Finish Line and New Beginnings

Two years and a summer is how long it has taken me to finish graduate school.  Stuffing my brain with information on cultural studies theories, theorists, ideas, principles and writing until I could not see the joy in writing any longer.  I stepped away from this blog for a bit because it had seemed so much a part of me and so related to my grad school work I could not see the pleasure in it any longer.  I also needed to try and remove my advisor's voice (no offense Julie!) and begin reclaiming my voice in my writing.  However, on June 16th, I received my Master of Arts in Cultural Studies (MACS) degree and have decided to start writing again and focusing on my passions surrounding food advocacy, food politics and food in general.  Stepping away from so much of the school papers and academic writing style and returning to writing with the goal of starting a conversation, engaging people in discussions surrounding food and food systems.  There is definitely a lot to talk about out there right now!

This being said, I want to share the final pieces of my graduate school work - my final literature review paper (all 30 pages of it in it's original double spaced format; reduced to single spacing!), my presentation from the MACS conference including my slides which accompany the speech and a bit of critique surrounding these pieces.

Our class's MACS conference was a fifteen minute speech per student summarizing two years of work.  The forum was open within certain boundaries and I chose to focus on the topic of hunger in Washington state.

Conference Speech by rtomczek

Summer Camp!!

When I first began my project my focus was on using the land as an education medium for teaching children about where their food comes from and how it is produced.  For three weeks during June and July I was a volunteer at Oxbow Farm through their partnership with Wilderness Awareness School (WAS).  We started the morning at 9 a.m. with a team meeting to prepare for the day.  My favorite part of this time was the 'bringing our minds together' portion - we would each share something we were grateful for or someone would share a list of things they were grateful for and we would agree and confirm.  At the end of this short time the person leading would say, "And with that our minds are one".  For me this portion was almost as powerful, and in some ways, more powerful than a prayer.  It was collective, community and gratefulness to the earth and the people around us and a way to bring ourselves together for the day.  Next the kiddos would arrive - thirty-two, four to six year olds filled with boundless energy, excitement and nerves!!  We spent five days together and on the fifth day we celebrated with a hay ride, community games and having parents onto the farm for the kiddos to show them around.  The kids learned about the farm; tending the land; where their food came from; how much fun it was to pull and eat a carrot straight from the ground; how to be quiet and still and in their bodies; what was safe to eat and an appreciation for the vast world around them.  It was my first time ever being at a summer camp and I think I had as much fun as the kids!

Week 1 Summer Camp - picture slideshow

The Journey (Part 2)

During my second quarter of grad school I was able to take a class entitled Environmental Politics, taught by UWB Professor Ben Gardner.  While the class was focusing primarily on the environment, we had a moderate size section devoted to food as well.  Towards the end of my first quarter I had begun to realize I wanted to focus my research on food and markets; therefore, I developed a project looking at, and comparing farmers markets to a local, high end grocery market.

To start the class off though I wrote a paper looking at the idea of media saturation, especially when it comes to food messages.  Statistics blast from media sources stating that “because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits, and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents” (Surgeon General, 2004); we are inundated with photos of our morbidly obese population; new documentaries and books are released yearly on the health crisis of America; new reality shows surrounding weight loss and transformation are becoming more popular; and it seems as though a new diet comes on the market every time you turn around.  What is the effect of this constant bombardment of statistics as the media represents them?  Is the knowledge making a difference or falling on deaf ears?  These were the questions I hoped to address in my paper and looking back I feel that as a beginner I did not do to bad of a job.  However, I definitely skimmed the surface and were I to go back I would look further into how these spaces interpelate or “hail” certain subjects and how these spaces are outcomes of political practices rather than simply inert spaces to be transformed by planners, activists or business people.