Because of a snow day we were unable to hear our planned guest speakers for Week 7. I was most excited about the possibility of learning more about community gardens and urban agriculture in Detroit. What are the possibilities of urban gardening to helping to develop and redevelop depressed urban communities? How do we ensure that these gardens remain in community control and serve the needs of the community? Is there a possibility to create an agribusiness model that does not stifle community involvement and maximizes resources and economies of scale? All of these are questions that I hope the students were able to think about as they did the reading on Community Gardens.
Concerning larger issues of alternative energy, a question might be raised both about the importance of policy but also about the political will. What political will exists to make the necessary changes to create a more sustainable energy environment. I think on some levels we can all agree that the current model, while enriching a very few is certainly not sustainable. What would sustainability look like and how might we encourage those in the energy business to shift from unsustainable to more sustainable energy practices.
During Week 8 we had a variety of interesting speakers. The students seemed highly motivated by seeing presentations from students who were not too much older than themselves. I was pleased that they had an opportunity to hear from young people who were motivated and working on making positive changes to their world.
Concerning the readings for this week, what I really wanted the students to get from the readings were two main points
a) the need for true community participation in alternative energy production, resource allocation and retention. What we learned in much of the reading was that many of these projects, no matter how well intentioned often had the effect of alienating the communities they purported to support and 'develop.'
b) I also wanted the students to think seriously about the issue of 'enclave tourism' The article is listed in the readings so please go to the public website for the course www.netvibes.com/adpbotswana and check the class Wiki. I know that many of the students are excited about the possibility of visiting a game park or going on safari while we are in Botswana. To that end I want them to think about these experiences quite critically while they are enjoying these experiences. Who benefits from these enclave tourist spots? How might we more effectively funnel our tourist dollars to the local communities. How can locals be better incorporated at the higher levels of the tourist industry (i.e. in management positions, as owners etc.) What responsibility, if any does the Botswana government have to make sure that local Batswana can partake in the tourist industry of their country?
Well this will be the last blog entry before we depart to Botswana. I am looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
HIV/AIDS and Sex Education in Detroit
This week (Week 6) is the first of three sessions whereby students will be treated to guest speakers. As a professor it is always nice to have guest speakers particularly when they can illuminate an aspect of the work and the issues that bring the readings to life in a way that is not always possible to do as the instructor for the course.
Therefore, I was very grateful for our two guest speakers Barb Flis and Laura Hughes who each offered interesting perspectives on issues related to HIV/AIDs in contemporary Detroit.
Flis did an amazing job pointing out several aspects that I hope the students will take with them.
a) that sexuality is a healthy and important part of everyone's life even the lives of young people
b) that policy has a significant effect on how sex education works in schools
c) that local school districts and local parents have a significant say in how sex education policy gets implemented.
What I hope students retained from her presentation was the importance of policy in determining how sex education gets implemented and what kind of sex education is implemented. Ultimately, this is a process that is intensely political.
Laura Hughes was the second speaker for the day. I enjoyed her presentation about HIV/AIDs in Detroit, the Ruth Ellis Center and the types of vulnerability and marginalization that puts young black lgbt youth at risk for HIV/AIDS.
In many ways, her presentation did a great job of bringing to life the readings for this week particularly Marlon M. Bailey's "Performance as intervention" and Cathy Cohen's "The Boundaries of Blackness." Both of these texts speak of intra-racial community politics and the ways in which black lgbt folk (and those affected by HIV/AIDs in black communities) face forms of marginalization within already marginalized groups.
What I would like the students to think about is how do structural and systemic inequalities based on gender, race, class, and sexuality work to produce the forms of marginality and vulnerability that place particular communities at greater risk for HIV infection and what does it mean when HIV disproportionately affects those whose "bodies don't matter" to paraphrase Judith Butler. What persistent inequalities are revealed by the HIV/AIDs crisis in the United States that points to ways in which our political system is flawed and how can we deepen our own democracy? I hope to get students to question this particularly in light of several democratic revolutions occurring on the African continent at this time.
Therefore, I was very grateful for our two guest speakers Barb Flis and Laura Hughes who each offered interesting perspectives on issues related to HIV/AIDs in contemporary Detroit.
Flis did an amazing job pointing out several aspects that I hope the students will take with them.
a) that sexuality is a healthy and important part of everyone's life even the lives of young people
b) that policy has a significant effect on how sex education works in schools
c) that local school districts and local parents have a significant say in how sex education policy gets implemented.
What I hope students retained from her presentation was the importance of policy in determining how sex education gets implemented and what kind of sex education is implemented. Ultimately, this is a process that is intensely political.
Laura Hughes was the second speaker for the day. I enjoyed her presentation about HIV/AIDs in Detroit, the Ruth Ellis Center and the types of vulnerability and marginalization that puts young black lgbt youth at risk for HIV/AIDS.
In many ways, her presentation did a great job of bringing to life the readings for this week particularly Marlon M. Bailey's "Performance as intervention" and Cathy Cohen's "The Boundaries of Blackness." Both of these texts speak of intra-racial community politics and the ways in which black lgbt folk (and those affected by HIV/AIDs in black communities) face forms of marginalization within already marginalized groups.
What I would like the students to think about is how do structural and systemic inequalities based on gender, race, class, and sexuality work to produce the forms of marginality and vulnerability that place particular communities at greater risk for HIV infection and what does it mean when HIV disproportionately affects those whose "bodies don't matter" to paraphrase Judith Butler. What persistent inequalities are revealed by the HIV/AIDs crisis in the United States that points to ways in which our political system is flawed and how can we deepen our own democracy? I hope to get students to question this particularly in light of several democratic revolutions occurring on the African continent at this time.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Gender, Sexuality and HIV
This week (Week 5) the readings focused on issues of HIV in relationship to youth, gender and sexuality. Admittedly, for me this was a difficult week of readings. Ideally, discussions of gender and sexuality need to be framed by giving the students a set of terms, readings, and initial ideas. Given that none of the students are Women's Studies majors, very few of them would have had exposure to these ideas in their regular coursework.
Therefore in some way it was a challenge. Before we can really discuss issues like heteronormativity, gender relations, and sexuality it is ideally necessary to introduce these concepts, explain their meanings and their applicability in terms and with examples that might be familiar to students in their everyday practice. Certainly, if I had the opportunity to teach the class again, I would have provided more basic women's studies readings of this nature in order to set the tone for the discussion. After that, then it is possible to have a discussion about heteronormativity in relation to HIV prevention and education.
That being said though I felt the students did a good job with the amount of material and the difficulty of the material presented to them. In the aggregate, I provided this week's readings so that students could get more of a sense of the structural and systemic issues that effect HIV prevention.
What are the reasons why women might be more vulnerable to HIV infection beyond simple biology? How do societies structured by patriarchy contribute to increased risk of infection? How is poverty feminized and racialized in ways that expose particular groups of women (both in the developing world and in the United States) to disease? How do the same mechanisms of patriarchy and heteronormativity silence and add stigma to both women and lgbti (lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex) individuals, and how does this present additional challenges to tackling the epidemic in the African and U.S. contexts? How do these same mechanisms conspire to marginalize and de-prioritize the voices of youth?
I hope that the readings were an opening to help students begin to engage the complex issues of sexuality as culturally constructed, gender roles and expectations as culturally mandated and potentially coercive and, heteronormativity and patriarchy as mechanisms that add to and intersect with other forms of structural inequalities such as race and class. What I also hope that students were able to learn from of the readings was that these mechanisms of gender inequality also have a negative effect on men as well. That is gender expectations and norms often have the effect of hurting men as much as they hurt women.
Therefore in some way it was a challenge. Before we can really discuss issues like heteronormativity, gender relations, and sexuality it is ideally necessary to introduce these concepts, explain their meanings and their applicability in terms and with examples that might be familiar to students in their everyday practice. Certainly, if I had the opportunity to teach the class again, I would have provided more basic women's studies readings of this nature in order to set the tone for the discussion. After that, then it is possible to have a discussion about heteronormativity in relation to HIV prevention and education.
That being said though I felt the students did a good job with the amount of material and the difficulty of the material presented to them. In the aggregate, I provided this week's readings so that students could get more of a sense of the structural and systemic issues that effect HIV prevention.
What are the reasons why women might be more vulnerable to HIV infection beyond simple biology? How do societies structured by patriarchy contribute to increased risk of infection? How is poverty feminized and racialized in ways that expose particular groups of women (both in the developing world and in the United States) to disease? How do the same mechanisms of patriarchy and heteronormativity silence and add stigma to both women and lgbti (lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex) individuals, and how does this present additional challenges to tackling the epidemic in the African and U.S. contexts? How do these same mechanisms conspire to marginalize and de-prioritize the voices of youth?
I hope that the readings were an opening to help students begin to engage the complex issues of sexuality as culturally constructed, gender roles and expectations as culturally mandated and potentially coercive and, heteronormativity and patriarchy as mechanisms that add to and intersect with other forms of structural inequalities such as race and class. What I also hope that students were able to learn from of the readings was that these mechanisms of gender inequality also have a negative effect on men as well. That is gender expectations and norms often have the effect of hurting men as much as they hurt women.
Community, Culture and HIV
Last week's readings and class discussion touched upon a topic that is very central to me. How do we explain the failure of multimillion dollar interventions in decreasing the HIV epidemic both here and abroad? Are people simply ignorant? Are cultural practices simply backward, retrograde and in need of change? Is HIV only the result of poor individual behavior choices? These are the questions that I hoped to begin to explore in the set of readings that I have assigned to students over the last few weeks.
Traditionally, I feel that discussions of HIV spoke at communities rather than working with communities. The difference is subtle but important. Interventions developed from completely outside of communities that are targeted toward changing behavior in my estimation pathologize and "other" the very communities that they are supposed to serve. Furthermore, "behavior" as the sole education and prevention mechanism of HIV prevention obscures the structural and systemic causes of disease and death.
Toward that end, I wanted to offer the students a set of readings that challenged the traditional approach to HIV and AIDS in Botswana. Saturday is For Funerals presented an account of HIV/AIDS that in my opinion marginalized the voices of those most affected by the disease. That the Botswana government has relied primarily on outside advice to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be interpreted in a multitude of ways and I will leave that up to the students to decide.
What I hoped the readings for this week did (See Week 4 of the syllabus: readings posted on www.netvibes.com/adpbotswana : See class Wiki Section) was to offer the students an alternative explanation for the continued high rates of HIV infection in communities most at risk. While much is made of the unacceptably high rates of HIV infection, it must be remembered that the majority of people in Botswana are HIV negative? What are the ways in which communities negotiate risk? How do they understand disease and the body? How are communities coping with the sense of crisis? What are the mechanisms for care and well-being?
What I hoped to focus on was the idea that there are some things that communities are getting right and that more attention needs to be paid to how they approach illness, disease, and care. A paradigm of HIV education that suggests that communities have nothing whatsoever to offer to researchers is a paradigm that is doomed to fail. Simply put, people either tune out or dismiss information when that information presents them, their bodies, their communities, and their sexual practices in a light that suggests that they are ignorant, backward and uneducated.
Ideally what the readings from this week did was to examine various different communal conceptualizations of care and disease. Ultimately, I hoped that students would be able to think critically about how these communal conceptualizations could be harnessed in order to develop more effective strategies of prevention, care, and treatment.
The discussion in class for this week seemed to suggest that my attempts to foster this debate met with mixed success. Certainly, some of the students appeared to understand the point of the readings, which was not to question the efficacy of the causal agent of HIV or AIDS. Rather it was to suggest that communal understandings of illness and disease needed to be accounted for in the development of prevention mechanisms. Others, seemed frustrated and concerned that Western "science" was being ignored in favor of unproven and untested "traditional" conceptualizations.
Unfortunately, this is not a winnable debate. What I would also encourage students to think about however, is that Western science is far from unbiased particularly when it comes to the study of populations that are disempowered and the diseases that disproportionately effect them.
I think that as researchers it is imperative to see research with communities as a collaborative practice and not a top down approach that suggest that these communities have nothing to contribute to the discussion. Furthermore, the weakness of the ABC model, which is based overwhelmingly on behavior modification and change is that it does not allow us to account for structural and systemic mechanisms that contribute to high rights of HIV infection. To focus solely on behavior modification (which I must clarify is an important and necessary mechanism for reducing HIV infection) is to also absolve society of the forms of inequality that it allows to continue to exist that make particular populations more vulnerable to HIV infection and less likely to live should they become infected.
Traditionally, I feel that discussions of HIV spoke at communities rather than working with communities. The difference is subtle but important. Interventions developed from completely outside of communities that are targeted toward changing behavior in my estimation pathologize and "other" the very communities that they are supposed to serve. Furthermore, "behavior" as the sole education and prevention mechanism of HIV prevention obscures the structural and systemic causes of disease and death.
Toward that end, I wanted to offer the students a set of readings that challenged the traditional approach to HIV and AIDS in Botswana. Saturday is For Funerals presented an account of HIV/AIDS that in my opinion marginalized the voices of those most affected by the disease. That the Botswana government has relied primarily on outside advice to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be interpreted in a multitude of ways and I will leave that up to the students to decide.
What I hoped the readings for this week did (See Week 4 of the syllabus: readings posted on www.netvibes.com/adpbotswana : See class Wiki Section) was to offer the students an alternative explanation for the continued high rates of HIV infection in communities most at risk. While much is made of the unacceptably high rates of HIV infection, it must be remembered that the majority of people in Botswana are HIV negative? What are the ways in which communities negotiate risk? How do they understand disease and the body? How are communities coping with the sense of crisis? What are the mechanisms for care and well-being?
What I hoped to focus on was the idea that there are some things that communities are getting right and that more attention needs to be paid to how they approach illness, disease, and care. A paradigm of HIV education that suggests that communities have nothing whatsoever to offer to researchers is a paradigm that is doomed to fail. Simply put, people either tune out or dismiss information when that information presents them, their bodies, their communities, and their sexual practices in a light that suggests that they are ignorant, backward and uneducated.
Ideally what the readings from this week did was to examine various different communal conceptualizations of care and disease. Ultimately, I hoped that students would be able to think critically about how these communal conceptualizations could be harnessed in order to develop more effective strategies of prevention, care, and treatment.
The discussion in class for this week seemed to suggest that my attempts to foster this debate met with mixed success. Certainly, some of the students appeared to understand the point of the readings, which was not to question the efficacy of the causal agent of HIV or AIDS. Rather it was to suggest that communal understandings of illness and disease needed to be accounted for in the development of prevention mechanisms. Others, seemed frustrated and concerned that Western "science" was being ignored in favor of unproven and untested "traditional" conceptualizations.
Unfortunately, this is not a winnable debate. What I would also encourage students to think about however, is that Western science is far from unbiased particularly when it comes to the study of populations that are disempowered and the diseases that disproportionately effect them.
I think that as researchers it is imperative to see research with communities as a collaborative practice and not a top down approach that suggest that these communities have nothing to contribute to the discussion. Furthermore, the weakness of the ABC model, which is based overwhelmingly on behavior modification and change is that it does not allow us to account for structural and systemic mechanisms that contribute to high rights of HIV infection. To focus solely on behavior modification (which I must clarify is an important and necessary mechanism for reducing HIV infection) is to also absolve society of the forms of inequality that it allows to continue to exist that make particular populations more vulnerable to HIV infection and less likely to live should they become infected.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday is For Funerals
Last week the students and I discussed Unity Dow and Max Essex's Saturday is For Funerals. This was both a difficult and inspiring text to read all at the same time. The book was sectioned off into chapters that combined the personal reflections of Dow with the medical expertise of Essex.
If nothing else the book did a great job of illuminating the human toll of HIV in Botswana. We were able to see just how widespread the epidemic is. Furthermore, the text did an excellent job of explaining the emotional, physical, and psychological toll of the disease on families, communities, and society.
Perhaps the text placed a little bit too much faith on biomedical explanations for disease. I was disturbed that Dow and Essex seemed to dismiss local conceptualizations of the body, disease, debility. It was as if local understandings of these issues were devalued to the primacy of western biomedical explanations of disease. This to me is a problem and I cannot imagine how the society can successfully address the issue of HIV/AIDS if embedded into the discourse of prevention and treatment is a disdain for alternative views of the body, health, and disease that are clearly still quite salient in contemporary Botswana.
Toward that end, while the book praised the Botswana government's efforts to address the crisis of HIV in the society, I could not help but think that too much faith was being placed in Western biomedical science as the solution to what clearly are complex problems that extend beyond disease models developed by western science. While it was clear that the provision of anti-retroviral medications and the government's forceful response to the crisis of HIV impacted the willingness of people to test and treat, it was also clear that this was not enough, hence the development of the opt-out idea with respect to HIV testing.
While it is assumed that Botswana is an unequivocal success story with respect to HIV, I would like to challenge the students to question and critique this representation of how Botswana has handled the epidemic. Surely the government must be commended for its timely and vigilant response. But I hope that developing a more comprehensive understanding of the body and disease that is culturally appropriate and sensitive (while not encouraging practices that increase risk) will be something implemented by the Botswana government.
As for the students, I was once again impressed with their ability to handle the material in a sensitive and nuanced manner. As a kid of the 1980s, I was also surprised by how many expressed that the book was in many ways one of their first opportunities to learn more about the mechanics of HIV disease. This was shocking to me and it made me question how far HIV has fallen off the radar in the United States as far as education concerning the disease both from a social and scientific perspective. Certainly, the United States does not have the epidemic of sub-Saharan African countries, but it should be noted that the United States has one of the worst epidemics among wealthy industrialized nations. Dr. Reid pointed out how who is infected with HIV/AIDS in the United States (that is the preponderance of those infected being black and poor) has much to do with how the U.S. addresses this crisis. It is certainly something to think about as additional people are thrown into poverty and the U.S. continues its cycle of growing inequality.
If nothing else the book did a great job of illuminating the human toll of HIV in Botswana. We were able to see just how widespread the epidemic is. Furthermore, the text did an excellent job of explaining the emotional, physical, and psychological toll of the disease on families, communities, and society.
Perhaps the text placed a little bit too much faith on biomedical explanations for disease. I was disturbed that Dow and Essex seemed to dismiss local conceptualizations of the body, disease, debility. It was as if local understandings of these issues were devalued to the primacy of western biomedical explanations of disease. This to me is a problem and I cannot imagine how the society can successfully address the issue of HIV/AIDS if embedded into the discourse of prevention and treatment is a disdain for alternative views of the body, health, and disease that are clearly still quite salient in contemporary Botswana.
Toward that end, while the book praised the Botswana government's efforts to address the crisis of HIV in the society, I could not help but think that too much faith was being placed in Western biomedical science as the solution to what clearly are complex problems that extend beyond disease models developed by western science. While it was clear that the provision of anti-retroviral medications and the government's forceful response to the crisis of HIV impacted the willingness of people to test and treat, it was also clear that this was not enough, hence the development of the opt-out idea with respect to HIV testing.
While it is assumed that Botswana is an unequivocal success story with respect to HIV, I would like to challenge the students to question and critique this representation of how Botswana has handled the epidemic. Surely the government must be commended for its timely and vigilant response. But I hope that developing a more comprehensive understanding of the body and disease that is culturally appropriate and sensitive (while not encouraging practices that increase risk) will be something implemented by the Botswana government.
As for the students, I was once again impressed with their ability to handle the material in a sensitive and nuanced manner. As a kid of the 1980s, I was also surprised by how many expressed that the book was in many ways one of their first opportunities to learn more about the mechanics of HIV disease. This was shocking to me and it made me question how far HIV has fallen off the radar in the United States as far as education concerning the disease both from a social and scientific perspective. Certainly, the United States does not have the epidemic of sub-Saharan African countries, but it should be noted that the United States has one of the worst epidemics among wealthy industrialized nations. Dr. Reid pointed out how who is infected with HIV/AIDS in the United States (that is the preponderance of those infected being black and poor) has much to do with how the U.S. addresses this crisis. It is certainly something to think about as additional people are thrown into poverty and the U.S. continues its cycle of growing inequality.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
African Democracy Project Class: Botswana
I am very excited to be teaching this course this semester. The preparations for the course began during the summer and I have worked diligently to put together a rigorous, yet interesting syllabus of material that will hopefully challenge the students to think critically about democracy, governance and development both in an African context and in their own context here in Metro Detroit.
The course will consist of two foci, both related to the broader context of democratization and citizen participation in governance: HIV/AIDS and sustainable development. Students will commence with a series of readings that are focused on preparing them to think critically about these subjects. Over the Spring Break in early to mid-March students will actually travel to Botswana to gain actual on the ground experience that will augment their in class work. Finally, upon return to Metro Detroit they will make connections between their classroom experience, their trip to Botswana, and Metro Detroit, working with a number of service organizations in the local (Detroit) area to make their learning experience 'glocal' connecting the global and local, the experiential and textbook aspects of learning.
If the experiences of the first class are anything to go by we can expect an exciting and fulfilling semester. The students were very actively engaged in discussing the readings for the week. We covered the issues of democracy and sustainable development in relationship to the core issues of the class.
Students were very engaged in a number of important discussions including the (im)possibility of defining democracy. Is democracy simply a Western import? Is it a catchphrase used to further impose western definitions onto African realities? Or is there something universal about democracy particularly as it is practiced in the west that is beneficial and necessary for guaranteeing citizen participation and civil liberties and freedoms for the members of society? While there was certainly no one consensus answer, and the debate was lively and productive I was struck by how critical the students were about western conceptualizations and definitions of democracy and how these particular definitions may work to the detriment of sustainability, economic growth, and civic participation on the African continent. There seemed to be some interest in thinking about indigenous structures that while not 'democratic' in the western sense may have guaranteed the forms of good governance and citizen participation that many students seemed to believe were essential components of contemporary nation-states.
Concerning sustainability, there seemed to be an equal consensus that sustainability in an African or developing country context needed to be linked to the forms of overconsumption endemic to western (particularly American) lifestyles. Would there be any way to create policy to encourage more sustainable forms of consumption in the American context? Without this, the call for sustainability in an African context seemed hollow and somewhat hypocritical, particularly as the United States exports its consumer based lifestyle of hyper-consumption as an 'ideal' lifestyle.
Less time was spent talking about Detroit, although there were a few comments from class participants about the power of images to create impressions about those who are different from you. I saw this as an opportunity to remind students that an important component of the course will be the images they capture while in Botswana and to be mindful of the fact that these images do have power to create impressions about the country and the people that can have effects (both intended and unintended) on the people that students will be working with. We also spoke briefly about the role of urban redevelopment projects and the ways in which many of these projects were instrumental in destroying communities and did not succeed in creating 'development' in urban space.
Overall I was very impressed with the first class and the level of discussion engaged in by the students. I am hoping that students will understand the role of social inequality on both a local and global scale in producing many of the "crises" of economics, health, and social welfare both in the United States and abroad.
The course will consist of two foci, both related to the broader context of democratization and citizen participation in governance: HIV/AIDS and sustainable development. Students will commence with a series of readings that are focused on preparing them to think critically about these subjects. Over the Spring Break in early to mid-March students will actually travel to Botswana to gain actual on the ground experience that will augment their in class work. Finally, upon return to Metro Detroit they will make connections between their classroom experience, their trip to Botswana, and Metro Detroit, working with a number of service organizations in the local (Detroit) area to make their learning experience 'glocal' connecting the global and local, the experiential and textbook aspects of learning.
If the experiences of the first class are anything to go by we can expect an exciting and fulfilling semester. The students were very actively engaged in discussing the readings for the week. We covered the issues of democracy and sustainable development in relationship to the core issues of the class.
Students were very engaged in a number of important discussions including the (im)possibility of defining democracy. Is democracy simply a Western import? Is it a catchphrase used to further impose western definitions onto African realities? Or is there something universal about democracy particularly as it is practiced in the west that is beneficial and necessary for guaranteeing citizen participation and civil liberties and freedoms for the members of society? While there was certainly no one consensus answer, and the debate was lively and productive I was struck by how critical the students were about western conceptualizations and definitions of democracy and how these particular definitions may work to the detriment of sustainability, economic growth, and civic participation on the African continent. There seemed to be some interest in thinking about indigenous structures that while not 'democratic' in the western sense may have guaranteed the forms of good governance and citizen participation that many students seemed to believe were essential components of contemporary nation-states.
Concerning sustainability, there seemed to be an equal consensus that sustainability in an African or developing country context needed to be linked to the forms of overconsumption endemic to western (particularly American) lifestyles. Would there be any way to create policy to encourage more sustainable forms of consumption in the American context? Without this, the call for sustainability in an African context seemed hollow and somewhat hypocritical, particularly as the United States exports its consumer based lifestyle of hyper-consumption as an 'ideal' lifestyle.
Less time was spent talking about Detroit, although there were a few comments from class participants about the power of images to create impressions about those who are different from you. I saw this as an opportunity to remind students that an important component of the course will be the images they capture while in Botswana and to be mindful of the fact that these images do have power to create impressions about the country and the people that can have effects (both intended and unintended) on the people that students will be working with. We also spoke briefly about the role of urban redevelopment projects and the ways in which many of these projects were instrumental in destroying communities and did not succeed in creating 'development' in urban space.
Overall I was very impressed with the first class and the level of discussion engaged in by the students. I am hoping that students will understand the role of social inequality on both a local and global scale in producing many of the "crises" of economics, health, and social welfare both in the United States and abroad.
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