennutzung und über Altern(s)forschung beitragen

Rethinking the conceptual terrain of AIDS scholarship: lessons from comparing 27 years of AIDS and climate change research

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While there has recently been significant medical advance in understanding and treating HIV, limitations in understanding the complex social dimensions of HIV/AIDS epidemics continue to restrict a host of prevention and development efforts from community through to international levels. These gaps are rooted as much in limited conceptual development as they are in a lack of empirical research.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this conceptual article, the authors compare and contrast the evolution of climate change and AIDS research. They demonstrate how scholarship and response in these two seemingly disparate areas share certain important similarities, such as the "globalization" of discourses and associated masking of uneven vulnerabilities, the tendency toward techno-fixes, and the polarization of debates within these fields. They also examine key divergences, noting in particular that climate change research has tended to be more forward-looking and longer-term in focus than AIDS scholarship.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Suggesting that AIDS scholars can learn from these key parallels and divergences, the paper offers four directions for advancing AIDS research: (1) focusing more on the differentiation of risk and responsibility within and among AIDS epidemics; (2) taking (back) on board social justice approaches; (3) moving beyond polarized debates; and (4) shifting focus from reactive to forward-looking and proactive approaches.</p

Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health Graduate Training Award / Bourse de formation écosystèmes et santé humaine

ThesisThesis, 2005Thesis (M.), Carleton University, 200

Granny Solidarity: Understanding Age and Generational Dynamics in Climate Justice Movements

Since the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, a global shift in consciousness has taken place around the urgency of the Earth’s climate crisis. Amidst growing panic, teenagers are emerging as key leaders and mobilizers, demanding intergenerational justice and immediate action. They are, however, often depicted as lone revolutionaries or as pawns of adult organizations. These representations obscure the complex and important ways in which climate justice movements are operating, and particularly the ways in which dynamics of age intersect with other axes of power within solidarity efforts in specific contexts. This article explores these dynamics, building on analyses of intersectional and intergenerational solidarity practices. Specifically, it delves into detailed analysis of how the Seattle group of the Raging Grannies, a network of older activists, engaged in Seattle’s ShellNo Action Coalition, mobilizing their age, whiteness, and gender to support racialized and youth activists involved in the coalition, and thus to block Shell Oil’s rigs from travelling through the Seattle harbour en route to the Arctic. Drawing from a pivotal group discussion between Grannies and other coalition members, as well as participant observation and media analysis, it examines the Grannies’ practices of solidarity during frontline protests and well beyond. The article thus offers an analysis of solidarity that is both intergenerational and intersectional in approach, while contributing to ongoing work to extend understandings of the temporal, spatial, cognitive, and relational dimensions of solidarity praxis

Aging, Activism, and the Archive: Feminist Perspectives for the 21st Century

This article investigates the process of a collaborative, community-driven initiative to create an archives for the Grandmothers Advocacy Network (GRAN), a national Canadian organization. Based on records, key informant interviews, and the authors’ participation in the process, the article points to two salient limitations in archival scholarship: (1) the existing gap in considering how intergenerational relationships might form around, and potentially shape, collaborative archives; and (2) the scarce attention given to how, by whom, and to what effect older women’s lives and associations are being recorded and represented. From a feminist perspective, an examination of GRAN’s archival process is brought to bear on key debates within scholarship on critical archival praxis, troubling the integrity of the often upheld “alternative versus mainstream” binary, and suggesting that the associated assumptions are overly simplistic. Most significantly, the article reveals that, through archiving, GRAN members are actively staking out their relevance as contemporary social change actors, challenging dominant discourses about older women’s passivity, and insisting on being remembered for their engagement and activism. In the context of population aging that is pervasive, unprecedented, and feminized, their archival work also begs a salient shift in thinking about aging and the archives – moving beyond notions of older people as end-of-life “donors” of records to recognizing their important roles as archives creators and users. RÉSUMÉ Cet article examine le processus d’une initiative collaborative et communautaire pour constituer les archives du Mouvement de soutien des grands-mères (GRAN), une organisation nationale canadienne. Se basant sur des documents d’archives, sur des entrevues avec des informateurs clés, ainsi que sur la participation même des auteures au processus, cet article fait ressortir deux contraintes importantes dans la littérature scientifique sur l’archivistique : (1) le manque d’écrits au sujet des relations intergénérationnelles qui sont formées à partir d’une approche collaborative en archivistique et de leur influence potentielle sur ce processus; et (2) le peu d’attention accordée à la façon dont sont présentées et documentées – ainsi que par qui et à quel effet – les vies de femmes plus âgées et les associations qui les représentent. D’un point de vue féministe, un examen des processus archivistiques du GRAN vient ajouter aux débats clés présents dans la littérature scientifique portant sur la praxis archivistique, troublant ainsi l’intégrité du concept binaire « alternatif / dominant » souvent soutenu dans ces écrits, et suggérant donc que les suppositions qui y sont associées sont trop simplistes. De manière plus significative, cet article révèle qu’à partir de l’action d’archiver, les membres du GRAN établissent leur pertinence comme acteurs contemporains de changement social – allant carrément à l’encontre des discours dominants affirmant la passivité des femmes plus âgées – leur permettant ainsi d’insister qu’on se souvienne d’elles pour leur engagement et leur activisme. Dans le contexte du vieillissement de la population qui s’avère être extensif, sans précédent et surtout féminin, ce travail d’archivage se veut le plaidoyer d’un changement marqué dans la façon de penser le vieillissement en lien avec les archives, allant au-delà de la perception des personnes âgées comme donateurs de documents d’archives à la fin de leur vie, pour reconnaître leur rôle important comme créateurs et utilisateurs d’archives